Each weekday, you'll find a new question and answer. Check back for the new question and scroll down to see previous day's entries! Let us know what you think - - or question! -- by emailing us at tcanswer@osv.com.
Marriage Question
Q. If you are married by the justice of the peace and then divorce, can you then marry within the Catholic Church without an annulment because the marriage was never recognized by the Church?
O.L., via email
A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Francis Hoffman, J.C.D.:
No, you can’t just go ahead and get married. You still need the annulment. You have to work through your local chancery office, but this kind of case moves quickly.
The reason you need the declaration of nullity is that every marriage, in the eyes of the Church, enjoys the favor of the law: It is assumed valid until proved otherwise. Moreover, there could be complicating circumstances arising from the first marriage, such as children and other commitments, which might suggest that it not be prudent for the person to attempt another marriage.
What About the Robe?
Q. The old movie called The Robe depicts the garment of Christ supernaturally choking the Roman officer who wore it. Is this notion completely made up, or is there anything from Scripture or Tradition behind it?
L.E., via email
A. The Robe (1953), directed by Henry Koster and starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons and Victor Mature, won two Oscars and several other awards. The story, based on the 1943 historical novel of the same title by Lloyd C. Douglas, imaginatively fills in the details about the life of a Roman soldier who gambles at the foot of the cross to win Jesus’ robe.
The Gospels all mention that the soldiers who crucified Our Lord divided up His clothing among themselves, but John provides the most details about the event:
“When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic [robe]. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.’ This was to fulfill the Scripture, ‘They parted my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots’” (John 19:23-24; the biblical prophecy cited is found in Psalm 21:18).
The notion that the robe had supernatural power to choke the enemies of Christ who touched it is simply one of the “imaginative details” of this fictional story.
For more information about the film, click here.
As for the continuing existence of the robe itself, it has come to be known as the relic of “the Holy Coat,” and several churches have made competing claims to possess it.
According to one tradition, the fourth-century Roman Empress St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, discovered the robe along with other relics of the crucifixion in Jerusalem, and sent it to the church at Trier, Germany. The Cathedral at Trier claims to hold it there still.
According to a second tradition, the Emperor Charlemagne came into possession of the robe and brought it to the church at Argenteuil, France, where it remains to this day.
Those who support the tradition at Trier don’t dispute that the relic at Argenteuil is an authentic garment of Christ, but they insist that the latter is actually a “mantle,” not a tunic, which was worn by Our Lord as a Child.
In a similar way, those who support the tradition at Argenteuil don’t dispute that the relic at Trier is an authentic garment of Christ, but they insist that the latter is actually Christ’s outer garment, rather than the tunic, which was worn underneath the outer garments.
Yet a third tradition, among the Eastern Orthodox Christians, is that a Jewish rabbi who was present in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion bought the tunic from a Roman soldier and brought home to his native Georgia, where the local church eventually obtained it. According to this tradition, portions of Christ’s outer garments were also brought to Georgia, and from there have been distributed to various locations in Russia and the Ukraine.
For more information, click here.
In passing we should note that Our Lord’s robe has long been viewed as a symbol of His Church: a single, seamless treasure that must not be torn apart. Some scholars have also pointed out that John’s mention of the garment and its role in the crucifixion may have suggested a comparison between it and the robe that was worn by the ancient Israelite high priest Aaron, which was not to be torn (see Exodus 28:32). This detail in the Gospel would thus be a subtle affirmation of Christ’s High Priesthood.
No Bones Broken?
Q. What is the significance of none of Christ’s bones being broken on the Cross?
M.A., Atlanta, Ga.
A. The Gospel of John tells us (19:31-37) that the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus were intentionally broken by the attending Roman soldiers. The reason given is this: The day of the crucifixion (Friday) was the “day of preparation” for the (Saturday) Sabbath, and the Jewish religious leaders did not want the three men still to be hanging on the crosses when the Sabbath began at sundown. They knew that several days could pass before the victims of crucifixion actually died.
Why would breaking the victims’ legs make a difference? The men’s bodies were positioned in such a way that they had to push themselves up on their nail-pierced feet to breathe; this was one way of multiplying their agony. If their legs were broken, they couldn’t push themselves up, so they would fail to breathe properly and die more quickly.
By the time the order was carried out, Jesus had already died, so there was no need to go to the trouble of breaking His legs. Just to make sure, of course, they pierced His side with a lance — a gesture that came to have immense theological significance.
John notes that this incident actually fulfilled two of the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus. In doing so, it provided further evidence to the first Christians (and to us all) that Christ’s death, though horrifying, was in the divine plan all along.
The first was Exodus 12:46 (see also Numbers 9:12), in which the Lord instructed the people of Israel through Moses that the no bones of the Passover lamb should be broken. Jesus was the true Passover Lamb, the one foreshadowed by the ancient sacrifice (see John 1:29, 26; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:18-19). The tradition of keeping the bones unbroken in the lamb was a concrete form of prophecy, so to speak, pointing toward the ultimate sacrificial Victim whose bones would be left intact as well.
The second prophecy fulfilled was a passage in the Psalms, which says of the righteous one — and, prophetically, the Righteous One: “He [the LORD] keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken” (Psalm 34:20).
John points out as well that the piercing of Jesus’ side was also prophesied, in a Messianic passage of the prophet Zechariah: “When they look at whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10 RSV).
