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Church teaching, including Scripture and Tradition, holds that angels are purely spiritual beings. Yet we also believe that they occasionally appear to have physical bodies, as in the Scripture stories: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). Angels do not need bodies for their interactions with God and one another; for that matter, they do not need bodies for their usual interactions with us, giving us spirit …

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Rev. 12:9). Notice that this verse does not say the demons were cast into hell, but rather to the earth. In the book of Job, when God asks Satan where he has come from, the latter replies, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it” (1:7; 2:2). We m …

"You probably think Santa Claus is real. Or that the Earth is flat. Maybe your ancestors thought Thor caused lightning and thunderstorms. Or that praying to a statue would bring healing. We have moved past that. Now, we live in an age of science. If you still believe in God, you must be a superstitious ignoramus."  This common attitude of internet atheists has led many away from faith. Believers must share the blame. A lot of Catholic Christians cannot give reasons for the hope that i …

Just as the Church has official ritual books for Mass and the sacraments, for blessings and for exorcism, so there is also an official book called the Handbook of Indulgences. We will not take time here to explain Church teaching on indulgences; though it is important and woefully neglected, that would be the subject of another book. The traditional name for this ritual book is the Raccolta, Italian for collection. In the 1910 edition of the Raccolta, there is an indulgence granted for praying …

When people ask me why they need to go to see a priest in confession instead of going “directly to God,” I remind them that they already believe that you can’t “go directly to God” when it comes to another sacrament: baptism.Protestants believe that someone else (ideally, a Church minister) has to baptize you—you can’t baptize yourself. Protestants who believe that baptism saves us from sin consequently believe that we need the involvement of a minister …