At a time when religious controversy and debate is around every corner, it's never been more important to know what you believe in. The Catholic Church, with its ancient and complex history, is often misunderstood and mystified, even among its own members.
Even some Catholic children may be surprised at their church's stance on issues of prayer, creation, sainthood and scriptures.
Catholics Don’t Pray to Statues or Saints
Many Protestant faiths, when breaking away from early Catholic practices, were quick to prohibit statues and three-dimensional images in their places of worship. Worshiping false idols has been a major no-no since before Christianity began, and praying before a statue was reminiscent of the early gods of the heathens.
But Catholics don’t actually pray to saints or even to the Virgin Mary. When a Catholic asks for a saint’s intercession, he is requesting that the saint intercede and pray with him and for him and his intentions. The Bible refers to the prayers of the saints in heaven: “The twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Revelations 5:8). Catholics believe that the angels and saints in heaven can be powerful advocates in prayers for their intentions.
Even the Rosary is a prayer with Mary, not to Mary.
Catholics Don’t Believe in Creationism
Like many issues in the Catholic faith, the debate over creationism and evolution is complicated. And the Catholic Church’s stance on the issue is not black and white.
Catholics don’t believe that the story of Genesis is an historic truth, nor do they believe that God created the world in seven days. But the church has stopped short of embracing evolutionism.
The church does not take a position on some aspects of evolution, such as the Big Bang Theory, the way the stars and planets were formed. On human life, the Catholic Church takes a theistic evolution approach, allowing for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, but under God’s guidance. The church also believes in a special creation of the soul from God. (Catholic Answers)
Catholics Don’t Interpret the Bible Literally
Unlike their Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christian brothers and sisters, Catholics do not believe that all Bible stories are historical fact.
Catholic children are taught that most of the Old Testament and even some of the New Testament are oral history that was not recorded until long after the fact, and that many Bible stories are sacred scriptures not because of their historical significance, but because of the symbolism, moral teachings, and lessons God wants his people to know.
Catholics Read the Bible
A devout Catholic, pre-Vatican II reforms, may have never cracked open the family Bible at home. Before the 1960s, a traditional Catholic depended on his priests to reveal the Bible’s stories and lessons through the readings at Mass. Thus, some older people still claim that “Catholics don’t read the Bible.”
Not true today. The Catholic Catechism encourages Catholics “to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”
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