What Catholics Really Believe: Answers to Common Misconceptions About the Faith

A concise and handy guide for clearing up misconceptions about the Catholic Church held by so-called "Bible Christians" and even many misguided Catholics. Not that most Catholic-bashers (there are a few open-minded exceptions out there, of course) will care to be confused with the facts anyway.NOTEWORTHY PASSAGES:--p. 15: "Papal infallibility extends only to matters of faith or morals—not to Church customs, not to sports, not to literature, not to most things of everyday life. And infallibility comes into play only when the pope 'proclaims by a definitive act.' This means a formal, public statement. An offhand comment over lunch doesn’t count."--p. 21: "It isn’t enough to believe the Catholic faith—you also have to live it. In fact, how you live demonstrates what you believe. If you have what is termed 'saving faith,' it will manifest itself in a holy, obedient life. If your faith is nothing more than a list of propositions to which you give mental assent, you have only intellectual faith, the kind James says is insufficient for salvation (Jas 2: 24). Notice that Paul calls real Christian faith 'the obedience of faith' (Rom 1: 5, 16: 26). It’s a faith which manifests itself in proper acts."pp. 21-22: "If you don’t confess serious (mortal) sins, you are not really sorry for them. After all, if you really are sorry for your sins, you will humble yourself by confessing them in the way God has ordained, through sacramental confession (Jn 20: 22-23). If you refuse to confess your serious sins, you have only a pretended sorrow and remain grace-less. Without grace, you can’t go to heaven."--p. 30: "One charge leveled against the Church for years has been that the Church chained the Bible, ostensibly to keep it away from the people. Both Catholics and Protestants are surprised to learn that the Church indeed chained the Bible—but for exactly the opposite reason. In the Middle Ages and into the early years of the printing press, Bibles were scarce and expensive. Each was copied by hand, and many sported illuminated pages. A single Bible could be worth ten thousand dollars in today’s currency. Often a town had a single book, and that book was the Bible. Kept in the parish church, that Bible was made available to lay Catholics by chaining it to the table on which it was placed, just as telephone books today are kept available for the public by chaining them to telephone booths. Does the phone company chain the Yellow Pages so no one can use them? Quite the opposite—so the maximum number of people can have access to them. It was the same with the Bible. In fact, after the English Reformation, the Bible was chained in churches which had not previously displayed copies. So, if Catholic authorities are to be blamed for chaining the Bible, Protestant authorities should be blamed as well. In fact, both should be praised, not blamed."--p. 63: "If we neglect these, we will end up either with an empty conscience, which won’t be able to guide us rightly at all, or a cramped conscience, which sees sin where there is no sin. The former condition is licentiousness, the latter is scrupulosity. The one never seems to see any sin except the grossest; and the other seems to see sin, even in innocent things. Someone who is burdened either by no guilt at all or by much guilt should see a solid priest-confessor. These conditions are signs of spiritual malformation, and they can be corrected."--p. 64: "Christ never engaged in unnecessary acts. He instituted the sacrament of penance or reconciliation, or what we commonly call confession (the terms emphasize different aspects, but refer to the same sacrament). He instituted confession as the ordinary or normative way of having one’s sins forgiven. **This means that it is the standard way**." [emphasis added]--p. 101: "What makes us justified in God’s sight is faith. If we have true faith, good works follow naturally and protect that faith. So, far from teaching a doctrine of 'works righteousness'—that would be Pelagianism, which was condemned at the Council of Carthage in A.D. 418—the Catholic Church teaches the true biblical doctrine of justification. It avoids the two erroneous extremes. **Works alone aren’t enough, and neither is a bare faith in a list of propositions.**" [emphasis added]

I someone wishing to learn more about the Catholic Church I found this book to be an excellent representation of the Catechisms. I think this book would be a must for any "Cradle Catholics" who has forgotten what the Church teaches.As a Protestant on the verge of reconciling my Faith with the Catholic Church I found it an enjoyable read which answered some of the "uhs?" I've had for years.What this book doesn't try to do is to prove those statements. For me that was just fine as I have many other books now which contain that information. This book will definitely help set the record straight, you will just still have questions as too why, especially if you aren't Catholic. But hey, to me that search of why is a wonderful thing that can help all of us learn more about our Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

