According to Catholic teaching, was Joseph and Mary's marriage a true marriage?

Yes; Catholicism teaches that Joseph and Mary had a true marriage.
In the first place, consummation is not required for a marriage to be valid in the Catholic Church. What is necessary is (more or less) that the man and woman vow to be with each other, as one, forever; and that they intend to be together for the purpose of having and raising children. In fact, canon law distinguishes between consummated and non-consummated valid marriages:

A valid marriage between the baptized is called ratum tantum [that is "sufficiently established"] if it has not been consummated; it is called ratum et consummatum ["established and consummated"] if the spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is ordered by its nature and by which the spouses become one flesh.

(Canon 1061, section 1)
I don't see a discussion of the question in the Catechism; that's really not the point of the Catechism. But Aquinas answers this very question, in the Third Part of his Summa Theologica:

Marriage or wedlock is said to be true by reason of its attaining its perfection. Now perfection of anything is twofold; first, and second. The first perfection of a thing consists in its very form, from which it receives its species; while the second perfection of a thing consists in its operation, by which in some way a thing attains its end. Now the form of matrimony consists in a certain inseparable union of souls, by which husband and wife are pledged by a bond of mutual affection that cannot be sundered. And the end of matrimony is the begetting and upbringing of children: the first of which is attained by conjugal intercourse; the second by the other duties of husband and wife, by which they help one another in rearing their offspring.
Thus we may say, as to the first perfection, that the marriage of the Virgin Mother of God and Joseph was absolutely true: because both consented to the nuptial bond, but not expressly to the bond of the flesh, save on the condition that it was pleasing to God. For this reason the angel calls Mary the wife of Joseph, saying to him (Mat. 1:20): "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife": on which words Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): "She is called his wife from the first promise of her espousals, whom he had not known nor ever was to know by carnal intercourse."
But as to the second perfection which is attained by the marriage act, if this be referred to carnal intercourse, by which children are begotten; thus this marriage was not consummated. Wherefore Ambrose says on Lk. 1:26,27: "Be not surprised that Scripture calls Mary a wife. The fact of her marriage is declared, not to insinuate the loss of virginity, but to witness to the reality of the union." Nevertheless, this marriage had the second perfection, as to upbringing of the child. Thus Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): "All the nuptial blessings are fulfilled in the marriage of Christ's parents, offspring, faith and sacrament. The offspring we know to have been the Lord Jesus; faith, for there was no adultery: sacrament, since there was no divorce. Carnal intercourse alone there was none."

(Question 29, Article 2)
That is: the point of marriage is for the man and the woman to come together, for all time, for the purpose of (having and) raising children. And indeed, in Catholic teaching, Mary and Joseph did come together, and stay together for the rest of their lives, and raise a child whom they appeared to treat and understand as "their child". The only thing they didn't do is consummate the marriage—which of course is usually required in order to have one's own children, but not in their case.


Are mainline Protestants our Brothers in Christ by virtue of the Trinitarian Baptism? [Catholic]

The answer is yes, the Catholic Church views Protestants as brothers by virtue of the baptismal formula of Father, Son, Spirit.

Wounds to unity
817 In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame." The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism - do not occur without human sin:
Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.
818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."

PS. There are those of the Catholic Church who disagree with the Catholic Church called sedevancatists.


Are Filipino Roman Catholics required to not have meat on all Fridays of Lent?

According to the website Filipino Catholic, in 1985 Pope St John Paul II approved a set of complementary norms for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines. These included a variance to canon 1253 of the new Code of Canon Law relating to the Lenten fast and abstinence. According to the website, the norms were published in the CBCP Monitor, Volume 6, number VI, on pages 32-43. I have not yet been able to verify this.
According to the site, fasting is obligatory in all dioceses of the Philippines on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday. Abstinence from meat is obligatory on those days as well, but some other form of penitential observance can be substituted for abstinence on the remaining Fridays in Lent:

Can. 1253: Other Forms of Penance as Substitute for Abstinence
Except on Good Friday and Ash Wednesday, abstinence may be substituted with exercise [sic] of piety, such as reading the Bible, going to Mass, visiting the Blessed Sacrament, praying the Holy Rosary, or with acts of charity, such as visiting the sick and prisoners, giving alms to the poor, teaching catechism.


When was it first said in Christianity by a Church Father that heretics must be tortured physically?

The Definition of Torture

The first thing to identify in such a question is the definition of torture. Torture is a fluid term and similar or even exact same actions may seem like torture against one person but not against another, so there is a subjective nature to the question.

There is also the consideration of certain execution methods actually being torture. As Christians, we are familiar with crucifixion, which involves a prolonged death and great suffering. During medieval times, drawing and quartering, flaying, and burning at the stake all are meant to kill, but are equally meant to torture. Other methods of execution that are today considered inhumane in many cultures would be stoning, hanging, and beating to death, however, these methods do not necessitate the prolonging of death, and if done in a particular way, can actually be quite swift. Also, until the banning of "cruel and unusual punishment" torture as we know it was typically just part of the penal system. It was viewed as necessary for either deterring crime or exacting God's punishments until roughly 1690, when England's bill of rights officially made torture illegal.

We are also going to neglect any torture that was not sanctioned by legal officials. The nature of this question necessitates that only examples of torture that public, Christian religious officials allowed or ordered. To further complicate things, we are looking for the earliest example of hypothetical approval of such actions. This proves more difficult to demonstrate unless specific torture events are mentioned.

So the definition we will work with is the WHO 1986 definition of Organized violence:

  The inter-human infliction of significant, avoidable pain and suffering by an organized group according to a declared or implied strategy and/or system of ideas and attitudes. It comprises any violent action that is unacceptable by general human standards, and relates to the victims’ feelings.

So whether an event is considered torturous or not has nothing to do with it ending in death. Instead, it must include:

Physical pain that is avoidable, which includes unnecessarily prolonging death.
Publicly sanctioned by Christian religious officials.

Definition of Heresy

We must also define heresy. Heresy, like torture, has also proved to be a fluid term over the centuries. Originally, heresy first came into use when Christians found that some small groups, such as the Gnostics, held slightly different beliefs on key dogmas which made them incompatible with "the orthodoxy of Christianity."

Irenaeus is credited with thrusting the idea of Christian orthodoxy and safeguarding the religion from heretics in his work Adversus Haereses, which he wrote to discredit Gnosticism and encourage the traditional elements of the Church.

Generally, heresy has been defined as anything that is not in full agreement with "Christian Orthodoxy." What has changed often over the centuries is opinions on what Christian Orthodoxy is. So we are left not defining heresy ourselves, but leaving it up to the accusers. Whether we would call any person or groups heretics is irrelevant.

Where did it start

Torture has a long history thousands of years older than any Christian example. When looking closely at the New Testament it is difficult to make a case for torture, killing, war, or any violence. So how did the Christian church go from a persecuted and tortured group in the first and second centuries to an advocate and performer of some of the most heinous tortures?

It started with the Romans. Roman officials commonly tortured enemies and criminals, often with the intent to execute them afterward. And the old Roman Empire slowly became the Roman Catholic Church starting with the conversion of Constantine I. Irenaeus set the stage to confront heresy head first. Later, Augustine came to the conclusion that "compulsion" and violence were acceptable to turn the heretic from his ways, arguing that Paul was struck by Christ Himself before his conversion and became the most successful apostle. Augustine was accepting of fines, imprisonment, banishment, and moderate floggings, but likely would have been disgusted at the treatment of people in the Middle Ages.

But by 1252, Pope Innocent IV, himself, issued a papal bull that authorized the use torture against heretics, giving us the single most obvious approval and mandating of torture for heretics. This bull read:

  [Heretics are] murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith ... [and are] to be coerced—as are thieves and bandits—into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb.

Pinning it down to the first Christian approval of torture is difficult because it was a long road from Augustine to Innocent IV. There are quite a few examples of people being executed in horrific ways, such as burning, but whether religious officials approved is difficult to determine. Again, because our modern definitions of torture are different, some punishments given at the time were not considered torture, but just part of the punishment. Paschal I, who was Pope in the ninth century, is said to have blinded his enemies before they were executed. The same is said of Hadrian III. Whippings, beatings, branding, and removal of hands or legs were common punishments for many crimes, including heresy since Constantine I. Whether they were considered torture is almost entirely subjective, but most of them were approved and even ordered by religious officials.

Misc sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture
http://www.heretication.info/_heretics.html
http://www.heretication.info/_torture.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_on_persecution_and_tolerance
http://egregores.blogspot.ie/2010/10/augustine-in-defense-of-torturing.html


You are correct. Asia as referred to in the bible was a province in the Roman Empire.  See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_(Roman_province)

For further information, refer to the etymology section of the main Wikipedia article on Asia.


What is the Eastern-Orthodox interpetation of Romans 3:10-20?

