Catholicism
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99 free Catholicism trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Catholicism is the faith of well over a billion people, organised into 24 autonomous churches under the bishop of Rome, with a calendar, a vocabulary and a set of rules that reward anyone who pays attention. It is also where a surprising amount of general knowledge lives: why conclaves are locked, why the Vatican has no taxes, why ashes come from last year's palms, and how a phrase like ex cathedra ends up in an argument about football referees. These 99 questions cover belief and practice rather than church politics. You will meet the seven sacraments and the council that fixed them, transubstantiation and the Fourth Lateran, the four Marian dogmas and the popes who defined them, the Rosary and the Luminous Mysteries added in 2002, Lent, Advent and Ash Wednesday, the seven deadly sins, the steps from Servant of God to saint, and the shrines at Lourdes and Guadalupe. The popes appear too: John Paul II and the 1981 shooting, Benedict XVI's resignation, Francis the first Jesuit, and Leo XIV from Chicago. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many sacraments does the Catholic Church recognise?
Seven
Seven: the Council of Trent declared anathema anyone who said the sacraments were more or fewer than seven.
Q 02In which Catholic sacrament do people confess their sins to a priest?
Penance
Penance comes with the seal of confession, a secrecy that admits no exceptions, so a priest who directly breaks it is automatically excommunicated.
Q 03Which Dominican friar wrote the Summa Theologiae?
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas left it unfinished: after a reported mystical experience at Mass in December 1273, he stopped writing, calling his work of little worth.
Q 04In the Rosary, what is each group of Hail Marys said after an Our Father called?
A decade
A decade is ten Hail Marys, and the traditional Rosary's 150 Hail Marys probably grew up as a substitute for the 150 psalms that monks recited.
Q 05Which pope added the Luminous Mysteries to the Rosary in 2002?
John Paul II
John Paul II added them to cover Jesus's public life, from his baptism to the institution of the Eucharist, which the older mysteries passed over.
Q 06What does the Church call the change of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ?
Transubstantiation
Transubstantiation, the Church teaches, leaves Christ present in hosts consecrated at Mass, so leftover hosts are kept in a tabernacle for the sick and for adoration.
Q 07Under Latin-rite rules, who may receive Communion even if they have eaten within the previous hour?
The elderly and infirm
The elderly and infirm, and those who care for them, are exempt from the one-hour fast, which until the 1950s ran from midnight.
Q 08The word Eucharist comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving: Saint Paul's account of the Last Supper says Jesus took bread and, 'after he had given thanks, broke it'.
Q 09Who is the ordinary minister of confirmation for Latin-rite Catholics?
A bishop
A bishop is the Latin Church's ordinary minister, but Eastern Catholic Churches confer the sacrament, called chrismation, on babies straight after baptism.
Q 10Holy orders comprise which three ordained ministries?
Bishop, priest, deacon
Bishop, priest, deacon are the only three orders, so a man elected pope who isn't yet a bishop must be ordained one at once.
Q 11Under church law, which food must Catholics abstain from on the Fridays of Lent?
Meat
Meat: a Cincinnati McDonald's owner, Lou Groen, invented the Filet-O-Fish because his mostly Catholic customers skipped burgers on Fridays.
Q 12Which pope defined the Immaculate Conception as dogma in 1854?
Pius IX
Pius IX first sent a letter from exile in Gaeta in 1849 canvassing opinion across the Church, then defined it in the bull Ineffabilis Deus.
Q 13Which pope defined the Assumption of Mary as dogma in 1950?
Pius XII
Pius XII defined that Mary was taken body and soul into heaven 'having completed the course of her earthly life', without deciding whether she died first.
Q 21The English word Lent comes from an Old English word meaning what?
Spring
Spring: Old English lencten probably refers to the lengthening days, and the Dutch cousin lente still means spring today.
Q 22The ashes used on Ash Wednesday are made by burning what?
Last year's palms
Last year's palms from Palm Sunday are saved and burned, though where palms are scarce, branches such as olive, box or yew stand in.
Q 23Besides violet, which colour may Catholic priests wear on the third Sunday of Advent?
Rose
Rose marks Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin 'rejoice', a pause in Advent's penitential mood, and it returns once in Lent, on Laetare Sunday.
Q 14Which saint translated the Bible into the Latin version known as the Vulgate?
Jerome
Jerome translated most of the Old Testament straight from the Hebrew, and in 1546 the Council of Trent made his Vulgate the Church's authoritative Latin Bible.
Q 15What Latin phrase describes the pope speaking with infallible authority?
Ex cathedra
Ex cathedra means 'from the chair' and marks a formal definition: infallibility is not claimed for everything a pope says or writes.
Q 16The Council of Trent was the Church's answer to which reformer's teachings?
Martin Luther
Martin Luther had appealed from the pope to a council years earlier, but he died in February 1546, two months after Trent finally opened.
Q 17Which institution did the Council of Trent require every diocese to provide?
A seminary
A seminary in each diocese was among Trent's reforms, and modern seminary training for Catholic diocesan priests grew out of that decree.
Q 18Which pope announced a new ecumenical council in 1959, less than three months after his election?
John XXIII
John XXIII, elected at 76, wanted aggiornamento, 'bringing up to date', but he died in June 1963 after only the council's first session.
Q 19Vatican II's constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium dealt with which subject?
The liturgy
The liturgy: the constitution said Latin was to be preserved in the Latin rites, yet it let local languages be used more widely in worship.
Q 20In 2018, Pope Francis revised the Catechism to call what 'inadmissible'?
The death penalty
The death penalty had been allowed as a last resort in the 1992 first edition; the revised text calls it an attack on the dignity of the person.
Q 24Which vice does the Catechism name among the seven capital sins, better known as the deadly sins?
Sloth
Sloth began as acedia, a monk's spiritual listlessness, on a list of eight vices that a sixth-century pope trimmed to seven.
Q 25Which book of the Catholic Old Testament is cited as support for purgatory?
2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees tells how Judas Maccabeus found pagan amulets on fallen soldiers and sent money to Jerusalem for a sacrifice to atone for their sin.
Q 26Which Italian town is home to the popes' traditional summer residence?
Castel Gandolfo
Castel Gandolfo's papal estate sheltered at least 12,000 people fleeing the fighting in 1944, and dozens of babies were born there.
Q 27What share of the vote is needed to elect a pope in a conclave?
Two-thirds
Two-thirds is the rule again: a 1996 reform let a bare majority decide after a long deadlock, but Benedict XVI restored the old requirement in 2007.
Q 28The word conclave comes from a Latin phrase meaning what?
With a key
With a key, from Latin cum clave: after cardinals at Viterbo spent over two years failing to elect a pope, local officials locked them in and removed the roof.
Q 29Papal conclaves are held in which Vatican building?
Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel is named after Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built between 1473 and 1481, long before its famous ceiling was painted.
Q 30Vatican City became an independent state through which 1929 agreement?
Lateran Treaty
The Lateran Treaty ended the long Roman Question: the papacy at last recognised Italy, with Rome as its capital, and Italy recognised papal sovereignty over Vatican City.