Introduction

Three great religions trace their roots to the prophet Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And one of those religions, Christianity, is expressed in three different traditions: Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. You may already know that. You may also already know that, currently, more than 1 billion Catholics occupy the earth. That’s approximately one-fifth of the world’s population.

Whether you’re Catholic or not, you may be totally clueless about or just unaware of some aspects of Catholic tradition, history, doctrine, worship, devotion, or culture. No sweat. Regardless of whether you’re engaged, married, or related to a Catholic; your neighbor or co-worker is a Catholic; or you’re just curious about what Catholics really do believe, this book is for you.

Catholicism For Dummies, 3rd Edition, realizes that you’re smart and intelligent, but maybe you didn’t attend Blessed Sacrament Grade School, St. Thomas Aquinas High School, or Catholic University of America. This book’s goal is to give you a taste of Catholicism. It’s not a Catechism or religion textbook but a casual, down-to-earth introduction for non-Catholics and a reintroduction for Catholics. It gives common-sense explanations about what Catholics believe and do in plain English, with just enough why and how thrown in to make solid sense.

Although Catholicism For Dummies, 3rd Edition, is no substitute for the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, our hope is that it’ll wet your whistle. We don’t cover everything about Catholicism, but we do discuss the basic stuff so that the next time you’re invited to a Catholic wedding, baptism, funeral, confirmation, or First Communion, you won’t be totally confused. And you may have an edge on other people in your life who are less informed about Catholicism than you.

About This Book

This book covers plenty of material on Catholicism — from doctrine to morality and from worship and liturgy to devotions — but you don’t need a degree in theology to comprehend it. Everything is presented in an informal, easy-to-understand way.

This book is also a reference, unlike the schoolbooks you had as a kid. You don’t have to read the chapters in order, one after the other, from front cover to back cover. You can just pick the topic that interests you or find the page that addresses the specific question you have. Or you can indiscriminately open the book and pick a place to begin reading.

The Catholic Church is known to be among the top ten when it comes to keeping good records. In fact, the monks were the first to print the Bible, by hand, long before Gutenberg was able to mass-produce it on his printing press in 1450. And if you were baptized or married in a Catholic church, you can always find a record of your baptism in the parish where the baptism or marriage took place — even if it was more than, say, 60 years ago. So naturally, after 2,000 years of baptisms, weddings, funerals, tribunals, annulments, Church councils, papal documents of one kind or another, hagiographies (biographies of the saints), investigations for canonization, and so on, the Church has its share of records and printed text, for sure. What’s more, Latin is still the official language of the Church, so official documents are first written in Latin before being translated into English or some other language.

Throughout this book, if you see the word orthodox with a small letter o, it means correct or right believer. However, if you see the capital letter O, then Orthodox refers to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, such as the Greek, Russian, and Serbian Orthodox Churches. Also, if you see the word church with a small letter c, it refers to a church building or parish, but Church with a capital C refers to the universal Catholic Church.

Bible references in this book use the traditional chapter and verse designation of a chapter number followed by a colon and the verse number(s). For example, Deuteronomy 6:4–6 refers to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy from verse 4 all the way to and including verse 6. Unless we tell you otherwise, our Scripture references are from the Revised Standard Version (RSV).

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we decided to take advantage of the wisdom of the Church, which uses four pillars of faith to divide the material contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism is the formal collection of dogmas and doctrines of the Magisterium: the official teaching authority of Catholicism as exercised through the pope and the bishops in union with him around the world. (The word Magisterium comes from the Latin magister, meaning teacher.) The pillars upon which the Catholic religion stands are these:

• The creed: What is believed
• The sacraments: Liturgically celebrating what is believed
• The Commandments: Living the faith
• The Lord’s Prayer: Making the faith personal

The first four parts of this book correspond with these four pillars.

Foolish Assumptions

While writing this book, we made some assumptions about you:

• You have Catholic friends, neighbors, or relatives, and you’re curious about Catholicism and want to know a little more about it.
• You’ve heard or read something about Catholics or Catholicism, and you have questions about Catholic beliefs or practices.
• You may or may not be Catholic. Perhaps you were baptized Catholic but not raised Catholic. Maybe you’re committed to a different faith, still searching, or have no faith to speak of. Regardless, you do want to know something about Catholics.

Icons Used in This Book

This book uses icons to point out various types of information:

Ummm, well, we can’t remember what this icon’s supposed to point out. Just kidding. This icon draws your attention to information that’s worth remembering because it’s basic to Catholicism.

This icon alerts you to technical or historical background stuff that’s not essential to know. Feel free to divert thine eyes whenever you see this icon.

This icon points out useful tidbits to help you make more sense out of something Catholic.

This icon points out cautionary areas of Catholicism, such as the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday or Saturday evening. (Not doing so without a legitimate excuse, such as illness or severe weather, is a grave sin.)

Beyond the Book

In addition to what you’re reading right now, this product also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Catholicism For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the search box.

Where to Go from Here

Catholicism For Dummies, 3rd Edition, is sort of like Sunday dinner at an Italian grandmother’s home. Nonna brings everything to the table: bread, antipasto, cheese, olives, prosciutto and melon, tomatoes and mozzarella; then comes the pasta or macaroni in marinara or meat sauce with sausage and peppers, meatballs, and veal; then comes the chicken, the pork, or the beef; followed by salad; and topped off with fruit and cheese, spumoni, gelato, ricotta pie, zabaglione, and an espresso with a splash of sambucca.

Likewise, in this book, we’ve brought out a little bit of everything on Catholicism: doctrine, morality, history, theology, canon law, spirituality, and liturgy. You can go to any section to discover Catholicism. You can pick and choose what interests you the most, get answers to specific questions on your mind, or just randomly open this book anywhere and begin reading. On the other hand, you may want to start at the beginning and work your way to the end, going through each chapter one by one. We don’t guarantee that you’ll be full when you’re finished, but we hope that you’ll get a good taste of what Catholicism is really about.