I've translated prof. Lopukhin's interpretation of these verses for you:

for 10-18:
Accusations made by the Apostle are in agreement with those made by Jewish prophets about them. First he cites Psalms 13:1–3, 5:10, 139:3, 9:28, then books of Proverbs and Isaiah (1:16 and 59:7-8 respectively), then Psalm 35:2 again. It should be noted that the Apostle speaks of human corruption in wide terms (10-12) and then makes an accent on two specific instances - a corruption in words (13-14) and corruption in deeds (15-17). He concludes that the source of the corruption is a missing fear of the God (18).
for 19-20:
Jews could've argued with the Apostle that cited writing are related to heathens and not people of Israel (like Ps. 13). The Apostle counter that books of Old Testament are written for Jews, not for heathens. It is clear that book authors wanted to warn people of Israel, their compatriots, about God's judgement for their sins, in which they became akin to heathens. It could be, in Jews the Law foresaw the beginnings of sins that were present in heathens. "The whole world" - a whole humanity, both Jews and heathens - "held accountable to God", that is is a subject for God's judgement, "by the works of the law". Under this term the Apostle means not only deeds of rite, but also inner acts of human's will. A Jew wanted to obey all the testaments of Moses' law by his own, his own spiritual work. He wanted to exonerate himself by his own labor. The Apostle sees such ambition as unreachable - "no one will be declared righteous", not a single person, as we are weak and powerless, and can not fulfill the Law in its entirety. So, the only thing that the Law gives Jews is understanding of the sad fact that it is impossible to get out of the sins abyss by their own. The Apostle speaks of that more in 8:7-11.

Hope that helps.


Will there be a second chance for salvation after the Rapture?

For starters, the Bible doesn't contain the word "rapture" nor does it clearly state that such an event will happen. Different people have read between the lines to infer a rapture at different points in the book of Revelation, but it is not clearly stated anywhere.

Since the Bible doesn't clearly state that there will be a Rapture and those who believe that it will happen disagree significantly on when it will happen, the only clear answer that can be given to your question is:

"No, the Bible does not make a clear statement about there being a second chance for salvation after the time of rapture."


The gospel of Jesus, written by Luke, has a specific reason for giving the genealogy that he does. Notice where Luke suddenly (almost unexpectedly) places that genealogy. He plonks it right inbetween Jesus' baptism in the Jordan river and the temptations in the wilderness (Luke 3:23-38). Why would a genealogy appear there, in the narrative?
Well, consider that as it ends up with Adam, we are seeing the link (which is an unsmashable chain) from Jesus the Son of God, the second Adam, to the first son of God, the man Adam. The significance here is that we are meant to see that Jesus' temptation and victory needs to be viewed in light of the testing and defeat of the first Adam. To quote from this truly helpful book's chapter on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christ when on earth:

"The conflict in which Jesus engaged is, therefore, to be seen as a
re-run of Eden. Like Adam before him, Jesus was incited to 'be as God'
and to reject [God's] word. But he chose the way of God-glorifying
obedience and suffering instead... Jesus, anointed with the Spirit,
was carried obediently and overcomingly through the test of the
wilderness... Thus, in the power of the Spirit, in the inhospitable
desert which the world had become through the first Adam's sin, the
second man, the eschatological Adam (ho eschatos Adam, 1 Cor.
15:45), regained enemy-occupied territory." Sinclair Ferguson, The
Holy Spirit, p 49 (ivp 1996)

Luke has a strong emphasis in his account of the role of the Holy Spirit with regard to Jesus. At his baptism, the Holy Spirit descends, fluttering-like as a dove. Luke has a theme of how the Spirit is given regularly in response to prayer and in connection with the advance of the kingdom, hence the Spirit immediately leading Christ into the wilderness and being with him for the duration, for this was the start of Jesus' earthly ministry.  After Jesus' triumph over Satan's temptations, Jesus returned to Galilee "in the power of the Spirit" (Luke 4:14). What we see in Jesus was fully realized human holiness and wisdom, over-turning the damage done by the first Adam's lack of holiness and wisdom. As the book further explains:

"The Spirit came upon him while he was praying, following his baptism
(Lk. 3:21)... This event marks Jesus' public entrance into and
consecration to his messianic ministry... He comes on the scene as the
long-awaited prophet of God. In addition, Luke's reference to Jesus
being about thirty years of age (Lk. 3:23) probably reflects the age
of entry into priestly service. Jesus is thus also viewed as an
anointed priest.. Just as the High Priest prepared for his
atonement-day ministry by washing and anointing, so Jesus received the
washing of this baptism and the anointing of the Spirit with a view to
his own priestly ministry. In his water-baptism he consecrates himself
by prayer to his coming death-baptism (cf.Jn. 17:19). The heavenly
voice he hears echoes the words of enthronement from Psalm 2:7,
underlining that Jesus is entering into the ministry of the universal
king. The coming of the Spirit therefore is an anointing for the
three-fold messianic office prefigured by prophets, priests and kings.
...Jesus is the 'second man' and the 'last Adam' who will become
life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45-47)... who will bring rest to a
cursed world. ...Thus the Spirit comes on Christ as the head of the
new creation." (ibid. pp 45 & 47)

Luke's genealogy is bringing the reader's attention to the critically important bond between the first Adam, who failed at the first temptation, and the second Adam, who triumphed and undid all the damage done by the first man and Satan. That is why that particular genealogy is placed at that particular point in the narrative.


What is the Lutheran doctrine of "Law and Gospel"?

Speaking as someone who went to a lutheran seminary, let's attack these questions one at a time, shall we?

Is this "Law" of ("Law and Gospel") referring to the Old Testament law?

The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord says in Section V "Law and Gospel"...

  Anything that preaches concerning our sins and God's wrath, let it be
     done how or when it will, that is all a preaching of the Law. Again,
     the Gospel is such a preaching as shows and gives nothing else than
     grace and forgiveness in Christ, although it is true and right that
     the apostles and preachers of the Gospel (as Christ Himself also did)
     confirm the preaching of the Law, and begin it with those who do not
     yet acknowledge their sins nor are terrified at [by the sense of]
     God's wrath; as He says, John 16:8: 13] "The Holy Ghost will reprove
     the world of sin because they believe not on Me." Yea, what more
     forcible, more terrible declaration and preaching of God's wrath
     against sin is there than just the suffering and death of Christ, His
     Son? But as long as all this preaches God's wrath and terrifies men,
     it is not yet the preaching of the Gospel nor Christ's own preaching,
     but that of Moses and the Law against the impenitent. For the Gospel
     and Christ were never ordained and given for the purpose of
     terrifying and condemning, but of comforting and cheering those who
     are terrified and timid.

For Luther, the "Law" was anything that stung the conscience of its own sins against GOD and neighbor, while "Gospel" or "Grace" was anything that communicated the love and forgiveness of GOD.

If so, do Lutherans believe that these Old Testament laws should be enforced as equally as the rules set forth in the New Testament?

Lutherans believe that not all Old Testament laws should be enforced equally, but that there is a timeless truth behind each of the laws that can be applied to today's context.  For further information on this please see...

The Epitome of the Formula of Concord section VI entitled "The Third Use of the Law"...

  VI. The Third Use of the Law.

  1] Since the Law was given to men for three reasons: first, that
     thereby outward discipline might be maintained against wild,
     disobedient men [and that wild and intractable men might be
     restrained, as though by certain bars]; secondly, that men thereby
     may be led to the knowledge of their sins; thirdly, that after they
     are regenerate and [much of] the flesh notwithstanding cleaves to
     them, they might on this account have a fixed rule according to which
     they are to regulate and direct their whole life, a dissension has
     occurred between some few theologians concerning the third use of the
     Law, namely, whether it is to be urged or not upon regenerate
     Christians.

So, for Lutherans the Law has three purposes, 1) restrain evil 2) show humanity its evil and 3) as a guidebook for how Christians ought to live in grace.

I hope this helps!


Which Orthodox churches are on the New Calendar, and which are on the Old Calendar?

This issue gets super confusing, and you probably won't get "comprehensive." The one thing you got going for you is that if you ask any Orthodox Christian which calendar they follow, they'll have an answer for you lickedy-split, due to how divisive this issue has been historically and still continues to be.
Okay. There is actually two distinct "new calendars" and only one "old calendar." The "old" is the Julian calendar, it is a reformed and corrected Roman calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. A good but slightly technical overview is here. The "new" is actually the Revised Julian or the Gregorian. As you may know the Gregorian is the one we are all familiar with. The Revised Julian is essentially the Gregorian but ties the date of Pascha to the Julian calendar. Few Orthodox churches use the Gregorian exclusively.
From Orthodoxwiki:

-The Julian Calendar churches are: Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Georgia, Poland, Sinai, Ukraine, and Japan.
-The Revised Julian Calendar churches are: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Czech Lands and Slovakia, Estonia and the OCA.
-The Gregorian Calendar church is: Finland.
A number of the above churches also have some parishes and dioceses which are on a different calendar than their respective primates, most especially the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the diaspora, which has many Julian Calendar parishes.

Each Orthodox Church or Jurisdiction has chosen which calendar they will follow. What makes it difficult, and why "comprehensive" will escape us is because so many parishes and dioceses have made calendar decisions that are not always in line with their "mother-Church."
For information on each of the churches listed above, I would suggest visiting Orthodoxwiki.org's list of autocephalous and autonomous churches. Most of the listed Churches' pages include a sidebar that will tell you which calendar they follow. For those that do not, there may be more information in the article. Hope that helps.


