ANSWER by Staff on February 16, 2004

Dear Rick: Well to begin with the Bible tells us that not all the teachings of Jesus are in the Bible. To make a statement of "where's that in the Bible" or sentiments to that effect reveals a profound lack of understanding of the Bible and an immature understanding of the faith. The Bible does not give us many details, it does not mean those details do not exist. God commissioned the Church to fill in the details. It is God's intent and will for the Church to fill in the details. The Church would be rebelling against God if she did not respond to the Holy Spirit and teach the faithful the fullness of the Faith. As for transubstantiation it is the ontological reality of the Real Presence; it is what Jesus taught of Himself and the Eucharist. We do not have to know the technical theological term, but we do need to affirm the Real Presence in a way that theologians call transubstantiation. Many Catholics believe in transubstantiation who have never heard of that term. As to the Immaculate Conception, that doctrine is not the same as "the reality that Mary was specifically called and chosen to be the mother of God and cooperated with God's plan?" Mary was NOT just specifically called, she was prepared to be called for God's plan. It is because of the Immaculate Conception that Mary was able to cooperate with God. As for purgatory, the Church does NOT define it in extraordinary detail. The Church merely affirms the existence of purgatory and the purpose of purgatory but does not officially teach much else about it. Indulgences is also not a complicated thing. We practice the concept of indulgence in our daily lives all the time. For example, if our child breaks a window and we allow the child to "work off" the cost of the window, we have just given the child an indulgence. If a friend has broken a window but is short of money to pay for it and we step in to pay for the window, or pay part of the cost of the window, we have just given that person an indulgence. This is not a difficult thing to understand. It seems to me that many people are too lazy to wonder about the "hows". God did not create us to be intellectually lazy and lackluster. One of the greatest problems of today is that we have generations of people who have lost their sense of wonder and curiosity. In any of the dogma's of the Church, the Church does not expect us to understand the dogma's as if we were Ph.D.'s in theology. The Church only requires us to accept the truth of the dogma. Why is this a problem? These doctrines are wonderful learning experiences that are exciting. To know that Mary HAD TO BE immaculately conceived, HAD TO give virgin birth to Jesus, HAD TO live a virgin all her life, and HAD TO be assumed into Heaven because that is the nature of the sacred, and the fulfillment of the whole concept of the unblemished Lamb of God should excite us. These things define the our faith. These things are all derived from the Bible. As St. Jerome said, "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." To say that we do not need to know of these beautiful and loving doctrines of God which exist BECAUSE God loves us is to say that we do not love God enough to care about knowing Him intimately. If we acted that way to our spouses divorce could only be around the corner. The Orthodox are close to us, but they are still deficient in the fullness of the faith. They do not have that fullness. If I were to use food as an analogy, the Catholic Church has the fullness of the best cut of steak; the Orthodox has a lesser quality steak; and the other Christian groups go down from there until we get to the fundamentalist groups who survive on hamburger or worse, even Spam. God wants us to have the fullness of the Faith. He is offering us the best cut of steak. It is profoundly rude to turn away the best of steaks offered to us by our host who has invited us to his table in love. God Bless, Bro. Ignatius Mary