Pat McCloskey, OFM

In light of the agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the Holy See, signed on September 22, 2018, can Catholics still claim to be an apostolic Church?

Yes, they can. A bit of background is helpful here. The provisional agreement referenced above provides for the government to propose names of priests to be appointed bishop, with the final decision to be made by the pope.

This agreement has been under negotiation since 1986.

As cradle Catholics, my wife and I are tempted to leave the Catholic Church because of its grossly inadequate response to clerical sexual abuse of minors, which is both a civil crime and a sin. The Church condemns that abuse but protects the abusers by failing to take effective action against them. We have not left the Church because of our deep-seated beliefs in the Catholic faith, but we are struggling and looking for guidance on this issue.

In the Hail Mary, we say, “Blessed is the fruit of your womb. ” Jesus was holy from the very beginning. How can he be blessed by anyone?

That part of the prayer quotes Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary (Lk 1:42b). Elizabeth is not giving a blessing but simply acknowledging a blessing already given by God. If you sneeze and I say, “God bless you, ” I am not the source of that blessing but am simply recognizing that you have already been blessed by God.

I was taught that prior to Christ’s dying and rising, people (in the Old Testament) could not enter heaven and see God. What about Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and the many holy women in the Old Testament?

You have identified a theological dilemma: how to speak about people who lived before Jesus as being saved without slighting the unique role of his passion, death, and resurrection. The concept of limbo was developed to cover this group of people, plus babies who die before Baptism and ultimately good adults who were never baptized.

A number of my Protestant friends who have studied Greek use grape juice at their communion service. Why does the Catholic Church use wine?

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches use wine because the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke indicate that Jesus used “the fruit of the vine ” at the Last Supper. That probably meant wine at least, that is how these Churches understood those texts for almost 1,500 years before the religious ancestors of your friends started to use grape juice.