At what point is a person considered to be married to someone else? What is an overview of scripture based Christian belief statements that have been made on at what point a person would be considered to be married to someone else?

Some applicable and interesting marriages from scripture:

Adam and Eve were "married" yet there were no witnesses, no ceremony, and no other options!
Isaac "married" a girl he just met by taking her into his tent and sleeping with her.
Jacob intended to marry Rachel, but was tricked into marrying Leah. However he was stuck in his marriage with Leah because they had had sex.

Statements should directly or indirectly answer the question "At what point does marriage truly begin?"

Related: Does the act of sex constitute marriage in God's eyes?

The following is my understanding of a consistent Reformed understanding of Christian marriage, though it likely applies to others outside of the Reformed camp.

A marriage is a public, legally binding civil covenant recognized by God that binds together a male and female couple into a family that is consummated by sexual relations. It was created by God to be a model of his ultimate relationship between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5).

This means that there will be some leeway in the precise marriage traditions and ceremony from culture to culture, though there are clearly biblical constraints on marriage and universal moral requirements of marriages that transcend culture. The Bible recognizes marriages between non-Christians as real marriages as a kind of common grace institution. It also recognizes that there are immoral marriages and non-ideal marriages that are possible.

This is why contemporary gay marriage debates should not be argued on the grounds that marriage is a religious institution. Though Christians might have a religious basis for scrupulously avoiding theft, the public, civil recognition of property ownership is not, therefore, a merely religious institution.

For a parallel, consider ordinary contracts and covenants in the Bible. We see all kinds of traditions at play for how people would ratify them: cutting animals (Genesis 15), exchanging sandals (Ruth 4), grabbing the thigh (Genesis 24:9), and so on. Yet they are all doing essentially the same thing but with different symbolism, occasions, and tradition.

Similarly, marriages can be culturally nuanced and yet bindingly so. In a culture where it was normal to deal with a woman's father and then immediately consummate your marriage without ceremony, this was a legitimate and proper way to begin a marriage (Isaac, Jacob, etc.) whereas it wouldn't be in a context where marriages are not ratified this way. For example, for Christian marriages in America, the marriage is traditionally considered "ratified" when the officiating minister declares the couple husband and wife after the exchange of vows. If this couple privately met a week earlier and rationalized having premarital sex on the grounds that they were getting married anyway and biblical couples were "married in the eyes of God" this way, they would be fornicating because in the "eyes of God" they should have officiated their marriage in the way that public covenants are normally ratified.

We could imagine a culture where business contracts were officiated by exchanging sandals. If you helped yourself to your side of the deal without following this sandal ritual this would be stealing in the eyes of God, not because sandals are necessary to prevent stealing but because contractual commitments matter to God.

This understanding should reconcile all of the Biblical examples of marriage while also addressing contemporary traditions. Marriage covenants needed to be "official," however the society generally officiates such matters.

For the issue @davidlol raised in a comment:

  John 4 18 in which Jesus told the Samaritan lady at Jacob's well that
  she had had five husbands but the man she now had was not her husband
  may be relevant here, although I don't know how. What did Jesus mean
  that he wasn't her husband?

This is now easily answered. She was living with a man for whom she had not followed the appropriate culturally recognized method for officiating a marriage.


Why didn't God send Jesus during Noah's time instead of The Flood? For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
  whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
  life. - John 3:16

John 3:16 tells us that God loved us, so He sent Jesus to save us.

So why didn't He do this during Noah's time?

It's rather ironic — the thrust of your question is "Why did God wait so long?" Andrew Lloyd Webber asks the exact opposite question — "Why come so early?"  As Judas sings in the finale:

  Every time I look at you
  I don't understand
  Why you let the things you did
  Get so out of hand
  You'd have managed better
  If you'd had it planned
  Now why'd you choose such a backward time
  And such a strange land?
  If you'd come today
  You could have reached the whole nation
  Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication

The truth, however, is that God in his timing knew exactly when to come.  As Paul says in Romans 5:6

  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

That phrase "at the right time" is a single Greek word, kairos — which is an opportune moment, the perfect time for a thing.  Paul says much the same thing in Galatians 4:

  3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces[a] of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

Why was the early 30s the perfect moment? Why was the fullness of time not earlier? Only God knows. We can speculate, but the truth is, only God knows.

One thing we do know is that God did not desire multiple sacrifices. Rather, he wanted one "for all time," as Hebrews states in chapter 10:

  And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

Given how controversial literal interpretations of anything prior the written record, it is not overly surprising to me that God would wish to wait, for our benefit, to come to a time when written records would be preserved. (Heck, theologians even discounted the existence of a real King David until just recently when, surprise, written evidence found.)

Had Jesus come in antediluvian times, Jesus would have been hopelessly mythological.  (Again, even with as much historical record as does exist — Tacitus, Josephus, etc. — many still regard Jesus as myth!)

And, absent the flood that did come, it is also equally likely that, frankly, God would look like too much of a softy.  I mean, think about it — in Genesis, God is forever trying not to blow people away.  He withholds the death that Adam & Eve deserve.  He withholds the death that Cain deserves. And after the Flood at Babel, God disperses the people by the least intrusive means possible — confusing their language.

You can argue that God is not just (although I'd argue back with this question). You can argue God is too lenient.  But the truth is, God has exactly the timing that he desires.


Where did the Catholic Church condemn naming guardian angels I was listening to episode 24 of the Catholic Man Show and they said (without citation) that the Catholic Church has condemned naming guardian angels.  The reason they gave was because God gave man the authority over created things on Earth (Through Adam in Genesis).  So what basis and where did the Catholic Church make this pronouncement.  And should we burn our children's videos with a contrary teaching?  (i.e. CCC Video - My Secret Friend, A Guardian Angel)

Where does the Catholic Church condemn naming guardian angels?

You can find your answer from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the sacraments Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES:

  Popular devotion to the Holy Angels, which is legitimate and good, can, however, also give rise to possible deviations:

  when, as sometimes can happen, the faithful are taken by the idea that the world is subject to demiurgical struggles, or an incessant battle between good and evil spirits, or Angels and daemons, in which man is left at the mercy of superior forces and over which he is helpless; such cosmologies bear little relation to the true Gospel vision of the struggle to overcome the Devil, which requires moral commitment, a fundamental option for the Gospel, humility and prayer;
  when the daily events of life, which have nothing or little to do with our progressive maturing on the journey towards Christ are read schematically or simplistically, indeed childishly, so as to ascribe all setbacks to the Devil and all success to the Guardian Angels. The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.

Although this practice is discouraged, some of the faithful do in fact give a name to their Guardian Angels.


What constitutes a "serious" crime for the purpose of LDS baptism preparation? According to Preach My Gospel, the official LDS (Mormon) missionary guide, missionaries are supposed to ask potential converts

Have you ever committed a serious crime? If so, are you now on probation or parole? Have you ever participated in an abortion? a homosexual relationship?

The book later explains:

Question 4 in the baptismal interview asks if a person has been involved in a serious sin, such as an abortion, a homosexual relationship, or a serious crime. What should I do if someone confesses such a sin?
...Do not schedule a baptismal date or make any promises about whether they will be cleared for baptism and confirmation. Express your love and review the principle of repentance. Kindly explain that these sins are serious and that a person with more maturity and experience (your mission president or someone he assigns) will talk with them and help them with these matters. Then send a baptismal interview request directly to the mission president.

From context, the items other than crimes that are listed in the same passages are all related to reproductive or sexual issues, so one could infer from context that "serious crime" only refers to sexual offenses or crimes against children, but I'm not sure that that is how it is actually supposed to be interpreted.
According to LDS teaching or practice, what crimes are "serious" enough to require escalation of a baptismal interview to the mission president? I'm guessing that neither jaywalking nor second degree mopery with intent to deface a postage stamp would count as "serious", but how serious would a crime need to be before this clause would apply? Gambling violations? Using a product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling? Possession of a firearm without a license, but without intent to harm anyone? DUI first offense? DUI second offense? DUI fiftieth offense? Operating a Ponzi scheme? Voluntary manslaughter? Murder only? Is this based on a holistic judgment call made by the missionary, or are there strict interpretive guidelines defined somewhere? For example:

Only felonies "count", misdemeanors are not serious enough to warrant escalation to the mission president.
Only crimes that would "shock the conscience" of an average Mormon count. If an average Mormon would react to the revelation of a crime in a convert's past with "whatever, meh, yeah I did that a few times too", then it doesn't count and the baptism can proceed without the involvement of the mission president.
Only crimes that would "shock the conscience" of an average local citizen (whether Mormon or not) count.
Only crimes that create a victim count, "victimless" crimes like possession of drugs or unlawful weapons don't count.
Only crimes that would constitute a per se violation of the Ten Commandments count (borrowed from a possibly somewhat similar if you squint concept in Roman Catholicism).
The LDS church has a schedule of "harm thresholds" for various statutory offenses above which an offender's participation counts as "serious", for example committing tax evasion in an amount over $10,000, possessing more than 100 grams of cocaine, defacing more than 10 postage stamps in a 48 hour period, or possessing more than 2 unregistered machine guns, counts as serious enough to require the mission president to become involved.

