Cathechism back in the old days

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Say around 50 years ago or so.

As a cradle Catholic I went to CCD classes during elementary school. It was expected and a requirement to make our First Communion and Confession and Confirmation. We received a thorough instruction on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We had to in order to qualify for our First Communion, Confession and Confirmation. It took us years. For Confirmation we had pages and pages of facts and questions about the Church we were expected to know because the Bishop would call us to answer one.

Today the Church needs new members and I welcome them. However from reading this forum and looking at things in the Parishes I have been in it looks like the 10 month RCIA instruction is not as complete as what I received as a child. In fact I have probably forgotten more about the Church than RCIA teaches.

I don’t condemn someone if they don’t attend Mass, in fact millions of Catholics have left the Church and the Church is attempting to bring them back. I am sure there are souls in Heaven and Purgatory that were not Catholic. I don’t condemn a Priest because he doesn’t wear his “uniform” 24/7/365 like some do on this forum.

The list goes on and on.

So what do others think?

I expect to be slammed lol:D
 
Hound_Dog said:
Say around 50 years ago or so.

However from reading this forum and looking at things in the Parishes I have been in it looks like the 10 month RCIA instruction is not as complete as what I received as a child. In fact I have probably forgotten more about the Church than RCIA teaches.
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I think you need you to become an RCIA teacher!!! Get with the parish and become a teacher.
 
The problem is that the faithful often do not have an understanding between proper catechesis and sacramental theology. You do not need to have a deep preparation to be confirmed, you must have faith. The sacrament is not something given because someone knows enough, it is a free gift that we just need to accept.
The bigger problem is that people need catechesis and it looks like that if it is not directly attached as a condition to receive the sacraments then people just avoid it. Without proper catechesis we do not know how to relate to God and thus we fail as Christians, without sacraments we do not know get the graces to thrive as Catholics and thus we fail.
I am against this conditional relationship between catechetical instruction and reception of the sacraments; however, I do not have a valid alternate solution to propose. I see that the larger number of young ones come to Sunday classes only when they have to receive a sacrament. They come to prepare for first communion, then they disappear for a few years, and then they come again for confirmation, then they disappear for a few more hears and if everything go well they be back to prepare for marriage. In the mean time between this going back and forth a lot of people leave the Church because they are clueless of what being a Catholic is about. My parish offers catechetical instruction from pre-K to at least 11th grade every Sunday, we also have bible classes for both adolescents and adults, our pastor and deacons also lecture on specific topics, however, the number of people that show up from a total of 5,000 families is still very small.
 
IMHO, the problem I see stems from what is spoken to the laity in the liturgy. As a convert, I read my way into the Church. God used my love of reading and history to show me truth. Most people in this day and age are not big readers. They want the “Cliff Notes” for everything.

The only catechesis many are receiving is when they make it to Mass on Sundays. Unfortunately, the priests in many of these parishes do not teach the authentic faith, and what the laity are seeing in the liturgy of the parishes is unfortunate, not mention what is spoken to them in both the architecture and the music.

FWIW, Fr. Hardon’s Catechism is an excellent, understandable volume that was printed in the 1970’s. I would add Cardinal Gibbons “Faith of Our Fathers” is still one of the best 1 volume explanations of the Catholic faith I come across, and I’ve read quite a few.
 
Oh yeah, the good old days spent memorizing the Baltimore Catechism! 😉
 
T_More said:
The only catechesis many are receiving is when they make it to Mass on Sundays.
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Yes! And there is so much more that can be taught during the homily.

I do wish in my instruction that an emphasis with our relationship to God and Christ was there. We seek to know more about Him and the Church if we have a good relationship. You can load us up with as many facts and doctrines as possible, but in the end, we need Jesus first.
 
One of the things I’m trying to cut back on is vitriol… so there’ll be no people slamming. I am a convert. I am happy with my experience in RCIA. I’m also 23 and can’t speak to your experiences, I mean, the ones of the guy who posted the first box of the thread here. Gary, my RCIA guy, was very thorough. Did we go over everything? You an safely assume the answer is no. But I was also self-motivated, so what I was reading on my own jibed with what I learnt from him. I’ve also heard right horror stories about other RCIAs.

I agree that we need a good welcoming system. I wish I knew a good way to do it, and while I do volunteer within my parish, a single, cranky, ultra-conservative autistic man would perhaps not make a good welcoming comittee. Nossuh.

Where Priests are concerned, I think a Priest ought to wear his habit. Will I condescend and accuse him of an invalid ordination should he not? No. My regular confessor doesn’t wear his habit, or anything, just vestments over street clothes. So sometimes we’re dressed pretty much alike, except I don’t wear vestments. The Priestly habit is a sign of office. Just like a cop (unless an undercover cop) probably should really strongly consider wearing his uniform on duty, so should a Priest.

And I agree that souls in Paradise and in Purgatory might not have led Catholic lives on Earth, but their souls, I would add, are thoroughly catechised after a choice meeting with Pope Saint Peter.

In concluding my responsorial rant I would say that we ought to use the Penny Catechism in RCIA, it has a quick, simple, easily digestible format and is very traditional in scope. I think that would give Catholic candidates a grasp of the Faith. Nothing against the new Catechism or the USCCB edition, both are large and not necessarily formatted for memorisation, enjoyment, sure, but not rote memory. Well, anyway, God bless!
 
I had an idea to start a catechesis group with friends and other parishioners. Just grab the CCC and each of us take turns reading a paragraph. I used to do this in my work when we had to review compliance manual. We just read together, if someone had a question, we took 3-4 minutes to explain then kept going.

