​To understand the numbers, it is helpful to make a distinction between nominal and practicing Catholics. Nominal Catholics are those who call themselves Catholic, but are not practicing or living the faith in any real sense. This number, is going up as our population continues to grow. And that growth is mainly from immigrants, the majority of whom are at least nominally Catholic. Thus the overall number of Catholics is growing. 
 
But to be a nominal Catholic is not necessarily to be a practicing Catholic. And, though here in America, the overall number of Catholics is growing, the number of practicing Catholics does seem to be declining overall. Sadly, only about 25% of Catholics go to Mass each Sunday (down from close to 80% in the 1950s). And an even smaller percentage agree with all the teachings of the faith and practice their faith daily to a significant degree.

​Non-Catholic Christians have usually been termed Protestants in the English language, because they were collectively "protesting" something in Catholic teaching or practice. But of course, Protestantism is a very diverse group of tens of thousands of different denominations which span the theological spectrum: liberal to conservative. 
 
Thirty years ago Protestant denominations were largely broken into two groups: the more socially conservative "Fundamentalists", and the more liberal, both socially and theologically "Mainline" denominations such as: Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, et al. 
 
The Fundamentalist tended to draw their numbers more from the more conservative Baptist congregations, and a wide variety of independent and nondenominational groups. 
 
What tended to divide Fundamentalist from Mainline Protestants was how the Scriptures were to be interpreted. Fundamentalist tended toward a more literalist adherence to the text that was more suspicious to applying historical context or other interpretive principles for understanding the text. The mainline denominations moved rather dramatically toward such interpretive keys, so much so that many of them have arguably moved beyond the text itself, and, as such, have no problem permitting things which biblical texts unambiguously forbid, e.g. homosexual acts, homosexual marriage, women clergy, etc. 
 
During the 1970s and 80s, there was a protracted campaign in the media and wider culture to discredit fundamentalism as rigid, pharisaical, and out of touch. Fair or not, the fundamentalists began to adopt the term "Evangelical" in response. While today's Evangelical Christians are not simply synonymous with the "Fundamentalists" of the past, the term "Fundamentalist" has largely been replaced by the term "Evangelical." 
 
Today, despite theological differences between Evangelicals and Catholics, there is a lot of common ground on the moral issues. This has led to greater and one of the most fruitful sources of converts to the Catholic Church from Evangelical Christian denominations today. 
 
They bring with them a great love for the Lord Jesus, and a great love for Scripture and seek a more stable, historical, theological and sacramental framework of the Catholic Church in which to live their faith. 
 
These closer relations have led to the description of "Evangelical Catholicism." This term expresses an emphasis on the Scriptural and Apostolic origins of our holy faith. At the heart of Evangelical Catholicism is the concern to avoid becoming too self-referential, to always remain centered on Christ.

St. Leo the Great teaches: “Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity . . . The Word of God took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence.”
 
The lowliness of his human nature is assumed in the majesty of His Divine nature. Then, Jesus true God and true man is powerful as God and humble as man.
 
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us to pay the debt of our sinful state. A nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. He assumed a nature capable of suffering, and even more, destined to suffer for our salvation and reconciliation with God.
 
Contemplating the mystery of the Nativity of Our Lord, with the angels, we sing: “Glory to God in the Highest and peace to his people on earth!”

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, in its oldest form, goes back to the seventh century, when churches in the East began celebrating the Feast of the Conception of Saint Anne, the mother of Mary. In other words, this feast celebrates the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of Saint Anne; and nine months later, on September 8, we celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 
As originally celebrated (and as still celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Churches), however, the Feast of the Conception of Saint Anne does not have the same understanding as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception has in the Catholic Church today. The feast arrived in the West probably no earlier than the 11th century, and at that time, it began to be tied up with a developing theological controversy. Both the Eastern and the Western Church had maintained that Mary was free from sin throughout her life, but there were different understandings of what this meant. 
 
Because of the doctrine of Original Sin, some in the West began to believe that Mary could not have been sinless unless she had been saved from Original Sin at the moment of her conception (thus making the conception "immaculate"). Others, however, including St. Thomas Aquinas, argued that Mary could not have been redeemed if she had not been subject to sin—at least, to Original Sin. 
 
The answer to St. Thomas Aquinas's objection, as Blessed John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) showed, was that God had sanctified Mary at the moment of her conception in His foreknowledge that the Blessed Virgin would consent to bear Christ. In other words, she too had been redeemed—her redemption had simply been accomplished at the moment of her conception, rather than (as with all other Christians) in Baptism. 
 
After Duns Scotus's defense of the Immaculate Conception, the feast spread throughout the West, though it was still often celebrated at the Feast of the Conception of Saint Anne. On February 28, 1476, Pope Sixtus IV extended the feast to the entire Western Church, and in 1483 threatened with excommunication those who opposed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. By the middle of the 17th century, all opposition to the doctrine had died out in the Catholic Church. 
 