What exactly did Yahshua/Jesus do during his 40 day fast after being baptized?

The Bible tells us that after Jesus was baptised in the Jordan (Matthew 3:13) he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness and fasted for forty days and nights.  The purpose of this period of total fasting was to prepare him for the ministry that would change the world.
Satan offered Jesus alternatives to God’s plan, compromises that would satisfy His natural desires, and attacks upon His very identity as the Son of God (Matthew 4:3). Jesus used the Word of God, not His own strength, to defeat those temptations and remain victorious over sin.  Jesus demonstrated that fasting can strengthen us spiritually when we use it to draw closer to God.
After Jesus’ fast, the devil left Him and “angels came and attended him” (Matthew 4:11). Luke 4:14 concludes the account of this testing time by saying, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.”  He had conquered temptation and was ready to embrace the purpose for which the Father had sent Him.  He would not rely on His humanity to perform miracles, deliver the oppressed, or defeat death.  Fasting was a way to declare mastery over His human nature so that He would live every moment directed by the “power of the Spirit” (Luke 10:21).
Moses and Elijah took part in miraculous, forty-day absolute fasts. When Moses met God on the mountaintop to receive the tablets of stone, he ate no bread and drank no water (Deuteronomy 9:9). And, after Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, infuriating Queen Jezebel, Elijah fled for his life and spent forty days of fasting in the wilderness (1 Kings 19).
This type of fasting is quite different to the fasting described in Isaiah chapter 58.  The nation of Israel was rebellious and had sinned against the LORD.  Although they cried out for justice their hypocritical actions and injustice made a mockery of their fasting and apparent humility.  That is why Isaiah had to rebuke them.  Not so with Jesus, who was without sin and was the Son of God.
You ask what Jesus did during these 40 days in the wilderness.  He fasted, he prayed and he resisted temptation.  The following commentary (by Matthew Henry) regarding the events in the wilderness is helpful. It is a lengthy and detailed commentary, which concludes:

Christ was thus succoured after the temptation, [1.] For his encouragement to go on in his undertaking, that he might see the powers of heaven siding with him, when he saw the powers of hell set against him. [2.] For our encouragement to trust in him; for as he knew, by experience, what it was to suffer, being tempted, and how hard that was, so he knew what it was to be succoured, being tempted, and how comfortable that was; and therefore we may expect, not only that he will sympathize with his tempted people, but that he will come in with seasonable relief to them; as our great Melchizedec, who met Abraham when he returned from the battle, and as the angels here ministered to him.

Lastly, Christ, having been thus signalized and made great in the invisible world by the voice of the Father, the descent of the Spirit, his victory over devils, and his dominion over angels, was doubtless qualified to appear in the visible world as the Mediator between God and man; for consider how great this man was!

Source: https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=mh&b=40&c=4


Is there any scripture or literature exploring why God chose not to annihilate Satan?

Yes, there is.
What happens to Satan?
The New Testament is the story of Christ's victory over sin and death. This happened with his death and resurrection, but the final accomplishment of his victory is delayed until the end of time. Matthew 25:31-46 quotes Jesus saying that at that time, he will return to judge all people.
1 Corinthians 15:22-26 explains (NIV):

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

The book of Revelation covers this topic in detail. Towards the end (20:10) we read:

And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

This is the final end of the devil (and of hell and death, 20:14, and "anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life", 20:15). God's choice for Satan is not annihilation, but eternal suffering, and that only begins once the "heavens and earth pass away" (21:1). Until then, Satan remains active in the world and retains the ability to tempt people.
Can God annihilate Satan, or anything else?
The glib answer is "Sure, why not?". Aquinas taught that God certainly can annihilate anything (Summa Theologica 104.3) on the grounds that God is omnipotent. But he then (104.4) quotes Ecclesiastes 3:14,

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.

to say that he chooses not to.
Why eternal torment, not just annihilation?
Augustine discusses this in City of God 21.11. His basic argument is that our sin (equally, the devil's) is deserving of infinite punishment because it is an offence against God, and therefore infinitely severe. Aquinas (Summa Theologica 99.1) expounds some other reasons as well:

For he who falls into mortal sin of his own will puts himself in a state whence he cannot be rescued, except God help him: wherefore from the very fact that he is willing to sin, he is willing to remain in sin for ever. [...] Thus if a man were to throw himself into a pit whence he could not get out without help, one might say that he wished to remain there for ever, whatever else he may have thought himself.
Another and a better answer is that from the very fact that he commits a mortal sin, he places his end in a creature; and since the whole of life is directed to its end, it follows that for this very reason he directs the whole of his life to that sin, and is willing to remain in sin forever, if he could do so with impunity.

Aquinas also says that since, once you have died, you no longer have the ability to choose, you are equally deserving of punishment or reward at any future point after your death. Some people do think that God's mercy will extend to forgiving all people, and even Satan himself, or that we will get another chance after death to accept God. Augustine doesn't have a very good argument against it - he just calls them "tender-hearted" and moves on. This area is highly contested even today.
There is a sense, then, in which being in hell forever is a fitting end for those who choose it (as Judas is called "the one who chose to be lost" or "the son of perdition" in John 17:12). Under the interpretation of hell as eternal separation from God, those who have chosen to be separated from God (by remaining in sin) get exactly what they wanted, except it turns out not be as nice as they had hoped.
This is pretty much exactly what Dante describes in the Divine Comedy. In his Hell, the punishment sinners receive isn't some ironically appropriate retribution - it is the sin itself, but without any comforting illusion. It's also what Lewis writes about in The Great Divorce, except that he imagines people being able to choose even after death. Lewis's grey city is just what its inhabitants want it to be, unfortunately.


How would a Calvinist interpret Matthew 13:37-40?

The Calvinist understanding is that election occurs before anyone is even created. So, in your ball analogy, before the balls are created, God first determines how many there will be, which ones will be saved, and when they will be saved. He then creates them, and allows their sinful nature and Satan's working to plunge them into damnation. He then saves those He previously decided to save (election). Mr. X decides how many balls will become white on Sunday, then creates all of them white, they become black from their own efforts, and then during the week Mr. X colours some of them white.
The Canons of Dort (a standard Reformed summary of what the Bible teaches on certain subjects) says in Article 7 the following:

Election is God’s unchangeable purpose by which he did the following:
Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, God chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. God did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation.
And so God decreed to give to Christ those chosen for salvation, and to call and draw them effectively into Christ’s fellowship through the Word and Spirit. In other words, God decreed to grant them true faith in Christ, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally, after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of the Son, to glorify them.
God did all this in order to demonstrate his mercy, to the praise of the riches of God’s glorious grace.
As Scripture says, “God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, so that we should be holy and blameless before him with love; he predestined us whom he adopted as his children through Jesus Christ, in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, by which he freely made us pleasing to himself in his beloved” (Eph. 1:4-6). And elsewhere, “Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).

It is worth noting that Matthew 13:37-40 is understood by the Calvinist to be referring to the church. John Calvin in his Commentary on Matthew says the following:

He had formerly said that the kingdom of heaven resembles a man sowing. The mode of expression is unusual, but plainly means, that the same thing happens with the preaching of the Gospel as usually takes place in the sowing of fields; the tares grow, up along with the wheat One peculiarity, however, is pointed out by him, when he says that the sowing of tares in the field was effected by the trick of an enemy. This is intended to inform us that, when many wicked men are mingled with believers, this is no accidental or natural occurrence, as if they were the same seed, but that we must learn to charge the blame of this evil on the devil. Not that, by condemning him, men are acquitted of guilt; but, in the first place, that no blame whatever may be laid on God on account of this fault which arose from the agency of another; and, secondly, that we may not be surprised to find tares frequently growing in the Lord’s field, since Satan is always on the watch to do mischief. Again, when Christ says, not that the ministers of the word sow, but that he alone sows, this is not without meaning; for though this cannot be supposed to be restricted to his person, yet as he makes use of our exertions, and employs us as his instruments, for cultivating his field, so that He alone acts by us and in us, he justly claims for himself what is, in some respects, common to his ministers. Let us, therefore, remember, that the Gospel is preached, not only by Christ’s command, but by his authority. and direction; in short, that we are only his hand, and that He alone is the Author of the work.


Which Christian churches have an entirely unpaid/lay clergy?

Quakers and Mormons have no paid staff in their local assemblies.  In the national bodies, however, there is usually some renumeration or support, in order to retain staff.  The truth is that very few would consider it wise to have a national organization without any accountability, which is what an all-volunteer lobby would be.

Additionally, many more Baptists than you might think have volunteer staff. Finally, there are a great number of unpaid missionaries, itinerant preachers, and supporters of various causes that may fit into this category. Usually the local pastor is supported by the congregation, but the national staff has many more volunteers.

Finally, if you look at what a Roman Catholic priest earns, it's pretty close to nothing.

All that said, most mainstream Protestant churches will pay their clergy, based on Paul's commentary on paying preachers in 1 Timothy 5:18.  Those churches relying on unpaid staff tend to be less mainstream and more "feeling" driven, with the feeling being that preaching is a gift like any other.