The Holy Ghost will give direction

It's hard to prove a negative, but the reference books for missionaries are preach my gospel and the missionary handbook, neither of which seem to define the term. Therefore, in an edge case, the missionaries probably would not know what to do. By default, they would therefore pray about it (most likely in their hearts if they do not have the opportunity to go to their knees). The Holy Ghost can then reveal what to do. In many cases, it might be to simply ask the mission president what to do.

See the section "Relying on the Spirit" (in Chapter 4)

  As the Lord’s servant, you are to do His work in His way and by His
  power. Some missionaries feel confident that they know how to be
  successful. Others lack such confidence. Remember, however, that your
  confidence and faith should be in Christ, not in yourself. Rely on the
  Spirit rather than your own talents and abilities. Trust the Spirit to
  guide you in every aspect of your work. (emphasis added)

Of course, direct revelation from the Holy Ghost is not the only way He speaks to us, but given the lack of specific direction, it seems the most likely way to obtain an answer in this case.

As for what criteria the mission president would use if you ask him, I'm not sure, but I would assume that he relies mostly on personal revelation for these issues as well.

Note: I was a lds missionary. Although I never had to deal with this issue in particular, I can testify that personal revelation from the Holy Ghost is a huge part of missionary work.


How will Jesus be recognized at the time of "Second Coming"? All major Christian denominations await the "Second Coming" or the "Return" of Jesus the Christ. How will he be recognized by Christians at that time? What are the criteria to be fulfilled? Surely, not just any claimant can be believed to be Jesus.

Scripturally speaking, Jesus isn't going to return quietly.  Several passages refer to what is going to happen when he returns.

1 Thessalonians 4:15-17:

  For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are
  alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede
  those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from
  heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with
  the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise
  first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together
  with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will
  always be with the Lord.

Matthew 16:17 echoes this (emphasis mine):

  For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of
  his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he
  has done.

1 Thessalonians 1:7-8 also speaks of what will happen when Christ returns:

  ...when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in
  flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on
  those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Also, Matthew 24:31:

  And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they
  will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
  the other.

In 1 Corinthians 15:52, when Christ returns, the dead will be raised:

  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the
  trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we
  shall be changed.

I don't believe it'll be a matter of us believing it's him or not.  In other words, when Christ returns, I think it'll be one of those things where, for the lack of a better phrase, "you'll just know."  His return will be accompanied by angels, dead people coming to life, the sound of a loud trumpet, and he will be coming in on the clouds in glorified form.

In other words, Christ's return will be a big deal.  You won't have to wonder.

Addendum

I had a couple of questions in the comments.  The first one was concerning whether Christ's second return was going to be a secret event as it is portrayed in the movies.  I'm assuming this is referring to, mainly, the popular Left Behind series.  The Left Behind series portrays the end times from a dispensationalist, pre-trib rapture, millennial perspective.  My understanding of the end times is amillennial.  Therefore, I do not believe in a "rapture" that will take the Christians off of the earth, leaving the non-Christians on the earth for seven years to sort it all out.  Though I was raised in that tradition, I found it to be overly complicated, and too recent of a development (John Darby, 1800s) for comfort.

The amillennialist viewpoint would make for a terrible movie.  In a nutshell, it can be summed up by the following: One day, Jesus is going to come back, punish those who rejected him, reward those who are his, and establish his kingdom.  The viewpoint also approaches revelation from a completely different perspective, which, unfortunately, typically requires a significant amount of deprogramming from the dispensational millennial viewpoint, if the student is coming from that perspective, and that level of detail would be outside the scope of this answer.  I'd recommend More Than Conquerors by William Hendrickson.  For an excellent audio resource, I'd recommend Randy Pope's "The Rest of the Story" series, available on podcast.

As for why we should look for the man with the sword, Revelation 19:11-16 details a glorified view of Jesus with a sword coming out of his mouth.  Whether that is literal or not, we can't be sure, but what we can be sure of, is that when Christ comes, he will look like no man we've ever seen, and it will drive everyone to their knees, some in terror because they've rejected Christ, and some in joy because they know they are his.

  Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting
  on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and
  makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many
  diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He
  is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is
  called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine
  linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his
  mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and
  he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of
  the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his
  thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.


What is the connection between Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Lent, etc? Coming from a Protestant tradition, I grew up hearing about Lent but never having any practice associated with it.  In the years since, I've gathered that there's some sort of connection between Easter, Lent, Ash Wednesday, and Fat Tuesday.

Would someone please explain how it all fits together?

Lent
Lent is a period of penance in preparation for Triduum (Maundy Thurs. through Easter Sun).  The faithful are encouraged to increase their works of mercy and decrease their self-indulgence. It begins on Ash Wednesday, which is 40 days (minus Sundays) before the Triduum.
Ash Wednesday
So called because it invokes the ancient practice of covering oneself in ashes when in morning. Often it is accompanied by, "Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return." As a side note: the ashes are generally from (at least in part), the palms of the previous Palm Sunday.
Shrove Tuesday
Well, "Mardi gras" means "Fat Tuesday" in French, so there's that.
Fats and fatty foods are often given up for Lent (at one point abstaining from all meat was a requirement), but fat will go rancid if it is left out for all of Lent. So, instead of letting it go to waste, it would be used for cooking. Often this would mean that there would be a rich supper immediately before Ash Wednesday.
It is called, "Carnevale" because that, originally, was "Carne vale," which means, roughly, "without meat." I believe the relationship with "Fat Tuesday" would be obvious (for more ways of saying the same thing, look up Shrove Tuesday).
Unfortunately, with the rise of secularism, this tradition became bloated and corrupt, and eventually lead to the depravities which can be seen in New Orleans.
Easter
We all know what Easter is... I hope. It is the Teutonic name for an ancient pagan festival, brought to mean the celebration of the resurrection of Christ, apparently because the German speakers were too lazy to use the word pasch, which is what it is called in basically every other language on earth.


Why are the books of the Protestant Bible in the order that they are in? I am curious why the books of the Protestant Bible are in the order that they are in?

Someone told me they thought the books were in some sort of chronological order - is that true?  (I know the content isn't chronological, but are they in the order written or something like that?)

Note that this answer refers to the Protestant Bible.  The Catholic Bible, and the Eastern Orthodox Bibles largely follow this pattern, but contain different books.  More on the differences  can be found here.  The differences are also noted below.

First, understand that the Bible is not a single book  It's a collection of 66 books, written at different time periods, by different authors (but all through the Divine Inspiration God, a phrase which has a deeper meaning, and wider implication for the Bible's trustworthiness than inspiration as you'd usually think of it.)

It is also not written in a chronological order.  It is divided primarily in a topical manner.

The Bible is first divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament consists of the books that are included in the Jewish Scriptures, but the organization is different.  For more info on the Jewish Scriptures, you'd be better off checking out the Judaism Stack Exchange site.  I include this bit of information here because the roots of Judaism and those of Christianity are the same.  It is at the boundary of the beginning of the New Testament, with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that Christianity sprang out of Judaism. The Old Testament ends with the Jews awaiting the Messiah.  The New Testament writings begin with the accounts of that Messiah - Jesus Christ.

Within the Old Testament the books are grouped into:

The Books of the Law, aka the Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch.

This consists of the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  Collectively, this is called the Torah. These lay the foundations of the faith, introducing God as Creator, the establishment of his promise with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose line eventually becomes the Jewish people.  We learn of the captivity in Egypt, the exodus, exile in the wilderness, and the giving of God's law to His chosen people.

