Do Unborn Babies Go to Heaven?

Q. Do aborted babies, those lost in miscarriage and those stillborn go to Heaven?

A. This question takes on deep personal significance for those parents who have lost a child in one of these ways.  Therefore, the first thing to emphasize is that God is a God of perfect love.  His mercy is beyond what we can comprehend.  We should be at peace knowing that God is the one who meets these precious children as they depart this life even prior to having been born.

So what happens to this precious little ones?  We do not ultimately know since the answer has never been revealed to us directly through the Scripture and the Church has never definitively spoken on this issue.  However, we can offer various options based on the principles of our faith and the wisdom of the teachings of the saints. Here are various considerations:

First, we believe the grace of Baptism is necessary for salvation.  These children are not baptized.  But that should not lead us to conclude they are not in Heaven.  Though our Church has taught that Baptism is necessary for salvation, it has also taught that God can offer the grace of Baptism directly and outside the act of physical baptism.  Therefore, God can choose to offer the grace of Baptism to these children in a way that He chooses.  God binds Himself to the sacraments, but He is not bound by them.  Thus, we should not worry about the fact that these children die without the external act of Baptism.  God can easily offer this grace to them directly if He so chooses.

Second, some suggest that God knows who among the aborted babies would have chosen Him or not.  Though they never lived their lives in this world, some speculate that God’s perfect knowledge includes knowledge of how these children would have lived had they been given the opportunity.  This is only speculation but is certainly a possibility.  If this is true, then these children will be judged in accord with God’s moral law and His perfect knowledge of their free will.

Third, some suggest that God offers them salvation similarly to the way He offered it to the angels.  They are given the opportunity to make a choice when they come into the presence of God and that one choice becomes their eternal choice.  Just as the angels had to choose whether or not they would serve God in love and freedom, so it may be that these children are given the opportunity to choose or reject God at the moment of their death.  If they choose to love and serve God, they are saved.  If they choose to reject God (as a third of the angels did), they are freely choosing Hell.

Fourth, it’s not correct to simply say that all aborted, miscarried or stillborn babies automatically go to Heaven.  This denies their free choice.  We must trust that God will allow them to exercise their free choice like all of us.

Finally, we must believe with absolute certainty that God loves these most precious children far more than any one of us ever could.  His mercy and justice are perfect and they will be treated in accord with that mercy and justice.

(From Catholic Q & A)

Can I Receive Holy Communion If I Am An Addict

Do I Need To Confess To Receive Communion If I Miss Sunday Mass 

Why Do I Need To Confess To A Priest?

Should I Confess My Past Sins?

Why Confession?

Addictions: Can I Receive Communion?

Q. With a drug addiction, can I accept the Body of Christ during Mass?

A. First of all, as a general rule please know that our Lord deeply desires to set you free from any addiction you may have.  Addictions can cause much pain in one’s life.  There are many wonderful programs such as Narcotics Anonymous that have proven to be very effective so, if you haven’t already, please do look into getting help and know that freedom from addiction is possible.

Regarding your question, it’s important to know that we should only refrain from Holy Communion if we are in a state of unrepentant mortal sin.  I suggest a full reading of Chapter 1 – Who am I? from the My Catholic Morals! book for a good understanding of sin.  Look at the end of that chapter for the explanation of mortal sin.  However, the entire chapter should be helpful in understanding this topic.

The real question is this…are you in a state of mortal sin as a result of your drug addiction?  This is a hard question to answer here so the best thing to do is to meet with your parish priest and share the particulars of your situation.  He will hopefully help you make some good decisions and help you make a plan regarding Holy Communion.

However, there is one particular general principle that is important for you to understand regarding your reception of Holy Communion with a drug addiction.  An addiction is something that strips away someone’s freedom to one extent or another.  This means that, very often, when someone is addicted to something that seriously violates God’s law, the fact that it is an “addiction” often lessens one’s moral culpability for the action.  This must carefully be understood so that it’s not misinterpreted.  The “lessening of one’s culpability” certainly does not mean that the action of using drugs is morally OK.  It’s not.  It must be fought and fought hard.  It is possible to overcome a drug addiction or any other addiction.  However, when we look at whether or not someone commits a “mortal sin” when using drugs, we must consider the factor of whether or not it’s an addiction to determine if this is done in a completely free way or not.  