Who developed the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy first - Catholics or Protestants?

This selected Aerarius' answer to What are the main differences between the Catholic and Protestant definitions of Biblical inerrancy? said:

  There is not any real difference between the Catholic teaching on
  inerrancy of Scripture and the generic "Protestant" view [...].

If this be the case, we have from the article on the Catholic position:

  The Traditional Understanding of the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy Prior to the Second Vatican Council

  The traditional understanding of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is
  perhaps most powerfully and clearly expressed by St. Augustine
  [354-430] in one of his letters to St. Jerome [340-2 to 420]:

  For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this
  respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these
  alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free
  from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which
  appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that
  either the [manuscript] is faulty or the translator has not caught the
  meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it . .
  . I believe, my brother, that this is your own opinion as well as
  mine.1

  1. Letter 82, i, 3 in Philip Schaff (ed)., Letters of St.
  Augustine: The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church,
  First Series, vol 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans, 1994)
  348.

Therefore if by Biblical inerrancy is meant that the authors of the canonical books of Scripture were completely free from error, then from Catholic tradition, this Catholic understanding preceded the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy by over 1550 years. And the latter statement is:

  Biblical inerrancy, as formulated in the "Chicago Statement on
  Biblical Inerrancy", is the doctrine that the Bible "is without error
  or fault in all its teaching"; or, at least, that "Scripture in the
  original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to
  fact". - Source: Biblical inerrancy | Wikipedia.


To what extent should the Apostles' speech be considered infallible?

This answer brings up an interesting verse in 1 Corinthians 7, when Paul distinguishes between his words and the Lord's.

  Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her.

This distinction should, I would argue, is similar to that of papal infallibality. As a human being, the Bishop of Rome is a fallen creature.  As Romans 3:10 would say, "There is none righteous, not one." And, as Jesus said to the Rich young ruler, "No one is good but God alone."  From a pure "perfection" standard, God's word would not allow any man's speech to be perfect. Even Roman Catholic teaching says the Pope is only infallable when speaking ex cathedra, or from God.

Clearly then not all things that the apostles said are thus "infallible," but rather only those things which are "scriptural."  In other words, if they are in line with what God would have had these men say, then they are perfect. If not, they are the words of any other man.  (I'm reminded of a scene from The Robe, in which Peter must remind his church that he is not perfect!)

The question, then, is whether or not the words recorded in Scripture are "perfect" or infallable.  Here, I would point out the exact words of Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16:

  All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Notice my emphasis on profitable. Even Scripture sidesteps the question of infallability over its "usefulness" or it profitability.  Regardless of whether or not the Apostles said the right thing, God uses it to be the exact right thing that is needed.

I believe wholeheartedly in the perfection of Scripture, ala Turretin, et. al - although I've stopped using the term inerrancy myself. Inerrancy says "This conforms to my standard of what is right and wrong."  I say that because in order for something to be "without error" it must be judged, and "I" am the subject of that.  That presupposes that "I" am in a position to judge that. That's a pretty high handed stance for a Christian who believes in the completely supremacy of The Word.

In contrast, the word telos or perfection, is a word that:
a. is in Scripture (see James)
b. keeps God in charge.
Perfect implies, as does 2 Timothy, that a thing perfectly accomplishes that which it sets out to do.  It is need of no judge, because it is by definition perfect.

By that standard, the words of the Apostles, like the words of Scripture themselves, are exactly what God intends for our own reproof, correction, teaching, and training in righteousness.


What is the Biblical basis for mankind being morally required to treat animals well?

It's true that the Bible says that man has "dominion" over the animals:

  And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28, ESV)

But there are many, many passages in the Bible regarding the treatment of animals.  Here are some examples from the Old Testament:

Exodus 20:10: Animals are not to work on the Sabbath, just like people
Exodus 23:5: Relieve overburdened animals, even if you hate their owner
Exodus 23:11: Allow animals to graze fallow fields
Deuteronomy 11:15: Some interpret this verse to mean that humans should feed their pets and livestock before they eat themselves, though that's a rather tenuous interpretation.
Deuteronomy 25:4: Allow animals to eat while working
Proverbs 12:10: The righteous have regard for their animals' lives

Some also see significance in the fact that heroes like Jacob (Gen. 29), Moses (Ex. 3), and David (1 Sam. 17) were shepherds, while a hunter like Esau (Gen. 25) is not exactly a model citizen.  Similarly, Rebecca is rewarded for treating animals well (Gen. 24:19).  Abraham is rewarded after he separates his herd from his nephew's to relieve overgrazing (Gen. 13).  We need to be cautious not to take such examples too far, however, because they could be mere coincidence, or reflections of the importance of animals to agrarian economies, rather than indications of God's moral standards.

In the New Testament, Jesus speaks of God's regard for animals, as in Matthew 6:26 (cf. Luke 12:6–7):

  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? [ESV]

Jesus also speaks favorably of rescuing livestock that falls into a pit on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:11).

That said, as the quote above from Jesus makes clear, animals are considered inferior to people in the Bible.  There are many places where God sanctions the eating of meat, for example, and animals are extensively used for ritual sacrifices and labor. But the Bible does not condone reckless abuse of animals, specifically forbidding a number of types of animal mistreatment.


Help identifying a large FAQ about women pastors made by John Piper and someone else

John Piper and Wayne Grudham have published the following books which may deal with the subject of women as pastors:

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood - A Response to Evangelical Feminism by John Piper and Wayne Grudham - A controversy of major proportions has spread through the church. Recent generations bear witness to the rise of "evangelical feminism"-a movement that has had a profound impact on all of life, challenging some of our basic Christian beliefs...  Combining systematic argumentation with popular application, this volume deals with all of the main passages of Scripture brought forward in this controversy regarding gender-based role differences.  Anyone concerned with the fundamental question of the proper relationship between men and women in home, church, and society will want to read this book.
50 Crucial Questions About Manhood and Womanhood - An Overview of Central Concerns About Manhood and Womanhood by John Piper and Wayne Grudham - Adapted from chapter two of Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood.
“This is the booklet I return to most often in dealing with the knotty issues of manhood and womanhood in ministry.”
“The issue we face in this booklet is how men and women should relate to each other according to the Bible.”

This link is to an article by John Piper on female professors at seminary: Is There a Place for Female Professors at Seminary?
I hope this is helpful.


Is the Pope allowed to notarize various Vatican documents?

As the Head of State of Holy See (Vatican), the pope can notarize various documents within the Vatican, especially Papal Documents written by the reigning pontiff. In such cases, the pope would use the Ring Of the Fisherman to confirm an official document written by himself.

  Originally, the Fisherman’s Ring was a signet which was used to seal official documents signed by the pope. The private correspondences of the pope were sealed by the use of the Fisherman’s Ring while the public documents were sealed by stamping a different papal seal onto the lead that was attached to the respective document. During the 15th century, the use of the Fisherman’s Ring changed and it started to be used for sealing official documents referred to as papal briefs. This practice ended in 1842, when the lead sealing was replaced with wax. - The Pope's Ring

The pope's signet ring is one of two papal seals used in documents. The other one is a leaden bull (bulla).

  The earliest mention of the Fisherman's Ring worn by the popes is in a letter of Clement IV written in 1265 to his nephew, Peter Grossi. The writer states that popes were then accustomed to seal their private letters with "the seal of the Fisherman", whereas public documents, he adds, were distinguished by the leaden "bulls" attached. From the fifteenth century, however, the Fisherman's ring has been used to seal the class of papal official documents known as Briefs. The Fisherman's Ring is placed, by the cardinal camerlengo on the finger of a newly elected pope. It is made of gold, with a representation of St. Peter in a boat, fishing, and the name of the reigning pope around it. - The Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Benedict's signet ring will be destroyed using special silver papal hammer to ensure documents it was used to sign will not be forged.


Do Catholics have an obligation to attend the parish closest to their homes?

The short answer is no.

  Not many Catholics know this, but your real parish is the one whose territory includes your place of residence.

  At least that is how the Code of Canon Law still sees it. But even with that built-in understanding of one’s territorial parish, canon law does not require you to register or attend Mass at the parish that is nearest to your home.

  “Lay Catholics, a lot of pastors too, think that you register in a parish and that you become a parishioner by signing up and registering with the parish. … But strictly speaking, that’s not how the Code of Canon Law treats it,” said Msgr. Jason Gray, a canon lawyer and a priest of the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois.

  “There is nothing that prohibits people from attending Mass wherever they wish to go. … Any Catholic can go to any Catholic church, satisfy their Sunday obligation, and the code really has nothing to say about that,” Msgr. Gray told Our Sunday Visitor.

  That conflicting situation reflects a reality in the modern world. People today are much more mobile than what were earlier generations of Catholics. They can drive to parishes many miles away. Unlike their predecessors, Church leaders today would be hard-pressed to require Catholics to only attend Mass at their local parishes. - Addressing the phenomenon of parish hopping

In previous centuries, bishops would require Catholics to only attend Mass in their neighborhood parishes given the difficulty of travel in the days before automobiles and mass transit.

