Unit quiz: Healing, Devotion, Politics and Accountability: Where Doctrine Ends and Judgement Begins

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Question 1

A priest is asked to anoint a woman with a chronic illness that is not expected to shorten her life, and he declines, saying the anointing is only for the dying and that she should wait until she is close to death. Which assessment is correct?The refusal contradicts the Church's own rule: Sacrosanctum Concilium 73 teaches that the anointing 'may also and more fittingly be called anointing of the sick' and 'is not a sacrament for those only who are at the point of death', so the fitting time arrives 'as soon as any one of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age' (CCC 1514), the sacrament may be repeated in a new illness (CCC 1515), and its first grace is strengthening, peace and courage rather than a cure (CCC 1520).The refusal is pastorally defensible, since the anointing is the sacrament of the dying and should be reserved for the last stage of an illness, and the woman may receive it then as her final anointing.

Question 2

A grieving son is told by a fellow parishioner that there is no point praying for his mother, who died after years away from the sacraments, because her fate was fixed at death, and that the Mass offered for her is only a comfort for the living. Using the Church's teaching, which reply is accurate?The parishioner is right: since the particular judgement fixes each person's eternal state at death, prayer for the dead has no effect on the dead and expresses only the living family's faith.The parishioner is wrong: the Church teaches that the dead who die in God's grace but are imperfectly purified are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, above all by the Eucharistic sacrifice, and she has prayed for the dead 'from the very earliest days of the Christian religion' on the scriptural warrant of 2 Maccabees 12:45 (CCC 958, 1032; Lumen Gentium 50; Trent, Session XXV). The fate of the individual is not something the Church pronounces on, and she prays and hopes rather than diagnosing; the practice is therefore an act of the communion of saints rather than a psychological service.

Question 3

A catechist tells a class that because the Assumption is defined doctrine, Catholics must believe that Mary died before being assumed, and that because the Church approved the events at Fatima, Catholics must accept the content of the messages given there. Which correction is accurate?Neither claim is Church teaching. Munificentissimus Deus defines only that Mary, 'having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory', wording that deliberately leaves open whether she died, so both positions are permitted; and approbation of an apparition means that the Church judges a devotion free of doctrinal error and worthy of belief, not that the faithful must accept its messages, since private revelations 'do not belong' to the deposit of faith and 'it is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it' (CCC 66-67).The claim about Mary is sound, since a person cannot be assumed without having completed a life that included death, but the claim about Fatima is an overreach, because apparitions are private and optional.

Question 4

In a diocesan newspaper, a columnist writes: 'Since the Church teaches that political choices are prudential, a Catholic may vote for any candidate or law, including one that extends legal abortion, provided his overall intentions are good.' Which assessment is correct?The columnist is right in principle: because the Church's political teaching is prudential, the voter's good intentions suffice, and no particular vote can be incompatible with the faith.The columnist has collapsed prudence into indifference. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2002 Doctrinal Note acknowledges 'the legitimate plurality of temporal options' but says it 'should not be confused, however, with an ambiguous pluralism in the choice of moral principles or essential values'; on laws attacking human life it says such laws 'must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death' and that regarding abortion 'it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them', while Evangelium vitae 73's allowance concerns limiting the harm of an unjust law already in force, not voting for it as such.

Question 5

A commentator says: 'The Church has been rocked by abuse because a few bad priests were protected by a culture of clerical privilege, and the response has been procedural: reporting offices, investigations and audits. Since procedures cannot change hearts, the reform documents add nothing of substance.' Which assessment is accurate?Procedures are not nothing, and the moral theology names why: scandal is 'an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil', graver in proportion to the authority of the one who causes it, and whoever uses his power so that others do wrong is 'responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged' (CCC 2284-2287), so creating enforceable duties for bishops - as Vos estis lux mundi does with its reporting offices, thirty-day instructions, metropolitan investigations and recusal obligations - is a moral requirement and not a bureaucratic substitute for conversion; and the Church's own framing keeps both, since the document's preamble says a 'continuous and profound conversion of hearts is needed, attested by concrete and effective actions', and the Holy See's 2020 report on McCarrick shows that the failure was institutional as well as personal.The commentary is right on substance: since procedures cannot change hearts, the canonical and charter reforms are public relations, and the only real remedy is personal holiness.

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