ILLUSTRATION of a session of the First Vatican Council.

The question involves a few layers of consideration. Catholic teaching isn’t uniform, though many folks think it is. The heaviest layer of teaching is called dogma, Greek for “what seems right.” Dogma is an infallible teaching of the church and will not be revoked. Because of its gravity, your pastor can’t up and declare a dogma nor can your local bishop. The formal promulgation (official publishing) of a dogma can be advanced only by an ecumenical council of the church which includes the pope or by the pope himself.

Dogmatic teaching acquired its heft at the First Vatican Council in 1869-1870 and was reiterated in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. At that time it was determined that dogma must meet three conditions. First, it must be rooted in scripture or post-biblical tradition and be divinely revealed. That means at the very least that it’s time-tested, not sprung out of yesterday’s news or today’s political situation. Second, the church must explicitly propose it as dogmatic. That protects us from the rogue cleric, theologian, or small-faith-sharing-group leader who makes a lone interpretation. Third, such proposals are made in solemn decrees or universal teachings. So you don’t have to read every book a pope writes—worthy though that may be—to be sure you’re not missing a dogma slipped into chapter six.

It would be helpful if there were a page devoted to dogmatic teachings on the Vatican website so there would be no mistaking a simple teaching from an unassailable one. Because formal and deliberate rejection of a dogma is considered a heretical act, it could be vital to your interests to know for sure whether you’re crossing a sensitive line or an irrevocable one.

Interestingly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has declared that dogmas are influenced by “the changeable conceptions of a given epoch.” While the central meaning of a dogma cannot change, its expression can and must be reevaluated in each age to preserve the clarity and applicability of its revealed truth (see the document [link below] Mysterium Ecclesiae, 1973).

Every dogma is a doctrine (“teaching”) of the church, but not all doctrines are dogmas. So the long answer to the question is: If a doctrine isn’t a dogmatic teaching, yes, it can change. The preferred mode of change is development rather than a subsequent erasure of an earlier teaching outright. How doctrines “develop” is a topic for another time—and the sure instigator of many useful arguments.

Scripture
• Matthew 5:17-19; Luke 16:17; Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; 1 Timothy 1:3-11; 4:11-16; 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 2:11-13; 3:14-17; 4:1-5; Titus 1:5-9

Online
• Beliefs and teachings of the Catholic Church page from the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops
• Mysterium Ecclesiae, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Books
• By What Authority? Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Sense of the Faithful by Richard Gaillardetz (Liturgical Press, 2003)
• Catholicism: New Study Edition—Completely Revised and Updated by Richard McBrien (HarperOne, 1994)

PRAYER is the food of faith, as one theologian put it. Christians have sought the best way to feed their faith since the disciples first asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus offers a lot of advice about how to pray in other places: Pray in secret and don’t call attention to it. Pray in groups especially when you need spiritual support. Pray often, pray briefly, and don’t multiply fancy words. Ask for what you need and you’ll get it. Pray when faced with bad spirits and difficult cases. Be watchful and prayerfully alert in times when fear may cause you to be weak.

Jesus also offered parables about effective prayer: Pray with humility and honesty, like the tax collector rather than the self-congratulating Pharisee. Be persistent in prayer, like the widow before the judge. Forgive your brother or sister before you offer your gift at the altar. Finally, Jesus gives his insistent friends a prayer that does all these things. Early Christians found it so useful they were urged to say it three times daily in the late 1st-century book of the teaching of the apostles known as the Didache. Today the “Our Father” is also prayed at every Mass, in the Liturgy of the Hours, in reciting the Rosary, and in many other devotions.

The early church father Tertullian called the Lord’s Prayer the perfect summary of the whole gospel. The heart of the prayer is an invitation to God to make the kingdom coming a present reality. The fulfillment of that kingdom is the end of all need, so we pray for what mortals need most: provisions, pardon, and protection. The prayer begins with “you” statements and ends with “we” petitions. That makes sense because faithful people must begin with submission to God’s will before we can anticipate its fulfillment in our present needs. God’s will first; then ours.

The petitions don’t imply that God has to be informed of what we need. Rather they express our confidence that God will address our needs. Jesus instructs us to begin our prayer intimately, calling on God with the familiarity of a child. Knowing the Holy Name of God presumes intimacy: In the ancient world, such knowledge gave you a certain inside track in a relationship. Invoking the kingdom to be realized “on earth as it is in heaven” brings the will of God directly into human experience. Everything about this prayer invites God to bring this world ever more closely in line with the new creation promised in Jesus.

Scripture
• Matthew 5:44; 6:9-13, 33; 7:7; Mark 9:29; 14:32-38; Luke 11:1-13; 18:1-14; John 12:27-28

Podcast
• The Lord’s Prayer; a presentation by Father Dennis Hamm on the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer

Books
• The Greatest Prayer by John Dominic Crossan (HarperOne, 2010)
• The Three Greatest Prayers: Commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Apostles Creed by Saint Thomas Aquinas (Sophia Institute Press, 1998)