On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX officially declared the Immaculate Conception a dogma of the Church, which means that all Christians are bound to accept it as true. As the Holy Father wrote in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful." 

SOURCE: https://www.learnreligions.com/the-feast-of-the-immaculate-conception-542475

It is true, but it’s not on the Church calendar. And it is celebrated only in America, whereas Church holidays are universal.
 
Our national holiday is certainly an event that has taken on a life of its own, with an established tradition involving turkey and mashed potatoes, football, shopping, and a four-day weekend—which is fascinating since none of those things have anything to do with the original event that gave rise to the annual celebration on the fourth Thursday in November. But any time a nation does anything in unison that involves families getting together and counting their blessings, it is a good thing. “Thanks,” says G.K. Chesterton, “is the highest form of thought.” And he mentions the fact that the worst moment for an atheist is when he is thankful and suddenly realizes he has no one to thank.
 
But what is the origin of this holiday?
 
What most people believe is a variation on what I was taught in public school in the 1960s. The Pilgrims came to Plymouth on a ship called the Mayflower. They were the first English settlers in America. They came for religious freedom. And they had a big feast with Indians, and that was the first Thanksgiving. That about sums it up. And that is what Chesterton calls “The Myth of the Mayflower.”
 
First of all, they were not known as “pilgrims” till about 200 years afterwards. They were Puritans, a radical Anglican “low church” sect that loathed the “high church” Anglicans that happened to include the King of England. In fact, about 30 years after the Puritans arrived in America, some of their fellow Puritans back in England arranged for King Charles I to have his head chopped off.
 
Secondly, there were at least nine other British settlements before the Plymouth colony. In fact, one of them was at Plymouth. All but one of them failed, including the first settlement at Plymouth. The Puritans who came to Plymouth in 1620 almost didn’t survive. Half the settlers died the first winter. They were saved by a Native American named Squanto, who taught them how to hunt and fish and grow corn.
 
But here’s what is really interesting:  Squanto was a Roman Catholic.
 
In 1614, he had been captured by an English party led by Captain John Smith (of Pocahontas fame) and taken on a ship to Spain where he was to be sold as a slave. He was rescued by some Dominican friars who instructed him in the Catholic faith. He told them he wanted to return to his people in America. They helped him get to England, where he met John Slaney, who taught him English and arranged for him to get to Newfoundland. Squanto served as an interpreter between the English and the Indians and crossed the Atlantic six times.  He was never able to return to his own tribe, because they had been wiped out in a plague.
 
After he came to the aid of the Plymouth settlers, helping them grow their own food, he arranged for a joint harvest feast with the local Wampanoag tribe. It was this event that is the basis of our Thanksgiving holiday. So, Thanksgiving was started by a Native American Catholic. Ironically, the Wampanoag tribe later took Squanto hostage because they distrusted him, and he was rescued by the English. It is possible that the Indians poisoned him, which led to his death shortly afterwards in 1622.
 
And then there is this other thing we never learned in school: In 1621, the year after the Puritans arrived at Plymouth, another group of English settlers arrived in Ferry, Newfoundland. The land had been granted to George Calvert, the First Baron of Baltimore. Calvert’s son, Cecilius, the Second Baron of Baltimore, was granted another chunk of the New World, which he settled in 1632. He called it Maryland. Why did England give this land to George Calvert and his son? As compensation for the fact the George Calvert had been stripped of his title of Secretary State. And why had he been stripped of his title? Because he declared that he was a Roman Catholic. Maryland (named for some woman whose name was Mary) was the first English Catholic settlement in the New World, and one of its founding principles was…freedom of religion.
 
The Puritans up the coast get all the credit for establishing freedom of religion, but they did not do it. They were actually quite opposed to the idea. They were anything but tolerant. In fact, it was their intolerance that caused them to come to the new world, not persecution. England was not Puritan enough for them. They did not think the Stuarts had gone far enough to do away with the elements of Catholicism that still remained in the Church of England. Puritan intolerance led to the eventual execution of King Charles I (whose wife and children were Catholic). Puritan intolerance was further demonstrated by a course of events in another Puritan settlement established just six years after the one in Plymouth, just down the road, had there been a road. It was called Salem. It was there that anyone who departed from a strict Puritan practice was in danger of being burned as a witch. Chesterton points out that the Puritans lost their belief in priests but kept their belief in witches.
 
So the Catholics deserve the credit not only for the first Thanksgiving, but for the first real religious freedom in America. Not the Puritans whom we call Pilgrims.

AUTHOR: Dale Ahlquist, creator and host of the EWTN series "G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense"
 SOURCE: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/11/27/the-catholic-origins-of-thanksgiving/

​Human parents can supply to their children only the fallen human nature that came from Adam and Eve. They cannot supply what is divine and supernatural. 
 