Canon Law states the following about parish boundaries:

  Can. 518 As a general rule a parish is to be territorial, that is, one which includes all the Christian faithful of a certain territory. When it is expedient, however, personal parishes are to be established determined by reason of the rite, language, or nationality of the Christian faithful of some territory, or even for some other reason.

Although a parish is territorial, Canon Law thus envisions some reasons for not making the closest parish an obligation to attend!

Canon Law does not state which parish or parishes we may or may not attend, even habitually.

In fact this article states that parish registrations may in fact be an American invention!


Do non-Catholics get protection by confessional seal?

"Seeking moral advice" is not a confession, and so would not be subject to the strict seal of the confessional. However, if there is no need for the priest to divulge anything, then I would certainly expect something said in confidence to be kept confidential.

To give a concrete example:

If moral advice was sought as part of a sacramental confession, then everything said is under the seal. For example, a question "When does exchanging information change into being gossip?" might be useful if you have confessed to gossiping. The priest may not need that question, and could well give the advice anyway, but there's no harm in asking for guidance.

You could simply ask such a question outside the confessional, and receive the same advice. And I would expect that to remain confidential: if there is no need to recount your conversation, to do so would be gossiping.

See also Are non-Catholics allowed to go to confession? — although that presupposes that the penitent is at least a Christian.


Is it to say: "We can have reasonable hope that all will be saved" heretical?

Doctrinal Universalism
Barron professes the heresy of doctrinal universalism,

The theory that hell is essentially a kind of purgatory in which sins are expiated, so that eventually everyone will be saved. Also called apokatastasis [ἀποκατάστασις], it was condemned by the church in A.D. 543, against the Origenists, who claimed that

the punishment of devils and wicked men is temporary and will eventually cease, that is to say, that devils or the ungodly will be completely restored to their original state

(Denzinger 411).

Balthasar & Barron believe hell is empty.
The Modernist, syncretist, New Theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905-1988), influenced by the fake mystic Adrienne von Speyr, promoted the heresy that hell is empty. He also wrote the afterword of a book on Tarot cards and the occult.
Barron wrote the preface to the 2nd edition of Balthasar's Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved.
One cannot hope for the impossible.
The intellectual virtue of faith precedes the virtue of hope, which exists in the will, since the intellect precedes the will (cf. 21st Thomistic thesis). The object of hope cannot contradict reason.
Discussing how faith precedes hope in Summa Theologica II-II q. 17 a. 7 co., St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

the object of hope is a future good, arduous but possible to obtainObiectum enim spei est bonum futurum arduum possibile haberi.

Thus, one cannot hope for impossible things, e.g., that God doesn't exist, that He contradict Himself, that the Church's dogmas change, that 2+2=5, etc.
Religious Indifferentism
Related to his universalist heresy, Barron professes the heresy of religious indifferentism, which holds that no one religion is necessary for salvation. Recently, he told a Jew that Jesus is the "privileged way" of salvation, which implies there are other means of salvation, directly contradicting, e.g., Acts 4:12 ("Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.").
Hell exists, and its punishments are perpetual.
Athanasian Creed (D 40):

those who have done good, will go into life everlasting, but those who have done evil, into eternal fire
qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vitam æternam, qui vero mala, in ignem æternum

The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) defined the dogma that the rejected will receive (D 429):

everlasting punishment with the devil
cum diabolo pœnam perpetuam

Once a soul is damned, there is no hope that it will be saved.
These dogmas are de fide ("of the faith"). Contradicting a de fide truth incurs the censure of heresy; the effects of denying it are:

Mortal sin committed directly against the virtue of faith, and, if the heresy is outwardly professed, excommunication is automatically incurred and membership of the Church forfeited.


Have any popes explicitly expressed disapproval of the inclusion of homosexual priests, including the nonpracticing, into the priesthood?

There is a document issued by the Congregation for Catholic Education (which oversees among other thing the seminary formation of priests) issued in 2005 that goes into detail about policies for admitting those with homosexual tendencies to the priesthood: it has the rather long title Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders

This document is normative (i.e., it has force of law) for seminaries, and it says, in a nutshell, that those who currently have deep-seated homosexual tendencies should not be admitted to the diaconate. (Evidently, much less should they be admitted to the priesthood, since the diaconate is the first degree of Holy Orders, necessary before becoming a priest.) They should not be admitted to Holy Orders, because being a priest requires that a person have the ability to form healthy relationships with the men and women they encounter in their ministry. Deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which are not, of course, sinful in and of themselves, nevertheless place a serious obstacle to the kinds of relationships that priests need to develop with the faithful they minister to.

However, the document says that those who have clearly overcome such tendencies for at least three years could be admitted to the diaconate, provided the other elements that go into vocational discernment are in place: desire on the part of the candidate to be a priest, a positive judgment of worthiness on the part of his formators, a healthy moral and spiritual life, a good prayer life, and so on. (In most dioceses, transitional deacons are ordained priests a year or two after their diaconal ordination, the minimum interval being six months.)

The document is very thorough and succint, and it serves as a good explanation of the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality in general, as well as how the Church applies that teaching to admitting men to the priesthood.

As regards the statistics, I am sure that the Congregation for Catholic Education is well aware of them, and it is doubtless partly in response to them that it issued this document.

(I should point out that the L.A. Times poll does not appear to be scientific, and it seems to me that the numbers are rather high. Nevertheless, the Church does recognize that there is a historic problem of admitting men with homosexual tendencies to the priesthood, and has moved to stop it, as can be seen.)


Is there any evidence for the claim that the Catholic church suppressed translation of Scripture?

Quoting from The Story of Christianity, chapter thirty (emphasis added):1

  When Alexander died, Hildebrand was elected pope, although the order prescribed by the Second Lateran Council was reversed, for it was the people who demanded his election, and the cardinals who agreed. He took the name of Gregory VII, and continued the work of reformation in which he had been engaged for years. His dream was of a world united under the papacy, as one flock under one shepherd. Among the many steps he took in this direction, he declared that the Bible should not be translated into vernacular languages, for the ministry of teaching and interpretation must be in the hands of Rome...

Additional Context: Chapter thirty is entitled "Movements of Renewal," and Gonzalez is describing the Roman Catholic Church in the eleventh century, following the corruption which existed during and after the decline of the Carolingian empire. The "reformation" referred to is not the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, but rather the eleventh century ecclesiastical reformation internal to the RCC, as initiated by monks from Cluny and other monasteries.

The Story of Christianity, Revised Edition, by Justo Gonzalez. Volume I, p. 337.


Is Ecclesiastes 2:24 advice for Christians or non-Christians

The advice is not to "eat, drink, work hard and be merry". The advice is more similar to Jesus' "See the lilies,...". In this chapter, Ecclesiastes says (attention, context coming ;-) ):

It is vain to work hard and amass earthly riches, they won't go with you. It is even more vain that you work hard and don't even enjoy the outcome.

Instead, we should enjoy the things God has given us.

I don't think that's bad advice, so long as you don't interpret it to mean "eat, drink, work hard, and be merry".

Ecclesiastes 2:26

  26 For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and
  knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and
  to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also
  is vanity and vexation of spirit.

=> The good man gets everything from God, the sinner works for vain goals


Do Catholics reject the sola of the Reformation

The purpose of the five solas was to contrast the Protestant Reformation from the contemporary Roman Catholic teaching:

Sola gratia: that grace alone is the only thing necessary for salvation, and that the supposed Roman Catholic belief of good works affecting salvation is incorrect
Soli Deo gloria: that glory is given to God alone, and that the Roman Catholic glorification of the saints (especially Mary) and the Pope is wrong
Sola fide: that forgiveness of sins is achieved through faith alone, and not through faith plus good works as believed by the Church
Sola scriptura: that the Bible is the only thing necessary to understand God's word, and that the Church's reliance on sacred tradition is wrong
Solus Christus: that Christ is the head of the Church, and that salvation comes only through him and not some intermediary, like the Pope, the priesthood, or the saints.

They're presented in such a way as to argue what the Church teaches is wrong, and as such, the Roman Catholic Church rejects all five as they were formulated and argued simpliciter.

The Church's response to the implications derived from the five solas has been similar to its reponse to much of Protestant teaching; that they're based on misinterpretation and misapplication of the scriptures or of the Church body:

The Church affirmed the doctrine of sola gratia twice: first in 529 at the Second Council of Orange, and again in 1545 at the Council of Trent.
The Church agrees that all glory is to God alone, but that the recognition of the saints is to glorify God, and that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.
The Church rejects the Biblical standing upon which sola fide is founded, just as the Protestants reject the Biblical basis upon which the doctrine of faith plus grace/good works is founded.
The Church believes the doctrine of sola scriptura has no Biblical basis, and while the Bible is authoritative, the Gospels state the Church has the authority to teach and interpret it (for example, Matthew 18:18).
The head of the Roman Catholic Church is, in fact, Jesus Christ: and only through His grace we are saved. However, the sacraments, performed by the Church, confer that grace (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus).


What is the purpose of praying over the water at an Church of England baptism?

