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?
Well, Paul was a Presbyterian, John was a Methodist, James was an Episcopalian, Andrew was a Rastafarian (Missouri Synod), John the Baptist was a Baptist, Simon the Zealot was a Zealot, Titus was a Pentecostal, Jude was a Jehovah's Witness, Timothy was a...
**Did Jesus preach imprisonment of those who didn’t believe a certain way?**
Chapter and verse please.
Or is Jesus talking about heaven vs. hell at the end of the age?
Very good, you are very close, much closer than the 200+ that I usually get from your side of the Tiber.
Right....I've listened to them both...They don't believe the bible because they constantly change the words to make it mean what it doesn't mean...I'd guess you do the same thing...
Public schools. Catholic schools that aren’t Catholic. Parents abdicating the job to someone else...
And celebrated an agape meal and Mass on Sundays.
Could you point me to the official infallible interpretations of scripture?
True. I’ve posted this true story before. When I was a Catholic taking “Lutheran lessons”, I had my Bible at work at a Catholic hospital. My Catholic co-workers asked why I was reading it! Maybe if they read it, they’d change minds.
Which was Catholic.
"Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, 107 AD
Again, this is contrary to what de Tocqueville writes about.
America has been substantially better off than every other developed nation in this category - even now, and has been for a very long time. This is something de Tocqueville established as a reason why Americans were special - because they eschewed contraception.
Look at the growth of wealth in the United States from 1870 to say, 1910. Compare it with the growth of wealth from 1970 to now. You say that contraception brings about wealth to the united states - why then was America growing faster than any other developed nation was was the richest at tehe same year.
Look at Sandra Fluke. Tell me that contraception doesn’t contribute to the decline of children born in wedlock, and the subsequent increase in the use of social services. It’s all right there.
Contraception use = greater socialism. Now, you’re claim is simply that Mexico was socialist before contraception use, I’m not sure how that negates my argument that contraception has transformed America into a much more socialist nation.
You’ve got to be kidding! My baby sister had just died, I had been sent away for 2 days and when I returned home there was no crib, no sign there had ever been a baby in the house. I was only 10 and no talk of heaven could make me stop crying for her. So, the dear sister looks for me, approaches me, and says she’s heard about my sister and that she thinks it is wonderful! Do you really think I cared about her reasons? I just thought she was the most cold-hearted person I had ever met. And YES, I WAS SHOCKED!!
And the early Church was founded by Jesus Christ himself on the apostles — the first Bishops!
You got it!
“Right....I’ve listened to them both...They don’t believe the bible because they constantly change the words to make it mean what it doesn’t mean...I’d guess you do the same thing...”
Before or after he became Catholic?
>> “Granted, there were no Messianic Jews...” <<
.
What then do you think the disciples and apostles were?
“I am quite comfortable in saying that my experience is probably the majority experience. Its common knowledge.”
Where and when then since the other Catholics don’t seem to be corroborating your claims.
The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ. Where do you get the idea that someone else founded it?
You claim you were Catholic. This is standard Catholic teaching. You should have felt affirmed, not shocked.
Two things strike me:
1, you were poorly catechised.
2, you chose not to listen to the lessons that you were taught.
I take it you do not agree with the Catholic who started this thread.
WHY ARE OUR CATHOLIC LAITY SO ILLITERATE WHEN IT COMES TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH
... and Judas was an Episcopagan...
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