Catholic vs. Protestant Bibles
Question: Why are Catholic and Protestant Bibles different?
Answer: Since the earliest days of the Church, Christians used a Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. This collection of the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures included 46 books.
At the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, the Protestant reformers began to create their own translations of the Bible (into local languages) and some began to question why the Jewish Scriptures would have included texts that were written in Greek, because, they assumed, the only valid Jewish Scriptures would have been written in Hebrew.
And so, they decided to remove seven books from the Old Testament: Baruch, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith and Wisdom (as well as portions of the Books of Daniel and Esther). This means that the Protestant Old Testament only includes 39 books, while Catholic Bibles continue to include those original 46 books.
Both Catholic and Protestant Bibles include 27 books and letters in the New Testament.
Marriage in church
Question: Why are Catholics required to get married in a church, and not outside or at a different venue?
Answer: Because the Sacrament of Marriage is a sacred covenant between the husband and wife, the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony is much more than simply a social or family event.
So, the rule that the sacrament be celebrated in a church is a way to help reinforce the deeper meaning of Christian marriage. To help make this clearer, the Church’s tradition also normally includes the celebration of the Mass when the marriage is being celebrated between two Catholics, and so a church or chapel is the ideal setting.
For special reasons — which vary from diocese to diocese — the local bishop can give permission for the marriage to be celebrated in another suitable place.