What Catholics Believe:  A Popular Overview of Catholic Teaching  by Leonard Foley, O.F.M.

 

If you are Catholic, this is post-Vatican II wrap-up and short catechism, and an invitation to deeper faith. If you are a no-longer-practicing Catholic, this is an invitation to take a fresh look at your old family.  If you come from a different religious tradition, welcome to this overview of what Catholics stand for.  If you have no religion, we hope this will be a new opening to God. 

Welcome to Our Catholic Faith!

1.  Who God is

 

2.  What God did

 

3.  Who Jesus is

 

4.  What Jesus did

 

5.  Who the Spirit is

Jesus promised his followers that after his death/resurrection he would send his Spirit to teach them, and remind them of all he had told them (see John 14:26). The Spirit would be their Comforter and Defender. By means of his Spirit, Jesus would be with his Church till the end.

Jesus also said he would return to end history and judge the living and the dead. His standard of judgment will be: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me. I was ill and you comforted me, in prison and you came to see me." Therefore, "Come, you have my Father's blessing." For, "as often as you did it for one of the least brothers, you did it for me" (Matthew 25:35-36, 34, 40). Eternal condemnation will be the lot of those who do not do these things.

On Pentecost, 50 days after the Resurrection, the Spirit came in visible form and rested on the Church—through a visible/audible sacrament of something like fire and booming wind. Now Jesus' disciples, once timid and unfaithful, were filled with power and went out to preach the Good News boldly.

6.  Who we are as Christ’s Mystical Body

 

7.  Who we are as visible Church

 

8.  What we are called to do as followers of Jesus

 

9.  What we do as the whole Church

 

10. ‘As we wait in joyful hope…’