If a Protestant wants to become a Catholic, does she have to
be baptized over again?
It depends… if there is a well founded suspicion about the validity or reality of the Protestant baptism, it may be necessary to baptize such a person conditionally… (If you are not baptized, then I baptize you in the name of the Father, etc.") However, if there is a reasonable certainty about the validity of the Protestant baptism, no further baptism is needed. The person, on becoming Catholic, makes a public profession of faith and receives the sacrament of confirmation. The priest who arranges for a person to enter the Church is the best judge of the authenticity of a previous baptism.
Reprinted from April 10, 1998
Who are the Malabar
Christians?
There are Christians who live in India, mostly in the southwestern part of that country. They are the descendants of the people initially converted to Christ by Saint Thomas the Apostle. They are divided into two rites, the Malabar Rite and the Malankar Rite. Most of these Christians are joined to the See of Peter in Rome so they are as Catholic as we are. Some of the Malabar Christians, however, are Monophysites, who reject the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, and these are still not joined to the Catholic Church. Some fell into the heresy of Nestorianism over the centuries, but these were converted back to the Catholic Faith by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century. The Malankar Christians really never fell away from union with Rome, but they formalized their relationship with the Successor of Saint Peter in 1930. Each of these groups of Christians have the same Mass and seven sacraments as the Latin Rite Catholics, but their liturgy and ceremonies and some of their laws and customs are peculiarly their own.
Reprinted from April 24, 1998
I have a Lutheran friend who says her Church believes in
"sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia." What does it mean and
is it in the Bible?
The Latin words you cite mean: faith alone, Scripture alone and grace alone. The slogan of your friend's Church is not found in the Bible. The concept of "faith alone" is mentioned, however, in the Epistle of James in the Bible (2:24), but as something that is rejected.
Reprinted from March 13, 1998