Any Interest in Reading the Catechism Together?

[Writer]

This is probably not one of my better ideas, but I thought I’d float this suggestion. My wife and I are leading a discussion group on the Catehcism of the Catholic Church at our church every other week. It is our goal to read and discuss the entire Catechism and its rich offering of footnoted sources over the next several years. If there are any forum members from the Salem, Oregon area, we’d love it if you could join us.

My other idea, though, was to perhaps encourage other Forum members to participate in an online capacity via our group’s own Yahoo page. Our reasoning for the Yahoo page was a way to promote the exchange of ideas between our sessions. It also, however, could be used as a way to “remotely” join us on this endeavor, if reading the Catehcism has been on your “to do” list, but you find it hard to sit down and actually get started–like me.

Our group is new and quite small, but, if anyone is interested in reading it together, I’d be happy to send you the Yahoo Group “invitation”. One thing we have already noted, is how great some of the footnoted sources are to read for a greater understanding of the Catechism.

 

[allhers]

Have you seen Father Corapi’s web site? He does a great teaching on the Cathechism, I’ve seen it at my Parish, its wonderful, he also does it on EWTN
his web site is
www.fathercorapi.com
and starting in November, this year, he is doing a question and answer series on that site. God bless you on your journey

 

[awalt]

It’s an interesting idea! I wold have to be remote, about how many sections of the Catechism do you plan to do each 2 week period?

 

[trumpet152]

awalt:

It’s an interesting idea! I wold have to be remote, about how many sections of the Catechism do you plan to do each 2 week period?

I say the same! I’d love to join through the internet. Can you give some more details?

 

[Writer]

allhers:

Have you seen Father Corapi’s web site? He does a great teaching on the Cathechism, I’ve seen it at my Parish, its wonderful, he also does it on EWTN
his web site is
www.fathercorapi.com
and starting in November, this year, he is doing a question and answer series on that site. God bless you on your journey

Thank you! That looks like a great resource. We will make others in our discussion group aware of this.

 

[Writer]

Trumpet152 and Awalt:

I am glad this might sound interesting to you. We’re moving at a pretty slow pace for the start of things. We only focused on the prologue for our first discussion, and our second discussion is only aiming to address Part 1, Section 1. Another aspect we’re very much aware of is the need to be flexible in terms of the planned agenda when someone is sharing something which is personal and related to the discussions. We don’t want to rush anyone; that completely misses the point.

We also were introduced to something called The Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, A Compendium of Texts Referred to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Besides having a really long title, it is a fantastic resource for the serious student of our Catechism. The companion lists the larger passage which is referenced in each footnote. As some of the sources are fairly obscure, it is a really great tool to use to gain a deeper understanding of the CCC and its supportive sources. When we gather, the plan is that we will have already read the CCC at home, then we read the companion togther and discuss our readings. Our discussions explore the substance of the passages studied, its broader application, and “what it means to us”.

That last part sounds corny, but let me give you a personal example. We left the Episcopal Church a few years ago when the homosexual controversies surrounding the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson were being debated everywhere within this denomination. It was a very divisive and hard time to be a conservative. When we first read the clear declarations of the CCC concerning homosexuality, we were struck with how clear and definite it was; there was no ambiguity about the Church’s position. Moral relativism obviously was not being tolerated in the Catholic Church, and that was incredibly encouraging to us.

While I always encourage Catholics to shop at their local Catholic bookstore, I just noticed that Amazon is selling the CCC companion for about half of what our parish recently paid for our group’s copy. If you’re interested, here is the Amazon link:

amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0898704510/qid=1128047560/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-2757033-2357541?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Unfortunately, we haven’t devoted a great deal of time yet to the Yahoo page. If folks from the Forums were interested, however, we would be happy to try to post more of our materials or observations there, so there is more of a feeling of joint participation. If you’re interested in possibly participating, send me an e-mail at karlerickson@earthlink.net.

 

[TexanCatholic]

Where do I find the Yahoo page thingy? This sounds like an interesting idea.

 

[Writer]

TexanCatholic:

Where do I find the Yahoo page thingy? This sounds like an interesting idea.

Thanks for your interest… The link is below, if interested in checking it out. I don’t think you can read the posts, though, until you have “joined” the group. As I said before, if anyone wants to join, just send me a note.

groups.yahoo.com/group/ccc_queenofpeace_salem/