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?
They forget that the Catholic Church is based on scripture. Remember what Jesus said to Peter, “on this rock I will build my church”.
I grant you, you have numbers on your side. The Muslims do as well. I'm stuck with YOPIOS cereal and reading Matthew 7:13.
We remember what Jesus said, the difference is what was meant by what He said.
It is called transubstantiation because the substance literally changes, the properties of the bread and wine do not. It that is too complicated for you to understand, please IM me and I will explain substance and property in detail one more time.
Peace be with you.
Actually no. That is an interpretation, but the only interpretation that has any authority is one given by Rome, based upon the claim that she is the uniquely authoritative interpreter of Tradition, History, Scripture, so her claim to be the inheritor of Divine promises and what they mean must be true and cannot be validly challenged..
Thus the claim is really based upon Rome's claim, not the weight of Scriptural substantiation, which is not required for all RC doctrine, otherwise she would be as evangelicals.
Actually, yes. It requires an extensive domino effect list of Scripture that must be denied or reinterpreted to piece by piece build a case to deny the Church's authority.
Even back in 1968? Why do you continue to imply we are lying? Is that the only way you can cope?
"Be ever wary of quotes found on the internet. - Plato
"My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me." (John 10:27)
"Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:7-14)
In the old Latin Missal I have, dating back to 1947, was a reading in every Easter season just as it still is today. I never used the word lying, I simply am incredulous that anyone claiming to be a Catholic could have attended Mass regularly and heard John 10:27-30 (actually the reading was John 10:22-38) year after year and then claim that the first time they every heard it was from Baptist Sunday School teacher. It at least needs a little explaining.
I am of course happy you received that part of the Gospel, but the continuing animus and resentment toward the Church is not deserved.
Peace be with you
Countdown until someone claims guidence from their pet snake is all they need, not any revision of Scripture . . ."
One crosseyed hippie, two crosseyed hippies, three crosseyed hippies, . . .
The question had to do with breaking "vows" which was a response to a post that listed dozens of former Catholic clergy who left the Catholic Church for a non-Catholic Christian faith. As is typical, the sidebar is now diverted to what vows were "sacramental" (AKA, Roman Catholic) versus other vows - which, apparently don't count as, well, vowed/sworn vows. I'll not take the bait despite the rather obvious ham-handed try.
The Conference, while declining to lay down rules which will meet the needs of every abnormal case, regards with grave concern the spread in modern society of theories and practices hostile to the family.
We utter an emphatic warning against the use of unnatural means for the avoidance of conception, together with the grave dangers—physical, moral, and religious—thereby incurred, and against the evils with which the extension of such use threatens the race.
In opposition to the teaching which, under the name of science and religion, encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of sexual union as an end in itself, we steadfastly uphold what must always be regarded as the governing considerations of Christian marriage.
One is the primary purpose for which marriage exists—namely the continuation of the race through the gift and heritage of children; the other is the paramount importance in married life of deliberate and thoughtful self-control.
We desire solemnly to commend what we have said to Christian people and to all who will hear. Here we have a refusal to go into detail about abnormal 'hard cases,' but a quite general condemnation of contraceptive methods.
The recent Conference, on the contrary, has given a restricted approval of them. To be quite fair we will analyse the Resolutions 13—18. Resolutions 13 and 14 are on the lines of the latter part of the pronouncement of the earlier Conference, emphasizing the dignity and glory of parenthood and the necessity of self-control within marriage. Resolution 16 expresses abhorrence of the crime of abortion. Resolution 17 repudiates the idea that unsatisfactory economic and social conditions can be met by the control of conception. Resolution 18 condemns fornication accompanied by the use of some contraceptive as no less sinful than without such accompaniment. It also demands legislation forbidding the exposure for sale and advertisement of contraceptives. But Resolution 15 (carried, it is noted, by a majority of 193 votes over 67, which would seem to imply that there must have been some forty bishops who did not vote), which contemplates cases where 'there is a clearly felt obligation to limit or avoid parenthood,' while giving the preference to the self-discipline and self-control which makes abstinence from intercourse possible, and recording the 'strong condemnation' by the Conference 'of the use of methods of conception-control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience,' yet admits the legitimacy of these methods 'where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence.'
Now put on your big girl shoes and say "Verga you are correct once again."
Same thing when you show them the evidence they ask for and they refuse to acknowledge it. Don't you just hate when those intellectually dishonest protestants do that to you?
*SNERK* yeah sure you were Catholic, just like izzy except when he was busy saying he never was after he said he was.
izzy post #430 still waiting on you.
You keep asking that question. Binding and losing as understood by the Jews simply meant that they could decide what would be forbidden or allowed. An example we have is the council at Jerusalem where the apostles debated circumcision. You may want to compare what they said to avoid as compared to what the RCC has encumbered their cult members with.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.