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?
Start here ... Baltimore Catechism No. 1 - still the best!
Maybe you might want to ask Catholic kids to read the Bible. It’s a radical idea, I know, but still...
True.
Studying the Bible instead of dull text books would probably work out better. Of course, they’d probably come out not being Catholic though, but that’s fine with Christ.
The children read the Bible; the catechism explains it.
Why do you think it’s radical for Catholic kids to read the bible? That’s not my experience, that’s not my family’s experience, nor my parish’s. Do you have some inside information we don’t know about?
Most of us can’t read or understand Latin?
Great post, Mr Empire State. Love the book - great teaching tool - love the commentary by this excellent priest. Heck, I even love the Drive-By Protestors mouthing the centuries’-old distorions of the one true Church
I would rather have it taught to them first. Handing an 8 year old kid a Bible and saying, “Here read this and figure it out on your own,” isn’t really a helpful idea.
First, their parents should be catechized so that with the aid of the parish priest, teachers at their school, catechists at their parish, and most importantly the parents in the home can teach the Bible to the child through regular study, lectio divina and prayer.
If so, I have a request ...
Blame it on poor CCD teaching.
>>Why do you think it’s radical for Catholic kids to read the Bible?<<
I don’t think it’s radical at all. But I’ve been shouted down by some catholics for suggesting it.
As best I can gather, these people think that the Bible needs to be explained by professional clergy much the same way Tom Brokaw says the media should ‘filter’ the news for us.
I think God can speak for Himself.
Because many pastors abrogate their responsibility to teach from the pulpit in favor of the touchy-feely feelgood aspects of liberal catholicism. I attended a “Mass” last week while travelling in California that was a total joke. I would have tried to find another Mass if I hadn’t been leaving.
So, in your Protestant sunday school classes you just hand the kids the Bible and walk out of the room?
I grew up in the Catholic faith... I read the Bible as a Catholic... loved church... as a young adult I became a Protestant... it was not until I began homeschooling my sons, trying to give them a classical education, learning Latin, studying classical literature and history... studying the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Augustin, Bonaventure and others, appreciating classical art and music, did I truly begin to understand Catholicism... I have yet to come back to the Catholic faith, but I am drawn to it... my sons and I do attend mass on occasion... especially during lent... I get so much more out of the Catholic church during that time of the year than any non-denominational Protestant church I have ever attended...
and that's why there is uniformity of belief among all of the Protestant denominations put there.
I will read this... thank you...
One word - well, two word - answer: Vatican II.
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