Maybe this might be boring, but by the time you’d be done, you’d have everything down I think. Particularly, if you go through it several times. I’m kind of doing this myself at the moment (going through the catechism page by page and asking questions if I get confused). I think the exercise will bear much fruit.

God bless,
Bryan
 
I read, studied and prayed my way into the Church. I did not attend RCIA. The Holy Spirit guided me. I think people will learn as much or as little as they want. RCIA is for adults. One would hope that as adults they would be able to learn the basic tenets of their faith in months rather than years. As faith grows so should the depth of our knowledge.
 
bscastro said:
I had an idea to start a catechesis group with friends and other parishioners. Just grab the CCC and each of us take turns reading a paragraph. I used to do this in my work when we had to review compliance manual. We just read together, if someone had a question, we took 3-4 minutes to explain then kept going.

Maybe this might be boring, but by the time you’d be done, you’d have everything down I think. Particularly, if you go through it several times. I’m kind of doing this myself at the moment (going through the catechism page by page and asking questions if I get confused). I think the exercise will bear much fruit.

God bless,
Bryan
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Be careful. The Catechism was not designed to be read by the laity, but as a reference for Bishops who are highly educated in the matters of theology and faith. It was expected that they would have access to and actually follow all those hundreds of references and footnotes at the bottom of the pages which exlain the paragraphs, and that they would be familiar with the lives and writings of the saints and doctors quoted.

Without the proper eduction, and references we could fall into error. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t read it, or that you should not do what you propose. I actually think it is an awsome idea. I’m only saying that we should be careful, and read the Catechism the same way we read the Bible, within the framework of the Church and with a knowledge of the biases from our own life experiences which we bring to the study.

PAX

-Tim-
 
clem456 said:
I think you need you to become an RCIA teacher!!! Get with the parish and become a teacher.
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+1

Be a part of the solution in one’s local parish instead of threading about it at CAF!
 
We should be always learning about our faith even after we are fully initiated, and it should be life long. I’ve been participating in Bible study and sharing classes at my mother’s parish, and I’ve been learning a lot from them. I just wish they were more chances for formal classes for adults who want to learn and keep up on their faith.
 
I was born in '57 and was thoroughly catechized with the Baltimore Catechism. It was a good grounding in the Catholic faith as long as you didn’t encounter someone with a smattering of Bible knowledge. Then you sank like the Titanic.

The Church has been molasses-slow (like 500 years slow) about establishing the Bible as a familiar source of faith for Catholic laypersons. Probably millions of Bible-ignorant Catholics have been lost because of this. The Church has been talking a good game since Vatican 2, but actual catechesis still struggles to meaningfully source itself in Scripture.

The only solution I see is for conscientious adults to catechize themselves to a level of Bible competence such that they can enter the classroom and help the current generation achieve a similar leval of familiarity.
 
T_More said:
IMHO, the problem I see stems from what is spoken to the laity in the liturgy. As a convert, I read my way into the Church. God used my love of reading and history to show me truth. Most people in this day and age are not big readers. They want the “Cliff Notes” for everything.

The only catechesis many are receiving is when they make it to Mass on Sundays. Unfortunately, the priests in many of these parishes do not teach the authentic faith, and what the laity are seeing in the liturgy of the parishes is unfortunate, not mention what is spoken to them in both the architecture and the music.

FWIW, Fr. Hardon’s Catechism is an excellent, understandable volume that was printed in the 1970’s. I would add Cardinal Gibbons “Faith of Our Fathers” is still one of the best 1 volume explanations of the Catholic faith I come across, and I’ve read quite a few.
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Not sure how you can speak for so many parishes and priests, but I assume as a convert that you yourself went through an RCIA program for catechesis rather than just the Holy Mass, and were not taught an “inauthentic faith” in it.
 
Catholic1954 said:
Oh yeah, the good old days spent memorizing the Baltimore Catechism! 😉
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Well, I won’t knock the Baltimore Catechism, since those who learned it at least knew the teaching of the Church.

Sadly that has not always been the case with RCIA, although I think it most places it is vastly improved over what it was even a decade ago.

Hound Dog says this:
Hound_Dog said:
However from reading this forum and looking at things in the Parishes I have been in it looks like the 10 month RCIA instruction is not as complete as what I received as a child. In fact I have probably forgotten more about the Church than RCIA teaches.
Click to expand...
In the past I’ve discovered that some people who went through RCIA became Catholic without ever knowing what they believed as a Catholic. Some may have remained nearly Protestant because some RCIA instructors gave them the impression that doctrine wasn’t really so important. And it’s sad that they could spend so much time in that process without being clearly taught.

I’ve even met priests who have said that they never had a clear idea of what the Catholic Church believed until they studied in seminary! That was the sad state of catechetics for awhile. I hope that’s changed. In my diocese, I can say for sure that the state of catechetics is quite good.
 
TimothyH said:
Without the proper eduction, and references we could fall into error. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t read it, or that you should not do what you propose. I actually think it is an awsome idea. I’m only saying that we should be careful, and read the Catechism the same way we read the Bible, within the framework of the Church and with a knowledge of the biases from our own life experiences which we bring to the study.

-Tim-
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Tim, this is the best advice I’ve seen you give on CAF. I’m can’t remember how many times I’ve seen other laymen quote the CCC to confirm their errors. I read it cover to cover in 2010 and it wasn’t very clear to me. I stick with the Baltimore Catechism now. Also, I hear good things about the U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults and the Youcat.
 
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