Catholic Basics
Catholics believe in one God who exists as three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
What is the Holy Trinity?
This is the first book of the Bible.
What is Genesis?
This saint is famous for the quote, “Pray, hope, and don’t worry,” and spent much of his life hearing confessions.
Who is St. Padre Pio?
This emperor legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire in the early 4th century.
Who is Constantine the Great?
True or false: Catholics believe the Pope is incapable of committing a sin.
False! The Pope is human and can sin. Papal infallibility is a much narrower teaching.
This is the head of the Catholic Church on earth.
Who is the Pope?
Jesus chose this many Apostles.
What is 12?
This saint famously defended the veneration of icons during the Byzantine Iconoclasm controversy.
Who is St. John of Damascus?
This council, held in AD 325, famously addressed the Arian controversy and produced the original form of what became the Nicene Creed.
What is the Council of Nicaea?
A Catholic walks into a church and sees a red sanctuary lamp burning near the tabernacle. What does it indicate?
DAILY DOUBLE
That the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the tabernacle—the Real Presence of Christ.
Catholics are obligated to attend this celebration on Sundays and holy days of obligation.
What is Mass?
This Gospel begins with the famous words, “In the beginning was the Word.”
What is the Gospel of John?
Before becoming a saint, this woman was a nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity and dedicated her life to serving the poorest of the poor in Calcutta.
Who is St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa)?
This 1054 event traditionally marks the formal rupture between the Catholic Church and the churches that became associated with Eastern Orthodoxy.
What is the Great Schism?
Catholics believe Jesus had both a human will and a divine will. True or false?
True. Christ has two wills because He possesses both a divine nature and a human nature.
This is the term for the teaching authority of the Church, which authentically interprets the Word of God.
What is the Magisterium?
Jesus performed His first public miracle at this event, where He turned water into wine.
What is the Wedding at Cana?
This Italian young adult saint loved hiking, skiing, climbing mountains, serving the poor, and famously said, “Verso l’alto”—“To the heights.”
Who is St. Pier Giorgio Frassati?
This 16th-century ecumenical council responded to the Protestant Reformation and clarified Catholic teaching on subjects including justification, Scripture and Tradition, and the sacraments.
What is the Council of Trent?
True or false: Catholics believe that the pope must personally approve every teaching that Catholics are required to believe.
False. The pope is not personally involved in every doctrinal teaching. The Church's teaching authority is exercised through the Magisterium.
According to Catholic teaching, these three theological virtues are given by God and orient us toward Him.
DAILY DOUBLE
What are faith, hope, and charity (love)?
This New Testament book tells the story of the early Church after Jesus' Ascension and includes the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
What is the Acts of the Apostles?
This saint was a former slave who became a bishop, fought against slavery, and is known as the patron saint of sailors and fishermen.
Who is St. Peter Claver?
What are the four marks of the Church professed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed?
What are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic?
True or False: Catholics believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from personal sin but still experienced the effects of original sin.
False. Catholic teaching holds that Mary was preserved from original sin from the first moment of her conception through the grace of Christ—the Immaculate Conception.