For Jews, this represents the covenant and are the most important books period.  The Sadducees believed no other part of the Bible to be inspired. These books are chronological in their subject matter, with Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers being primarily story.  Leviticus represents the first iteration of the covenant, given at Sinai, in the events that occurred in the Exodus. Numbers recounts what occurs after Exodus, and Deuteronomy (literally 'Second Law') being the re-iteration of the covenant after the wandering of Israel. The names of the books are the first significant words in each book.
Next, come the Historical books, which cover the history of the Jewish people, including the establishment of their kingdom, and various (somewhat frustrating) cycles of turning away from God, punishment for their transgressions, repentance on the part of the people, and healing by God, only to have the people turn from Him and start the cycle anew.  This includes Joshua through Esther.

The Catholic Bible also includes 1 and 2 Maccabees. The Orthodox Bible includes, 1, 2, 3, and 4 Maccabees, as well as 1 Esdras.  Protestants consider these non-canonical, and if they are included at all, they will usually be in a separate section called "Apocrypha".

The events in these books are chronological as well, with the exception that the events of 1 & 2 Kings (also called 3rd and 4th Samuel in older traditions) are repeated in 1 & 2 Chronicles. The difference between Kings & Chronicles is that Kings focuses on the Kings, and Chronicles on the Temple.

Interestingly, in the Hebrew Bible, the "Ketu'vim" is placed after the Prophets (the Nevi'im) and thus the Hebrew Bible ends with the Temple in 2 Chronicles.
Next are the books of writings, sometimes called Poetic Writings or Books of Wisdom.  This includes Job,Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.

Again, the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include extra books here: Wisdom and Sirach

These books are in no particular order - indeed both Psalms and Proverbs are merely collections and are not even chronological within themselves.
The remainder of the Old Testament is made up of prophetic books, broken up into the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel) and the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).

The Major prophets are roughly in chronological order, although there is an argument about Isaiah actually being two books.

The Minor prophets collectively are smaller than Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, and were often bound together in a single scroll. These books are specifically not in any chronological order, but rather are ordered the way they are based on the ending words of one book leading into the start of the next.

Within the New Testament, the books are grouped as follows:

The Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) which tell of Christ's birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection from four different perspective.

Historically, it was believed that Matthew was the first to be written, followed by Mark, then Luke, the John. Modern scholars now often believe in what is called Marcan priority, meaning that Mark predates Matthew - both consensus solidly places John to be the last Gospel to be written.  The events of the 4 Gospels are all roughly contemporaneous.

Next comes the Book of Acts (or Acts of the Apostles), which begin with a resurrected Christ, and give an overview of the birth of the Christian Church.  The various missionary trips, and some basic doctrines are established in the telling of these lives.

There is very little doubt that Acts is a sequel to Luke, written by the same author, but about the events that occurred after the Gospels.
Next come the Epistles.  These are letters that were written to specific Churches by various authors.  There are Specific Epistles, and Generic Epistles.

First come the Specific Epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews.  Each serves as a message to speak to an individual group of people in that exact place and time, but also apply to every people since then, including today.  The Epistles are named after the group of people they were written to.

With the exception of Hebrews, these are all written by Paul (the Church erroneously attributed Hebrews to Paul) or a person claiming to be Paul.  These books are ordered by length, and length alone.
Following these come the General Epistles: James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude

Within each author, these are also ordered by length.  2 Peter and Jude are so similar that they are often treated as the same book.
Finally, the Book of the Revelation is the main prophetic work in the New Testament (although many of the other books contain prophecy as well.)  It is largely symbolic in nature, and interpretations vary, but it speaks to the end times, and the establishment of Christ's final rule, and the creation of a new Heaven and a new Earth.


Do I need to be rebaptized to take communion in a Catholic Church if I have no proof of my original baptism? I was born in a predominantly Catholic country in Latin America and baptized a Roman Catholic, but I have no physical confirmation of my baptism outside of my recollection of my Catholic upbringing (since I was too young to remember the baptism itself). Having not attended Catholic church since leaving home about twenty years ago, will I need to be baptized again or go through the OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults)?

I attended Anglican church services in the UK and various other church services in other countries, but I have never taken communion at another church. I'm looking to attend a Catholic Church in the states now, but I feel I should ensure that I have all the necessary documentation first.

Explain your situation to your priest, they may be able to get your baptismal record from your original home parish or just excercise his prudential judgement and allow you to receive communion.

This is pastoral advice, which isn't the norm for this site, but it may be good to confess attending worship services with other Christians, you'll usually see that mentioned in guides to examinations of conscience (don't want to offend my Protestant friends here, but it is an occasion of sin for Catholics to participate in your services).

Beyond that, there is no such thing as re-baptism (even for those validly ordained in other Christian sects )

  1246 "Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is able to be baptized." CCC 1246

So, that bit of doctrine probably justifies this question.  If you know you were Baptized the Church's ministers will probably give you the benefit of the doubt.


Why do the Evangelists Matthew, Mark and John not give narrative account of the Ascension? Luke is the only Evangelist who gives a narrative account of the Ascension of Christ  at 24:50-53  (NRSVCE)

"' Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.  And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.''

The Ascension is a key element of our faith, in that it finds a place in the Creed. That said, it is intriguing to note that Matthew, Mark and John do not give a narrative account of Ascension. My question therefore is: What is the explanation offered by Catholic Church for the  absence of narrative account of the Ascension of the Lord  in the Gospels according to the  Evangelists other than Luke ?

Why do Matthew, Mark and John not give narrative account of the Ascension?

The challenge question of the day! The Catholic Encyclopedia states that St. Luke is not the only Evangelist to speak about the Ascension of Our Lord. There is no need for all the Evangelists to make an account on the Ascension of Jesus into heaven when, for the faithful, it is an accepted truth.

St. Luke, it may be noted did not witness the Ascension and thus he certainly thought it was quite important to mention in his Gospel.

  The elevation of Christ into heaven by His own power in presence of His disciples the fortieth day after His Resurrection. It is narrated in Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

  Although the place of the Ascension is not distinctly stated, it would appear from the Acts that it was Mount Olivet. Since after the Ascension the disciples are described as returning to Jerusalem from the mount that is called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, within a Sabbath day's journey. Tradition has consecrated this site as the Mount of Ascension and Christian piety has memorialized the event by erecting over the site a basilica. St. Helena built the first memorial, which was destroyed by the Persians in 614, rebuilt in the eighth century, to be destroyed again, but rebuilt a second time by the crusaders. This the Moslems also destroyed, leaving only the octagonal structure which encloses the stone said to bear the imprint of the feet of Christ, that is now used as an oratory.

  Not only is the fact of the Ascension related in the passages of Scripture cited above, but it is also elsewhere predicted and spoken of as an established fact. Thus, in John 6:63, Christ asks the Jews: "If then you shall see the son of Man ascend up where He was before?" and 20:17, He says to Mary Magdalen: "Do not touch Me, for I am not yet ascended to My Father, but go to My brethren, and say to them: I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God." Again, in Ephesians 4:8-10, and in Timothy 3:16, the Ascension of Christ is spoken of as an accepted fact.

  The language used by the Evangelists to describe the Ascension must be interpreted according to usage. To say that He was taken up or that He ascended, does not necessarily imply that they locate heaven directly above the earth; no more than the words "sitteth on the right hand of God" mean that this is His actual posture. In disappearing from their view "He was raised up and a cloud received Him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9), and entering into glory He dwells with the Father in the honour and power denoted by the scripture phrase.

For any more reasoning on this from a Catholic perspective, we will have to wait and ask the Evangelists when we see them in heaven! Anything else is simply an opinion, even from a Catholic point of view.


How does Christianity work with all the biblical covenants? One major theme of the Bible is the number of covenants between God and humanity. How do Christians manage to work them out? Are the covenants prioritized from highest priority to lowest priority, or are they all of equal weight or importance? For Christians who may hold a dual-covenant theology, how does that work out? Do they really submit themselves to the Torah?

Answering from the Reformed perspective:

There are essentially two covenants. The first covenant was with Adam, and is called the covenant of works. Adam was bound to obey the command not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If he obeyed, he would live. If he disobeyed, he would die. Adam disobeyed, and his sin, because of Adam's representative nature (see Romans 5), is passed on to all people by ordinary generation (that is, everyone but Jesus Christ).

