Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
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?
So you paint all Protestant churches as lacking in holy reverence from your experience in one Baptist church. You ever think about going to another church?
Perhaps you should switch to an unabridged original version.
Which one do you recommend?
Did God himself say that?
non sequitur
Exactly. And that’s the point.
Replace ‘puritan catechism’ with ‘Baltimore catechism’, and that’s exactly what we do as well.
Technically, no. You don’t have to feel like it, you just have to do it. Commandment #3 (or #4, depending on which numbering method you use).
What’s the point in rehearsing a creed if you cannot teach from the scripture the details of the creed? Learning to memorize and repeat something does no good to anyone.
I cannot recommend a church for him because I am not in his area. But as a rule, try out different churches to find one that fits your ideal of a church teaching Gods Truth.
“I cannot recommend a church for him because I am not in his area. But as a rule, try out different churches to find one that fits your ideal of a church teaching Gods Truth.”
Which one fits yours?
They couldn't possibly come out Catholic if they studied and believed the bible...And you can bet that a bible doesn't come any where near those students...
Well, I am a Catholic, and I will tell you:
25% of the problem is our local priests confuse socialism with the Gospel to the point I can barely look at them;
50% of the problem in my area is that is it largely Mexican Hispanic and they are so heavily influenced by pagan superstitians to the point I wonder if they are even Christian;
and the last 25% of the problem is the Christian meaning of the ritual I so value and appreciate was never taught by our local priests because they were too busy talking about “social justice” and how the white man is evil.
It’s heck being a Catholic in the SW.
Exactly! There’s about 10,000,000 Protestant churches from which to choose!
You may have a point! Please show me what the Bible says about in-vitro fertilization, contraception and divorce ... what does it say about two people living together outside of marriage. I'll grant you the graphics in the Baltimore Catechism are dated but the material is current, all of it based on scripture.
Good copies of the creed are heavily footnoted so you can root down to the source.
I think they are even online.
Memorizing does a lot of good, if you know what you are saying. Everybody memorizes the Lord’s Prayer, and it is available in your head to ponder or recite whenever you need it. And a lot of people memorize the Lord’s Prayer when they are little kids, but understand it fully when they are older.
What does that have to do with this topic?
As a protestant with lots of Catholic friends, relatives and acquaintances IMHO it’s because a vast majority of your priests don’t REALLY believe what they’re supposed to believe. Thus don’t really actually teach that. I’ve got a relative who thinks b/c is A-OK because her priest has never told them otherwise.
You said it, NYer. Still the best, hands down.
Regards,
No ... I blame it on the parents. They are the primary teachers. It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to pick up a book and instruct one's child.
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