Peter Kreeft - Catholic Christianity: A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs Based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church

PETER KREEFT

A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs

BASED ON THE

Catechism of the Catholic Church

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.Libreria Editrice Vaticana, English translation-of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Edith Typica copyright 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Scripture quotations contained herein are adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible , copyright 1946, 1953, 1971, and the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible , copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the Code of Canon Law, Latin / English Edition , are used with permission, copyright 1983 Canon Law Society of America, Washington, D.C.

Citations of official Church documents from Josef Neuner, S.J., and Jacques Dupuis, S.J., eds., The Christian Faith: Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church , 5th ed. (New York: Alba House, 1992). Used with permission.

Excerpts from Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, New Revised Edition , edited by Austin Flannery, O.P., copyright 1992, Costello Publishing Company, Inc., Northport, N.Y., are used by permission of the publisher, all rights reserved. No part of these excerpts may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express permission of Costello Publishing Company.

The cover art is based on a fresco in the catacombs. Symbolic elements include symbols of the Holy Eucharist and the pillar, which represents the Church. The lamb on the right represents the Faithful, and the lamb on the left represents those who sadly turn away from Gods gifts in the Catholic Church.

Cover design by Riz Boncan Marsella

2001 Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 0-89870-798-6
Library of Congress control number 00-100231
Printed in the United States of America

For Fr. Michael Scanlon, T.O.R.
President, Franciscan University of Steubenville,
my candidate for American Catholic of the century

If there are thank-you lines in heaven,
his will be one of the longest.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

I thought of calling this book Mere Catholicism , for it attempts to present simply the essential data, rather than any particular interpretation, of the Catholic faith, as C.S. Lewis did half a century ago in Mere Christianity for Christian faith in general.

Most converts from Protestantism say they have only added to, not subtracted from, their Protestant faith in becoming Catholics. A Catholic Christian is a full gospel Christian, a full or universal Christian (Catholic means universal). As Lewis pointed out in the preface to Mere Christianity , mere Christianity is not some abstract lowest common denominator arrived at by stripping away the differences between Protestant and Catholic or between one kind of Protestant and another. It is a real and concrete thing; and Catholicism is that thing to the fullest, not that plus something else.

Far from alienating Catholics from Protestants, this unifies them at the center. The part of the old Baltimore Catechism that a Protestant would affirm the most emphatically is its heart and essence, which comes right at the beginning: Why did God make you? God made me to know him, love him, and serve him in this world and to enjoy him forever in the next. And the part of the Protestant Heidelberg Catechism that a Catholic would affirm the most emphatically is its heart, which also comes right at the beginning: What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I belongbody and soul, in life and in deathnot to myself but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and... makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

I also thought of calling the book What Is a Catholic The emphasis should be on the word is. But it seldom is. When I ask my students what a Catholic is, they tell me what a Catholic believes or (more rarely) how a Catholic behaves or (occasionally) how a Catholic worships. These are the three parts of this book, but the root of all three, and the unifying principle of all three, is the new being , the supernatural life, the sanctifying grace, that is the very presence of God in us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church never loses sight of this essence and, therefore, of this same unity among its four parts. It is the very same thing, the same reality, that (1) the Creed defines, (2) the Commandments command, and (3) the sacraments communicate. Therefore, at the beginning of its section on morality, the Catechism connects these three and says: What faith confesses the sacraments communicate: by the sacraments of rebirth, Christians have become children of God [Jn 1:12; 1 Jn 3:1], partakers of the divine nature [2 Pet 1:4]. Coming to see in the faith their new dignity Christians are called to lead henceforth a life worthy of the gospel of Christ [Phil 1:27]. They are made capable of doing so by the grace of Christ and the gifts of his Spirit, which they receive through the sacraments and through prayer ( Catechism of the Catholic Church [hereafter CCC] 1692). Every part of this organic body that is the Catholic faith is connected through its heart, which is Christ himself, this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col 1:27). That is how St. Paul summarized the central mystery of the faith, and therefore that is how the Church has always taught it, and therefore that is how the Catechism teaches it, and therefore that is how this book teaches it. Its peculiar specialty is not to specialize; its peculiar angle is to have no angle but to stand up right at the center,

Half a century ago such a book would have been superfluous, for Catholics knew then twenty times more than they know now about everything in their faith: its essence, its theology, its morality, its liturgy, and its prayer; and there were twenty times more books like this one being written. The need was less, and the supply was more. Today the need is much more, and the supply is much less. Since nature abhors a vacuum, spiritually as well as physically I offer this unoriginal basic data book to those Catholics who have been robbed of the basic data of their heritage.

For the first time since the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, the Church has authorized an official universal catechism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church , because the current crisis is the greatest since the Reformation. All Catholics now have a simple, clear, one-volume reference work to answer all basic questions about what the Church officially teaches. There is no longer any excuse for the ignorance, ambiguity, or fashionable ideological slanting (at any angle) that has been common for over a generation. No one can be an educated Catholic today without having a copy of this Catechism and constantly referring to it. Let no one read this book instead of that one.

The expressed aim of the Catechism was defined as follows: This catechism aims at presenting an organic synthesis of the essential and fundamental contents of Catholic doctrine, as regards both faith and morals, in the light of the Second Vatican Council and the whole of the Churchs Tradition. Its principal sources are the Sacred Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, the liturgy, and the Churchs Magisterium [living teaching authority], it is intended to serve as a point of reference for the catechisms or compendia that are composed in the various countries (CCC 11).