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Explore all 112 original articles, including simple explanations and in-depth Catholic teaching.
112 articles · Page 5 of 7
The Catholic Church teaches that not all sins are equally serious, and it distinguishes between mortal sin, which kills the life of grace in the soul, and venial sin, which wounds but does n…
Read the explanation →The Catholic Church teaches that purgatory is a state of final purification after death, where souls destined for heaven are cleansed of the lingering effects of sin before entering God’s pr…
Read the explanation →The Christian Bible as a single, bound collection of books did not exist until the Church formally defined its canon in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.
Read the explanation →Peter came from Galilee and worked as a fisherman, and the authorities who interrogated him in Jerusalem described him as “unlettered,” meaning he lacked formal rabbinic schooling, not that …
Read the explanation →Protestants who hold to sola scriptura , the belief that Scripture alone is the final authority for Christian faith, face a foundational challenge in explaining how they know which books bel…
Read the explanation →The Catholic sacrament of Confession, also called the sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation, finds its primary biblical foundation in the moment when the risen Christ gave his apostles the …
Read the explanation →Jesus never once says the exact words “I am God” in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, but the Catholic Church teaches that he communicated his divine identity through actions, titles, and claims that …
Read the explanation →The Catholic Church teaches that there is one God, unchanging and eternal, whose nature is simultaneously just and merciful throughout all of Sacred Scripture without exception.
Read the explanation →The word “gospel” comes from the Greek word “euangelion,” which literally means “good news,” and it refers to the announcement that God has acted decisively in history to establish his kingd…
Read the explanation →The apostle Paul warned in the strongest possible terms that distorting the gospel carries the gravest consequences, declaring in his letter to the Galatians that anyone who preaches a gospe…
Read the explanation →Jesus gave Simon the new name “Peter,” meaning “rock,” and declared He would build His Church upon him, an act with deep significance for understanding Peter’s unique role among the apostles…
Read the explanation →Jesus himself prayed the same words three times in a row in the Garden of Gethsemane, demonstrating by his own example that repeating a prayer is not sinful.
Read the explanation →The Bible never identifies a single sin as the cause of Sodom’s destruction; Scripture presents a cluster of serious moral failures that together provoked divine judgment.
Read the explanation →God commanded animal sacrifice in the Old Testament not because he delights in the death of animals, but because sacrifice was a visible, concrete language through which fallen human beings …
Read the explanation →The word “Armageddon” appears only once in the entire Bible, in the Book of Revelation, and refers to a place associated with the final gathering of the forces that oppose God.
Read the explanation →The word “antichrist” appears only four times in the entire Bible, all in the letters of John, and never once in the Book of Revelation.
Read the explanation →The Nicene Creed is a special prayer that Catholics say together at Mass to tell God and each other what they believe.
Read the explanation →The Apostles’ Creed is one of the oldest prayers in the Catholic Church, and it tells us the most important things Christians believe about God.
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