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Armyvet007
Guest
Br.,Actually, you’re both right. The Baltimore Catechism was never endorsed by the Vatican, because the original plan was to translate one edition of a European catechism and at the last minute the American bishops decided to change their resource. The Vatican was not pleased. Therefore, it did not give the catechism the label of “Official Catechism for the Church in the United States” which was what the Council of Baltimore was going for. Hence, the bishops had to call it the Baltimore Catechism.
Subsequently, other writers and publishers have put out several catechism called the Baltimore Catechism. All of them follow the same format, Q & A and all of them are Thomistic. All of them have an Impirmatur and a Nihil Obstat. They are free from error. The difference is in wording, order, organization of chapters and references.
My favorite edition is the latest St. Joseph Edition, because it gives you the Q & A but it also gives you other sources, besides Thomas.
For those who question the value of the CCC, let me remind you that the CCC was not meant to be read by the laity. What happened was that the Vatican publisher sold the catechism to an American publisher who put it on the market. Everyone went gaga only to whine and complain two weeks later, because they didn’t understand it.
The reason that they didn’t understand it was that Cardinal Ratzinger, who did the final review was convinced that this was going into the hands of theologians and bishops who would use it as a resource for popular catechisms. If you go to the bookstore on www.usccb.org you will find the
United States Catholic Catechism for Adults. Which is grounded in the CCC, but fills in the gaps with material from scripture, previous catechism and documents. It does exactly what Cardinal Ratzinger wanted the CCC to inspire. There is also the Compendium written by Cardinal Ratzinger himself, which explains for the layman what the CCC is saying.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV![]()
So the CCC I need for my personal use is the US CC for Adults with the Compendium?