Growing in Knowledge of Faith and Scripture

St. Paul Inside the Walls to host 3rd annual
Catholic Trivia Super Bowl

MADISON  A little more than a week before the NFL’s 50th Super Bowl, St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard here will host its own 3rd annual Catholic Trivia Super Bowl from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 30. St. Paul’s is encouraging Catholics to assemble five-person teams to compete in the contest, which will challenge them with multiple-choice questions in a variety of subject areas about the Catholic faith.

Hosting the Catholic Trivia Super Bowl will be SOLT Father Derek Anderson, diocesan director of catechesis and pastor of St. Mary Parish, Dover, who devised the game three years ago. He will read questions from seven varied categories that will be displayed on a large screen in St. Paul’s auditorium, which will serve as the contest’s theater of battle. The team that emerges victorious will win a trophy, said Allan Wright, St. Paul’s academic dean, who devised this year’s categories and the questions.

“The Catholic Trivia Super Bowl is a fun way for Catholics to grow in knowledge of the faith and Scripture. It also will better equip them to answer questions about Catholicism by others,” Wright said.

Some of this year’s categories may include, but are not limited too, the following:

• “There’s No Place Like Home”: about the history of the Paterson Diocese and the life and ministry of Bishop Serratelli;

• “Travel and Tourism”: about where certain events in the Bible took place;

• “Lord, Have Mercy”: about God’s unending mercy in the Bible;

• “All in the Family”: about various families and relationships in the Bible;

• “ ‘Cross’ Examination”: about events that surround the Crucifixion of Christ;

• “Hello from the Other Side”: about what we can glean about heaven, based on Biblical texts; and

• “CCC…You Later”: about the teachings that are found in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

In 2014, The Beacon visited the first-ever Catholic Trivia Super Bowl and found teams having fun — and lots of laughs — while scrambling to answer the questions in 45 seconds. Teams were on their own in answering questions, during that first contest three years ago. They could not get help from Google, open the Bible or Catechism or email or “phone a friend.”

Teams can include clergy; religious; staff and volunteers from parishes or schools; catechists; young adults; and youth ministries. Only one member of each team can be clergy, religious or a person who has earned a master’s degree in theology. St. Paul’s encourages teams “to have fun with it” — for example arriving at the tourney in matching shirts. Admission for each team is $35.

[To register for the Catholic Trivia Super Bowl, visit St. Paul Inside the Walls’ website, www.insidethewalls.org, or call (973) 377-1004.]