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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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To: metmom

“That’s not being saved. “

Neither is Sola fide, sola scriptura, and sola gratia, the false trinity of Protestants.


1,001 posted on 06/02/2013 6:04:35 PM PDT by Morgana (Always a bit of truth in dark humor.)
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To: Tennessee Nana

What do you win?


1,002 posted on 06/02/2013 6:22:44 PM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: Morgana

Jesus didn’t give people who came to Him theology quizzes.

Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ. *Correct* theology will come after salvation but is not required for it as the natural man is incapable of understanding Scripture.

Understanding Scripture requires the enlightening of the Holy Spirit.

It’s like trying to explain light to a blind man. Can’t see if the eyes don’t work.

People who are spiritually dead cannot understand spiritual truths.

Salvation does not depend on the solas you listed and you’re the first person I ever heard refer to “the false trinity of Protestants”. What on earth is that?


1,003 posted on 06/02/2013 6:28:01 PM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: metmom
LOL, more jokes and burbling. Cornered?

LOL, that's really, really, rich. Folks who insist that anti-Christ Jewish Pharisees had, and have, far more authority over His Word than Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, or the Apostles, "cornering" someone by quoting from the subset of Scripture they pretend to believe when it's convenient to do so.

Have those who only accept the Pharisee Approved Luther Subset of Scripture "cornered" themselves by reversing what they claim is the Truth about murdering infants with contraceptives, divorce, the ordinating of queers, the ordaining of women, or the marrying of queers to one another? Have they reversed themselves on anything else in the past few weeks or days?

Reversing what they claim is the Truth happens so frequently among the tens of thousands Self Alone "churches" that what they "corner" someone with this week is probably the exact opposite of what they claimed was the Truth last week or last year.

Have the Self Alone Self Worshipers thrown out any more books of the Bible this week or even since they commented in some other thread or does ignoring even most of the Pharisee Approved Luther Subset they pretend to believe still keep such Self Alone folks happy with following Eve and placing their own Most High and Holy Self above God?

"Cornered", ROLTFLMAO.

By Self Worshipers who threw as much Scripture out of the Old Testament as there is in the New Testament ?
It is nice to see Self Alone Self Worshipers making so many bad jokes lately, though. It proves that deep down inside even they know know the worship of their own, Most High and Holy Self is at it's core a bad joke and a complete denial of Jesus Christ.
1,004 posted on 06/02/2013 6:53:58 PM PDT by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: Elsie

???


1,005 posted on 06/02/2013 7:12:12 PM PDT by Petrosius
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To: Rashputin
Making the flat statement that God CANNOT do something. Disgusting.


Making the flat statement that God HAS done something. without ANY evidence of the claim. Sad.

1,006 posted on 06/02/2013 7:20:06 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: metmom
Man's sin was because he ate.

Nah...

Disobeyed.

1,007 posted on 06/02/2013 7:22:39 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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Comment #1,008 Removed by Moderator

To: Tennessee Nana

I was wanting you on THIS one: 666 inverted!


1,009 posted on 06/02/2013 7:25:05 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Tennessee Nana

But... this works just as well.


1,010 posted on 06/02/2013 7:25:25 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Morgana; metmom
“That’s not being saved. “

Can we 3 agree that if a person does what GOD requires; then they probably ARE saved?

1,011 posted on 06/02/2013 7:27:05 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: metmom

Braggin’ rights!


1,012 posted on 06/02/2013 7:27:24 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Petrosius

PROTESTants get ridiculed for trusting ONLY in an Official Book.


1,013 posted on 06/02/2013 7:29:13 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: RPTMS
Reading the mind of another Freeper is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

1,014 posted on 06/02/2013 7:32:37 PM PDT by Religion Moderator
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To: Rashputin

You want to address the content of the post instead of again resorting to more derision and ridicule?


1,015 posted on 06/02/2013 7:48:25 PM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: CynicalBear

If there was ever anyone who heard the word of God and kept it it was Mary.


1,016 posted on 06/02/2013 8:35:21 PM PDT by RPTMS
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To: Elsie

How clever.


1,017 posted on 06/02/2013 8:37:09 PM PDT by RPTMS
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To: sasportas

So, now you’re going from “scripture alone” to “Book of Acts alone”. Could you tell me where “scripture alone” is found in the Bible? I don’t think you can, because it is nothing more than a tradition of (Protestant) men.


1,018 posted on 06/02/2013 8:41:07 PM PDT by RPTMS
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To: RPTMS; CynicalBear
If there was ever anyone who heard the word of God and kept it it was Mary.

How do you know? Precious little about what she did is even recorded in Scripture.

1,019 posted on 06/02/2013 8:54:54 PM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: metmom

Where does “scripture alone” appear in scripture?


1,020 posted on 06/02/2013 9:12:10 PM PDT by RPTMS
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