It might be because of the meaning of the word hell today, but your priest should know this. Here is a quote from the Catechism.I suppose you could both be right, I’ll double check tomorrow. The funny thing is, in my RCIA class I brought this up ( that Christ descended into Hell ) and my priest was adamant that this was not so. Now what?
Paragraph 1. Christ Descended into Hell
632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection.478 This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.479
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.480 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:481 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."482 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.483
634 "The gospel was preached even to the dead."484 The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.
635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live."485 Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage."486 Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth."487
Also from 1 Peter 3:Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead."488
[18] For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;
[19]** in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison**,
[20] who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
Actually the GIRM requires only that the Creed be recited. It does not specify the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed. Either is allowed and in fact at my local church we only say the Apostles Creed. In all the years I have attended Mass there I have never heard the Nicene Creed.The one recited in Church is the Nicene Creed, not the Apostle’s Creed.
Are you by any chance Canadian or otherwise outside the US?Actually the GIRM requires only that the Creed be recited. It does not specify the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed. Either is allowed and in fact at my local church we only say the Apostles Creed. In all the years I have attended Mass there I have never heard the Nicene Creed.
I’m British but I live permanently in the Philippines.Are you by any chance Canadian or otherwise outside the US?
The reason I asked is that the Nicene Creed is standard in the US but not necessarily in other countries. Canada uses the Apostles’ Creed at Mass. So it varies depending on where you are.I’m British but I live permanently in the Philippines.