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?
I will take credit for that. The Baltimore Catechism was a primer for children and beginners. Its purpose was to introduce Catholic teaching and terminology. Is is a good starting point, but is is NOT the definitive end all I have this vivid and sure memory of some FRanti-Catholics claiming it was something it was not.
CCC 85 "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."47 This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.
That's a curious thing...The same word of God that your religion claims gives your religion the authority to teach and alter and correct the word of God is the same word of God that condemns your religion at every turn...
Did the good Dr. also mention that Jerome did not believe there were 73 legitimate, inspired books in the bible???
I am going to file your opinion under "I" for irrelevant.
Oh, good ole Iggy...It's difficult to know if Ingatius really existed, since the writings attributed to him were forged by other people a couple a hunderd years later...
But even if Iggy actually did write that, we know there was no capital 'C' on catholic, don't we...That forgery as well was added later by your religion...
Clickable source please.
After...
Your religion was founded by Peter Magus who was crucified upside down in Rome...Peter the Apostle never set foot in Rome...
You are funny...I never was a Catholic...Except that I have been baptized and some of you guys say that everyone who is baptized is Catholic...
What is the History of Your Church?
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They would be far better off if they would...
But the point is, both of them when supposedly quoting scripture leave words out or add or change words that are there...They then go off expounding on the scripture they added...
If you guys would follow along in a bible when they are teaching, you'd be floored as well...
You don't suppose the fact that Koine Greek had no capital letters had something to do with that, do you?
You learned that after you became Catholic didn't you??? After they told you Mary never sinned...
I can vouch for the same experience. I never even SAW a Bible unless we were visiting my Southern Baptist grandparents. I went to Catholic school from the third through the eighth grade and, even in religion class, the Bible was NEVER used or referenced. This was late 1950-1960’s. Sure, it supposedly has changed now, but those RCs denying our experiences and calling us liars are flat out wrong.
Polycarp never wrote anything that could remotely be construed to catalog him as a Catholic...Ignatius' writings were forged by the Catholic religion and who knows about the rest...
Peter Magnus is a fictitious character invented but rabid anti-Catholics who believe that lying for God will please Him. You brought him up, now prove he existed.
Truth for that one person, maybe, and could have had a lot to do with his age and attention span rather than quantity of Bible teaching. It's certainly NOT the truth in my experience. It took a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher opening the Bible to John 10:27-30 and letting me read it for myself (for the very first time!) that led me to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Here's what I read:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.
The Holy Spirit opened my eyes to the truth of the glorious gospel of the grace of God. I wonder if that passage is ever included in the Catholic Church's liturgy these days?
It is read during every Easter season, including those years you claim to have been Catholic, yet you say he first time you ever heard it was from a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher. FYI-It was read on April 21st this year.
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