Even in terms of mere human nature, parents are only able to supply the basic elements. So, for example, the child receives from his parents a brain and an intellect, as basic elements that come with human nature. But parents cannot transfer at conception their knowledge of language, or mathematics, or history to the child. The child must acquire this for himself, with the help of others. 
 
If this is the case with human nature, it is even more so with the supernatural life of grace. The mother may be baptized, and free of Original Sin, but she cannot communicate this to her child, only God can. And thus she must bring her child to the Lord in baptism, who begins a saving work in which the child must grow.

​All the sacraments, as a general rule, should be celebrated in a sacred space. Therefore, a dedicated parish church or oratory is almost always the proper place for the celebration of any sacrament. 
 
But, as is almost always the case with general norms, there are exceptions. For example, in danger of death, baptisms are sometimes celebrated in the hospital. On account of urgency, or as the result of a pastoral moment, confessions are sometimes celebrated in settings other than the church. 
 
In the example you cite, no Church building exists to accommodate the three million who assembled in Rio. The use of the beach was actually a backup plan that had to be implemented when the large open field that had been designated was rendered soggy by pouring rains. 
 
Hence, for urgent pastoral reasons, many general norms can be adapted where necessary. 
 
Regarding weddings, certain permissions can be obtained for weddings to be celebrated outside of the sacred space. However, the reasons ought to be serious, not just because it would be more convenient or pleasing to someone in the wedding party. 
 
While permissions are sometimes granted, most dioceses resist granting these permissions too easily. Of all the Sacraments, the celebration of Holy Matrimony tends to be most influenced by secular trends. And many of these trends take the focus off Christ and the actual Sacrament that is being conferred. The emphasis too easily falls on dresses, flowers, food, and other social aspects. Moving weddings to beaches, backyards, reception halls and other such places, shifts the focus even further away from the Sacrament itself. It also tends to open the doors even further to certain passing trends, many of which are questionable, even frivolous or scandalous. 
 
Hence, the celebration of the Sacraments ought generally to take place in the parish church. For serious pastoral reasons, such as stated above, exceptions can be made. But weddings seldom present pastoral conundrums significant enough to warrant the movement of the Sacrament outside the church and, more problematically, shift the focus even further from where it should be.

​The catechism here references a quote from St. Athanasius, and also a clarification by St. Thomas Aquinas. It is true that Athanasius speaks boldly, as Saints often do! But as both St. Athanasius and St. Thomas were careful to do, distinctions are necessary. 
 
The exact quote from the catechism is For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods. 
 
Note that the second sentence, a comment by Thomas on Athanasius’ statement, the word “gods” is not capitalized. And this is to make it clear, as Athanasius would agree, that we do not become a god as separate and distinct from the one, true God. But rather, that we “partake” or “participate” in the Divine nature. 
 
To partake, or participate comes from the Latin Word particeps, meaning to take up a part of something, but not the whole. Thus, though we come to share in aspects of the Divine nature, we do not do so in a way that is separate from being members of Christ’s Body, through baptism. We access this “share” in a part or aspect of divine life and nature only in union with Christ, only by entering into communion with Jesus at baptism, and thus receiving divine sonship.

​No, it does not. This is a mode of speaking, an expression, and should not be understood in a strictly literal manner. There are all sorts of expressions and manners of speaking which, if read in a literalist manner, make little sense, but everyone knows what they mean euphemistically. 
 
For example, a mother may say to her child, “Put on your shoes and socks.” Literally, this would be difficult and clumsy, since it seems to say that I should put on my shoes, and then my socks on top of the shoes. But of course, it means no such thing. And while it is more true to say one ought to put on his socks and shoes, everybody knows what it means. Another example is the expression “coming and going.” But of course one cannot really come, until they first go. So the expression more accurately should be “going and coming.” But despite poor word order, everybody knows what “coming and going” means and adjusts. 
 
And thus, when we ask forgiveness for the sins of our “past life,” it is clear we are referring merely to the sins we have committed in the past. If this saying is bothersome to you, then you may amend it, for it is not a formal or prescribed way of ending the confession, but it is simply a common sentence many use to tell the priest they are done mentioning their sins. 
 
Theologically, one is not required to ask forgiveness for sins of the past which have already been forgiven in the sacrament. And thus, another way a penitent can end his confession is to say something like “For these, and other sins I cannot recall, I ask for pardon and absolution.”

The priest celebrant should wash his hands, even if there is no server. Though it is a bit awkward to pour water over one's hands from a cruet, finger bowls can perhaps be used for the purpose. 
 
Father's explanation that there is no practical necessity for him to wash his hands does not hold. It is true that the hand washing in ancient times had more practical purposes due to the reception of many and varied gifts during the offertory procession. Handling these things often soiled the priest's hands. But liturgical rites don't have a merely practical point. The washing of the priest's hands has an important spiritual dimension as well, indicating his desire to be free of sin before offering the Holy Sacrifice, and handling the Body and Blood of Christ. Omitting this rite is not permitted.