Catholicism - Key Teachings

The majority needs 'only' to be 2/3, after as many as 21 ballot cycles if necessary. Only then are the papers burned on their own, without the addition of wet straw, so that the smoke will be unmistakeably white. Since 1009 (more or less exactly halfway back through Church history) all Popes have adopted a new regnal name, rather than the one they were baptised with

A sincere &/or deathbed confession can still bring about reconciliation. It is worth noting that where the sin overlaps with a civil or criminal offence (of a violent &/or sexual nature, say), the Church's primary concern is with the spiritual aspects of what took place: a falling-short from God's nurturing and compassionate standards, etc.

Wow ... there are some seriously contorted and angsty suggestions here. Blaming God for 'scripting us to fail' (Ans.2) is clearly unlikely to be consonant with Catholic faith; simply blaming the Devil (Ans.3) is to shirk our own individual moral responsibility; Ans.4 is rather off-track and again not at all consonant with the Catholic view on evolutionism

Ans.2 was 'getting warm' here, but Ans.3 probably catches the view most clearly. Careful wider reading on this most fundamental question is recommended!

The Catholic view is essentially clear, absolute, unflinching ~ and, as some who do not completely share it might mistakenly consider ~ sometimes a little short on compassion when particular &/or exceptional circumstances arise, e.g. a woman finds herself pregnant as a result of a rape. But rules are rules, and what could be more precious and sacred than a human life with who-knows-what potential? (One of the classic anti-abortion cases is 'the Beethoven argument': if a mother-to-be is already overworked, in fragile health, and the father is a drunkard who only makes an intermittent livelihood as a musician, 'mightn't an abortion at least be an option to consider?' ... Not if you wanted Beethoven's Fifth Symphony etc. in due course ~ without which such works of genius, human culture would undoubtedly have been the poorer! God in His wisdom and bounty may bless us through surprising channels, and it's not our prerogative to cramp Him!)

There were heresies along such lines, but ultimately these arose because the humans involved (though doubtless otherwise sincere enough) could not grasp how an omnipotent God could ~ for His own purposes ~ act in ways we might find paradoxical. Ultimately this is a matter of limited faith. The 'Phlogiston Theory' label, meanwhile, is mis-borrowed from a long-debunked idea in combustion chemistry

... Well, yes; most of us (Catholics heartily included) would probably accept that He was; but God's Fatherhood, through the Immaculate Conception, ought surely to be acknowledged in the same breath?

Surprisingly perhaps, prayer in and of itself is not a sacrament, although it runs through and around and beyond the other listed (and unlisted) sacraments ~ of which there are seven in total. But we doubt any Catholic would deny that God can be approached in and through prayer ... which is 'communicating with God' in pretty well the most direct manner possible

Conversion is the (preferably voluntary) transition of a person into declaring and practising a different religious faith since previously. Someone brought up within another Christian tradition might, for instance, 'convert to Rome' (i.e. become a Catholic); a Catholic would not be able to convert to anything else. St Paul, a respected early missionary, himself underwent a pivotal and spectacular conversion to Christianity, after previously being radically opposed to it through his Jewish beliefs. Plenty of other religions accept and even welcome the idea of conversion (preferably into their own midst) so this is hardly an exclusively Catholic concept. But the others we have listed each are ~ you might like to look them up and clarify what they mean

Catholics do not believe it necessary or desirable to accept this particular prospect