A reader asks: “Is it wrong to have a Mass offered for a deceased atheist? Years ago, I said to a friend, “I will keep you in my prayers.” She retorted, “Don’t say that!” She even wrote me a long angry letter
A reader writes: “I learned that St. Thomas Aquinas had a communication with Our Lord, receiving affirmation that he had ‘written well’ about the Eucharist. But, later in his life, St. Thomas stopped writing, having received a vision and believed, as a
A reader asks a question about a line of Scripture that says: “No one experiencing temptation should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one.” The reader asks:
A reader writes: “There seems to be two ends to the season of Christmas: the feast of Baptism of the Lord, and the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, known as Candlemas. Why do some consider the later feast to be
A reader asks: “When did Jesus know he was God?” As Monsignor Charles Pope explains: “In Christ, we must distinguish his human knowledge from his divine knowledge. Clearly, as God, Jesus always knew he was God since the divine knowledge is omniscient
A reader writes: “I asked someone who frequently stays after Mass to say the Rosary if she’d go with me to a nursing home to pray it. She said she wouldn’t because each time she says the Rosary in front of the
Luke does not recount the flight to Egypt but simply says that the Holy Family returned to Nazareth. This seems to conflict with Matthew’s account that says they fled to Egypt. How do we resolve this? Monsignor Charles Pope explains by quoting
How do the saints and angels hear our prayers? Can we pray to them in our mind and count on them to hear us? Or do we have to pray vocally to them (out loud) to get their attention? As Monsignor Charles
Are Catholics permitted to baptize a dying individual? If so, how is that done and what is spoken over the person? Monsignor Charles Pope explains: “In danger of death, many of the rules about sacraments are relaxed while what is urgent and
A reader asks: “Would we baptize an alien if one ever came to Earth?” Monsignor Charles Pope answers that if the aliens from another world were pure angelic-like creatures, they could not be baptized. If however, aliens from another world were persons