Q: I read online that a married Catholic needs their bishop’s permission to separate from their spouse. My husband abandoned our family to live with his girlfriend. How can I get our bishop to make him come back home? A: I’m sorry you’re going through such a difficult situation. I don’t know exactly where you were finding…
Q: My husband and I got a divorce because my husband had an affair. Why doesn’t the Church agree with me that it was his fault and grant my annulment? Why is my Church siding with him? A: I’m very sorry you went through such a painful experience. But with respect to your specific question, I…
Q: I’m one of the parents on a new ‘safety committee’ for our local parish school. One of the parents’ main suggestions is that, for our school Masses, we lock the church doors and keep the Mass private. To us, this seems like basic common sense. However, our pastor says we can’t do that. Is…
Q: I’ve noticed that in many flourishing Catholic communities with a lot of young adults (such as some Catholic university communities, or parishes in some big cities with an active young adult ministry), marriage preparation programs often seem to go far beyond what you find in most parishes. I’m thinking of things like retreats, serious catechesis, good mentorship programs…
Q: Does a person’s mortal sin prior to becoming Catholic follow him or her until confession and absolution? In particular, if a non-Catholic friend paid for someone’s abortion during the 1970s under the false belief that the foetus was just ‘tissue’ and not a baby yet, should the friend now acknowledge that his or her…
Q: As a divorced, over-50 Catholic man with an annulment, I met a Catholic woman my age with the same history of divorce and annulment. After dating for a while we began to talk about marriage and went to see our priest. He asked if we were open to the idea of having kids. We…
Q: Does the Church ever use the word ‘divorce,’ or in every case is it always an ‘annulment?’ Didn’t Jesus allow for a spouse, in the case of a cheating spouse, to be granted a divorce, even calling it ‘a divorce?’ A: The Church does use the term ‘divorce’ in some contexts, such as when…
A: The short answer to your question is that excommunication is specifically a punishment for canonical crimes. And although political support for pro-choice policies is morally problematic, it is not a canonical crime in and of itself. For context, usually when we speak of pro-choice politicians being denied Holy Communion, the relevant citation is Canon…
Q: I’m retired and I volunteer with my parish to do the tech stuff to livestream some of the parish’s Masses online. Sometimes I livestream funerals for people who have family members who can’t be there in person, and I’m happy to help people out that way. Recently, I heard that the parish wants to…
Q: In watching The Chosen, I find I have real sympathy for Judas, who seemed to misunderstand Jesus and was merely trying to force him to accept the role of king. How accurate is this, though, and either way do you think Jesus forgave Judas? A: I haven’t watched The Chosen, so I can’t…