Let’s look at the contrast of two examples.  First, take someone with no addiction to drugs whatsoever.  Imagine that this person came across some drugs by chance and instead of throwing them out decided to keep them.  Then, one night while he was a bit bored decided to try these drugs just for the fun of it.  Say, also, that this person was a catechetical leader at church and was well versed in Catholic morality.  He knew full well that drugs were wrong but didn’t care and chose to try them anyway.  In this case, the person is most likely committing a mortal sin and should refrain from Holy Communion until he is truly sorry and confesses his free choice.

On the other hand, say there is someone who has struggled with addiction his whole life and is doing everything possible to overcome his addiction.  He has been going to Narcotics Anonymous, been going to confession and has been praying daily for grace.  One night he is very depressed and down and stumbles across some drugs that he had forgotten about in the house.  He tries to fight the urge but gives in.  Immediately afterwards he feels sorry and deep remorse.  The next morning is Sunday and he tries to go to confession but cannot get to the priest in time.  Should he go to Communion?  In this case he should.  He should make a good act of contrition, recommit himself to sobriety and promise to mention it in confession the next time he goes but, yes, he should go to Communion.  Why?  Because even though this act of using drugs was seriously contrary to God’s will, the weakened state someone is in from an addiction lessens the moral guilt before God.  In other words, though the action is gravely wrong, God sees the whole picture.  This person most likely did not commit a mortal sin even though the action was gravely wrong.  Again, try reading through Chapter 1 – Who am I? of My Catholic Morals!

Mortal sin requires three things: 1) The action is gravely contrary to God’s will, 2) the person fully knows it is wrong, 3) the person freely consents to the action of his own will.  An addiction often times undermines the third requirement of a mortal sin in that it strips away someone’s freedom.  That’s the nature of an addiction.  The goal is to gain that freedom back so that the person is strong enough to live in the dignity that God made us for.

(Taken from Catholic Q&A)

Answers to previous five queries

Do I Need To Confess To Receive Communion If I Miss Sunday Mass 

Why Do I Need To Confess To A Priest?

Should I Confess My Past Sins?

Why Confession? 

What is an Indulgence?

Confession Before Communion if I Missed Mass?

Q. Do I need to go to confession before taking Communion if I miss Sunday Mass due to going on vacation?

A. Yes, most likely, at least an honest attempt must be made, but let’s clarify.  It’s not necessarily a black and white answer.

The quick answer is that if you committed a mortal sin, then yes, you should go to confession prior to receiving Holy Communion if possible.  But let’s look at this in more detail.

The first question is this:  Have you committed a mortal sin?  Well, if you did a grave action, you had full knowledge that it was seriously wrong, and you did it anyway with complete consent of the will, then, yes, you committed a mortal sin.  If one of these three factors was lacking, then it may still be a grave violation of God’s law, but you may not be morally culpable for your actions (See Chapter 2 – The Law, Society, Grace and Salvation for a more thorough explanation).

Let’s look at these three factors in regards to your question:

1. Is it grave matter to miss Sunday Mass?  Yes it is.  It’s a violation of the Third Commandment.
2. Did you have full knowledge that this was a grave violation?  This is for you to decide.  After reading this you certainly do, but what about prior to reading this?  What was your honest understanding?  If you were ignorant of this command from our Lord, through no fault of your own, then your guilt for missing Sunday Mass may have been lessened.
3. Did you miss the Mass with full consent of the will?  For example, if you were driving there and your car broke down, you did not intentionally miss Mass.  In this case, it’s not a mortal sin and may not even be a sin at all even though the Third Commandment was violated in an objective sense.