Pope Joan?
Q. My friend just bought a new novel called Pope Joan, which is about a woman in the Middle Ages who becomes pope by pretending that she’s a man. (Evidently, they are planning to make a movie out of the book as well.) The author claims that her story is based on a true historical event — that one time a woman really did become a pope. Is this another example of Dan-Brown-type nonsense?
D.C., New York, N.Y.
A. Yes, this is the latest version of anti-Catholic-bigotry-disguised-as-fiction-claiming-to have-nonetheless-a-factual-basis. And it’s getting more wearisome by the day. The bogus story claims that the ninth-century Pope John VII was actually a woman disguised as a man, who was discovered when she gave birth to a child while in a procession through Rome.
The January/February 2008 issue of “The Catholic Answer” included an excellent article by Dr. Matthew Bunson about the legend of Pope Joan. Here’s an excerpt from that article:
“The tale of Pope Joan is an absolute fiction and has long been dismissed by all reputable scholars. Still, the spurious story has been believed by many people over the centuries, and, not surprisingly, it was adopted by Protestant polemicists in the sixteenth century to promote anti-papal sentiment. It has found new believers even today.
“The simple fact is this: There’s not a single piece of historical evidence to support the claim that Joan ever existed or that there was ever a female pope. The very date of the hypothetical election makes the story easily dismissed, for the interregnum between Popes Leo IV and Benedict III was much shorter than two years (it lasted only a few weeks).
“Then there is the curious fact that no legitimate historical source exists that mentions a woman pontiff until the middle of the 13th century, some four hundred years later. Had such a scandal occurred, the many enemies of the popes during the Middle Ages would certainly have made great use of it.
“The legend had its actual start not in the ninth century, when it allegedly happened, but in the thirteenth century, thanks to the flamboyant account of a female pope by two Dominican chroniclers, Jean de Mailly and Stephen of Bourbon. The fairy tale was soon spread with greater embellishments through the writings of the Polish Dominican Martin of Troppau later in the 1200s.
“Much as it is today, once the lie was told, popular culture embraced it, and the idea of Pope Joan caught the imagination of writers, satirists and clowns in the medieval carnivals who lampooned popes and bishops to the amusement of the common folk. With the start of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the old urban legend was given new life as a weapon against the papacy. Such was the widespread retelling of the story that in 1601 Pope Clement VIII felt it necessary to issue a formal statement that Pope Joan never existed.
“Pope Clement was not alone in his concern. In 1587 the French historian and jurist Florimond de Raemond published the book Erreur populaire de Pape Jane (“The Popular Error of Pope Joan”). With remarkable attention to historical and logical detail, Florimond destroyed the notion of a female pope, and the book itself became something of a bestseller that was published in fifteen editions over the next century.
“Just as important was the work of the seventeenth-century French historian David Blondel. His research concluded that Pope Joan was a total invention and perhaps had its origins in a satire related to Pope John XI, who died by violence at a young age in 935. What made his contribution all the more significant, however, was that Blondel was a Protestant.
“Against the frequent accusation that the popes had merely ordered the true accounts to be censored or removed from the histories, the opposite is apparent from the various records found throughout Europe. The annals and official papal lists demonstrate changes from time to time, but the alterations were clearly not to remove the mention of some female Pope John VIII. Instead, the changes are actually much later additions to the texts (at the bottom of the page or in the margins) inserting references to a female pontiff by someone hoping to include salacious stories about the popes or to perpetuate the myths of an earlier age. …
“Fortunately, modern scholars are just as adamant as Florimond de Raemond and David Blondel were in their eras: Pope Joan never existed, regardless of anti-Catholic wishful thinking.”
Apostate Daughter?
Q. While my daughter was attending a Jesuit university, she got involved in a fundamentalist group, many of whose members were former Catholics. She is now happily married with six children and attends a huge evangelical Protestant church in another city. I have tried to persuade her that the Catholic Church is the true Church, but to no avail. My daughter and her husband (also a former Catholic) are convinced that I am in error.
Is my daughter an apostate, and can she save her soul and those of her family? I sometimes feel guilty, thinking that I was not firm enough about practicing the Catholic faith in my family and teaching my children more forcefully — also not practicing enough family prayer, such as the rosary.
My daughter was married by a Protestant minister inside the Catholic mission church of the Jesuit university she attended. Does that make the Jesuits there accomplices in my daughter’s apostasy?
N.N., via email
A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D.:
Technically speaking, your daughter is not an apostate. Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law defines apostasy as “the total repudiation of the Christian faith.” She would claim, and rightly, I think, that she has not repudiated Christianity, but has embraced a different interpretation of the Christian faith.
In two Vatican II documents, the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (14) and “Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity” (7), the Church states that a person “could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it, or to remain in it.” I assume that your daughter did not fully know and understand this when she moved into a Protestant denomination.
Catholic colleges have a twofold responsibility to their Catholic students. They must insure that the teaching of the faith is in harmony with the Magisterium. They must also seek to provide a campus atmosphere which is conducive to the students’ maturing in their faith.
Obviously I cannot judge whether your daughter’s college met its obligations with regard to her. If it did not, then in my opinion it does share some responsibility for our losing her from the Church.
Catholic Faith Resources | For Catholic Parishes | Order OSV Products | RSS | Advertise | About Us | Contact Us | Jobs Copyright © 1996-2012, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright information | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy