St. Barbara Young Adults

Every month the Pope focuses on a particular prayer intention. For October intentions are:

Catholic Universities
General: That Catholic Universities may more and more be places where, in the light of the Gospel, it is possible to experience the harmonious unity existing between faith and reason.

World Mission Day
Missionary: That the World Mission Day may afford an occasion for understanding that the task of proclaiming Christ is an absolutely necessary service to which the Church is called for the benefit of humanity.

For most people, the answer is "not much."

The Pew Forum on Religion and Culture asked adults to respond to a U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. Most Americans scored 50% or less on a quiz measuring knowledge of the Bible, world religions, and Constitutional issues regarding religion in public life.

One of the surprising -- to me -- responses is that barely half of the Catholics who responded know that when they receive communion they are actually receiving Jesus' body and blood. (I wonder how many of the people who identified themselves as Catholic are regular Mass-goers and how many participate only occasionally.)

A summary from CNN is available here.

A 15-question version of the quiz is available here. (I couldn't get the quiz to work with Firefox but it did work with Internet Explorer.)

What do ya know?

Natural disasters never seem to end. Currently the people of Pakistan are dealing with the aftermath of the worst floods in living memory.

Catholic Relief Services is providing shelter and hygiene kits containing plastic sheeting, bed mats, soap, kitchen supplies, water purification tablets, rehydration salts and covered buckets to store water. CRS is also hiring residents in cash-for-work programs to restore clean drinking water by rebuilding water supply systems.

You can read more about the situation in Pakistan here and donate to CRS here.