What’s important to understand is that for a sin to be mortal, and therefore exclude us from receiving Holy Communion, we must be fully guilty of the action.  God knows the full picture and will judge accordingly.  Be honest with yourself and with God and admit your guilt when it is there.  Do not be afraid to refrain from Communion if you are aware of serious sin and have not chosen to confess it yet.  Refraining, in this case, is far better for your soul than going to Communion.

With that said, Canon Law does allow for someone who has committed grave sin to receive Communion under certain conditions.  The canon says this:

Can. 916 A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass or receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.

That an act of perfect contrition, with certain other conditions, is enough to dispose you to receive Communion after committing a mortal sin and before confessing it.  For example:

1. You committed a grave sin,
2. You have a perfect contrition for that sin (meaning true sorrow flowing from your deep love of God),
3. You cannot get to a priest for confession prior to Sunday,
4. There is a “grave reason” that you are compelled to receive Communion that day,
5. You make a firm resolve to confess this grave sin the next time you have the reasonable opportunity,
6. Then the grace of the Sacrament has already begun to pour forth and you should go to Communion.

The best advice to offer is to avoid mortal sin and all will be well!

(Taken from Catholic Q & A)

Answers to previous five queries

Why Do I Need To Confess To A Priest?

Should I Confess My Past Sins?

Why Confession? 

What is an Indulgence? 

Losing Faith in God?

Confession to a Priest

Q. One of my friends asked me why I have to go to a priest to confess my sins when God already knows what I’ve done. Why can’t I go to Him directly? And she also wanted to know how 10 or 20 Hail Mary’s are going to save me? I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I just said that’s what we believe. What should I have said?

A. I’d say your answer is a good start! Allow me to offer a few brief thoughts.

The first thing to consider is whether or not it is good to go directly to God when we confess our sins. This is most certainly a good idea. In fact, it has always been recommended as a good daily practice just before bed. So I definitely recommend that you examine your day each night and thank God for the good things and ask forgiveness for any sins. Going directly to God each night will undoubtedly help you to grow closer to Him.

But, as Catholics, we also believe that it is essential to regularly confess our sins to God through the ministry of priests. In other words, we believe that when we go to confession and confess our sins we are actually seeking God’s forgiveness, not just the priests. The priest stands as the minister of this wonderful gift of forgiveness.

So why do we do this? For one simple reason. Because we believe it’s what God wants. You may recall in John’s Gospel, chapter 20, that Jesus bestowed the Holy Spirit upon his first bishops, the Apostles, and told them, “who’s sins you forgive they are forgiven them.” Why would Jesus give the Apostles such an incredible ability if He did not want them to use it? Most certainly He had something important in mind when He said this. Jesus’ words and actions always have great significance. By commissioning His Apostles to go and forgive sins we understand that this is the ordinary way that Jesus wants to continue to bestow His forgiveness upon us all. And He did not intend this only for them. Rather, we can see in the Acts of the Apostles and from the earliest times of the Church that this sacred power was passed on from these first Apostles to others. It was passed on to new bishops as well as those who assisted the bishops in the early Church, the priests.

So it’s essential that we, as followers of Jesus, be open to His gift of forgiveness in the way that He chooses to give it to us. Since He is the source of forgiveness, He can choose how to give that gift to us.

As for 10 or 20 Hail Mary’s, I assume this is a reference to the penance that priests may give after confession. This is a wonderful practice to help us realize that just because we have been forgiven we have most likely not completely conquered our attraction to sin again. We need continued prayer and penance to do this. So whatever penance a priest gives is intended to help the person overcome future tendencies to sin in the same way again

So what should you have said? I think your answer was good in that it is difficult sometimes to give accurate answers to all the different questions that arise in our life of faith. When you are not sure what to say then it may be best to simply say, “this is what we believe.” But when this happens you are given a great opportunity to look deeper into the question so that you can have a better understanding of why you believe what you do.

(Taken from Catholic Q &A)

Answers to previous five queries

Should I Confess My Past Sins?

