The most important spiritual aid to conversion within the Catholic Church is, without doubt, participation in the Eucharist. This is reflected in the architecture of the Catholic church building, with all the architectural lines of vision pointing toward the altar at the front of the sanctuary where the Eucharist is celebrated (see Figure 2.3). The word “Eucharist” itself means thanksgiving, and the eucharistic celebration is a way both to participate in and to give thanks for Christ’s sacrifice which makes salvation possible.
Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist literally become the body and blood of Christ as a result of the prayer that is said by the priest during mass (the Catholic service of worship where the Eucharist is celebrated). Holding his hands over the bread and wine, the priest says: “Bless and approve our offering; make it acceptable to you, an offering in spirit and in truth. Let it become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ, your only Son, our Lord.” As the unleavened wafer (called a host) is ingested, Catholics believe that Christ literally feeds their souls through the holiness of Christ’s own body. Some devout Catholics participate in mass every day. Mother Teresa, the saintly humanitarian from Calcutta, often said that the Eucharist was her spiritual food and that she could not get through a single day without it.
Figure 2.3 Interior of the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (Los Angeles, California) with arrows indicating how the architecture of the sanctuary emphasizes the centrality of the altar and the importance of the Eucharist.
Photo by author.
Holiness is the final goal of conversion, sufficient holiness that one can stand in God’s presence and not be ashamed. Since most Catholics do not achieve such holiness while still living on earth, the idea slowly developed within Catholicism that there must be some place or some spiritual mechanism that allows individuals to acquire the level of holiness needed to enter heaven after death. That place or spiritual mechanism is called purgatory. There is only scant reference to purgatory in the Bible, but Catholics view this doctrine as a necessary extension of other Christian and biblical teachings about salvation and holiness.
The Catholic Church has also wrestled with the question of whether salvation is available in any form outside the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Historically, the most common answer has been “no,” but starting in the sixteenth century, some Catholic theologians began to articulate the possibility that some people who are outside the Catholic Church, even some who have never heard of Christ, might potentially end up in heaven because their lives demonstrate a “desire for baptism.” Karl Rahner, one of the most important Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, called such people “anonymous Christians.” The Catholic Catechism itself acknowledges the possibility of this wider scope of salvation by saying that while “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of baptism … he himself is not bound by his sacraments.”6
The wideness of God’s mercy is also a common theme in Catholic folk culture, where it is often expressed through the image of Mary as mediatrix of God’s grace and forgiveness. A popular folk story tells of Jesus strolling through heaven and coming across people who have made themselves at home but who seem obviously unqualified to be there. He confronts Saint Peter who guards the main gate into heaven, demanding an explanation, and Peter says: “Don’t blame me. I keep them out, but then they go around to the back door and your mother lets them all in!”7 Jesus is humorously portrayed in this story as a strict policeman trying to keep sinners out of heaven rather than as the loving savior of the world, and God’s deep love for humanity is embodied in Mary’s maternal dispensing of God’s love to everyone.
Structure
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest and most highly organized religious institution in the world. With a global membership of more than one billion, the work of the church is overseen by about 5,400 bishops, 400,000 priests, and almost a million religious men and women (monks and nuns). The Catholic Church owns and operates 125,000 schools worldwide, including approximately 200 full‐fledged universities; it runs more than 100,000 charitable institutions (hospitals, orphanages, homes for the elderly and the needy). It is, additionally, the only religious organization that governs its own country, Vatican City, the smallest nation in the world with a total territory of 108.7 acres, centered on the famous St. Peter’s Basilica (see Figure 2.4).
The Catholic Church is geographically divided into nearly 3,000 separate and distinct ecclesiastical districts. Most of these are called dioceses, though some have other names such as eparchies, vicariates, and prefectures. A bishop or archbishop oversees every diocese, and the bishop of the oldest or most important diocese in a nation will often be called the primate of that country. In the last half century, local councils of bishops (some national and some regional) have become important entities within the global organization of the Catholic Church. The Council of Latin American Bishops (known as CELAM), for example, was instrumental in developing many of the basic ideas that later found systematic expression in Catholic liberation theology, and more recently the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) helped prompt new discussions both of poverty and of the relationship between Catholicism and other religions. In recent years, a variety of Catholic organizations called “new ecclesiastical movements” (NEM) have also arisen in the Church. These organizations or movements, often led by laypeople, are typically dedicated to one specific cause. The NEM Focolare, for example, has the goal of fostering human unity; the NEM Sant’Egidio is dedicated to helping the poor.
Figure 2.4 St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
Photo by author.
The Catholic Church is headed by the Pope, who is elected by the College of Cardinals and typically serves for life. The main role of the Pope, as defined by the Catechism, is to serve as “the perpetual and visible source of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.”8 The office of the papacy is also the most important mechanism for preserving and promoting Catholic truth, a role that is often associated with the idea of papal infallibility. The doctrine of papal infallibility does not mean that everything a pope says is binding on all Catholics. What it means is that whenever a pope solemnly declares some particular aspect of Catholic faith or ethics to be a dogmatic teaching of the Church – and this occurs only when the Pope is speaking “ex cathedra” – he is miraculously preserved from error by the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of papal infallibility was formally articulated at the First Vatican Council in 1870. Since that time, it has been invoked only once, in 1950, when the assumption of Mary (her miraculous ascension to heaven) was declared to be an unquestionable article of faith for all Catholics.
Catholic bishops are morally and theologically subject to the authority of the Pope, who appoints them to office, but