The Sacraments
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50 free The Sacraments trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
For Catholics, the sacraments accompany the turning points of a life: birth, growing up, marriage, illness and death. There are seven of them, and each has its own signs, words and ministers, along with centuries of argument about what it means and who may give it. This quiz covers all seven: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, the anointing of the sick, holy orders and matrimony. Expect questions on the oils, vessels and gestures used, the Bible stories behind each rite, the councils and reformers who fought over the list, and sacramentals such as blessed ashes. The first questions suit a fifth-grade religion class or a confirmation group, and the later ones are hard enough for catechists, clergy and pub-quiz regulars. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the set works as a printable review sheet as well as a game.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The capital of which US state takes its name from the Spanish for the Blessed Sacrament?
California
California's capital, Sacramento, borrowed the name of its river, which the Spanish officer Gabriel Moraga named in 1808 in honour of the Eucharist.
Q 02Which English king's book defending the seven sacraments won him the papal title Defender of the Faith?
Henry VIII
Henry VIII received the title from Pope Leo X in 1521 and lost it after his break with Rome in the 1530s, but Parliament later granted it back to him and his successors.
Q 03In the Latin Catholic tradition, unlike in Eastern churches, who confers the sacrament of marriage at a wedding?
The couple themselves
The couple themselves give the sacrament to each other by exchanging consent, and the priest stands by as the Church's witness; in Eastern churches his blessing is what confers it.
Q 04The word sacrament comes from the Latin sacramentum, which named what in the life of a Roman soldier?
An oath of loyalty
An oath of loyalty, sworn to the consul and later to the emperor, bound a legionary to the gods, and the survivors of a decimated unit were often made to swear it again.
Q 05Under Catholic canon law, who may baptise a person in danger of death when no priest can be found?
Anyone at all
Anyone at all may do it, even a non-Christian, provided they have the required intention, which is why midwives were long expected to know the rite.
Q 06Which Roman emperor, who began favouring Christianity in 312, waited until his deathbed to be baptised?
Constantine
Constantine put the rite off in the belief that it would wipe away whatever he had done as ruler, and the bishop who finally baptised him, Eusebius of Nicomedia, was an Arian.
Q 07The Last Supper, source of the Eucharist, fell in the week of which Jewish festival recalling the escape from Egypt?
Passover
Passover week is where all four Gospels set the meal, though scholars still argue over whether it was the festival supper itself or was eaten a day earlier.
Q 08Ashes, a sacramental placed on Catholics each Ash Wednesday, are made by burning what from the year before?
Palm branches
Palm branches blessed on the previous Palm Sunday are burned for the purpose, so the greenery that opens one Holy Week becomes the dust that opens the next Lent.
Q 09The word matrimony, used for the sacrament of marriage, comes from the Latin for which family member?
Mother
Mother, or mater in Latin, lies behind matrimonium, while the matching word built on father, patrimony, came to mean an inherited estate.
Q 10Which gesture from the bishop traditionally followed a Catholic confirmation, a reminder to be brave in the faith?
A tap on the cheek
A tap on the cheek came with the words Peace be with you, and the old Roman Pontifical treated it as a light slap, much like the blow that dubbed a knight.
Q 11In which river, flowing south into the Dead Sea, do the Gospels say John the Baptist baptised Jesus?
The Jordan
The Jordan is also the river the Israelites cross to enter the Promised Land in the Bible, and it runs through the Sea of Galilee on its way south.
Q 12Which adults, also called sponsors, promise at a child's baptism to help raise the child in the faith?
Godparents
Godparents were at first usually the child's own birth parents, and Augustine argued in 408 that other people should step in only in exceptional cases.
Q 13Which sacramental, kept in a small basin by the door of a church, do Catholics use to recall their baptism?
Holy water
Q 21Which prayer of sorrow for sin does a penitent say during confession, after the priest has assigned a penance?
Act of Contrition
Act of Contrition names a whole family of prayers rather than one fixed text, and the Church accepts even psalms such as the Miserere in its place.