The second covenant is the covenant of grace. Most of the Bible is spent in tracing out this second covenant. Most of the OT covenants (except that of works) are in this line. They just keep getting bigger and bigger in scope. So you have:

Adamic Covenant (second one): Individual
Noahic Covenant: Individual + family
Abrahamic Covenant: Individual + family + descendants
Mosaic Covenant: Nation
Davidic Covenant: Kingdom

Finally, you get to the New Covenant in the grace line, which is so powerful it's retroactive.

So what to do with all these covenants? Well, first of all, I would point out that if anyone could perfectly keep the terms of the covenant of works, that person would be saved. Big if. The fact is, Adam's sinful nature is passed on to us, which rules this possibility out from the get-go. How many sins does a person have to commit in order to go to hell? Zero, because of the sinful nature.

So if we can't get to heaven with the covenant of works, that leaves the covenant of grace. Now, the New Covenant that Jesus instituted rather supercedes the previous ones, and indeed is the covenant to which all the other OT covenants in the grace line were pointing. It fulfills them. Therefore, because Christ is the perfect sacrifice, it would actually detract from His sacrifice to continue offering up the OT sacrifices.

The definitive work on the subject, so I'm told (I haven't read it, but I've heard it's good), is The Christ of the Covenants, by O. Palmer Robertson.


How does a literal teaching of the Great Flood explain the spread of ethnicities? There are many issues raised if one follows a literal teaching regarding the Great Flood in Genesis but here I'm asking specifically about different people-groups.
We're told that the whole world was covered and only humans on the ark survived. These were presumably all middle-eastern people. So put bluntly, where did all the black people and oriental people, not to mention indigenous peoples like Australian Aboriginals, come from?
Is there an accepted or common explanation to this question? Literal teaching of the Flood is quite widespread even in demographics with a high level of education which implies there is an answer people find plausible to reconcile with the spread of different ethnicities.

To account for ethnic diversity on the planet, people who hold to a 'literal' view of The Flood and also ascribe to a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) view (Earth is several thousand years old) have to move the creation of the diverse genotypes which underlies the diverse phenotypes that make up contemporary humanity into a very compressed period.
This site, which has a YEC point of view, claims "The Biblical data places the Flood at 2304 BC ± 11 years." That would be 2304 + 2021 = 4324 years ago for the genotypic diversity to occur.
Yet, it would have had to happen even quicker than that, as we know there was significant genotypic diversity well before the present day, due to various historical accounts. So we're probably talking at most a couple thousand years to create at least a significant part of the genotypic diversity we see in the world.
At 20 years per generation, that only allows 100 generations for specific genotypes to emerge from the genetic bottle-neck of the Flood. (Note that it is not clear how long various generations would be, given the age of humans is longer at the time of Noah per the Bible, and so there might be significantly fewer generations than this.)
This answer is perhaps the typical answer to the question: "The physical characteristics of various ethnic groups developed in these isolated groups due to the sorting and isolation of genetic information already present in man’s DNA. The information in that DNA had originally been present in Adam’s DNA and has just been shuffled and sorted. Therefore, the development of so-called races has nothing to do with molecules-to-man evolution. All people groups are still humans, descended from one original human."
In other words, the development of ethnic differences would be similar to the process used in the development of dog breeds, where the emphasis isn't on novel genetic mutations (say) but selective breeding based on an existing genetic repertoire. Of course, humans exert extremely strong selective pressures to create new dog breeds, and it's not clear how analogous natural selective pressures would be in this regard.


How did the author of Jonah know about this conversation? In Jonah 4:9 we read a dialog between God and Jonah:

  But God said to Jonah, Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?
  I do, he said. I am angry enough to die. But the LORD said, You have
  been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it
  grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more
  than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right
  hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be
  concerned about that great city?

How did the author of this passage know the exact conversation?

I don't mean to be snarky, but you could ask the same question of how anybody recorded the dialog of George Washington. During the Whiskey Rebellion, when he put on his spectacles, and simply told his men that he had grown old in the service of his country, people remembered it.

Likewise, there are five versions of the Gettysburg address, depending on which transcription of Abraham Lincoln's own writing you use. Of those five versions, there are a few prepositional phrases that are modified, but to call them anything other than the same speech would be to stretch the grounds of credulity. Still, the variation is sufficiently minor to where you'd have to be really, really picky to ask, "How can we be sure of what Lincoln really said.

Before modern recording devices, there was no expectation that these direct quotations would have been the same as a court reporter. People would simply do their best to record, as closely as possible what they heard. To be honest to the text is to say that people pretty well agreed what was said, consistent with a pre-technological understanding of what a quote meant.

Sorry, now I get the point of the question - how does a narrator know exactly what God said to Jonah. Ultimately, there are several valid hypotheses, depending on your understanding of the work

Especially considering how abruptly Jonah ends*, we have no extant information. That said, there is nothing that would preclude the answer from being something as simple as "Jonah saw he was wrong, repented again, and told people how God changed his mind."

Somehow, the narrator would have had to know the events of the story. No eyewitness was with Jonah in Israel, on the boat to Tarsus, and in Nineveh, other than Jonah himself.  As a preaching prophet, it is not unreasonable to assume that Jonah could have given a testimony to an emaneusis who would then have recorded it.

*Commentators have often noted that Jonah ends before we even know if Jonah himself repented.  The Veggie Tales movie really does get it right - Jonah doesn't have an ending!  So, they call out the point - that God is the god of second chances, and that it is up to the reader to decide.
Alternatively, one could call it historical fiction, in which the author, knowing the events of the story, could interpolate the lesson God was giving through Jonah.

This being a book of prophecy, it may not be intended to be taken as history. The Jews did not place the Prophets with the historical accounts. They placed the Nevi'im (the Prophets) after the Ketu'vim (the Writings). Prophets never claim to be historians - they claim to speak the truth that God gave them.

Pastors are exercising the role of prophet, not when they claim to know what is occurring in the future, but rather when they make clear God's understanding of the present. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, is rightly called a Prophet of the Civil Rights movement, and famously drew from Amos - another of the prophets - when saying that justice will rain down like mighty waters.

In the same that [martin Luther King] "had a dream," so too this may have been Jonah's perception. I would ask, for example, whether the detail of MLK actually being asleep and having subconscious thoughts of children of all races playing together on Stone Mountain is as important as the vision that this gives us all. How, after all, did MLK record that "dream?" I odoubt that it arrived completely unformed and then entered his speech improvisationally. So too, it may have been, whether Jonah directly wrote what he learned or another prophet extrapolated the message from the events of his life.

When a prophet uses an illustration, he has a different purpose than an historian.  An illustration should not be demonstrably false, but if details are glossed over (such as whether this was an actual, audible voice or just an epiphany had) that are irrelevant, than it is held to that standard.

When Medger Evers is hailed as a martyr for the cause of Civil Rights, that is a fully valid illustration, even if he was more likely just an unfortunate victim.  The truth is that his death bore witness (marturion!) regardless of whether or not he held discourse with his assailants as docu-dramas have been known to include.

Note also, even if Medger Evers' exploits took on an air of outsized glory, it does not detract at all from the historicity of what he did.

Just as a pastor might create a dialogue within an illustration to set up the historical point, so too the author of Jonah was interested in the theological point, and could thus back into the dialogue that God had with Jonah.  The creeping vine, in particular, was a Persian motif, and would thus have been accessible to the hearer.

tl;dr:  You don't have to take a position on the historicity of the events to get the idea that God's truth is being conveyed in the whole story.


How does the Catholic Church interpret Galatians 2:7? From my understanding, the Catholic belief of ordained church leadership comes from the interpretation of Jesus' words to Peter:

  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. - Matthew 16:18 ESV

And also:

  15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."
  16 He said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep."
  17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. - John 21:15-17 ESV

In light of that, how does the Catholic Church interpret Paul's division of gospel responsibility as summarized in Galatians 2:7, and as carried out in the other letters to the churches, as the Roman Catholic Church is a gentile church?

  6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)-those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.
  7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised
  8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles),
  9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
  10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. - Galatians 2:6-10 ESV

From the Catholic Haydock Commentary:

  Ver. 7. As to Peter was that of the circumcision. Calvin pretends to prove by this, that St. Peter and his successors are not head of the whole Church, because St. Peter was only the apostle of the Jews. But St. Paul speaks not here of the power and jurisdiction, but of the manner that St. Peter and he were to be employed. It was judged proper that St. Peter should preach chiefly to the Jews, who had been the elect people of God, and that St. Paul should be sent to the Gentiles; yet both of them preached both to Jews and Gentiles: and St. Peter, by receiving Cornelius, first opened the gate of salvation to the Gentiles, as he says of himself, (Acts xv. 7.) that God made choice of him, that the Gentiles by his mouth should hear the gospel, and believe. That St. Peter was head of the Church, see the notes on Matthew xvi. and John xxi. (Witham)

See also St. Thomas Aquinas's commentary on this verse.