There are a few errors in the book, but other than that, it gives accurate information about the Catholic faith.Here are the sections from the Table of Contents and my critique of said sections from the book:"19. Lutherans and Anglicans believe in the Real Presence in the same way we Catholics do. They just explain it differently./53"First of all, the book states that both Anglicans and Lutherans believe in consubstantiation, which is not correct. Lutherans hold officially with consubstantiation; however, Anglicans do not hold a definitive definition of what the 'real presence' is, and believe it arrogant to assume that they can understand this holy mystery. Some Anglicans might believe in transubstantiation these days (although officially the Anglican Church declared the belief repugnant some couple of hundred years ago), some something else, but more believe simply that Jesus is there, and trust Him and leave it at that."26. Every Catholic must go to confession at least once a year./66"This section claims that in fact, Catholics only need to go to confession when a mortal sin has been committed, which is erroneous. Catholics are indeed required to go to confession once a year, and I heard this in RCIA by my priest as well as other priests in various states (I've moved around a few times since conversion). Perhaps this needs to be addressed more fully by the Catholic Church?"46. Priestly celibacy is unnatural and unnecessary in the modern world. The pope should just let priests marry./130"In this section, the author makes the claim that the reason that the first priests in the early church were married is that there were not enough single men to be celibate. This is simply not true, as the issue of celibacy for priests did not become an issue until later scandals made it necessary--issues of heredity and nepotism. Also, the author fails to recognize the married priests that already exist in the Latin Rite, those who used to be Anglican priests before conversion. There are a growing number of these priests who enter under a pastoral provision approved by the Pope, who come with a wife and kids. They give up their Anglican orders, then apply to become Catholic priests.Other than these things, the book has a fairly arrogant and argumentative attitude towards those with whom it disagrees. It represents the attitudes of many who are of the Catholic faith, but does not represent the Catholic Catechism and what Catholics SHOULD act and sound like when evangelizing and correcting other Christians. One should speak the truth with gentleness and charity.

Fulton Sheen once wrote, "There are only a handful of Americans who hate the Catholic Church, though there are millions who hate what they think the Church is."All my life I had people telling me all these very strange things, about these very strange people, in this very strange church! The Church was called CATHOLIC!!!! "Watch out!" they said, "they worship Mary!" "Be Careful" they said, "they don't let you read the Bible!" "It is awful!" they said, "they crucify Christ over and over and over again!" They said more than these 52 things that Keating speaks of but guess what I found out? They were wrong. All wrong! My Grandmother, rest her soul, was wrong! My churches were wrong! People I love and who love me were wrong! You will love discovering what this wonderful Church really believes. You may just decide to be CATHOLIC!!!! I did.

This is a must for any Catholic who is unsure about their faith with superb answers to key issues by Karl Keating. He also covers the disputed differences between Catholicism and other more fundamentalist Protestant beliefs. Highly recommend

Grande livro. Claro e bem escrito. Boa didática.A maior parte das informações serão úteis principalmente para jovens católicos ou pessoas com pouco conhecimento sobre a fé católica.O livro é da década de 1990, portanto quando aborda o Rosário não cita os mistérios luminosos que são mais recentes. Nada que desabone a obra.Considerando que vivemos num tempo onde reina a desinformação sobre a fé católica, este livro é útil e também uma fonte segura.

Truth. its not always what you want to hear but its what you need to hear. Get with the program.

This book is a fantastic resource for those interested in joining the Catholic church. Karl Keating hits on all the BIG misconceptions about the faith and addresses them using easy to understand vocabulary. He sets the record straight about doctrines of the Catholic church and leaves no room for speculations. I have used this book as a teaching resource for adult catechism and have recommended it to the 'students' in my class. A great addition to my ever growing shelf of Catholic books and resources.