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We Prefer Catholics?
Q. My mom is a Lutheran who raised seven children as Catholics. (Dad was a Catholic.) She never had a desire to become a Catholic. She is 90 years old now and lives across the street from a Catholic church. She never drove, so it was very easy for her to go to church across the street for 60 years and more. She never participated in Communion.
Now we have a new priest, and he tells her she cannot go to that church anymore. She was beside herself, hurt. I told the priest God does not care what church we go to as long as we go. He in return told me we prefer Catholics.
N.N., via email
A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Francis Hoffman, J.C.D.:
There must be something more going on here, because I have never heard anything like it. All are welcome to attend services in a Catholic Church, and all are welcome to enter a Catholic Church to pray or receive guidance and help. Your mother, because she is not Catholic, quite rightly did not participate in Communion.
Maybe, since your mother is 90 years old, the priest is concerned about her safety and was looking for a way to encourage her to stay home. I don’t know. But the statement “we prefer Catholics” has no basis in Catholic teaching.
How Long a Walk to Bethlehem?
Q. When Mary and Joseph had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem to pay their taxes, how long would the trip have taken them?
J.J., via email
A. The distance “as the crow flies” from Nazareth to Bethlehem is about 70 miles. Under normal circumstances, without too many winding roads or rough spots to traverse, people might well have been able to travel (on foot or by donkey) about 20 miles a day, for a total one-way trip of perhaps four days.
However, we must keep in mind several factors that would most likely have made the trip last much longer.
First, the land of Samaria lay along the most direct route between Nazareth and Bethlehem, and in Jesus’ day, there was considerable hostility between Jews and Samaritans. Even if, as I think we can assume, Our Lady and St. Joseph bore no animosity toward Samaritans, it would have been difficult and even dangerous for them to travel through that country. They might have been harassed and would almost certainly have been refused lodging, just as Jesus and His disciples were treated some years later (see Luke 9:51-56).
Surely St. Joseph would have sought to protect his wife from such a threat. So, as was common among the Jews of the day, the holy couple would probably have journeyed far off the “direct” route to avoid Samaria, taking a detour from Galilee across the Jordan River and then back again into Judea farther south. That would have added many miles, and several days, to the journey.
Second, remember that Mary was close to the end of her pregnancy. No doubt they had to travel much more slowly than normal to avoid excessive discomfort for her and risks to the health of both mother and Child.
Given these factors, my guess is that the one-way trip took at least a week or ten days, and perhaps much longer.
Swine Owned by Jews?
Q. The ancient Jewish dietary laws forbid Jewish people to eat pork, but we read in the Gospels a couple of times about swineherds with their herds of pigs. Why would people have kept pigs if they couldn’t eat them?
A. You are correct that faithful Jews in Jesus’ day could not eat pork because of the ancient dietary laws given by God, which declared pigs unclean (see Leviticus 11:1-8). But if you look closer at the Gospel passages referring to herds of swine, you find good reason to believe that they were owned not by Jews, but by Gentiles (people who were not Jews).
For example, when Jesus cast a “legion” of demons out of a man and into a herd of swine, he seems to have been in a locale on the far side of the Sea of Galilee in an area where many Gentiles lived (see Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:32-39). Ruins of an ancient town still stand on the traditional site of this exorcism (I’ve been there), and the town was obviously built along Hellenistic (Greek) lines. It was part of the larger region known as the Decapolis (Greek for “ten cities”), widely known as an area with numerous Gentile residents.
In the story of the prodigal son (which was admittedly a parable, but presumably reflecting typical historical conditions of the time that people would have recognized), the son who leaves his home ends up caring for pigs as a swineherd. But Jesus tells us that he does so in “a distant country” (Luke 15:13), which would thus have been Gentile rather than Jewish — a detail that makes the story even more poignant.
Mary With Stars?
Q. Why is Mary often depicted with a crown of twelve stars?
A.M., via email
A. In the Book of Revelation, St. John sees at one point in his extended vision “a great sign … in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1).
This woman was in labor to give birth to a child that the Devil (pictured as a dragon) wanted to devour, but he failed to do so. She gave birth to “a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations,” and he was “caught up to God and His throne” (verse 5).
Does that scenario sound familiar? No doubt you’ll see in these words what Christians have long seen there: Who else could be meant by “the male child, destined to rule the nations,” who escaped Satan’s attempt to kill him as an infant, and who later ascended to God’s throne in heaven, but Jesus Christ? And if the Child is Jesus Christ, the woman who gave Him birth must be Our Lady.
Drawing from the imagery of this passage, then, Christian artists have often depicted Mary with the crown of twelve stars and the moon under her feet.
We should note that many interpreters have seen the woman in John’s vision as a symbol of the nation of Israel, which gave “birth” to the Messiah. But given the Church’s affirmation that passages in Scripture may have several layers of meaning — especially ones written in admittedly figurative language, such as this one — then it seems to me that we don’t have to choose between those two possibilities. The woman can represent both Mary and God’s people; in fact, in Catholic theology, Our Lady herself is viewed as the great representative of God’s people.
The Pope a Former “Liberal”?
Q. I heard a rumor that sometime in Joseph Ratzinger’s past, his views toward the faith were what we would call “liberal.” Is there any truth to that? What an awesome awakening if that was true!
A.A., Los Angeles, Calif.
A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D.:
Let’s begin an answer to your question by talking about labels. Many, probably most, Catholics have been infected by what I have called in print “the spectrum virus.” It is the creation of dissenters in the Church, aided by the press.
This virus would have us believe that the Catholic faith itself constitutes a spectrum of belief. It tells us that by our own choice we can locate ourselves somewhere on that spectrum — indeed, almost anywhere — and still call ourselves “Catholic.” In this arrangement, I may choose to accept all or some or little of what the Church teaches, thereby identifying myself as “conservative” or “moderate” or “liberal.”
Try this hypothetical. Suppose — it’s not possible, but suppose — the Catholic faith could be summed up in twenty-five propositions. Suppose further that I look over the list and announce that I accept all but one. That should give me a grade of 96 on a test; at least an “A” if not an “A+”. This is the reasoning behind the spectrum virus.
But examine more closely. I not only rejected one of the Church’s teachings (most predictably for dissenters, something about sexual morality); I did three other things.
One, I also rejected the Church’s claim to teach with the authority of Christ. If she’s wrong on one count, the claim falls dead.
Two, I have made myself the final authority on what constitutes authentic Catholicism. Now I am essentially Protestant, not Catholic, even though I still claim the latter title.
The third result of this spectrum approach to the faith was made clear by Pope Benedict XVI himself, while still prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 1998 Pope John Paul added to the Code of Canon Law and to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches a profession of faith and oath of fidelity to be taken by certain persons involved in “deeper investigation into the truths of faith and morals” or in particular powers of governance of the Church.
In a commentary on the Pope’s apostolic letter, the Congregation declared that whoever denies a truth of Catholic doctrine “would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.” This follows from the first two reasons given above.
My point is this. We should avoid labels of “liberal” and “conservative” when speaking of doctrinal matters. A person either is a faithful Catholic, loyal to all that the Church teaches, or he is not. There is no middle ground. Nor should we offer middle ground to dissenters by using their labels.
Finally (at long last!), my answer to your question. In the current sense of the erroneous label “liberal,” Pope Benedict was never “liberal.” He has never been a dissenter. He has always tried to find new ways of making the faith clearer, more compelling to Catholics and to the world. Yet he has never wavered in his fidelity to the Church and her teaching. In other words, he has always been “Catholic.”
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