Q 22What name is given to the forgiveness of sins a priest pronounces at the end of a Catholic confession?
Absolution
Absolution is spoken by the priest, but Catholic teaching holds that only God forgives sin, working through a ministry Christ entrusted to his Church.
Q 23Which popular name is often given to the confession, anointing and final Communion offered to a dying Catholic?
Last rites
Holy water is taken on the fingertips to make the sign of the cross on the way in, a custom descended from the washing early Christians did before entering a church.
Q 14Which event in Jerusalem, when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles, does the Catechism link with confirmation?
Pentecost
Pentecost takes its name from the Greek for fiftieth, and because the apostles began preaching that day it is often called the birthday of the Church.
Q 15In the Gospel accounts of the baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit descends in the form of which bird?
A dove
A dove appears in all four Gospels, but only Luke says the Spirit took the bird's bodily form rather than simply descending like one.
Q 16What does the Catechism say baptism erases, a condition traced back to the disobedience of Adam and Eve?
Original sin
Original sin is erased, the Catechism says, yet its after-effects stay: human nature remains weakened and inclined to evil, so the spiritual battle goes on.
Q 17Which colour is the long christening gown traditionally worn by an infant baptised in the Roman Catholic Church?
White
White is worn by the newly baptised in Eastern churches too, where the robe is traditionally kept on for eight days and then taken off at a ceremony of its own.
Q 18What do Catholics believe the sacraments give, defined in the Catechism as God's free and undeserved help?
Grace
Grace cannot be earned, the Catechism teaches, and the sacraments are called efficacious signs because they are held to deliver the gift they point to.
Q 19Baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist, said to lay the foundations of Christian life, are the sacraments of what?
Initiation
Initiation is finished at once for infants in Eastern churches, which give all three in a single ceremony, while the Latin Church spreads them over years.
Q 20Byzantine-rite churches anoint many parts of the body at confirmation, but the Latin rite anoints only which one?
The forehead
The forehead alone is anointed in the Latin rite, while Byzantine-rite churches also anoint the eyes, nose, ears, lips, chest, back and feet.
Last rites is used loosely for all three, yet only the final Communion is strictly tied to dying; the anointing can be received at any time of serious illness.
Q 24Which rank of Catholic clergy, the first of the three degrees of holy orders, was reopened to married men in 1967?
Deacon
Deacon had shrunk into a stepping stone to the priesthood until Pope Paul VI revived it as a permanent rank, open to married men aged 35 or over.
Q 25Which kind of college, whose name comes from the Latin for seed-bed, trains men for the Catholic priesthood?
Seminary
Seminary took its name from a sixteenth-century Church decree that pictured such schools as nurseries for young vocations and called for the first modern ones.
Q 26Which discipline is required of priests in the Latin Church but not of priests in most Eastern Catholic Churches?
Celibacy
Celibacy is Church law rather than dogma, which is why most Eastern Catholic Churches can ordain married men, though a man must marry before ordination, not after.
Q 27In which village did Jesus work his first miracle, rescuing a wedding feast whose wine had run out?
Cana
Cana matters to Catholics because the Church reads Jesus's presence at the feast as confirming the goodness of marriage and making it a sign of Christ's presence.
Q 28What is the common name for a Catholic tribunal's ruling that a valid marriage never existed in the first place?
Annulment
Annulment does not dissolve a marriage as a divorce does: the tribunal finds that consent was never validly exchanged, so no binding union ever began.
Q 29Which German reformer argued in 1520 that, strictly speaking, only baptism and the Eucharist are sacraments?
Martin Luther
Martin Luther reasoned that only those two carried a visible sign instituted by God, and his book's title cast the Church as a captive held in Babylon by the papacy.
Q 30Which gesture by a bishop, joined to a prayer of consecration, is the essential rite of Catholic ordination?
Laying on of hands
Laying on of hands is the same act the First Letter to Timothy describes, where a gift is said to be conferred through the imposition of hands by the elders.