Is there consensus on the age of human civilization? I think the interpretation of Genesis-1 concerning the age of the earth and universe is still open, but is there consensus on the age of human civilization or on the date of first man Adam? Can I say both literal interpretation and human history all agree that the age of human being is around 4000~10000 years?

It'd depend on how you go about defining civilization.  The Lascaux cave paintings are dated by archeologists to 17000 years ago.  Farming communities, along with animal domestication and pottery started roughly 10000-12000 years ago at the beginning of the paleolithic.  Actual written language started possibly as early as 5000 years ago.

Edit: So to clarify... the definition of civilization is ambiguous.  A Biblicist creationary view and a secular archeologist could probably agree on the date of written language.  They would very likely disagree on the date range of the first farming communities, they most certainly would disagree on the date range of the cave paintings.

The "age of human being" taken to be the accepted date of the first homo sapiens sapiens would be well beyond any kind of reconciliation between the two viewpoints (on the order of a couple hundred thousand years).


Are the words that Jesus spoke the Logos? Is there anything amiss with the following argument?

Jesus is the Word of God (Jesus is the Logos)
Jesus spoke words
Jesus is God
The words that Jesus spoke are the words of God
The words of Jesus are the Logos

In particular, if a person were to insist that "Word" is used in the same way that it is used in "I will send word to you", is it possible to decisively correct this person using only scripture? If not, then does scripture suggest that the words of Jesus really are the Logos?

Yes, there is something amiss. The Word of God (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ) who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14) is enhypostatic, that is, He possesses a hypostasis and personality. However, the words of God which the Word of God spoke are anhypostatic, just like the words you and I speak. The apostles worshipped Jesus, the enhypostatic word of God, but they did not worship the anhypostatic words which he spoke.


Is the English translation of "Book of Mormon" ever revised or updated, and if so, on what basis given that the golden plates have disappeared? The English used in the initial translation of the book of Mormon is KJV-esque English. I'm wondering if there have ever been new English translations as time goes by, and as the English language has developed?

If so, what are these translations based off, considering we no longer have access to the golden plates? Would it just paraphrase the original translation, but in modern English?

No, the Book of Mormon has never been revised into a more modern English dialect.

There have been various updates to the printing of the Book of Mormon over time to correct errors in the typesetting of earlier editions.  The first edition was set and printed in haste, from a manuscript handwritten by Oliver Cowdery under Joseph Smith's dictation.  Cowdery didn't have the clearest of handwriting, leading to the first edition containing thousands of typos, some of them truly bizarre such as rendering "robber" as "nobler", others more understandable, like changing "formation" to "foundation".

Also, the original printing came in 1829, before English spelling had become standardized.  (Noah Webster published his first American English dictionary in 1828, and at the time it was only one of many available, each using wildly varying spellings for many common words.)  Because of these various factors, there have been several times in which new printings of the Book of Mormon have been updated for correctness.  However, the basic narrative, the doctrines taught therein, and the Biblical feel of the language used, have always remained consistent with the original English translation.

Source: Understanding Textual Changes in the Book of Mormon


Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? “And on the morrow, when they had come out of Bethany, he [Jesus]
  hungered. And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if
  perhaps he might find anything thereon: and when he came to it, he
  found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season of figs. And he
  answered and said unto it, ‘No man [will] eat fruit from you from now
  on — for ever.’ And his disciples heard it. Mark 11:12-14

Several pastors interpret this event mentioned in Mark 11:12-14, as God will abolish those who do not yield like this fig tree. However, on the way back when the disciples saw the fig tree   withered away from the roots, Jesus uses this incident to explain faith.

Why did Jesus cursed the tree, when it was not the time or season to bear fruits?

  22 “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “Truly[f] I tell you, if
  anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and
  does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will
  happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever
  you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will
  be yours.

If Jesus used this incident to explain faith why do preachers use this incident to explain it as a warning to the sinners who didn't turn back to our Lord like this unyielding fig tree?

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 34  Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. 35  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Matthew 23:32-35)

The miracle of the cursing of the fig tree has a literary form called an inclusio, or what many seminary students have come to affectionately know as "the sandwich."  The idea is that two stories (Story A and Story B) are related, and the way the hearer is cued to know that fact is the arrangement.  In an inclusio, Story A is started, but not finished. Story B then comes in the middle. Finally, there is a return to Story A. The point of the inclusio is always story B, where Story A is usually the frame.

In the Synoptics, the story of the fig tree has as its inclusio Jesus clearing the Temple.

The Fig Tree is a metaphor for a vibrant, living thing that is supposed to be giving life. Like the tree in Psalm 1, the man who does not walk in the way of the wicked is:

  ...like a tree planted by streams of water,
     which yields its fruit in season
  and whose leaf does not wither—
     whatever they do prospers.

Unlike a tree, however, a man's 'season' is his lifetime. And, the Temple (having been recently reconstructed) should also be in its season at all time.

The fact that Jesus finds a barren tree is disconcerting, especially since he, the Messiah has come. Like his parable of the bridesmaids (where 5 foolish women burn all their oil but 5 wise ones save it), Jesus expects his people his people to be ready.  (Indeed, there are several parables that teach this very point). Upon finding his Temple in disarray, Jesus is visibly disappointed that the fruits of Temple worshippers are noticeably absent. Like the Tree, the Temple worshippers may not have thought they needed to be in season, but they are wrong.

As Paul later would admonish Timothy, Jesus' followers must be "be ready in season, out of season."

In order to be ready like that, however, one must have complete faith that the Lord is coming. As Jesus says

  if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

The sin of those in the Temple was simply that they were not ready. Those in the Temple should have been bearing fruit, not selling it. Though their own scriptures had been saying that the Messiah would be returning for centuries, when it actually happened, people were clearly not ready.  Even the Temple had no special sway - people treated it like a shopping mall rather than the house of God. People were not "bearing fruit in keeping with repentence."

It was as Peter would say:

  The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

As people awaiting the return of the Lord again, the lesson we are to take is that we should be producing fruit at all time. If our hope is to wait to be fruitful until the 11th hour, we better pray Jesus doesn't come at 10:30.


What is Roman Catholic Church's official view on the nature of Christ? One question that has haunted the Catholic Church from the very beginning is about the way divine and human are related in the person of Jesus Christ. The differences in doctrines have lead to the creation of Assyrian Church of the East and Oriental Orthodox Church. The Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 has accepted Dyophysitism as the accepted Catholic doctrine. But is this the final stand made by the Catholic Church? Or did any post Chalcedonian councils further clarified this matter? This being such a sensitive topic could any one please explain the official Catholic position on the nature of Christ?

Yes, there were subsequent ecumenical councils that dealt with the matter. As explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 468:

  After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ’s human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council at Constantinople in 553 confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity." Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity."


How do Seventh Day Adventists interpret Romans 14:5? In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day,
  while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully
  convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable.
  Romans 14:5 NLT

How do Seventh Day Adventists interpret this verse?

Seventh Day Adventists do not view Romans 14:5 to be about the 4th commandment. We do not believe that the ten commandments (God's moral laws) were abolished at the cross. The law of love would cause Christians to want to keep God's moral laws through grace (i.e. not murder, not commit adultery), it does not free them to then freely murder. The same logic is applied to the 4th commandment, which is specified as the 7th day of the week in the commandment (Exodus 20:10).

Therefore, when Romans 14:5 is read in this context, we believe it is referring to religious holidays. The central issue during the apostolic times were circumcision, eating foods sacrificed to idols, keeping ceremonial feasts and holy days (including the rest days of those festivals). We are free to not keep ceremonial feasts and holy days because they were a "shadow of things to come" (Colossians 2:16-17) (i.e. they were ceremonies that pointed forward to the actual works of Jesus). However, the Sabbath is not a shadow, it represents a memorial of creation, sanctified at creation by God Himself.

