Question

1.What are the names of the five main types of prayer?

The five main types of prayer are → BLESSING and adoration, prayer of petition, prayer of
intercession, prayer of thanksgiving, and prayer of praise. (Reference: YOUCAT 483)

2.Why is abortion unacceptable at any phase in the development of an embryo?

God-given human life is God’s own property; it is sacred from the first moment of its existence and not under the control of any human being. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5). [CCC: 2270-2274, 2322]
God alone is Lord over life and death. Not even “my” life belongs to me. Every child, from the moment of conception on, has a right to life. From his earliest beginnings an unborn human being is a separate person, and no one can infringe upon his rights, not the State, not the doctor, and not even the mother. The Church’s clarity about this is not a lack of compassion; she means, rather, to point out the irreparable harm that is inflicted on the child who is killed in abortion and on his parents and on society as a whole. Protecting innocent human life is one of the noblest tasks of the State. If a State evades this responsibility, it undermines the foundations of a rule of law.(Reference: YOUCAT 383)

3.Are we all supposed to become “saints”?

Yes. The purpose of our life is to be united with God in love and to correspond entirely to God’s wishes. We should allow God “to live his life in us” (Mother Teresa). That is what it means to be holy: a “saint”. [2012-2016, 2028-2029]
Every man asks himself the question: Who am I and why am I here, how do I find myself? Faith answers: Only in →HOLINESS does man become that for which God created him. Only in holiness does man find real harmony between himself and his Creator. Holiness, however, is not some sort of self-made perfection; rather, it is union with the incarnate love that is Christ. Anyone who gains new life in this way finds himself and becomes holy.(Reference: YOUCAT 342)

4.But if God is love, how can there be a hell?

God does not damn men. Man himself is the one who refuses God’s merciful love and voluntarily deprives himself of (eternal) life by excluding himself from communion with God. [CCC 1036-1037]
God yearns for communion even with the worst sinner; he wants everyone to convert and be saved. Yet God created man to be free and respects his decisions. Even God cannot compel love. As a lover
he is “powerless” when someone chooses hell instead of heaven.(Reference: YOUCAT 162)

5.Is there a contradiction between faith and science?

There is no insoluble contradiction between faith and science, because there cannot be two
kinds of truth. [CCC 159]
There is not one truth of faith that is in competition with another truth of science. There is only one truth, to which both faith and scientific reason refer. God intended reason, with which we can recognize the rational structures of the world, just as he intended faith. That is why the Christian faith demands and promotes the (natural) sciences. Faith exists so that we might know things that are not apparent to reason yet are real above and beyond reason. Faith reminds science that it is supposed to serve creation and not set itself up in place of God. Science must respect human dignity instead of violating it.(Reference: YOUCAT 23)

6.Why is it a sin to take drugs?

Using drugs is a sin because it is an act of self-destruction and thus an offense against the life
that God has given us out of love. [CCC 2290-2291]
Every form of a person’s dependence on legal substances (alcohol, medication, tobacco) and even more so on illegal drugs is an exchange of freedom for slavery; it damages the health and life of the person concerned and also does great harm to the people around him. Every time a person loses or forgets himself by becoming intoxicated, which can also include excessive eating and drinking, indulgence in sexual activity, or speeding with an automobile, he loses some of his human dignity and freedom and therefore sins against God. This should be distinguished from the reasonable, conscious, and moderate use of enjoyable things.(Reference: YOUCAT 389)

7.Can the Church really forgive sins?

Yes. Jesus not only forgave sins himself, he also conferred on the →CHURCH the mission and the power to free men from their sins. [CCC 981-983, 986-987]
Through the ministry of the → PRIEST, the penitent receives God’s forgiveness, and his guilt is wiped away as completely as if it had never existed. A priest can do this only because Jesus allows him to
participate in his own divine power to forgive sins.(Reference: YOUCAT 150)

8.How does the Church view other religions?

The →CHURCH respects everything in other religions that is good and true. She respects and promotes freedom of religion as a human right. Yet she knows that Jesus Christ is the sole redeemer of all mankind. He alone is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). [CCC 841-848]
Whoever seeks God is close to us Christians. There is a special degree of “affinity” to the Muslims. Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is one of the monotheistic religions (→MONOTHEISM). The Muslims, too, revere God the Creator and Abraham as their father in faith. Jesus is considered a great prophet in the Qur’an; Mary, his Mother, as the mother of a prophet. The Church teaches that all men who by no fault of their own do not know Christ and his Church but sincerely seek God and follow the voice of their conscience can attain eternal salvation. However, anyone who has recognized that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” but is unwilling to follow him cannot find salvation by other paths. This is what is meant by the saying, Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (outside of
the Church there is no salvation).(Reference: YOUCAT 136)

9.If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why does he not prevent evil?

“God allows evil only so as to make something better result from it” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
[CCC 309-314, 324]
Evil in the world is an obscure and painful mystery. Even the Crucified asked his Father, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Much about it is incomprehensible. One thing, though, we know for sure: God is 100 percent good. He can never be the originator of something evil. God created the world to be good, but it is not yet complete. In violent upheavals and painful processes it is being shaped and moved toward its final perfection. That may be a better way to classify what the Church calls physical evil, for example, a birth defect, or a natural catastrophe. Moral evils, in contrast, come about through the misuse of freedom in the world. “Hell on earth”—child soldiers, suicide bombings, concentration camps—is usually man-made. The decisive question is therefore not, “How can anyone believe in a good God when there is so much evil?” but rather, “How could a person with a heart and understanding endure life in this world if God did not exist?” Christ’s death and Resurrection show us that evil did not have the first word, nor does it have the last. God made absolute good result from the worst evil. We believe that in the Last Judgment God will put an end to all injustice. In the life of the world to come, evil no longer has any place and suffering ends. [CCC 40, 286-287](Reference: YOUCAT 51)

10.What is prayer?

Prayer is turning the heart toward God. When a person prays, he enters into a living
relationship with God. [CCC 2558-2565]
Prayer is the great gate leading into faith. Someone who prays no longer lives on his own, for himself, and by his own strength. He knows there is a God to whom he can talk. People who pray entrust themselves more and more to God. Even now they seek union with the one whom they will encounter one day face to face. Therefore, the effort to pray daily is part of Christian life. Of course, one cannot learn to pray in the same way one learns a technique. As strange as it sounds, prayer is a gift one obtains through prayer.(Reference: YOUCAT 469)

11.Was it part of God’s plan for men to suffer and die?

God does not want men to suffer and die. God’s original idea for man was paradise: life forever and peace between God and man and their environment, between man and woman. [CCC 374-379, 384, 400]
Often we sense how life ought to be, how we ought to be, but in fact we do not live in peace with ourselves, act out of fear and uncontrolled emotions, and have lost the original harmony that man had with the world and ultimately with God. In Sacred Scripture the experience of this alienation is expressed in the story of the Fall. Because sin crept in, Adam and Eve had to leave paradise, in which they were in harmony with each other and with God. The toil of work, suffering, mortality, and the temptation to sin are signs of this loss of paradise.(Reference: YOUCAT 66)