We do not have the answers to every question –but the very asking of the question is the beginning of the answer. So why don’t you send us your questions and let us together find the answers to our question.

No Christianity Without Community

I have been told that I must go to Mass only in my parish church. Why is this?

Answer: it is preferable that you go to Mass in your local parish church precisely because in that way you will take part in the community. Mass in your local parish church precisely because in that way you will take part in the community.  Mass is community worship and it implies also the involvement in the building of a local community. However, one fulfills one’s obligation by going Mass anywhere. Now that people in the cities us cars they have a habit of choosing a parish which suits them and enrolling in that parish. What is important is that you should not be just Sunday Mass Catholic but that you should be involved in the community. No Christianity without community.

P.S. If your parish is dead with nothing going on, you might be wiser to choose a different parish.

What Does John’s Gospel Say?

My friends in the office belong to a church which does not believe that Jesus Christ is God. In fact they have many quotes from the Bible to back this. One, for example, “The father is greater than I” from John’s gospel.

Answer: Good that you start from John’s gospel. John’s gospel is the most explicit of the four gospels in insisting that Jesus is divine. Take the opening words of his gospel. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” the best scholars accept the fact that right through John’s gospel, again and again, he insists that Jesus comes from God and is divine. You recall the word of St. Thomas when he fell down and adored him saying, “My Lord and my God.” As for the phrase, “The Father is greater than I”, that comes from the Last Supper discourse and refers to God the Father, the, first person of the Blessed Trinity who obviously, is greater than Jesus, taken only as the human Jesus. After all when Jesus became a human being he didn’t just pretend to do this. He actually did int. so in his human state he could clearly state that “the Father is greater than I”.

The danger is taking any text one line at a time. If you take the whole of the gospel of John from beginning to end, there is no doubt whatsoever about the author’s conviction that Jesus is divine. Even scholars who are not believers accept the fact that this was the intention of the author of that book.

P.S. The Jehovah Witnesses, who do not believe that Jesus is divine, have their own translation of the Bible and their own translation particularly of the first verses of St. John’s gospel. The best translation to follow is the New Revised Standard version, generally considered by scholars to be the most correct.

Division of Diocese

Our Diocese has a great division between some of the priests and the bishop, it has us all worried, what can we dot to get them to be united?

Answer: You are right to care. The Church is the people, not just the bishop and the priests. It is normal in any group engaged in something as serious as the Church’s mission to find themselves disagreeing in many ways. The bishop has been placed there as a sign of unity and as an instrument of unity in the diocese. He has a delicate job of working to bring about unity. Pray for him in his task and avoid taking part in factions and have the quiet courage to tell either side your truth, other than taking sides and making the situation worse or letting each party hear only what they want to hear. There are always two sides to a story.

No Youth Groups

Our parish has lots of Catholic organizations such as the Legion of Mary, Couples for Christ, the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Women’s League. But almost nothing for young people. As a result very few young people are involvement in our parish.

Answer: That’s a pity because some 50% of the people in the Philippines are under the age of 15. The Student Catholic Action is a good organization for the young students but, of course, it is not parish-based and only covers those in college. It’s a pity that so many parishes have let go of their Knights of the Altar Associations. Can I suggest that you approach your parish priest and ask him to start something specific for the young? Maybe the Singles for Christ might be what you are looking for...and maybe you can help.

Virgins Only?

Can someone who is not a virgin become a priest, a monk or a sister?

Answer: Yes, of course. Manu widows or widowers become sisters and priest. St. Augustine who became a bishop was a notorious playboy in his youth. There is hope for all of us. And anyway, sins of the flesh are not the greatest sins. However, sisters and priests are called not only to a life of celibacy but to a life of chastity.

PIUS XII: The Scarlet and the Black

There have been a lot of reports in the papers recently about Pope Pius XII, saying that at the time of the Holocaust of the Jews in the Second World War he did not do enough to help the Jews. Is this true?

Answer: Nobody did enough. That’s certain. It is easy to judge people on what they did and hard to judge them on what they did not do. As regards to what he did there is no doubt that Pius XII did a lot for the Jews of Rome where he lived. He is responsible for saving more than 5, 000 Jews because of his personal intervention. This appeared in an important book called Never Again: A History of the Holocaust by Sir Martin Gilbert. But there were Church interventions all over Europe for the Jews. So much so that the chief rabbi of Rome became a Christian at the end of the war in gratefulness of the efforts of Pius XII.

However, the Christian treatment of the Jews throughout the centuries has been deplorable and anti-Christian and it led ultimately to the Holocaust. As head of the Catholic Church certainly Pius XII then takes some of the blame. We are sure that he did a lot for the Jews. Did he do enough? It’s good to remember that in the case of the Jews in Holland where the bishops spoke out strongly in favor of the Jews, their public protest created a double reaction by the Nazis against the Jews and the worst persecution of the Jews took place in Holland; Pius XII would have been very aware of that. A public polemic condemning the Nazis my have gained him popularity but would probably have created the sort of back lash that took place in Holland. Did that make him wisely told back? We really would have to know his own inner mind to answer that.

Meantime, archives are being ransacked by the protagonists on both sides, so the verdict remains out.

Land Reform and Politics

The Church in the Philippines seems to be behind the land reform in the Philippines. Is this universal Church teaching or just a political position of the local Filipino Church?

Answer: No. the teaching on land reform in the Church has been explicit Church teaching since the Second Vatican Council. But even before that, in the time of Pius XII h laid down the conditions very clearly about the meaning of the possession of land. He made the famous pronouncement* that the goods of the world were given for all and that private ownership is a means whereby this may be attained but when private ownerships becomes an obstacle to this, then some form of land reform becomes necessary. Of course, he refers to genuine land reform.

*Radio message, Pentecost 1941

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