summary of christian beliefs
A. We are required to know and to believe:
• The Apostles’ Creed. Especially:
— That there is one supreme, eternal, infinite God, the Creator of heaven and earth.
— That the good will be rewarded by him for ever in heaven, and the wicked, who die unrepentant, will be punished for ever in hell.
— That heaven and hell equally on the simple word of Christ.
— That in the Holy Trinity there are three Persons, co-eternal, co-equal: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
— That God the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became man, and died on the cross to save us.
• The Commandments of God and of the Church.
• The seven Sacraments; especially of the necessity of Baptism and that the Eucharist is a pledge of our future glory.
• That Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, which form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, is committed to the Church.
• Whatever God teaches us by his holy Church, who in her teaching cannot deceive us nor be deceived.
“The sole Church of Christ [is that] which Our Savior, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.”1
“The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys [this] infallibility in virtue of his office, when as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful—he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals. . . . The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium, above all in an Ecumenical Council. When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine ‘for belief as being divinely revealed,’ and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions ‘must be adhered to with the obedience of faith.’ This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself.“2
B. We are required to know the basic prayers: Sign of the Cross, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.