Catholic Church - Catholicism For Dummies

Catholicism For Dummies, 3rd Edition

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Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America Copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with Permission.

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016960168

ISBN 978-1-119-29560-0 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-29562-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-29561-7 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

Three great religions trace their roots to the prophet Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And one of those religions, Christianity, is expressed in three different traditions: Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. You may already know that. You may also already know that, currently, more than 1 billion Catholics occupy the earth. Thats approximately one-fifth of the worlds population.

Whether youre Catholic or not, you may be totally clueless about or just unaware of some aspects of Catholic tradition, history, doctrine, worship, devotion, or culture. No sweat. Regardless of whether youre engaged, married, or related to a Catholic; your neighbor or co-worker is a Catholic; or youre just curious about what Catholics really do believe, this book is for you.

Catholicism For Dummies, 3rd Edition, realizes that youre smart and intelligent, but maybe you didnt attend Blessed Sacrament Grade School, St. Thomas Aquinas High School, or Catholic University of America. This books goal is to give you a taste of Catholicism. Its not a Catechism or religion textbook but a casual, down-to-earth introduction for non-Catholics and a reintroduction for Catholics. It gives common-sense explanations about what Catholics believe and do in plain English, with just enough why and how thrown in to make solid sense.

Although Catholicism For Dummies, 3rd Edition, is no substitute for the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, our hope is that itll wet your whistle. We dont cover everything about Catholicism, but we do discuss the basic stuff so that the next time youre invited to a Catholic wedding, baptism, funeral, confirmation, or First Communion, you wont be totally confused. And you may have an edge on other people in your life who are less informed about Catholicism than you.

This book covers plenty of material on Catholicism from doctrine to morality and from worship and liturgy to devotions but you dont need a degree in theology to comprehend it. Everything is presented in an informal, easy-to-understand way.

This book is also a reference, unlike the schoolbooks you had as a kid. You dont have to read the chapters in order, one after the other, from front cover to back cover. You can just pick the topic that interests you or find the page that addresses the specific question you have. Or you can indiscriminately open the book and pick a place to begin reading.

The Catholic Church is known to be among the top ten when it comes to keeping good records. In fact, the monks were the first to print the Bible, by hand, long before Gutenberg was able to mass-produce it on his printing press in 1450. And if you were baptized or married in a Catholic church, you can always find a record of your baptism in the parish where the baptism or marriage took place even if it was more than, say, 60 years ago. So naturally, after 2,000 years of baptisms, weddings, funerals, tribunals, annulments, Church councils, papal documents of one kind or another, hagiographies (biographies of the saints), investigations for canonization, and so on, the Church has its share of records and printed text, for sure. Whats more, Latin is still the official language of the Church, so official documents are first written in Latin before being translated into English or some other language.

Throughout this book, if you see the word orthodox with a small letter o, it means correct or right believer. However, if you see the capital letter O, then Orthodox refers to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, such as the Greek, Russian, and Serbian Orthodox Churches. Also, if you see the word church with a small letter c, it refers to a church building or parish, but Church with a capital C refers to the universal Catholic Church.

Bible references in this book use the traditional chapter and verse designation of a chapter number followed by a colon and the verse number(s). For example, Deuteronomy 6:46 refers to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy from verse 4 all the way to and including verse 6. Unless we tell you otherwise, our Scripture references are from the Revised Standard Version (RSV).