Based on the comments on this page, here are a few other points of clarification:

The vegetarians in Roman 14:1 is about those early Christians who became vegetarians to avoid food sacrificed to idols, in accordance to Act 15:29. However, the vegan diet advocated by 7th Day Adventists relates to modern foods. Modern animals are raised entirely different from how they used to before. This is the same reason why the organic food movement is popular today, except 7th Day Adventists realized this in the 1850s. Vegetarianism is not a requirement but is greatly advised for heath reasons.
While Sabbath keeping Adventists do believe that breaking the Sabbath is a sin, they do believe all those who kept Sunday prior to God revealing this light to them are accepted. Those who are introduced to this topic, however, must search diligently and sincerely for the truth in the Bible until they are fully convicted (one way or the other). Sunday worship is not the mark of the beast today, but will be when it eventually becomes mandatory by law in the future, restricting religious liberty. Then it will become a great test on which men decide to serve God or the traditions of men.

For additional study of Roman 14:5, here is a short 2 min video from amazingfacts.org, scroll down to bottom for the transcript.

http://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/media/e/1294/t/does-romans-145-refer-to-the-weekly-sabbath.aspx


Where can I find official documents of Buenos Aires' Eucharistic Miracle? I want to study the Eucharistic Miracle that happened in Buenos Aires, 1996. Does someone know if there are some official documents of the Vatican, or another Catholic Church authority?

I just find information in blogs, videos, and other non-official pages.

There is no official Vatican online reference to this alleged miracle, so I did some basic research.

The first thing I noticed is  that the details of the 1996 miracle vary according to the source of the story, with at least three variants as to where the host was found. This is typical of urban myths, but by itself that is not enough to disprove the story. The Australian Catholic Weekly, which is not an 'official' source, was asked whether Pope Francis had approved the miracle, and printed an article that says that Francis had investigated the claim before becoming pope. Whether or not Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) was impressed with what he was told, it appears that the pope is not moving to have this recognised as a miracle.

This article from Gospa Missions says, "Although this miracle awaits further confirmation in the Church ..." indicating that the Catholic Church has not (yet) accepted the purported miracle.

One source says that Professor John Walker, of Sydney University, had confirmed that the material given to him was human flesh. Sydney University publishes a list of academic staff and, although it reports no Professor John Walker, it appears that a Dr. John Walker had been on the University faculty until 1987, nine years before the supposed miracle, but he worked in medical parasitology. The late Professor
Frederick Zugibe is also credited with having tested the specimen and verified that it came from a living heart. This important investigation is not found in any of the biographies that I have found on Zugibe.

A post on the Catholic Answers forum claims the purported miracle to be a fraud, because the  Higher Council of the World Health Organization, which supposedly confirmed the findings of Dr. Edoardo Linoli, does not exist.

One could ask why God would perform this obscure miracle in just this way, and the most plausible reason would be either to bring people back to the faith, or to assist the finances of a struggling church in Argentina.


Reason for loving/worshiping  Jesus What's the reason for loving/worshiping Jesus?  As an extension, what does it mean to love/worship Jesus and how does that help one accomplish spiritual goals (salvation, forgiveness, sanctification, etc.)?

...if the answer is based on scripture (e.g., "because God demands it from the righteous"), then why is that demand made?

Note: apologies for multiple questions in one post. My aim is to get an autonomous answer (i.e., not circular, not rhetorical).

Thanks for your thoughtfulness!

COMMENT

As @SteelyDan points out, this question is different depending on emphasis: Jesus, the incarnation, or Jesus, the Christ. @Affable seems to cover both. The incarnation is the great act of God's love, hence Jesus (the incarnation) is love. <-- unless I'm reading into his answer too much.

The book of 1 John explicitly makes the case that loving Jesus, and by extension loving others, is the fundamental sine qua non of a Christian life.  In chapter 4, John writes:

  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Loving others is the natural outflow of loving Jesus. Indeed, the Gospels argue that all right behavior is supposed to stem, not from conviction, but from love. As Jesus states this plainly in John 14:15 as such:

  If you love me, keep my commandments.

Note the conditional is the love - If you love, then obey.  It is explictly not, Obey so that i will love you.

When Jesus was asked to choose the greatest command in Mark 12, he continues this theme of linking the law as an outgrowth of love:

  One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these

Paul is also consistent with the witness that we love because of Jesus' love for us. Romans 5:6-8 says:

  You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Love is thus the action first of God. The natural response of love, is then to return (or spurn) the love of the initiator.  If my wife comes up to me and kisses me, for me not to return that love would be weird at best.  Worship is that natural response of love to the One who first loved us.


St Augustine's 5th and 6th Needs - Translation My wife has currently undertaken a project to translate a prayer card from English to Polish. There is a reference on the card to Saint Augustine's 5th and 6th Needs.

My question is, what are these "Needs"? I presume that this is a reference to a specific text written by St. Augustine. Does anyone know which one? Translating the footnote "Saint Augustine's 5th and 6th Needs" is difficult since we don't know what this means.

Thanks,
mj

Edit 1 ----

The prayer card is somewhat ambiguous in this in that it describes how to pray and references these "needs." It references 6 of them. I've copied the text and preserved the bolding/italics.

Pray a very sorrowful, very sincere, heartfelt "Act of Perfect Contrition." This will give us the correct disposition to pray. The best way to present your petitions is with less sins on your soul. St. Augustine's 1st and 2nd Needs

Pray the 3 "All Healing Prayers" slowly and wholeheartedly! Perseveringly and vocally to hear and to emphasize your prayers! By praying this way you are praying as perfectly as you can, praying the way Jesus taught us. St. Augustine's 3rd and 4th Needs

Pray the following Mary Mediatrix, proven "All Healing Prayers". When you pray, hold out your right hand to Mary's hand in the Miraculous icon and she will spiritually hold your hand in prayer! By praying this way, you are praying most lovingly, most reverently, most humbly - with deep faith, deep trust, like a small child, tenderly holding Our Dearest, Most Loving Mother's comforting hand. St. Augustine's 5th and 6th Needs

/Edit 1 ----

I think there are a couple of possibilities, at least. If you can provide any more information about the text and its purpose then we could try to narrow it down.

There are a few places where St Augustine proposes a seven-step journey of the soul. However,  the schemes don't match up (which is fine: he actually says in the earliest work that there are many ways to view the topic; also, they have slightly different purposes).

The first one is in De quantitate animae (On the magnitude of the soul), written in 387 or 388. In 33.70ff, the ascent of the soul has the following steps:

The soul gives life to the body.
Experience of the world through the senses.
Reason, language, art, etc.
Approach to the knowledge of God through trying to purify and strengthen oneself.
Perseverance in faith, completing the work of step 4 and preparing for step 6.
Contemplation of God, and submission to his will for regeneration of the spirit.
Perfect joy and peace.

It is noted that step 3 and following are unique to humans. Steps 4 and 5 go together as being primarily about self-transformation, whereas the last two steps are directed towards God completely. This scheme is rather Neoplatonic, as it draws from a tradition of abandoning the material world in favour of seeking pure spirit. (See Augustine's intellectual conversion: the journey from Platonism to Christianity, Brian Dobell, 2009.)

A couple of years later, just before his ordination (390), Augustine wrote about the transformation of the "old man" into the "new man" in seven stages (De vera religione / On true religion, 26.49). These are:

Learning from history.
Abandoning merely human teaching to learn from the divine law.
Withdrawing from sinful behaviour.
Enduring in uprightness despite persecution and other difficulties.
Living in the kingdom of the supreme and incomprehensible wisdom.
Final abandonment of everything worldly, in favour of the coming eternal life in the image and likeness of God.
Perpetual blessedness and eternal life.

The seven-age scheme is numerologically connected to the seven days of creation in Genesis 1 - compare City of God 11. Augustine would later return to this inspiration with his proposed seven ages of history (De catechizandis rudibus / On the catechizing of the unlearned, 400). The fifth age is from the exile in Babylon to the nativity of Jesus. We are presently in the sixth age, and the seventh is the coming reign of Christ.

