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WHY ARE OUR CATHOLIC LAITY SO ILLITERATE WHEN IT COMES TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH
Southern Orders ^ | May 31, 2013 | Fr. Allan J. McDonald

Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer

WHY ARE OUR CATHOLIC LAITY SO ILLITERATE WHEN IT COMES TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH--BLAME THE TEXT BOOKS, BLAME THE TEACHING METHODS AND BLAME THE PARENTS, BUT BLAME THE BISHOPS, PRIESTS AND CATECHISTS TOO, BLAME EVERYONE INCLUDING SATAN, EXCEPT NO ONE TEACHES ABOUT HIM ANYMORE OTHER THAN POPE FRANCIS, DON'T BLAME HIM!

Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?

All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.

I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.

These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).

This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!

Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.

What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.

The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.

Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.

In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.

Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Ministry/Outreach; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: catechism; catholic; catholicsects; ignorantprotestants; papalpromotion; traditionalcatholic
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Comment #1,561 Removed by Moderator

Comment #1,562 Removed by Moderator

To: Natural Law
Either way, Protestantism is undermined.

You give only TWO choices?

How nice.

1,563 posted on 06/10/2013 3:05:01 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Gamecock

And it counts for nothin’; I’ve heard...


1,564 posted on 06/10/2013 3:05:24 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MarkBsnr
Hmm, there evidently are works required.

Required for WHAT?

1,565 posted on 06/10/2013 3:07:00 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MarkBsnr
I love everyone who thinks that they are saved simply because they declare it.

Likewise...

I love everyone who thinks that they are saved simply because they do the things the church tells them to do.

1,566 posted on 06/10/2013 3:07:47 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MarkBsnr
The growing child gets its food and oxygen from the mother through the placenta, and its waste is taken away in the same manner.

And then they are born...

1,567 posted on 06/10/2013 3:08:20 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

And then they are born...

Thus 1560...


1,568 posted on 06/10/2013 3:09:38 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.

He was the first Pope to swim the Tiber, as I recall! We had a thread or two on him a few years back:
THE CADAVER SYNOD: STRANGEST TRIAL IN HISTORY

1,569 posted on 06/10/2013 3:09:42 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: MarkBsnr

At John 6:64 it is said Jesus knew “from the beginning” the one who would betray him.

Jesus could see the very start of Judas’ betrayal, from the beginning.


1,570 posted on 06/10/2013 3:13:42 PM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough)
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To: count-your-change

Yeshua saw the heart of everyone he encountered.


1,571 posted on 06/10/2013 3:19:06 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Elsie; MarkBsnr

>> “Hmm, there evidently are works required.”

“Required for WHAT?” <<

.
Required to help you Feel like you are helping Yeshua save you.


1,572 posted on 06/10/2013 3:23:05 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: MarkBsnr
That is so cute. I love everyone who thinks that they are saved simply because they declare it.

We understand why you feel that way...The bible explains it here for you...

Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Rom 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Rom 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Rom 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

As you can see there's nothing complicated there...It's straightforward and easy to understand...Believing it is often another matter tho...

Yes, we are the children of God and now you know how we know it...

Would seem to me that a wise man, instead of criticizing and belittling Christians might instead want to know how he could get that confirmation for himself...

1,573 posted on 06/10/2013 3:32:50 PM PDT by Iscool
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To: Natural Law
She was the Holy of Holies, the living Tabernacle and the Ark of the New Covenant

Wrong!! Jesus laid aside His glory and became a man.

According to Jesus, Mary is like anyone else who hears and obeys HIS Father. Those Scripture(Luke 8:21, Matt 12:48,49 and Mark 3:33) have been posted over and over and those who DON'T BELIEVE God's Word is the FINAL authority IGNORE them and continue with idolizing Mary with their 'not hearing' and disobedience to The Father.

"For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh", Romans 8:3

"He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." Phil 2:7

Jesus took on the form or likeness of mankind. He had a sinless physical body but a physical body nonetheless.

nor the rape victim of the Holy Spirit

What trashy talk, not only to think - but to post!

"And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy Word. And the angel departed from her." Luke 1:38

Mary conceived by the Word, the spoken Word.

And The Word is...

"And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call His name JESUS. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David" Luke 1:31

"So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isaiah 55:11

He created the universe with His Word! God speaks it, IT HAPPENS!

1,574 posted on 06/10/2013 3:39:55 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: editor-surveyor
"Has Natural Law ever had a real answer to anything?"

I've never had any success describibg a sunset to the color blind.

Peace be with you

1,575 posted on 06/10/2013 3:41:27 PM PDT by Natural Law (Jesus did not leave us a book, He left us a Church.)
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To: presently no screen name
"Wrong!! Jesus laid aside His glory and became a man.

Wrong!!! Jesus was at ALL times 100% God AND 100% man.

"Mary conceived by the Word, the spoken Word."

Wrong!!! Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, not the Second Person of the Trinity.

Peace be to you

1,576 posted on 06/10/2013 3:45:46 PM PDT by Natural Law (Jesus did not leave us a book, He left us a Church.)
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To: metmom
Exactly! That was vulgar and it just rolls off the mouth of some. What's in the heart comes out of the mouth.

"But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them." Matt 15:18

1,577 posted on 06/10/2013 3:47:04 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: Natural Law

But have you ever allowed a colorblind person describe or sketch what they see of a rainbow?

I have, and it is quite enlightening.


1,578 posted on 06/10/2013 3:56:39 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Natural Law
If we are all equal how do you explain the unequal distribution of Gifts?

So you equate the number of Gifts to some kind of greatness? LOL! You keep proving 1 Cor 2:14.. "The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit."

They are not unequal in God's eyes ONLY to man who are deceived by man through a worldly 'church'!

Meditate on this... God is NO respector of persons.

1,579 posted on 06/10/2013 4:05:48 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: Natural Law
Know this, if the greatest minds of the Reformation in over 500 hundred years could not disprove the Church's teaching on Mary, what possible chance do you have in a few posts?

God's Word disproves Rome's teachings but since they don't consider it the FINAL authority - Rome/catholics can't 'see' or 'hear' it; therefore, not obedient to it. They are obedient to 'another' - the curse and choice of non believers.

1,580 posted on 06/10/2013 4:13:53 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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