Tag: ask a catholic

There doesn't seem to be, strictly speaking, any official teaching of the Catholic Church about whether animals have souls or not. 

The sacraments are given to us as ways to nourish, in various ways, an active love for God and neighbor. They are means to an end, not ends in themselves. 

Historically, one of the points of disagreement between Martin Luther and Roman Catholic leaders had to do with the connection between faith and good works. Luther insisted that salvation depended on faith alone, while Catholic teachers responded that one's eternal destiny required good works. 

Whenever you hear someone predict who the next pope will be, usually that simply reveals who the one predicting hopes the next pope will be.

Your average middle-aged-to-older adult remembers when it was a requirement for all Catholics to abstain from meat on all Fridays as long as their health allowed.

It's not going to happen overnight, but change it will if and when it's God's will. However, leaving the church rather than sticking around to help it change helps change happen not at all.

When you ask if “sacraments work,” I presume you want to know if the Catholic Church's seven sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, Holy Orders) are real or mere “symbols.”