The last work is De doctrina christiana (On Christian Doctrine). In Book 2, 7.9ff, he presents the seven steps to wisdom: fear, piety, knowledge, strength, the counsel of compassion (consilio misericordiae), purification of heart, and finally the achievement of wisdom. Here is the section on steps 5 and 6 in the James Shaw translation (at New Advent):

  When, to the extent of his power, he has gazed upon this object shining from afar, and has felt that owing to the weakness of his sight he cannot endure that matchless light, then in the fifth step - that is, in the counsel of compassion - he cleanses his soul, which is violently agitated, and disturbs him with base desires, from the filth it has contracted.  And at this stage he exercises himself diligently in the love of his neighbor; and when he has reached the point of loving his enemy, full of hopes and unbroken in strength, he mounts to the sixth step, in which he purifies the eye itself which can see God, [Matthew 5:8] so far as God can be seen by those who as far as possible die to this world. For men see Him just so far as they die to this world; and so far as they live to it they see Him not. But yet, although that light may begin to appear clearer, and not only more tolerable, but even more delightful, still it is only through a glass darkly that we are said to see, because we walk by faith, not by sight, while we continue to wander as strangers in this world, even though our conversation be in heaven. And at this stage, too, a man so purges the eye of his affections as not to place his neighbor before, or even in comparison with, the truth, and therefore not himself, because not him whom he loves as himself. Accordingly, that holy man will be so single and so pure in heart, that he will not step aside from the truth, either for the sake of pleasing men or with a view to avoid any of the annoyances which beset this life.

It is true that all of these are steps, and not really "needs", unless it is implicit that one needs to take a step. If you can give any more clues from the original text, then that could help us to work out which of these, if any, is the intended referent.


Job and the Heavenly Host In the beginning of the Book of Job we are presented with a scene in heaven. In Job, the heavenly host is said to have assembled before God:

  "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves
  before the Lord, and Satan also came among them." Job 1:6 (NASB)

Why was Satan allowed to stand in God’s presence or even assemble alongside the other angels?

The short answer is that we are not told why. Within the context of the book of Job, God uses Satan's evil for the ultimate good of vindicating Job's faith, multiplying his blessings, and glorifying God's name. God demonstrates intentionality with Satan's presence. Just as Job never is told about the spiritual backstory to his suffering, we are not told about the backstory to Satan's presence. This is an intentional aspect of the book. As a book, one of the main lessons is that God does not always explain suffering and that human explanations are lacking and even exercises in folly when they are not careful to be in line with God's revelation. Likewise, we are not given answers to all the questions that we as the audience have. We have to take what God will give us, and that is a story where Satan is granted the opportunity to present his case before God.

One important distinction also is that there are some who, in their preface to the gospel, will say things like, "God is too holy to be around sin" is the explanation for why people need salvation. This is not exactly true. God is fully able to be in the presence of Satan and the entire fallen creation is in his dominion. His holiness is his separateness and otherliness from creation and especially fallen creation, but not some kind of inability on his part. He is righteously angered by sin and does exact justice, but it is not true that he has some kind of inability to be in Satan's presence. God will ultimately destroy Satan, but within the context of Job, he allows him to present his case, the case that ultimately backfires.


Has a pope ever been corrected publicly by a non-cleric in the presence of cardinals because of the unclear wording of a papal document? At the moment there is a lot of talk about four cardinals who have submitted a dubia to Pope Francis regarding the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia.

In one article it stated that: "any 'fraternal correction' of the Pope should be made 'in camera caritatis,' without a public statement."

This made me think of another question. Has a pope ever been publicly corrected or rebuked in front of cardinals by a non-cleric member of the Catholic Church?

What I mean by a non-cleric is a Catholic faithful who is not a deacon, priest, bishop or cardinal, but may be a layperson, nun or religious brother (not ordained).

Post Script (Edit): In this question (When did a “formal act of correction” of a pope's statement happen in the past?) which is similar, yet not a duplicate, the OP asks "when and who did it happen that the bishops had to carry out the "formal correction" in the history of the church?"

It has happened to the present Pope.
Dr. Anca-Maria Cernea, Doctor at the Center for Diagnosis and Treatment-Victor Babes and President of the Association of Catholic Doctors of Bucharest (Romania) made the following speech to the Fourteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, at which the Pope was present, on Friday 16 October 2015.
The doctor "confronted the pope" regarding his "inversion of priorities" in Laudato Si', saying "Evil in this world comes from sin, not from income disparity or 'climate change'."

Your Holiness, Synod Fathers, Brothers and Sisters, I represent the Association of Catholic Doctors from Bucharest.
I am from the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.
...
Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.
Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.
This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent’s offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.
It’s an error of religious nature, it’s Gnosticism.
It’s the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.
“Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
The Church’s mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or “climate change”.
The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.
Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government. These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.
What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin. Salvation.
...
Now we need Rome to tell the world: “Repent of your sins and turn to God for the Kingdom of Heaven is near”.
Not only us, the Catholic laity, but also many Christian Orthodox are anxiously praying for this Synod. Because, as they say, if the Catholic Church gives in to the spirit of this world, it is going to be very difficult for all the other Christians to resist it.
— Reported in LifeSiteNews


According to premillenial view, What is the point of the Millenium reign? Here's my understanding:

Some people believe during the tribulation. They make into the 1000 year reign.

During this reign, there is peace on earth.

At the end of the 1000 years, Satan is released. Some of the descendants of the believers follow Satan.

There is a final battle.

Satan loses.

There is final judgment.

New Jerusalem arrives.

Now, what is the point of the 1000 year reign here? Is it to prove that Christ can do something that Satan could never do (i.e. real world peace?)

There are two main purposes to the millenial reign:

First, to show the world that the true problem isn't the devil (since he will locked away for 1000 years) but rather, the real problem is our evil hearts. Under the perfect and utopian rulership of Jesus, people will still choose to rebel and hate Him and wage war against Him.

Second, to prepare the earth for the coming of the Father. The Father doesn't come to earth until the end of the 1,000 years.


Do Mormons believe that black skin originated as a curse by God? This question is a bit related to this other question, which is asking about the curse of Cain.

One of the answers in this other question refers to the "Book of Moses" (part of Book of Mormon), chapter 7, verse 22 which states:

  And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of
  Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the
  seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place
  among them.

I can also see that the same chapter in "Book of Moses", verse 8, says about Canaanites:

  For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the
  barrenness thereof shall go forth forever; and there was a blackness
  came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among
  all people.

And in 2 Nephi chapter 5, verse 21 it says:

  And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore
  cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened
  their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint;
  wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome,
  that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

Based on these statements, I wanted to ask:

Is it a belief of the Mormon church that a curse from God is the
initial origin of all dark skin among humankind today?
Did God choose black skin in order to make the cursed people
unappealing (as it seems to say in 2 Nephi 5:21)?

To answer question 1, "Is it a belief of the Mormon church that a curse from God is the initial origin of all dark skin among humankind today?", we have, from lds.org:

  Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.

Or, more concisely, no, that is not an accepted belief of the LDS Church.

Question 2 seems to be based on a "yes" to question 1, so I don't have a good answer; it does appear that a "skin of blackness" was placed on the cursed Lamanites to make them less appealing, as you quote from the Book of Mormon, but that was a localized instance, rather than something generalizable to all people with darker skin.


Was any transgender person ever ordained as a Catholic priest? We find this entry in the Wikipedia:

"Theodora of Alexandria was a saint and Desert Mother who was married to a prefect of Egypt. In order to perform penance for a sin she committed, she disguised herself as a man and joined a monastery in Thebaid. Her true identity as a woman was discovered only after her death."

Of late,   there have been heartening news of  transgender citizens gaining due acceptance  in different walks of life. Though  the Catholic Church has always been against ordaining women as priests, it is not known if such taboo exists in the case of transgender faithful. My question therefore,  is: was any transgender person ever  ordained as a Catholic priest ?

Was any transgender person ever ordained as a Catholic priest?

The short answer is no.

  According to the Catholic Church's moral doctrine, homosexual attraction is disordered, and homosexual acts themselves are sinful. However, the Church does allow the ordination of men who may have, in the past, experienced same-sex attraction, but only on the condition that they have lived without engaging in "homosexual culture" or acts for several years, and that have no "deep-seated homosexual tendencies". Priests in the Latin Church are required to live by the Church's teachings, and most make a vow or promise of celibacy.

  A 2006 survey suggests that Roman Catholic church-goers in the US were almost evenly split on whether homosexual men should or should not serve as priests or bishops.