Why Confession? 

What is an Indulgence? 

Losing Faith in God? 

Do things go bad if we forget God?

Should I Confess Past Sins?

Q. I am 64 and continually go back frequently and recall previous sins that may have occurred 30 yrs ago and wonder if I had confessed them. What should I consider going forward?

A. It is a good idea when we are confessing our sins to a priest to add, after we have finished saying our most recent sins, something like “And for all the sins of my past life”“And for any sins which I may have forgotten.”  This is not to say that we can purposefully leave sins out of our confession or can leave them vague and undefined. Making these general statements is just acknowledging the weakness of human memory. We are not always sure if we have confessed all that our consciences’ bear, so we throw a sacramental blanket over past or forgotten behavior through the above statements, thus including them in the absolution the priest grants us.

Perhaps your question also includes a bit of concern over whether past sins, even sins of the rather remote past, have been truly forgiven if we can still remember them. Let me address that concern briefly.Sacraments have a purpose. Memory has another purpose. The Sacrament of Confession is not a form of brainwashing. It doesn’t pull a plug at the bottom of our brain and drain all of our memories out. We sometimes remember our past sins, even our sins from many years ago. The trace images of past sinful events that remain in our memory mean nothing theologically. Memories are a neurological or psychological reality. Confession is a theological reality.

The confession and absolution of our sins is the only form of time travel that actually exists. Despite all of the creative ways that authors and screenwriters have attempted to convey the ways in which we could go back in time, we can only do so theologically. The words of absolution of the priest extend backwards in time. Because the priest is acting in the person of Christ at that moment he is acting with the power of God, who is above and outside of time. God created time and does bend to its rules. So the words of the priest drift into the human past to erase the guilt, but not the punishment, due to sinful behavior. Such is the power of those simple words “I forgive you.” Who has ever gone to Confession, confessed their sins, asked for absolution, and then was told “no?” It doesn’t happen. If you confessed your sins they were forgiven. They may yet exist in your memory because you are human. But they don’t exist in God’s memory. And, finally, if the memory of past sins is bothersome, though they have been confessed, keep in mind that alongside of the memory of your sin there should be another memory equally vivid – the memory of your confession. That happened too!

(Taken from  Catholic Q & A)

Answers to previous five queries

Why Confession? 

What is an Indulgence? 

Losing Faith in God? 

Do things go bad if we forget God? 

How can we become Saints?

Why Confession?

 

Q. Why do we have confession? If God knows everything, why can’t we just tell him that we’re sorry when we do something wrong?

A. Confession may be one of the most difficult parts of our faith for some. But for others, Confession is something they deeply look forward to. Your question is a good one. Let me offer some thoughts.

First of all, it’s very true that “God knows everything.” We call that omniscience. So, yes, He knows everything you’ve done and He knows whether you are sorry for that or not. But there is a big difference between God “knowing” what you did and His act of forgiveness.

For example, if you sinned against a friend with whom you were very close and then you felt sorry for that it’s possible that your friend would realize, just by knowing you, that you were truly sorry. But that doesn’t mean that you can just presume on your friends goodness and forgiveness. The best thing to do, in this situation, is to actually sit down and tell your friend you are sorry and to have your friend tell you that you are forgiven. This very human exchange brings about reconciliation.

So it is with God. God is all merciful and wants to forgive us all our sins. But for true reconciliation to take place God wants you to actually say those words and then to hear the words, spoken by the priest, that you are forgiven. So Confessions is not only about God forgiving us, it is also about reconciliation with God on a human level.

What’s important to understand is that God offers us forgiveness in His way. He forgives us through a human being. Who is that human being? It’s the Father’s Son who became one of us. Jesus is the one who offers the forgiveness of God and Jesus is both fully God and human. But how does Jesus do that now that He has ascended back into Heaven? Well, before He ascended He gave His divine power of forgiveness to His first priests, the apostles. They, in turn, passed that power onto others who passed it on to others down through the ages all the way to our present age. Priests, despite the fact that they are imperfect themselves, have the spiritual power of Jesus to actually speak His words of forgiveness to others. Therefore, when a priest says. “I absolve you” we must hear Jesus Himself, as the human face of God, saying to us those same words.

