Q Some weeks ago, when explaining the concept of a general confession, you said in your column, "Surely any serious sin not already forgiven should be mentioned."

Please tell me what I should do. I am 75 years old and have been a Catholic all my life. I first married a Catholic girl in a church wedding, but after 23 years we were divorced.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — For Vatican historians, the roots of a Christian idea of religious liberty go way back: in fact, back 1,700 years to the Emperor Constantine's victory on Rome's Milvian Bridge and to his conversion.

Q I would like to know whether watching Mass on television fulfills one's obligation. My husband never goes to church, but he does watch Mass on TV every Sunday. I attend Mass regularly, although I have missed church recently because of my health. (Louisville, Ky.)

Growing up in rural Nebraska, our family would sometimes make the long drive to Omaha. From the backseat of the car, we kids would announce "we're getting close to Omaha" when we could see the familiar buildings and farm fields of Boys Town rising in the east.

The irrepressibly effervescent personality of Cardinal Timothy Dolan may tempt some to think of the archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as the latest in a line of glad-handing Irish-American prelates, long on blarney and short on depth. Succumbing to that temptation would be a very serious mistake. For Cardinal Dolan is a man of formidable intelligence, a historian trained in the school of the late John Tracy Ellis, dean of the classic historians of Catholicism in the United States.

It's an inconvenient variation. Easter falls on April 8 this year, but it may fall as early as March 22 or as late as April 25. Why can't this solemnity be more stable in our calendar?

Q We are Roman Catholics, and our daughter has received all the sacraments, up to and including confirmation. Sometime soon, I expect, she will be getting married to a wonderful young man she met in college.

My concern is that he is a practicing Protestant and neither wants to change denominations at this time. Is it possible for them to marry with the approval of the Catholic Church if each has a priest of their own faith presiding over the Mass? Also, they are currently considering getting married in a nondenominational chapel on the college campus. (Virginia)

HAVANA (CNS) — The Cuba that Pope Benedict XVI visited March 26-28 is a country where the Catholic Church enjoys significantly more freedom and official recognition than it did when Blessed John Paul II made the first papal visit to the island in 1998.

It was a few weeks ago when I heard something I have not heard in any church in the last few decades: a letter from the bishop read from the pulpit.

Then there was something I never recall ever hearing: the congregation's applause for this letter from the bishop.

Q I am 94 years old and live in a nursing home with the meals furnished. Must I abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent, or may I eat what the home is serving? (Marion, Ohio)

Thirty-some years ago, I spent a fair amount of time on religious freedom issues: which meant, in those simpler days, trying to pry Lithuanian priests and nuns out of Perm Camp 36 and other gulag islands. Had you told me in 1982 that one of my "clients," the Jesuit Sigitas Tamkevicius, would be archbishop of Kaunas in a free Lithuania in 2012, I would have thought you a bit optimistic. If you had also told me, back then, that there would eventually be serious religious freedom problems in the United States, I would have thought you a bit mad.

Whenever we engage in reading the entire Bible, we find, in the Old Testament particularly, a theme which we believe is foreign to us. Over and over, we read about various sacrifices which people make as a way of communicating with God.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Speaking 38 minutes without a prepared text, Pope Benedict XVI gave priests of the Diocese of Rome a look not only at how he approaches Scripture, but also at his priorities and personality.

Q What happened to gaining indulgences? I don't hear much about indulgences anymore. Does the church still believe in them?

(Nearly identical question from Port Matilda, Pa., and Lumberton, N.J.)

There comes a time for all of us when we have to make a difficult decision, maybe one that is painful. That is what I am feeling as I write this. The time has come to end my longstanding, wonderful relationship with Catholic News Service and with my faithful readers.

Q In order to receive the promise of the grace of final penitence, my understanding is that one must attend Mass on the first Friday for nine consecutive months. Recently I was attempting to complete that devotion, but on the ninth first Friday, our parish had a Communion service. Is that considered a Mass, and would the promise be granted? (Hydesville, Calif.)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The take-away message from a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse was clear: Victims, truth and justice come first. And the church can no longer wait for a crisis to erupt before it begins to address the scandal of abuse.

