1. Where did the concept of nuns and monks come from?
It's an extension of the ancient Hebrew prophets in the Old Testament who went off and lived in the wilderness, devoting themselves entirely to God. Christian monks got started in the 2nd century in the deserts of Syria and Egypt; Western monasticism (the one you're probably the most familiar with) got stared with St. Benedict in Italy in the 5th century, and Eastern monasticism (nowadays usually the Orthodox variety) with Sts. Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century.
2. Where does it say the wine and bread actually ARE Christ?
Matthew 26:26ff
Mark 14:22ff
Luke 22:17ff
John 6:35ff
1 Corinthians 11:23ff.
this do in **remembrance** of me.
How does this nullify the Real Presence? If it's merely symbolic, why didn't Jesus call the people who left Him in John 6 back, and say, "Wait a minute, fellas! I'm only kidding! I'm not talking about My
real, actual body here!"??? 1 Cor 11 clearly states that anyone who receives Holy Communion unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself. Are you suggesting that Paul was teaching that people could be damned for unworthily receiving a
symbol?
3. How come most leaders (not sure what ones, include bishops?) are not allowed to marry?
All clergy in the Latin Rite with the exception of deacons are enjoined to be celibate. Someone setting themselves aside for God alone is not new in Christian practice; it has its roots in Jesus' teachings in Matthew 19:12 and Pauls' in 1 Corinthians 7:32ff. It became a mandatory practice in the Latin Rite during the Middle Ages, to prevent the practice of primogeniture in the Church. (Primogeniture is when the oldest son inherits his father's business, and in the case of a priest, this meant the parish church.) The Church recognized that simply because somebody was the son of a priest, that didn't automatically mean that the son was suitable to be a priest himself, so this discipline was imposed to prevent clergy from producing children. There was also the fact that the lands, buildings, moneys, etc. that belonged to the Church needed to stay with the Church, because they belonged to the entire people of God as a whole, and not be inherited by the children of clergy---so celibacy was also a way of maintaining stability and unity within the structure of the Medieval Church.
The passage in 1 Timothy 4:1-3 must be taken in conjunction with its historical context; Paul was speaking in reference to the Gnostics, not the Catholics.
4. How can you claim biblical teachings from the pope are infallible?
You don't think biblical teachings are infallible?
In the case of infallibility, the Pope has to adhere to an extremely narrow set of conditions before he can make an infallible statement. He has to be speaking in the capacity of head of the entire Church; he has to be defining or explaining an existing doctrine (or in other words, he can't make this stuff up as he goes along or "add to" the Bible); the content of his statement must be pertaining to Faith or morals; and whatever he says cannot contradict Scripture, Sacred Tradition, a previous infallible statement, or any other previously revealed truth.
5. Where does it say people in heaven can hear everyone? That's what Mary would have to pull off.
Says who?
We believe that Mary and others in heaven pray for us. But that doesn't mean that she has to be able to hear every single request, from every single person. Look at it this way: suppose you offer to pray for every single person in the United States of America, and ask people to write their prayer requests to you. In short order, you get sixteen semis parked in your yard, loaded with sacks of mail; there's probably upwards of 600,000 letters in there. Are you going to open
every single letter, pray over the request, and move on to the next one?
Probably not. What you'll do is pray over the whole batch at one shot, or at the very least, each one of the sixteen semi-loads separately, asking God, Who already knows what's in those requests, to attend to them in His compassion and mercy.
Bingo. You just added your prayers to 600,000 requests all at one shot, and all at the same time.
And you're not even a canonized Catholic saint.
It's much the same with Mary. She probably gets up every morning and prays over the latest incoming requests that have come in overnight at one time.
In addition to this is the fact that she is in eternity, where space and time mean nothing; so she is not bound by the same physical constraints that we are here on earth.
6. What happens about not making images etc yet I see even the pope kissing them?
A Catholic image is not an idol. We do not worship images; we worship Christ, Whom images of Christ represent, and we can worship Christ whether we have the image of Him or not. In the case of images of saints, we pay respect to saints, we do not worship them; and paying respect to the image of a saint is actually paying respect to the saint whom the image represents. The image is merely a tool, something set aside for the purpose of bringing glory to God, much like a church building or a Christian hospital, or a painting of Christ.
7. Talking about kissing how about when the pope kissed the Islam bible? Along with the church and not ministrying to Jews etc?
What should he have done, spit on it? He's not going to win any Muslims over to Christianity by being a disrespectful jerk, is he? But by showing politeness and respect to the Muslims and Jews, he may be getting them to think, "Hey, this guy isn't all that bad....maybe there's something to this religion that he's talking about after all, if it makes him like that. Maybe I should check this out."
Does this help?
