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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.
Are We Truly Married?
Q. My husband and I have been married since April 23, 2001. We were not actually married in a church; we got married in a state courthouse. The deacon recently asked me if I would like to renew our vows in the church, but I didn’t think it was necessary. So are we actually married in the eyes of the Church and God?
B.W., via email
A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Francis Hoffman, J.C.D.:
For the sake of this answer, I will assume that both you and your husband are baptized Catholics who have never been married before, and that you are also otherwise free of all impediments to be married. If that is not the case, then your situation is more complicated.
If, then, my assumptions about your case are valid, no, “you are not actually married in the eyes of the Church and God.” However, do not act on this statement to leave your husband, because the Church wants you two to stay together. For that reason, your deacon is wise in asking you to renew your vows in the Church.
If you do renew your vows in the Church, you will be validly married in the eyes of the Church because you will have followed the canonical norms (Church rules) for marriage. In any case, the Church wants you and your husband to remain together, even if you do not renew your vows in the Church. For your marriage to be sacramentally valid, renew your vows in the Church.
If your husband refuses to renew the vows in the Church, you still have other options available to “regularize” your situation. You should ask your deacon or pastor about the possibility of receiving a sanatio in radice (retroactive validation) for your marriage, which can be granted in cases such as yours.
Rosary Origins?
Q. What is the origin of the rosary, and when did it begin?
M.B., via email
A. The name rosary comes from the notion that the devotion offers a bouquet of prayers to Our Lady. The words of the rosary prayers have their roots in Scripture and ancient Tradition.
The angel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary, when he came to announce the conception of Jesus, is familiar to most Catholics. It is echoed in one of the most popular of Catholic prayers, the Hail Mary (in Latin, Ave Maria): “Hail, [Mary], favored one [or “full of grace]! The Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28).
The words that follow in that prayer also come from Scripture, from St. Elizabeth’s greeting to Our Lady a few months later: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Lk 1:42). Then the “fruit” of her womb is identified as Jesus.
Next, “holy [Saint] Mary, Mother of God,” refers to her status as the woman who bore the divine Son of God (Gal 4:4). Finally, the prayer asks for Mary’s intercession: “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
The Hail Mary is one of the chief prayers of the Catholic devotion known as the rosary. This series of repetitive prayers is usually prayed in conjunction with a string of beads that help the person praying to keep track of his or her progress.
Two other prayers are also central to the rosary. One is the Our Father (or “the Lord’s Prayer), which comes to us from Christ as recorded in Scripture (Mt 6:9-13). The other is the “Glory Be,” an ancient expression of praise to the Most Holy Trinity: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.”
These words echo portions of various prayers and statements in Scripture (Mt 28:19; Rm 16:27; Jude 25).
The rosary also includes a recitation of the Apostle’s Creed, one of the earliest professions of faith produced by the Church. Finally, Catholics may add a variety of additional personal petitions when they pray the rosary.
The historical sources of the prayers in this devotion are thus relatively straightforward. How the rosary came to us in its present form, however, is less clear.
An old and uncertain tradition says that Our Lady gave the rosary as we know it to St. Dominic in the year 1214. But historians have found that Catholics were using prayer beads to pray repetitive prayers long before that time.
Beginning in ancient times, many monks prayed all 150 of the biblical Psalms each day. Lay people who wanted to imitate that devout practice, but couldn’t read or didn’t have the leisure to pray all the psalms daily, began to substitute 150 repetitions of the Our Father. Many of them counted the prayers on a string of beads or knotted rope called a paternoster (Latin for “Our Father”).
Meanwhile, as the Hail Mary prayer increased in popularity, some people began praying these words 150 times (or sometimes 50 times) instead of the Our Father. As early as the seventh century, St. Eligius was known to pray what was called “the Psalter of Blessed Mary,” which included a recitation of 150 Hail Marys. These prayers were often divided into groups of ten (decades), as is noted in a 12th-century rule for prayer among certain consecrated women in England.
The evolving rosary was prayed in various ways, but the method that eventually became “standard” (or at least most popular) featured decades of Hail Marys separated by a single Our Father. Each decade came to be devoted to a particular mystery in the life of Our Lord and Our Lady.
Worldwide Catholic Statistics
Q. In following up to your earlier answer to the query “How many Catholics are there in the world?” I would like to ask for stats worldwide on the number of cardinals, bishops, priests, permanent deacons and seminarians?
N.N., via email
A. Here are the stats from the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae (Statistical Yearbook of the Church) 2006, with figures as of January 1, 2007 (cited in Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Almanac 2009):
Cardinals: 194
Bishops: 3,722
Priests: 407,262
Permanent deacons: 34,520
Seminarians (major): 115,480
Chick Tracts?
Q. I am having a debate with a Methodist about the errors of the information that Chick Publications produces in their handouts. I would like further information or some articles to show him how bigoted these pamphlets are. Can you help? I live in North Carolina and come across these booklets often.
J.M., via email
A. The “Chick Tracts” to which you refer are indeed filled with misinformation and bigotry. It’s my experience that only a narrow segment of the Protestant population views them positively; to most, they are a laughing matter.
Catholic Answers provides extensive information about these scurrilous attacks on the Catholic Church, their authors, and related pamphlets. Go online to www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p1.asp.
“Ensoulment”?
Q. I am interested in knowing the stance of the Church on St. Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of “ensoulment” taking place after conception. I wonder if the “fluttering” a woman feels about sixteen to eighteen weeks into a pregnancy is the moment of ensoulment.
What a beautiful concept — that special moment would indicate the soul has entered the body. However, if this is true, it raises questions for the pro-lifers. I would appreciate any light you can shed on this subject or suggestions for reading materials that might explain the issue more completely.
M.D., via email
A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D.:
St. Thomas Aquinas took the theory of “ensoulment” from the writings of Aristotle, in a time when knowledge of human biology was very limited. The Catholic Church has no teaching about ensoulment.
What She does teach in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (365) is this: “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body.” In 1987 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith taught, “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception” (Declaration on Procured Abortion, 1).
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