Q The small parish to which I have belonged since my baptism 70-plus years ago used to have three full-time priests. Now it is down to one, and even he is shared. For the past quarter of a century, our pastors have often been elderly men with health problems. Pastoral attention is practically nonexistent, and this is true of most of the Catholic churches within driving distance.

I have found, however, a wonderful congregation nearby that is active and caring. They have given much to me, so I would like to join this congregation officially. But it is not Catholic. Is there any problem with belonging to two different denominations at the same time? (The rituals and theology seem very similar.) (Richmond, Va.)

Abraham Lincoln is noted for having never officially joined a Christian church. First Presbyterian Church in Springfield is known as "Lincoln's Church," and the family had a pew there, but Lincoln himself steered clear of official affiliation with a church.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Something old, something new, something borrowed and something red will be part of the mix Feb. 18 when Pope Benedict XVI creates new cardinals.

The Illinois General Assembly's legislative session begins on Jan. 31, and the Catholic Conference of Illinois (CCI) — the public policy arm of the Catholic Church in Illinois — is ready to represent the church's interests. CCI is composed of a number of departments, each with a specific area of focus, through which conference staff and diocesan representatives formulate policy recommendations for the bishop's consideration. Upon the bishops' approval, CCI staff work to implement the recommendations by interacting with agencies of state government, grassroots advocacy networks and religious and secular media.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Many readers of the Vatican's official newspaper might have been taken by surprise in mid-January by an article effusively praising a well-known exhibition of "plastinated" human bodies, which was making an extended stop in Rome.

Q When I was a student in Catholic school many years ago, we were taught that we needed to fast from food and drink from midnight in order to receive holy Communion in the morning. That has since been shortened to one hour.

My wife came in to the Catholic Church about five years ago, and she has asked me why we don't wait at least an hour after Communion before we eat anything. Frankly, I couldn't think of a good answer. It seems that we get together after Mass with our friends and go somewhere for breakfast as soon as we can. Is there a rule about this — or should there be?(Mount Vernon, Ohio)

It has been reported that Jerzy Kluger died in Rome on Dec. 31 at the age of 90. We are aware of Jerzy Kluger because he was the childhood friend of one Karol Wojtyla, who is better known as Pope John Paul II, supreme pontiff from 1978 to 2005 and recently beatified.

Q I am an 8th-grade teacher in a public school. I am devoted to the rosary and pray it daily. I have several Hispanic students who wear the rosary around their neck. I tell them that the rosary is meant to be prayed, not to be worn as jewelry. When I ask them about the prayers involved in the rosary, they have no idea what I'm talking about. So I ask them to take it off.

Am I wrong? (Georgia)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI's early January address to the Vatican diplomatic corps, an annual tradition that reaffirms the Holy See's commitment to its relations with foreign states, comes after an especially trying year for Vatican diplomacy.

When I saw the title Christmas Shock: The Human Experience of God, I grabbed the book. And when I saw the author's name, Jean Maalouf, I knew that I had a good learning experience in store. I read some of his previous books and was particularly moved by his writings on the great French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Q I am a senior citizen on a fixed income. My kitchen table is now full of what I call "mission mail," all of it asking for donations. I have no idea what to do with all of the religious prayer cards, address labels, greeting cards, Mass cards, etc., that have been sent me. It must be that some of these charities are selling my name to other ones, which I consider an invasion of my privacy.

Most of the requests are for $25, $50 or even $100; I contribute already to a number of Catholic organizations, but I cannot give to every charity, and my Social Security check only goes so far.

I am very discouraged. Please tell me what I should do with all this mail. (Coldwater, Ohio)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — An interfaith meeting in Assisi, a new book on Jesus of Nazareth and a website-launching tap on an iPad were among the highlights of 2011 for Pope Benedict XVI.