The page linked to in the question shows two versions of the Prayer over the Water which were introduced in 2015. These are alternatives, in "accessible language",  to the main Prayer over the Water in the Common Worship baptism liturgy. The Common Worship baptism liturgy is itself an alternative to the Book of Common Prayer baptism liturgy which, alone, is doctrinally definitive for the Church of England.

It may be helpful to  consider the historical development of the liturgy.

Prior to the Reformation baptismal water received a priestly blessing though not  at every baptism.  This practice was continued in Cranmer's  first English Prayer Book, under Edward  VI, in 1549, but removed from the 1552 edition. This is the 1549 prayer which was directed to be used whenever the water was changed before any baptism, and that the water be changed at least monthly:

  O most merciful God our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hast ordained the element of water for the regeneration of thy faithful people, upon whom being baptised in the river of Jordan, the Holy Ghost came down in the likeness of a dove: Send down we beseech thee the same thy Holy  Spirit to assist us, and to be present at this our invocation of thy holy name: Sanctify (+) this fountain of baptism, thou that art the sanctifier of al things, that by the power of thy word, all those that shall he baptized therein, may be spiritually regenerated, and made the children of everlasting adoption. Amen.

The (+) indicates the sign of the Cross to be made. I have modernised the spelling.

This practice was removed by Cranmer  from the 1552 and subsequent versions, probably influenced by Martin Bucer, who died in exile in England in 1551, and who strongly opposed blessing inanimate objects.

Also in 1549 was introduced a version of Luther's Flood Prayer, as the first prayer in the English baptism liturgy. This was modified in 1552, in the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI, and again (as we will come to) in 1662. This is the 1552 version:

  Almighty and everlasting God, which of thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in the Ark from perishing by water: and also didst safely lead the children of Israel, thy people through the Red Sea: figuring thereby thy holy Baptism; and by the Baptism of thy well-beloved Son  Jesus Christ, didst sanctify the flood Jordan, and all other waters, to the mystical washing away of sin: We beseech thee for thy infinite mercies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon this child, sanctify him and wash him with thy Holy Ghost, that he, being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the Ark of Christ's Church, and being steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life, there to reign with thee, world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The relevant bit here, which I have bolded, is that, Christ's baptism sanctified not only the Jordan but all other waters for baptismal use. This is also in Luther's original Flood Prayer.  It was un-necessary for the priest to bless the water, because all waters were sanctified already.

Edward, known as England's Josiah,  died aged 15 the following year,1553,  and his older sister Mary undid his reforms and  England  reverted to the pre-Reformation use. On Mary's death in 1558 Elizabeth restored most of the 1552 book, including the bits relevant to this question.

In 1645, during the Civil War Era, Parliament approved, without the King's authority, the Directory of Worship, which was to replace the Book of Common Prayer.  This re-instated the blessing of baptismal water. In keeping with the general concept of the Directory there was no prescribed form of words. This is an extract from the section on baptism:

  Prayer is  also to be joined with the Words of Institution for sanctifying the water to this spiritual use.

Following the Restoration it was decided to re-introduce the Book of Common Prayer but with suitable amendments. A Conference, the Savoy Conference, was held to discuss these. It comprised Presbyterian Divines and Church of England Bishops. The format was that the Puritans made a list of the exceptions (objections) they had to the Prayer Book, and the Bishops responded.

One Exception was to the phrase in Cranmer's version of Luther's Flood Prayer:

  By the Baptism of thy well beloved Son, etc. didst sanctify the flood Jordan, and all other waters to the mystical washing away of sin.

The exception was:

  It being doubtful whether either the flood Jordan, or any other waters were sanctified to a Sacramental use by Christs being baptized and not necessary to be altered: we desire this may be otherwise expressed.

The Bishops' reply was:

  If Jordan and all other waters be not so far sanctified by Christ, as to be the matter of Baptism, what authority have we to baptise?

To which the Puritans replied:

  Did Christ sanctify all Corn or Bread, or Grapes or Wine to an holy use, when he administered the Lords Supper? Sanctifying is separating to an holy use; But the flood Jordan and all other water, is not separated to this holy use, in any proper sense.

The consequence of this discussion was firstly a change in the Flood Prayer, and secondly the introduction of a blessing of the water in the last prayer before the baptism itself.

In the Flood Prayer:

  ..by the Baptism of thy well-beloved Son  Jesus Christ, didst sanctify the flood Jordan, and all other waters, to the mystical washing away of sin

became

  by the Baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan, didst sanctify Water to the mystical washing away of sin.

The last prayer before the baptism itself was amended by adding the phrase in bold:

  Almighty ever living God, whose most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins, did shed out of his most precious side both water and blood; and gave commandment to his disciples, that they should go teach all nations, and baptize them In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Regard, we beseech thee, the supplications of thy congregation; sanctify this Water to the mystical washing away of sin; and grant that this Child, now to be baptized therein, may receive the fullness of thy grace, and ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

So  the doctrinally definitive version of the baptism liturgy was deliberately altered to make ambiguous the phrase in the Flood Prayer as to whether all water, or water in general was sanctified for Baptism, and to very specifically introduce in another prayer a ministerial blessing of the particular water intended for use in a particular baptism.   Perhaps surprisingly, this was done at the request of the Puritans, rather than the High Church side.

The Alternative Service Book, available as an alternative in the 1980s and 1990s, combined the flood and the last prayer into a Prayer over the Water as follows:

  Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ was baptized in the river Jordan
  we thank you for the gift of water to cleanse us and revive us;
  we thank you that through the waters of the Red Sea,
  you led your people out of slavery to freedom in the promised land;
  we thank you that through the deep waters of death you brought your Son,
  and raised him to life in triumph.
  Bless this water, that your servants who are washed in it
  may be made one with Christ in his death and in his resurrection,
  to be cleansed and delivered from all sin.
  Send your Holy Spirit upon them to bring them to new birth
  in the family of your Church,
  and raise them with Christ to full and eternal life.
  or all might, majesty, authority, and power are yours, now and for ever.

And the main Prayer Over the Water in the Common Worship  goes:

  We thank you, almighty God, for the gift of water to sustain, refresh and cleanse all life. Over water the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through water you led the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. In water your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us from the death of sin to newness of life. We thank you, Father, for the water of baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in joyful obedience to your Son, we baptize into his fellowship those who come to him in faith. Now sanctify this water that, by the power of your Holy Spirit, they may be cleansed from sin and born again. Renewed in your image, may they walk by the light of faith
  and continue for ever in the risen life of Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honour and glory, now and for ever.

So although it is true that one of the alternative "accessible language" Prayers Over the Water does not specifically mention blessing the water the doctrine of the Church expressed in her definitive liturgy, in the Alternative Service Book, and  explicitly in two of the three Common Worship Prayers Over the Water does involve a priestly blessing of the water.

It is also clear though that, in common with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England believes nothing essential happens in the blessing of the water. Lay Baptism, under any circumstances, is accepted as valid by the Church of England, although it may be forbidden except in an emergency. This doctrine was somewhat disputed in the early nineteenth century and was the subject of a famous court case, Mastin v Escott in the 1840s, in which the matter was determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. (The matter, of course, was what was the doctrine of the Church, not what was truth - something this site would approve! The case involved a vicar refusing to bury the body of someone whose baptism he did not accept at a time when only baptised persons could be buried in the main churchyard.)

Baptism also differs from the other great sacrament in that priestly or ministerial consecration of the bread and wine is seen as essential.

In conclusion,  there are strong arguments that Church of England baptisms do involve priestly blessings, but that they are no way essential.

Historically the  Church has tried, up to a point anyway, to embrace ambiguity in one liturgy but increasingly offers alternatives which, as @DJClayworth points out, allow individual ministers to tailor services to reflect their personal viewpoints.


How does one reconcile the principle of justice with the doctrine of original sin?

Original sin is not so much an action of a person, but rather a position into which one is born.  As such, the idea of justice (merit of reward or punishment) does not even enter the equation in understanding original sin.

  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
  Gen 2:7

The sin of Adam was doing what was forbidden.

  And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
  Gen 3:11

Here's the question.  Did Adam die that same day?  Not physically, right?  Adam was cast from the garden and lived with Eve and children for years thereafter.

  Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. ... And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
  Gen 3:23, 5:5

So, did God lie because Adam did not die the day he ate?  Or is there more to the story?  There is; in what sense did Adam die?

Adam died spiritually.  It is into that state, that position, that all are born.  It is not because of your action good or bad, but simply is a state of fact.

  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
  1 Cor 15:22

The word "die" is present tense.  We are born physically alive and spiritually dead.  (to be clear, some religions will teach all people are born with a "light", alive spiritually, that may or may not go "out" later in life, but this is the Christianity explanation)

Flesh gives birth to flesh.  Spirit gives birth to spirit.  We must be born again.

  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
  John 3:6-7

Now, as mentioned, justice is defined as merited rewards or punishment.  It should be clear by now that the concept of justice does not even apply to the idea of original sin.  We are born dead.  We didn't do anything upon exiting the womb either good or bad.  Justice does not even apply.  We are simply born dead.

To apply justice to original sin would be akin to believing that good works will merit your salvation.

God, however, has provided a way out of death.  It is called Christ Jesus the Son of the Living God.  It is salvation by grace through faith.

