Hi, Irwin —

Thanks for the question.

Although a strong knowledge of the Bible is important to any faithful Catholic, knowledge of what we believe as Catholics is far more important. Reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the best way to obtain this knowledge.

I use to run a Free Catechism of the Catholic Church for Protestants program which sent Free Catechisms to seeking Protestants and non-Christians but no longer have the finances and operational ability to do this work. If any reader of this posting has been helped by our work or my programs a donation would be appreciated.

Since I can't provide you with a Free Catholic Catechism, I would encourage you to get a cheap copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Amazon.

I don't know where you exactly live in Idaho but the state is covered by the archdiocese of Boise City. Here is their archdiocesan web site. It may have some information of interest to you:

Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise

As far as the best Bible. The best Bible is the one you will read : )

There are differences though. Here is a posting that elaborates on the differences:

• Which Bibles are Catholic and which are Protestant and what translations are used at Mass?

and here is the story behind how the differences occurred:

• Why is the Catholic Bible the only Bible that contains these additional books, located just before the New Testament?
  

If you are really interested in the origins of Catholic Christianity, check out the writings of the Early Church Fathers. Here is a three volume set. Pricey yes, but worth it. Also check out my other web site dedicated to the Early Church Fathers: BibleBeltCatholics.com

You said:

• Is it possible to start RCIA (Rite of Christian initiation of Adults) on-line?

No there way to fully complete RCIA on-line seeing the objectives of the program cannot fully be achieved through on-line web sites.

You could get a start developing your knowledge of the faith by reading truly Catholic web sites that are faithful to the Church but that is one of many objectives in the RCIA program. Here is a good on-line example of how you could start:

• Catechism of the Catholic Church on-line

Hope this helps,

Mike

Hi Irwin,

Just to add to Mike's answer; I recommend the RSV Catholic edition. It is available from Scepter Press or Ignatius Press. You can order it on-line.

The NIV is an OK translation. I refer to it from time to time. Just be aware that it is missing several Old Testament books. That's pretty much the case with all Protestant translations.

The translations are all pretty good, some better than others, and some better than Catholic translations. The problem again, is that they don't have the entire Old Testament.

John