Q. Are people in the Old Testament, like Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah, considered to be saints in the Catholic Church? — K.H., Iowa.
A. Certainly, since they were people of great virtue who faithfully carried out the mission God gave them. Following the time of Jesus, cults developed around certain holy individuals, like the apostles, the Fathers of the Church, and martyrs, until the persons were proclaimed saints by popular acclamation. The first official canonization by a Pope was that of St. Ulrich by Pope John XV in 993.
The current process of beatification and canonization, which is handled by the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, stems back to 1588, when Pope Sixtus V established the Sacred Congregation of Rites. For more information, see the introduction to the Dictionary of Saints edited by John J. Delaney and The Making of Saints by Michael Freze.
Q. The Catechism teaches that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity” (n. 2357), so why don’t we hear priests and bishops warning Catholics to avoid this sin? — C.W., via e-mail.
A. Two reasons, said Peter Kreeft in his recent book Confessions of a Cafeteria Catholic, which consists of his responses to the objections of a “cafeteria Catholic.” First, he said, “because it’s illegal, it’s ‘hate speech’ in northern Europe and Canada, and if it becomes illegal here, the Church could be penalized, fined, and shut down for it. At the very least, she will be fiercely hated and mercilessly maligned by all the media mouths.
“And (2) because most Catholics, especially priests and bishops, are cowards, like me. We long to be liked and hate to be hated. I have written almost one hundred books on almost every aspect of Catholic philosophy and theology, and this is the first time I have dared to open my big mouth more than an inch to defend the Church’s two-thousand-old tradition on this hottest of hot-button issues. (Actually, it’s more like a four-thousand-year-old tradition because she inherited it from religious Judaism)” (p. 89).
“There is no other question today on which it is more fatal to speak the truth,” said Professor Kreeft. He said that “I love and respect many homosexual people. A few are good close friends. I also love many heterosexual sinners, starting with myself. But I do not love sins, any sins, including sexual sins, whether homosexual or heterosexual. And God Himself has declared, in His Book and in His Church, that homosexual acts are sins. (Not desires; desires are not under our free control. We are all born with disordered desires in many fields, including sex. It’s activities that are morally good or bad, whether enacted or commanded or forbidden or permitted, by a free choice of the will.)” (p. 87).
Kreeft said that “in the past, even those individuals and societies who justified homosexual activity (sodomy), like the upper classes in some of the ancient Greek city-states, tittered about it. It was never treated as a neutral thing that could equally ‘go either way.’ They knew that it looked and felt unnatural. Of course, it is unnatural! Male and female sexual organs, like male and female human beings, are designed for each other, as obviously as nuts and bolts, or ‘male’ and ‘female’ electrical plugs. The whole world knew that….
“[R]emember that the Church has always said, and will always say, in an absolutistic and uncompromising and unalterable way, two things here, not just one: hate all sins and love all sinners. Homosexuals and heterosexuals are both sinners, and we are commanded to love both kinds of people, but neither kind of sins” (pp. 87-88).
Q. Why is God always portrayed as a white man? — A.L., Massachusetts.
A. First of all, God the Father, who is often portrayed as an old white man with a beard, is a spirit and has no body and therefore no skin color. Second, Jesus, who assumed a human body during His time on Earth, is portrayed as white in European and American cultures, but as black in African cultures. He was in fact a Middle Eastern man probably with an olive or tan complexion.
Third, the Virgin Mary is also portrayed as white in Western countries and was described as such in her appearances in the European cities of Lourdes in 1858 and Fatima in 1917. But she appeared as an Aztec Indian maiden to St. Juan Diego in Mexico City in 1531. However, it is not skin color that matters, but rather that she, and her divine Son, have appeared on Earth many times to help us get to Heaven.
Q. In today’s Mass reading from the Book of Revelation, it says that an angel from Heaven chained up Satan “for a thousand years,” after which he would be released “for a short time.” It also said that the saints in Heaven, “who had not worshiped the beast . . . came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Rev. 20:1-4). Can you explain the meaning of this reading? — F.A., via e-mail.
A. Like so many of the numbers in the Book of Revelation, the thousand years are not to be taken literally. There are three explanations of the significance of a thousand years that are current today — premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillenialism.
Premillennialists believe that Christ will return to Earth in glory and reign in human form literally for a thousand years. When this time of peace and prosperity comes to an end, the theory goes, Satan will be released to instigate a period of great tribulation that will finally be ended by the Second Coming of Christ. The Church has explicitly rejected this theory of millenarianism since Christ is only going to return to Earth once at the end of time.
Postmillennialists believe that the Earth is slowly being Christianized and that Christ will return at the end of a thousand years of peace. This theory does not appear to leave room for the rise of the Antichrist, who will assail the Church for a period of time before he is cast into Hell at the Second Coming, and it has also been rejected by the Church.
Amillennialism has been the position of many Catholics (though the Church has never officially adopted this view) since the time of St. Augustine. He held that the millennium does not refer to a literal thousand years, but rather to that symbolic age that began with the first coming of Christ in Bethlehem and that will end with His Second Coming. Augustine’s position was summed up in a book by Paul Thigpen entitled The Rapture Trap:
“Just before the close of the present age, however, God will loose the Enemy once more for a brief time. Then the Devil ‘will rage with the whole force of himself and his fallen angels for three and a half years’….This is the period of the great tribulation under Antichrist’s oppression. At the end of the tribulation, Satan will be conquered and judged by Christ at His coming in glory. So why did God loose him in the first place? ‘So that the City of God might see how mighty an adversary it has vanquished, to the great glory of its Redeemer, Helper, and Deliverer’” (pp. 207-208).
Q. Why are Masses on Saturdays devoted to the Blessed Mother? – M.N., via e-mail.
A. The tradition of honoring the Blessed Mother on Saturday is an ancient custom widely attributed to the monk Alcuin (735-804), who composed a votive office for each day of the week and two offices in honor of Mary on Saturday. But why Saturday? St. Thomas Aquinas said that this choice had to do with the Resurrection of Jesus, which took place on Sunday. Saturday was the day on which the Blessed Mother demonstrated her unshakable faith that Jesus would return from the dead.
Marian devotion on Saturday was confirmed by our Lady when she appeared to the three children in Fatima in 1917 and asked for a “Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays” to bring about the conversion of Russia and peace in the world. Mary’s role has always been to draw people to her Son. So, honoring her on Saturday prepares us to honor Jesus on Sunday.
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