Poorly Formed Catholics Biggest Obstacle to New Evangelization

[iloveangels]

(Fix the catachesis and the problem goes away. Make the classes useful and people WILL attend.)

I disagree. The same 50 people who show up for everything else, and probably know everything already that’s going to be taught, will attend.

If you make the schoolkids show up or take away graduation, they’ll attend. Some of them will be griping, but they’ll attend.

The rest of the parish won’t. Especially the ones you don’t even see in church on Sunday. And of course, some of them are the ones who need the catechesis the most.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Make the classes useful and people WILL attend. I agree that the catechesis crisis IS the main issue.

Tony, thanks for your thoughtful and considerate reply.

I would like to make a slight correction to the above. Permit me.

Make the classes -]useful/-] intellectually engaging and people WILL attend.

I added that based on my experience in parishes. A well-presented and dynamic program, including opportuntiies for discussion/interaction and even small-faith-communities as an outgrowth of that, has proven to be wildly successful in parishes where I have seen this handled well. When people’s faith-knowledge is deepened, they have found and will find it “useful.”

You cannot live your faith (or find it “useful”) if you are largely ignorant about it.

And the central way that most modern American Catholics display that ignorance of the faith is their mistaken assumption that beliefs belong within Church property (and perhaps one’s private home) and no further, that they “must” or “should” think in secular terms Monday through Saturday, and “like a Catholic” only on Sunday (for the mere reason that this country has always been a pluralistic society). Unlike Catholics of former eras, they are lost when it comes to the intersection between faith and everyday life, including political issues and social issues which have far-reaching consequences. A religion like that is not useful but useless.

 

[Cath4Romney]

A Vatican official says poorly-formed Catholics present one of the biggest challenges to the late Pope John Paul II’s vision of evangelizing formerly Christian societies in the West.

I think they are exactly right!

 

[Zosimus41]

I think they are exactly right!

What is meant by “poorly formed Catholics”?

Nice scnnme by the way!

 

[Cath4Romney]

What is meant by “poorly formed Catholics”?

I assume it means poorly catechized. There are many dissenting parishes with lousy catechism & RCIA programs

Nice scnnme by the way!

Thanks

 

[Elizabeth502]

I assume it means poorly catechized. There are many dissenting parishes with lousy catechism & RCIA programs

And there are many assenting parishes with lousy Cathecism and RCIA programs.

 

[Cath4Romney]

And there are many assenting parishes with lousy Cathecism and RCIA programs.

Probably not AS many though.

And there is a difference between classes that are just poor quality, and ones that teach borderline heresy

 

[Zosimus41]

Probably not AS many though.

And there is a difference between classes that are just poor quality, and ones that teach borderline heresy

If I may go a bit off topic here…

My parish offers a program FTCM which Cardinal Dinardo put into place a must have for teaching RE or Deacon program.

I started the course and dropped out due to the content. In general it took the “mystery” out of the bible studies and made it more of a scientific approach for example the red sea crossing is more of a story than a truth to make a certain point.

I thought howlong before we teach Christs resurrection is just a story to make a point.His resurrection cant be explained scientifically without taking the hand of God out of it.

 

[Cath4Romney]

If I may go a bit off topic here…

My parish offers a program FTCM which Cardinal Dinardo put into place a must have for teaching RE or Deacon program.

I started the course and dropped out due to the content. In general it took the “mystery” out of the bible studies and made it more of a scientific approach for example the red sea crossing is more of a story than a truth to make a certain point.

I thought howlong before we teach Christs resurrection is just a story to make a point.His resurrection cant be explained scientifically without taking the hand of God out of it.

You probaby did the right thing. Scott Hahn’s “St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology” has great courses and materials available. I wish more parishes would use them. If it comes from Hahn you know its good stuff.

You should poke around the site and see what you find: salvationhistory.com/

 

[Zosimus41]

You probaby did the right thing. Scott Hahn’s “St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology” has great courses and materials available. I wish more parishes would use them. If it comes from Hahn you know its good stuff.

You should poke around the site and see what you find: salvationhistory.com/

Thank you and may God Bless you and your family1

 

[iloveangels]

If I may go a bit off topic here…

My parish offers a program FTCM which Cardinal Dinardo put into place a must have for teaching RE or Deacon program.

I started the course and dropped out due to the content. In general it took the “mystery” out of the bible studies and made it more of a scientific approach for example the red sea crossing is more of a story than a truth to make a certain point.

I thought howlong before we teach Christs resurrection is just a story to make a point.His resurrection cant be explained scientifically without taking the hand of God out of it.

It leaves a person wondering if these people are trying to do the Catholic faith in. Although, it doesn’t seem to make sense for a person who’s gone to the trouble to get ordained or certified to do, does it? Weird. Not very bright either.

[BTW, this leaving the literal sense out of exegesis violates the basic teaching of the church on biblical interpretation. See “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” Pontifical Biblical Commission. There are also many other statements on this, including those by St. Thomas Aquinas.]

 

[aicirt]

I think the Bishops need to start with their priests first. I’ve never heard some of the things that our pastor says. And I’m not the only one. Supposedly, 200 have left for other parishes becaues of the things he has said and done. I’m told too that the Bishop is aware but, because of the shortage of priests, he stays.

I would think that there would have to be some kind of continuing education for priests, even it it was in the form of a monthly newsletter from the Bishop just to keep him preaching correct doctrine and dogma.

EWTN is wonderful as is this site. I’ve learned so much from both. CATHOLICISM FOR DUMMIES is excellent too.

I would love to teach (done it before) but, although the parish asks for volunteers, you don’t get called. I see an untaped resource. I’ve had two others complain that the pastor turned them away.