  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.
  Eph 2:8


Have different Popes ever contradicted each other?

You have asked specifically on an infallible statement, so the answer is NO. That is in the matters of Faith and morals which applies to the universal church, they have not contradicted each other.

But on other issues like when they make disciplinary and administrative decisions they have. For example, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuits in 1773, but Pope Pius VII favored them again in 1814.

Just to make it clear, it is important to keep in mind what Catholics mean by papal infallibility. It is a protection of the Holy Spirit which will not allow the pope to teach (as defined dogma) error in matters of faith and morals. Infallibility does not mean the pope receives private revelations. Nor does it include the private opinions of the pope, nor his teachings before he became pope--it is not retroactive. It does not mean he will say the right things at the right times, or lead a holy life. Papal infallibility does not extend to physics, algebra, or the outcome of sporting events.

Also it is to be noted that in the Catholic Church Church doctrines, disciplines, customs, and devotions each have different parts to play. In these Doctrines do not have to be formally defined by Church councils or popes to be part of the dogmatic teaching of the Church. But only when doctrines of the Church are challenged they are formally defined as dogmas by Popes.


If one abandons his faith in Catholicism and becomes an Atheist, could he still go to heaven?

Introduction (personal opinion)
Before presenting the Catholic Church's teaching on abandoning a person's childhood Catholic faith, I would like to review the connection of all elements in your question: God, heaven, the Catholic church, Atheism, the meaning of Catholic practice, and the fear of not going to heaven if Atheism turns out to be false.
God, as understood by Christians, is a good and loving Father who wants to save us from the power of sin by sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for us as a sacrifice of love, a tangible sign so we can believe His ultimate intention for us: to enter heaven.  That is the Gospel.
So God invites us to live in His house: heaven.  But only people with hearts that fit for heaven can enter since heaven is the place for love.  It makes sense, because to flourish in heaven we need to have the hearts that have the same character as God: loving.  Do you think entering heaven is automatic?  Are our hearts ready to enter heaven today?  Since God gives us free will, we have a choice on how to shape our hearts:

To the Christian standard, the way God created us to be
To the standard that we create for ourselves, because that's what Atheism basically is.

We also need to be aware that there is an enemy!  It's not just us and God.  This enemy is Satan and his minions, the one who tempts us to sin, the one who tirelessly tries to prevent us from entering heaven through lies such as false religions and false belief systems.  Satan is the prince of the world for now until he is completely defeated at the end of the world.  We now live in enemy occupied territory.  Satan's main mission is to prevent us from shaping our hearts to God's standard by enticing us to create our own standard, like Atheism!
Can Atheism prepare our hearts for the Christian heaven?  Remember, heaven is the Christian God's house.  But Atheism means believing that God doesn't exist. If through living our lives we shape our hearts as though God doesn't exist, it's like living in the same house with our parents but we:

never say anything to them
never ask them what we can do to please them, and
set our own rules while living in THEIR house!

A heart that habitually ignores God instead of loving God.  Does it fit?  It simply doesn't fit !!
The only fitting choice is to prepare our hearts according to Christianity, God's standard, the owner of heaven.  That is why God establishes the Catholic Church on earth, a stronghold within the enemy occupied territory.  The Catholic Church's main mission is to help us prepare our hearts for heaven in the following ways:

reconcile people to God (baptism, confession)
teach the truths about God (catechism)
nourish the faithful spiritually (mass, prayer, eucharist)
help us to be more loving (church life)

The teaching of the Catholic Church (presented below) is meant for the discernment of our true state of heart, to help us discover the sins of our hearts and to help us grow in our love for God and our neighbors.  It is not the Church who sends a person to heaven or to hell; the Church is merely a reliable guide, a "truth telling thing" as the great Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton put it, to counter Satan, the Father of Lies.  The Catholic priests help administer the sacraments throughout our earthly journey to heaven: Baptism, Confirmation, Communion & Confession, Marriage / Ordination (optional), and Last Rites (a combination of Confession + Anointing of the sick + final Communion) just before we die.  If our destination is the Christian heaven, what's the point of leaving the Catholic Church?
Finally, let's talk about fear.  There is a bad fear and a good fear.  Bad fear is doing things only because we don't want to be punished.  We do them simply because other people (like our parents) tell us to do them.  Or we do them without love and without understanding why we do them.  Bad fear is a fear of servitude or slavery, which God wants to turn into a good fear.  Good fear is respect and gratitude for God expressed in good actions dedicated as an offering to Him.  We are fearful for going astray because this will grieve God's heart who wants us to safely complete our earthly journey to enter His home: heaven.  It's like being fearful to hurt people who love us, like our parents, who only want good things for us. Good fear also means freely choosing and submitting to the standard that God sets for us (Christianity), because the standard will sets us more free to love Him and leads us to a more meaningful life, on earth as well as in heaven.
Teaching of the Catholic Church
From your description, since the person seems to be

a baptized Catholic who
voluntarily (without external threat) and
knowingly (after consulting parents, who I presume would guide him/her in the Catholic Faith, and therefore is no longer ignorant; whether partially / fully ignorant it's hard to determine)
leaves the Church and
joins the creed of Atheism

then from the point of view of the Catholic Church the person has committed at least a material sin of heresy which could develop into the formal variety, and even worse, to the sin of apostasy (who leaves not just the Catholic Church but abandons Christ Himself!).
If either heresy or apostasy are committed with full knowledge and full intentionality (which is hard to determine because we cannot see into the person's heart completely) then it is a grave matter and therefore a mortal sin, and thus incurs automatic latae sententiae excommunication.  Excommunication does not mean that the Catholic church sends a person to hell (see good explanation here).  One must also satisfy the general conditions for canonical culpability set out in Canon Law Code 1321-1323.  But if this person's act of becoming an atheist can with certainty be classified as a mortal sin, this person will not go to heaven.
About your subquestion "if God was real, could they still go to heaven", this reminds me of Pascal's wager that "humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not".  Adapted to this context:

If the Christian God exists then the above criteria of entering heaven applies
If the Christian God does NOT exist, that means there is no Christian heaven to enter either

The bottom line (quoted from ChurchPOP website article Abandoning Christ: The Forgotten Sins of Heresy, Apostasy, and Schism):

If you are a baptized Christian, you should hold fast to the teachings of the Church, keep practicing the faith, and maintain unity with your bishop and especially the Pope.
Doing anything less is abandoning Christ and his Church!

My personal advice:

Consult the Catholics you can trust, like your priest, deacon, catechist / RCIA team, or knowledgeable members of the parish.
Bring out the specific elements of Catholicism that are objectionable to you and do additional research.  There are a LOT of excellent Catholic defense of the many varieties of atheism in quality websites, books, and journals.
The most common variety of atheism resulted from lack of meaning is because of Nietzsche's pronouncement that God is "dead" (irrelevant) and developed further by Albert Camus who taught that there is no objective meaning in life.  The great Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton's response to Nietzsche can be read here while Camus's error, which in effect is the soul's destruction, has been wonderfully exposed as a logical consequence of existentialism here.
Many atheists, (such as Edward Feser), have converted into becoming Catholics so they may likely have already considered the reasons for you to become atheist and refuted them.
Therefore, please BE SAFE and remain a fully practicing Catholic while doing the research.  Asking questions is not sin.  Having doubts are not sin either, but ACTING on them (by rejecting the Faith) is.

Variations
The answer above is based on a case where all the elements identified above are present in the act.  The Catholic Church also considers a variety of cases when only some elements apply.  Examples:

A person who has never been presented with the Gospel (so has never rejected the Gospel), who therefore out of ignorance holds a false idea of God (like Atheism), may still go to heaven.  See the Catholic Answer website article on How Can Atheists Go To Heaven?.  But in the OP's case, this option is most likely no longer available.
Heresy, Apostasy, and Schism can only be be committed "after the reception of baptism".  Therefore, people without valid baptism cannot commit them.  (Most Protestant churches's baptism are valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church.)
A non-Catholic Christian (like a Protestant) who has true faith in Christ is still technically classified as a material heretic but out of charity, the term heretic is now used only for those who willingly embrace what they know to be contrary to revealed truth (thus guilty in their conscience before God).  Therefore, Protestants are no longer automatically culpable heretic.
Members of the Protestants and Orthodox churches are technically only materially schismatic so they are not culpably schismatic nor are they now called schismatic out of charity.
A Catholic who out of ignorance holds beliefs contrary to the teaching of the church is a material, not formal (culpable) heretic.
A Catholic who simply abandons the practice (i.e. no longer going to church) but doesn't intentionally repudiate the faith is not an apostate.  But the moment he joins another religion (including falling into unbelief like Atheism), he becomes an apostate.

References used for the answer above

A 2001 EWTN article published in Catholic Culture website article Heresy, Schism and Apostasy - Definitions by Colin B. Donovan, STL cites the Catechism and the Canon Law during a discussion of the difference of "heresy", "schism", and "apostasy" and divides each into material or formal sin, linking it with the principle of invincible ignorance, culpability, excommunication & other ecclesiastical sanctions, and other related topics.