  A 2000 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concludes that sex-change procedures do not change a person’s sex. "The key point," said the document, "is that the transsexual surgical operation is so superficial and external that it does not change the personality. If the person was a male, he remains male. If she was female, she remains female." However, those who have undergone such a procedure are prevented from ordination or admission to consecrated religious life. - Homosexuality and Roman Catholic priests (Wikipedia)

The Vatican is very clear on this matter:

  Consequently, the document instructs bishops never to alter the sex
   listed in parish baptismal records and says Catholics who have
   undergone "sex-change" procedures are not eligible to marry, be
   ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, according to a
   source familiar with the text. - Vatican says 'sex-change' operation does not change person's gender

Nevertheless some breakaway Catholic groups have ordained such persons as seen here and here. These ordinations are invalid in the eyes of the Catholic Church.


How does the Arminian view of salvation account for God's sovereignty? The Arminian view of salvation posits that man has free will and the choice to accept salvation is purely on our own free will.

The total sovereignty of God (while disputed in some theological circles) carries a lot of Biblical evidence with it. Just two examples:

  Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.
  Psalms 135:6

  Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases.
  Psalm 115:3

In light of those two statements, here is my question. How do Arminians reconcile the concept of a God who is in total command of the universe with the idea that humans can choose whether or not to accept His offer of salvation? Or do they not recognize God's sovereignty as total? Can a human being through His free will reject God even though God desires their salvation?

To clarify: I am not asking for judgement on the correctness of Arminianism, just how those who adhere to the school of thought would answer this question.

I can only speak from a Wesleyan-Arminian perspective. A classical Arminian may have a slightly different understanding.

God is both creator and ruler of the universe. As creator he has exercised complete sovereignty; God made all the decisions in setting everything up (Genesis 1), including setting up the means by which we could be saved (Romans 3:21-26). God created everything according to his good pleasure. Out of the whole universe he picked this planet for us to live on. He chose the times and places in which each of us would live, so that we could seek him wherever we are (Acts 17:26-27). In his role as creator, God is completely sovereign.
God created a world that was very good (Genesis 1:31). However, God created humans with the ability to act in ways that were not according to God's will (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:6-7). Rather than following God's will, we follow our own. This is what we mean by free will.
As ruler and judge, God is both just and merciful. Sometimes God may be more merciful than we deserve (Ephesians 2:4-7), but he will never treat us unjustly (Hebrews 6:10).
God has made his grace available to all (Titus 2:11), and desires everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). But God does not force us into submission; rather, God leads us to repentance through his kindness (Romans 2:4) and gives us many chances to turn to him (Ezekiel 33:11).

TL;DR: God is sovereign in that he sets all the boundaries, both in putting each of us in a particular time and place, and in making a way that we might be saved and enjoy eternity with him. But God also gives us the freedom to turn away from him and the grace to turn toward him.


Need to know exact sacrifices required in the Old Testament Pentecost Feast I am writng an Easter play for my children's church class. In it, there's a fictional "villain" who tries to cover up the fact that Jesus rose from the dead because he's in the business of selling animals for sacrifices.

My play begins on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples. I realize many displaced Jews were in the Holy City this day because of the Pentecost celebration. I've read Leviticus 23: 16-20. My question is: EXACTLY what animals were required for a sacrifice that day? Most of what books I've read on Jewish feasts say only the loaves and the 2 lambs, but looking at verse 19, there's a number of other animals.

Also, Pentecost was also known as the Feast of Weeks. Did it only last one day, or one week?

The Pentecost festival was the end of the Festival of Weeks.

A few things may help here:

The Festival of weeks itself was a several week affair that celebrated the entire harvest. It began when the barley was ready, and ended with the wheat.  As such, it was a season - but the highest day thereof was the single day of Pentecost.
As a harvest festival, the primary offerings would have been the non-living sacrifices.  The barley offering and the grain offering were the primary things one would think of - in the same way that a modern American would associate Thanksgiving with turkey.
That said, there were animal offerings - but these were not proscribed directly.  Rather, the most common would have been sheep (because that was the primary herd animal - your other suspects: pigs would have been unkosher, cows would have been too expensive, chickens would have been seen as bad luck).  Had you been unable to afford a sheep, however, as a freewill offering, you could substitute other less expensive animals - like two turtledoves / pigeons.


Looking for source of quote about "doing what you should be" The other day I saw a quote I really liked on the board in front of a church as I was passing by. However I don't remember it 100% and wanted to see the source of the quote.

Unfortunately I don't remember exactly which church it was (there are a few on this one street).

The quote was something like this:

"If you are doing what you should be doing, then you will light a fire to the world."

I think it might be a bible quote but I am not completely sure.

The quote comes from St Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), a third-order Dominican, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. According to the book Saint Catherine of Siena as Seen in her Letters, it is adapted from a quote in her Letter 386. This letter was written to her young friend Stefano Maconi. The original reads:

  Se sarete quello che dovete essere, metterete fuoco in tutta Italia, non tanto costi.

That is,

  If you are the kind of person whom you ought to be, you will set a fire in all Italy, and not only over there  [i.e. where he is currently].

Pope St John Paul II adapted this in an address given in 2000, saying

  If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!

And Wikiquote attributes a similar adaptation to Church of England bishop Richard Chartres in 2011:

  Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.


Does Satan have a physical dwelling place on earth? I read some articles years ago before I joined Christianity.SE and I will like us to throw more light on the content. This article authoritatively states that Satan's dwelling place is in Turkey, according to this passage:

  Revelation 2:12-13

  12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things
  saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;

  13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat
  is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even
  in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain
  among you, where Satan dwelleth

Is this passage really saying that Satan has or had a physical dwelling place?

Having been to Bergama, I can tell you this is an amazing place. An imposing temple stands at the top of a 1200 meter or so mountain. Winds blow at the top that will make you feel you will be blown into the valley below. I remember my wife driving in the valley below, and before we had even entered the town, I looked up, saw the Temple, and said - I know exactly where we are going.  It is a powerful place, and the presence of "the gods" is felt from miles away as one looks to the top of that mountain

That said, the reference in Revelation as to its position as "Satan's seat" is not that he has a chair there, but rather that it was a "capital" of sorts in Satan's empire. It was a place of power in Greek theology (and remember, Turkey was Greek at the time!) In the same way that Washington, DC is the "seat" of power in the United States, Bergama was the center of power for a particular belief system that emphasized the power of the gods to grant healing.

The Greek god Asclepius in particular drew followers from all over to experience healing.  The fact that this pagan influence was so strong would likely have led John the Revelator to say something to the effect of "Satan is very strong here," as evidenced by the deep pagan influences against which Christianity would place itself.

All this said, this does not address the question of Satan's abode.  As a created being, Satan must, by definition, have a physical presence.  Unlike God who is omnipresent, Satan is a finite being.  As such, he has a place.  When in Job, for instance, he confronts God, it says specifically that he had returned from walking the earth, and seems to indicate that there was a place in which he could come face to face with the presence of God.  Whether the earth was his home or merely on his intinerary is unclear from Scripture.

One can argue whether it is he who is cast down from heaven in Revelation 12, 18, and other places, or whether he is embodied in the "AntiChrist" or not, but this much is sure: At some point, I'll be able to pinpoint his exact location. It will be in a lake of fire where he'll spend the rest of eternity.  I'd rather not have any closer understanding of his geography than that. :)


Can a Catholic priest excommunicate someone for premarital sex? I was a Catholic. I did my sacraments according to the Catholic lifestyle. When I was born, I was baptized. Around age of 8 years, I got my First Holy Communion, and around 14 years of age, I went to confirmation classes and got confirmed.

I got pregnant at age 17 and married outside the church, since my parents didn't approve of my condition or choice of the baby's father. Sex was preached as a mortal sin, and without confession, I would go to straight to Hell if I died.

My parents disowned me and so did the Catholic Church, the priest told me I would be excommunicated. I don't know that any form was filed, and my parents apologized for doing me wrong many years later, instead of having the baby and having him adopted.

Am I excommunicated or is all I need to do to go to confession to return to good standing in the Church?

Talk to a Priest. As far as I know marrying outside the Church is invalid but does not incurr automatic excommunication. You would not be able to receive Holy Communion, and I suspect that you may be confusing the two

Even if you are excommunicated your excommunication can be lifted. Again a chat with a Priest, or an appointment for Confession would  be the place to start.

It does not seem like your marriages were valid, a Catholic has to marry in the Church or receive a dispensation. This is good news because you can get a decree of nullity for your previous marriages and convalidate your current one. That, and a good Confession should allow you to receive Holy Communion, assuming that you are not excommunicated or that if you are it has been lifted. Again a chat with a Priest should point you in the right direction to get the process started.