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An Outline of Basic Catholic Beliefs
This section (in alphabetical order) contains a concise overview of major, essential
Catholic beliefs. Not every essential belief is included. For a more in-depth look at
different Catholic beliefs and concepts, please click the links provided in the text
below and near the bottom of this page. Also, check out our Catholic Essays and
Articles, for information on more specific topics. For even more information, please
consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Creation
Catholics believe that creation is good, that God uses it for His purposes, but that it is
marred by Original Sin, the result of the sin of the first human beings. Catholic
theologians (and Orthodox ones as well) have never agreed on one particular
interpretation of the creation stories in the Book of Genesis. A few early Christians
read them literally, others allegorically, and others in light of the science of the day.
Some read them all three ways at the same time. All three ways were seen as
acceptable, so long as Christ was at the center of creation. So Catholics are free to
understand Genesis completely literally, but also to read Genesis in light of modern
science, so long as certain conditions are met; reading Genesis in light of modern
science doesn't mean that one is free to read Genesis without God, Jesus, and so forth.
This view may some evangelical Christians whose churches were founded during the
modernist controversies of the 19th and 20th centuries. Surprisingly, insisting on an
entirely literal understanding of Genesis is actually a quite modern concept.
BY DONALD DEMARCO
It gives preference to the fictional over the real, the abstract over the concrete. Hence,
it is an act of injustice, and has much in common with a laundry list of detestable
“isms”: racism, sexism, colonialism, communism, etc.
And yet, despite the near universal repudiation of stereotyping, it remains active,
indeed, even fashionable, to stereotype Catholics.
Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have sought passionately and persistently to
remind Catholics of their proper place in the democratic scheme of things, which is to
help in providing society with a rational basis that makes justice and peace possible.
In other words, a Catholic is a humanist in the best sense of the term. To limit him to
his faith is to stereotype him unjustly.
In his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love), Pope Benedict draws a clear line
between the Church and the state when he writes, “The Church cannot and must not
take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She
cannot and must not replace the state.”
On the other hand, the role of the Church, according to the Holy Father, “is simply to
help purify reason and to contribute here and now to the acknowledgment and
attainment of what is just.”
Properly formed Catholics provide a corrective when reason gives way to trends,
opinion polls, political correctness, pressure groups, convenience and a peculiar form
of relativism that claims to be absolute (the “dictatorship of relativism”).
The Holy Father alludes to the fact that “relativism creates the illusion that it has
reached greater heights than the loftiest philosophical achievements of the past.” Yet
relativism itself, strictly speaking, can make no such claim since it purports that no
philosophy can be better than any other.
The Holy Father also notes how secular politicians can easily fall prey to “a certain
ethical blindness caused by the dazzling effect of power and special interests.”
The world of politics should welcome Catholics because they actually show a more
cultivated appreciation for reason than what is usually displayed by self-serving
politicians or legislators who sacrifice justice for convenience.
The plain truth, which secular newspapers, in general, fail to grasp is that the Catholic
Church is an incomparably better witness to reason than is the secular world. The
Church is passionately interested in truth, nature and objectivity because she knows
that they provide the indispensable framework for a true humanism. Peace and justice
cannot flower in a relativistic vacuum.Unfortunately, Catholics are prevented from
making as great a contribution to politics as they can because the stereotype that
stigmatizes them does not recognize their rich potentialities for reasonableness,
fairness and consistency.
Stereotypes can blind people to vital human assets. This blindness is unjust to the
stereotyped victims. But it also deprives society of all the benefits Catholics could
confer if they could only be seen for who they are in reality, namely, human beings
who want to help other human beings without prejudice.