Why did God choose to use priests to dispense His forgiveness? Honestly, we really don’t have a perfect answer to that question. Sure there have been wonderful writings and reflections and teachings on this subject throughout the history of the Church. But, in the end, we will only fully understand this mystery of how God gives us His forgiveness when we are in Heaven. For now, we must simply follow what Jesus taught and receive His forgiveness in the way we know He offers it.

And on a psychological level, I, as a priest, have seen so many people benefit from actually hearing those words spoken from my mouth. So many times I have seen people come into the confessional scared and ashamed and walk our freed and at peace. So it really works. Make sure you give it a try soon!

(Taken from Catholic Q & A)

Click on the Question for Answers to previous five queries

What is an Indulgence? 

Losing Faith in God? 

Do things go bad if we forget God? 

How can we become Saints? 

The reason for me to go into Purgotory

What is an Indulgence?

Q. I was excited to watch the announcement of the new pope… I even got to watch it live. When it was over, I heard Pope Francis gave an indulgence even to people who watched on TV. I’ve heard of an indulgence, but I’m not really sure what that is. Can you explain it?

A. Indulgences are one of those gifts within our Church that few understand. I think, in the old days, they were practiced and spoken about far more often. But, perhaps because of confusion and misuse, they slowly drifted out of our regular church conversations. In recent years it is my experience that indulgences are being spoken of more often.

So, what is an indulgence? The official definition of an indulgence is this: “An indulgence is the remission in the eyes of God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose culpable element has already been taken away.” Hmmm, so what exactly does that mean?

I think the best way to understand this definition is to look at sin and its effects upon us. When we sin we need forgiveness. Forgiveness is offered to us freely through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If our sin is grave then we deserve eternal punishment. Confession eliminates this eternal punishment. Confession also forgives the guilt of our smaller sins. However, just because we have been forgiven does not mean that our attachment to that sin is eliminated also. For example, if someone confesses, with true sorrow, that they have been using foul language on a daily basis, then God will forgive them completely for all the times in the past that they have used foul language. However, this forgiveness does not necessarily mean that they have completely and totally broken the habit of sin. There is a good chance that, upon leaving the confessional, if they trip and fall down, they will be immediately tempted to use foul language. So what does this illustrate? It illustrates that we need not only forgiveness but also the grace to completely and totally detach ourselves from the habit of sin and the unhealthy attachment we have to sin. This is hard! It takes true conversion. But this is the reason for an indulgence.

The Church, specifically the pope, has the authority on earth to unlock the storehouse of grace in Heaven and let the faithful know that if they perform certain acts of piety, faith and devotion, they can be assured of the fact that God will pour down His graces upon them to help them enter more deeply into a complete detachment to all sin. So, for example, if someone spends at least a half an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament they can receive a plenary indulgence as long as they also go to Confession and Communion within seven days before or after and offer prayers for the intention of the pope. When this is done, they receive a plenary (or full) indulgence. This means that every grace they need is available to them to completely detach from sin and to live in a perfect state of grace. Therefore, if they went to confession, received the indulgence and fully opened their heart to this grace through their conversion and love then, if they were to die at that moment, they would go straight to Heaven.

I think the most important thing to understand is that indulgences are simply another way of receiving the outpouring of grace that our God wishes to bestow upon us! This grace is given specifically for the purpose of detaching from our tendency to sin. And, it is for certain, that every grace we are given from God is necessary and should be sought out and received with much anticipation and gratitude. Hope that helps!

(Taken from Catholic Q & A)

Click on the Question for Answers to previous five queries

Losing Faith in God? 

Do things go bad if we forget God? 

How can we become Saints? 

The reason for me to go into Purgotory

Is it OK to hang Rosary over Car Mirrors?