Educating Catholics

[magdelaine]

I just ran across this article, called How I Led Catholics Out of the Church. It makes me wonder about what things are going on in various parishes to educate young people and adults in the faith. Anyone have a successfull apologetics study group? I’m interested to know what can be done as I would like to organize something in my local parish.

 

[Fidelis]

My wife and I led an apologetics group last year at my parish that I would say was successful. Even though the turn-out was relatively low (we made the mistake of having it in the summer), the people that were there were enthusiastic, a couple of them saying they would attend the same series if I taught it again! We had a couple of non-Catholics attend, one of which is being baptized into the Faith this Easter in part of because of what he learned in the class. Ultimately, though, you can never know the full fruits of a class like this. If you can equip even a small group of peolpe, the effects can radiate out like rings in a pool.

Anyway, we used the Beginning Apologetics course, which is available from Catholic Answers.

 

[magdelaine]

Did you have any formal education before you offered to do the course? Was your priest welcoming of the idea? My priest was less than enthusiastic about a self-taught course.

 

[Fidelis]

magdelaine:

Did you have any formal education before you offered to do the course? Was your priest welcoming of the idea? My priest was less than enthusiastic about a self-taught course.

No formal education, but I’ve been engaged in apologetics and leading Bible studies for almost twenty years. I actually cleared it through our Pastoral Associate. She knows from my working with her and others in RCIA and Adult Confirmation that I’m reliable, organized and orthodox. A lot of times you have to gain the trust of your parish staff. It helps that the Beginning Apologetics books are so clearly written and orthodox that a good priest shouldn’t have a problem with them. If you can show him the materials and your organization plans you’d have better chance, especially if you’re an unknown factor to him.

If you are seriously considering aproaching your parish staff with this, e-mail me and I can send you samples of my lesson plans.