50 Questions about Catholicism (Book Review)

W.L.A. Don Peter, 50 Questions about Catholicism, Mumbai: St Pauls, 1998, ISBN 81-7109-351-5, Rs. 50, pp. 139.

The book is a collection of fifty articles written by the author and published in Sri Lanka’s National Catholic English weekly, Messenger. The purpose of the articles written under the general caption ‘Why’, in the words of the author, was to give answers to queries regarding the Catholic faith and the practice of it.

Fr Peter addresses pertinent questions like ‘why are Catholics called Roman Catholics?’, ‘Why do Catholics say the Pope is infallible?’, ‘Why is the Catholic priest called ‘Father’?’, Why does the Church have catechisms?’, ‘Why does the Church annul marriages?’ and 45 others. He uses simple language and at times takes relevant quotes from Church documents or some other books. What is nice about his style is that he gives a kind of historical perspective of the question at hand and then goes on to answer it. This helps the reader to understand the history of the question, besides being informative. Herein, one will find questions that perhaps one has never asked or is too shy to ask. When I read the book, I found some questions that I had heard about but never bothered to find proper answers to.

I received quite a bit of information from the book and would recommend it to all those who seek knowledge and clarity in their Catholic faith. After reading the book, I feel better prepared to answer related queries about my faith. Kudos to you Fr, for your work.!