My neighbor’s son goes to a Catholic college and went to 12 years of catholic school. I just saw him outside and talked to him a bit. He got straight A grades including religion.
Since I just learned about persona Christi I asked him about it. He said he never heard of it. I asked him if they taught him about it in Catholic school religion classes. He said no.
How could something so important and central to Catholicism not be taught and emphasized in its own schools? I mean the connection between the martyrs, the priest, and the new covenant is one of the key reasons for my interest in catholicism.
Every time I think I’m close to understanding the catholic church, it seems I just hit another brick wall.
Hello Amos,
Historically, the Catholic Church taught the Faith at home, not in Church. It has always been the parent’s responsibility to teach their children about the Faith, not the Church’s.
“Sunday School” was started by Protestants, with the Catholics who could would send their children to Catholic School (which used to be taught by all nuns). As secularization of the 20th century started taking hold on western civilization, the number of nuns began to shrink. Soon, Catholic Schools were forced to hire Lay teachers.
After a while, Catholics started to do things like CCD for children who didn’t Catholic School (which today is the majority of cradle Catholics now). But CCD was never intended to replace parents teaching the Faith at home. When I took CCD years ago, Lay women taught us lessons about Christ, but not about the teachings of the Church. I had never even heard of the Catechism until I was in college (from a friend who was in the Seminary).
After the World Wars, migration from Catholic Countries like Ireland, Poland, Italy, etc stopped. Catholics in America no longer would rely on old World family/community members who were strong in the Faith. As time went on, between Protestant teachings, less and less Nuns, etc. the quality of Catholic education at home began to erode.
Today, the US Bishops are recognizing that they much Evangelize the people and do a better job to both Evangelize and Catechize our children and adults. One of the major initiatives that Dioceses I grew up in (not where I currently live) is working on is to revamp and drastically improve the Child Faith programs.
But I think the irony in today’s parishes is the following: The very Evangelized and/or Catechized run the parish councils, etc. They are often the ones who were Catechized by their parents, and are Catechizing their children. They like the idea of teaching their Children about the faith. While the un-catechized or un-evangelized parents assume that their kids are learning the faith at CCD or in Catholic School (and what kids do learn at home is often wrong or misunderstood).
The Bishops are realizing this, and are working to fix it by using the technology that exists today (like Catholic Answers,
mycatholicfaithdelivered.com,
KofC Luke E. Hart Series Course and the CIS Faith Formation Course,
Catholic Home Study Service, etc.) to provide much better faith training. But then the new technology takes money, and people don’t like to start paying more, especially the un-evangelized. It will also take time for a large organization like the Catholic Church to get all of these missions and services working better together in harmony.
So while I don’t know your neighbor’s son, I’m sure that the above has played a part in why he can’t answer your question.
If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me.
God Bless.