A ChurchPOP website article Abandoning Christ: The Forgotten Sins of Heresy, Apostasy, and Schism explaining further what does it mean for those who are guilty of heresy, apostasy, and schism.

Do Catholics Excommunicate People to Hell? by apologist Dave Armstrong who covers the Biblical basis for excommunication, contrasting it with anathema.  He also explains how neither implies condemnation of people to hell but "to warn the sinner of the danger he runs of incurring eternal ruin, unless he repent of his sin", again with Biblical precedent.

CCC 2087-2089 (within the article about the 1st commandment) distinguishes "voluntary doubt", "involuntary doubt", "incredulity", "heresy", "apostasy", and "schism":

Faith
2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith"⁹ as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations.¹⁰  Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.
2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:
Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief.
Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.
2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it.
"Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same;
apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith;
schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."¹¹

Catholic Essentials website article on Apostasy quoted a definition from the 1951 Catholic Dictionary, distinguishing 3 kinds: apostasy from the Faith, abandonment of the practice of the Faith, and presumption of Apostasy:

Apostasy from the Faith is the act by which a baptized person, after possessing the true Christian faith, totally rejects it. The complete abandonment  of the practice of the Faith is NOT apostasy, or even presumption of Apostasy. A person is an apostate whether he joins a non-Christian religion, as Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, or falls into unbelief, atheism, materialism, agnosticism, rationalism, indifferentism, or "free-thought". Apostates from the Faith incur excommunication ipso facto, and other penalties"


What was the basis for saying that 11th-century Greek churches were "rebaptizing" Latins?

Some Greeks were rebaptizing Latins. While this does not seem to have been the universal position of the Orthodox Church in XI Century, some of the Eastern clergy objected to the Latin method of baptism. In particular, it was believed in the East that the West baptized by single immersion. The East used triple immersion. Some in the East appealed to Canon 7 of the First Council of Constantinople:

  But Eunomians, who are baptized with only one immersion, ... all these, when they desire to turn to orthodoxy, we receive as heathen ... and then we baptize them.

Note that Canon 7 diffentiates some heretical groups to be reconciled through Confession and Chrismation:

  Arians, and Macedonians, and Sabbatians, [more groups], we receive, upon their giving a written renunciation and anathematize every heresy which is not in accordance with the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of God. Thereupon, they are first sealed or anointed with the holy oil upon the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears; and when we seal them, we say, “The Seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

So it seems that the canon was concerned with the method of baptism in addition to heretical beliefs. Canon 95 of the Quinisext Council in Trullo is similar. Whether this canon was appropriately applied is debatable, but it was used as an excuse.

Some other Greeks objected to that Latin formula "I baptized you in the Name...." as it was perceived to emphasize the action of the priest. They preferred the formula "The servent of God is baptized in the Name...." as it was seen to emphasize the work of God. I don't know if they asserted canonical support for this argument, but it caused some Greeks to question the validity of the Latin method.

The filioque does not seem to be directly involved here. While the Greeks considered it to be heretical, rebaptism would not be required. Canonically, a heretic is reconciled by Confession and Chrismation.


Why do Catholics put so much faith in the Virgin Mary?

I'm a Catholic.

Our reverence for the Virgin Mary is greatly due to her response to God and her faith. When the angel appeared to her and stated that God was to have her give birth to the Christ, she didn't protest, but responded sincerely to God: "do unto me according to Your word". This is a model of how we should respond to God's requests of us.

Also, she is a saint and very close to God. When we pray to her, we praise her for her faith, acknowledging that and the child that she carried (as her cousin, Elizabeth, did). Much of the Hail Mary is taken from her praise in greeting to Mary when she visited during her pregnancy. The Magnificat, Mary's response, is related and acknowledges her praise. But then, we pray that she will intercede and pray for us. This is no different than us asking the other saints to pray for us, or our friends and family to pray for us.

She is special in some ways though because of her role in Christ's birth and life, and her response to God. The Immaculate Conception is an acknowledgement of that--in order for her to be pure so that she may give birth to the Christ child, she was born without Original Sin, and was as perfect as a human could be, except for Jesus. You can read about it in a bit more depth in this article.


Where does this famous St. Augustine quote about the repentant thief come from?

According to Augustine: A New Biography by James J. O'Donnell,

  Samuel Beckett tormented his interpreters with a story he told one time, supposedly to help them understand Waiting for Godot. He used to read, he said, a lot of Augustine in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and recalled one passage in particular: "Do not despair," he remembered Augustine saying, "one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume, one of the thieves was damned." Thinking of Vladimir and Estragon as the two thieves crucified with Jesus is intriguing, to say the least, and is wonderfully Beckett-like that the particular passage cannot be found anywhere in the surviving writings of Augustine or anywhere in the pages of Patrologia Latina, for all that language and tenor are quite perfectly Augustinian. Did Beckett make up the quotation? Is he the most modern of pseudo-Augustines?

When searching around, the quotation is usually appended to Augustine and it is through Beckett that it all started, though it is a growing consensus in academia that it was not Augustine that penned the phrase but Beckett.


First, if we take the tree to symbolize a pledge to Adam the immortality and all that life required, based on continued obedience to all the commands of God, then the tree was a pledge to Adam that so long as he did not eat from the forbidden tree he would have lived forever. This is reasonable.

Second, by sinning Adam lost that immortality, therefore the pledge must necessarily be removed and access to it be forbidden.

The actual death of Adam for sinning was not due to anything inherent in the fruit of the tree physically, but in his internal disobedience. Similarly, eating from the physical tree of life could not have redeemed his soul to life, or his body, as there is no such 'magical fruit' that can forgive the consequences of sin, or kill. Rather when God says 'they must not eat of it', he is referring to the eternal life as a reward which presumes full obedience to all his laws. This Adam must no longer physically do, for the act would betray its symbolic meaning. God physically made it impossible to eat from the tree with flaming swords reminding him of his cursed state, in order to maintain the symbolic messages both trees conveyed. In other words, Adam could not physically eat from the physical tree because he could not internally obey all God's commands in his depraved sinful state and ...live forever in so doing. The tree needed to be replaced by a new tree of life, i.e. Christ dying on a tree, whereby we may eat and live forever.


Are there any Reformed theologians who support the practice of mindfulness (inner body awareness)?

Zazen, based on the definition in Wikipedia, is not a biblical practice. With biblical meditation, we ponder God's word and works to get full and true insights into this life. We might look within in order to see what our desires are, but then we interpret those desires and feelings according to the word of God. Proverbs 3:5 tells us not to lean to our own understanding; Romans 7:18 tells us that there isn't anything good in the flesh, yet Zazen and different forms of Eastern meditation (of which I am a former practitioner) tell us to look within ourselves for answers.

Examples of biblical meditation:

Joshua 1:8

  This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt
  meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do
  according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy
  way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Psalms 1:2

  But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he
  meditate day and night.

Psalms 143:5

  I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the
  work of thy hands.

1 Timothy 4:15

  Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy
  profiting may appear to all.

Regarding living in the present moment, the accepted practice is to "remain in Him," to "pray always," to "walk circumspectly." In other words, live as though Christ was with you at all times. So the mindfulness of yourself is to keep your bodily desires under control and "keep yourselves in the love of God." Tow books promoting this view would be Present Perfect by Gregory A Boyd and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.


What has the Holy Spirit taught people after Jesus left?

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, an Anglican who converted to Catholicism, was the author of the First Vatican Council's definition on papal infallibility in Pastor Æternus. He wrote an excellent book on the question of the role of the Holy Ghost in the Roman Catholic Church:

The temporal mission of the Holy Ghost : or, Reason and revelation (1865)

Briefly, the Holy Ghost has taught us many things; He has

guarded the deposit of faith or Revelation in all its truth,
prevented the Church from teaching error,
guided the development of doctrine,
given council to the church (and all His other gifts, too),
enabled the Church to interpret the true sense of Scripture,
ensured the infallibility of the Pope when he defines dogma pertaining to faith or morals (e.g., the Marian dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption),

etc.


Does the seal of confession extend to bystanders?

The short answer is yes.

No one may reveal what is said in confession.

  Another interesting side to this question is the obligation of the laity to uphold the seal of confession:  An interpreter needed for someone to make a confession or anyone who gains knowledge of a confession (such as overhearing someone’s confession) is also obligated to preserve secrecy (Code of Canon Law, #983.2).  For such a person to violate the secrecy of another person’s confession is a mortal sin and warrants “a just penalty, not excluding excommunication” (#1388.2).  Moreover, a person who falsely accuses a priest of breaking the seal of the confession incurs a mortal sin and perhaps other canonical penalties, including excommunication.

  Clearly, the Church regards the seal of confession as sacred.  Every person– whether priest or laity– must take the obligation to preserve the secrecy of confession absolutely seriously. - Can the seal of confession be broken or the secrets ever be revealed by priests?


Is there a reason why the story Bel and the Dragon is included in the Book of Daniel by some churches and not by others?

Bel and the Dragon is in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles because it was in the Septuagint's version of Daniel. It is not in the KJV because the translators used the Jewish Masoretic texts as the source for the Old Testament, which have a version of Daniel without Bel and the Dragon.