As far as continuing education, the Church bulletin should be used. Put a half page of the catechism in it once a week, and run a story about a saint. Give them something to read that will educate the parishoners at the same time.

 

[Dirt]

Good posts, everyone. I am going to go out on thin ice here and state that the lack of an educated laity has led to a great deal of the abuses and loss of faith that we have seen over the last fifty years. I will go a little further out on that same ice and propose that it might not be accidental in all cases. It is much more difficult to fool an educated person. If you have a Parish full of pewsitters, most of whom have only a modest grasp of their faith and the Traditions and history of the Faith, it is quite easy to manipulate them into believing anything you want them to on any given subject. On the other hand, if those same pewsitters are well educated and rooted in the Faith, knowledgable on the Sacraments, Catechism, Liturgy and Tradition, any deviation becomes a glaring novelty that will bring a quick question as to “on what authority” did you do/say/omit that? One may say the same about our Priests. One of the two Priests in my Parish, a Venezualan, told me a while back that in what little spare time he has, he was trying to learn Latin. Really! How can we turn out Priests who do not know liturgical Latin in a Latin based Church? If the seminaries and theological institutions are that lacking, how can we expect the education of the laity to be any better? And If our Parish Priests are lacking in sound theology, and have little time to add to thier education, how can they become the educators that we need them to be?
I will admit that i lean toward the conspiracy theory side, but the removal of solid, Thomist based theology and heavy doses of the Saints and Doctors of the Church from so many of our seminaries has led to a very thinly educated Priesthood, which has trickled down to the laity and I must ask, why did the leaders of these seminaries do this? Was this just a part of the "spirit of V-II’, or was there another, more sinister reason?
Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, Shame on Me!

 

[cjmclark]

Good posts, everyone. I am going to go out on thin ice here and state that the lack of an educated laity has led to a great deal of the abuses and loss of faith that we have seen over the last fifty years. I will go a little further out on that same ice and propose that it might not be accidental in all cases. It is much more difficult to fool an educated person. If you have a Parish full of pewsitters, most of whom have only a modest grasp of their faith and the Traditions and history of the Faith, it is quite easy to manipulate them into believing anything you want them to on any given subject. On the other hand, if those same pewsitters are well educated and rooted in the Faith, knowledgable on the Sacraments, Catechism, Liturgy and Tradition, any deviation becomes a glaring novelty that will bring a quick question as to “on what authority” did you do/say/omit that? One may say the same about our Priests. One of the two Priests in my Parish, a Venezualan, told me a while back that in what little spare time he has, he was trying to learn Latin. Really! How can we turn out Priests who do not know liturgical Latin in a Latin based Church? If the seminaries and theological institutions are that lacking, how can we expect the education of the laity to be any better? And If our Parish Priests are lacking in sound theology, and have little time to add to thier education, how can they become the educators that we need them to be?
I will admit that i lean toward the conspiracy theory side, but the removal of solid, Thomist based theology and heavy doses of the Saints and Doctors of the Church from so many of our seminaries has led to a very thinly educated Priesthood, which has trickled down to the laity and I must ask, why did the leaders of these seminaries do this? Was this just a part of the "spirit of V-II’, or was there another, more sinister reason?
Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, Shame on Me!

I can’t find the link at the moment, but a few months ago I stumbled across a priest who had issued an open letter of apology on his blog to all Catholics for all the “I’m OK, you’re OK” feel-good spirituality he and other priests preached in the “spirit of Vatican II.” He basically said that there was a crop of men entering the seminary at the time who had grown up in the culture of that time and were excited because they perceived Vatican II as allowing a lot more social progressivism than we all now know it actually did. As a result, we had a large number of priests who preached to us through something of a morally relativistic lens…and our catechism suffered. Parents were poorly catechized, and a lot of our traditions and Sacraments were reduced to “things that Catholics do.” I never really understood the fullness of Baptism growing up, and didn’t have an appreciation for the True Presence in the Eucharist until I educated myself as an adult. I had godparents…but what were they? An extra aunt and uncle to send me presents on my birthday, right? That coupled with a general shifting of educational responsibility from parents to schools resulted in a crop of parents who saw CCD as a place to leave their kids for a few hours so they could go get stuff done. Now, this is of course all speaking in a very general sense - there are parishes and dioceses today that have wonderful catechism programs. But I think (in the US, at least) the Church as a whole has suffered for this.

 

[aicirt]

I will admit that i lean toward the conspiracy theory side, but the removal of solid, Thomist based theology and heavy doses of the Saints and Doctors of the Church from so many of our seminaries has led to a very thinly educated Priesthood, which has trickled down to the laity and I must ask, why did the leaders of these seminaries do this? Was this just a part of the "spirit of V-II’, or was there another, more sinister reason?
Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, Shame on Me!

What is the basis for this conspiracy? I’ve often heard others refer to this re. seminaries of the 1960s etc. but has anything been written about it? Also it would seem that those in charge of these seminaries were there way before Vatican II. If you were the head of a seminary in 1960, you’d be at least 40 years old which means the ones involved in a conspiracy had themselves entered the priesthood in 1940 or earlier.

 

[aicirt]

I can’t find the link at the moment, but a few months ago I stumbled across a priest who had issued an open letter of apology on his blog to all Catholics for all the “I’m OK, you’re OK” feel-good spirituality he and other priests preached in the “spirit of Vatican II.” He basically said that there was a crop of men entering the seminary at the time who had grown up in the culture of that time and were excited because they perceived Vatican II as allowing a lot more social progressivism than we all now know it actually did. As a result, we had a large number of priests who preached to us through something of a morally relativistic lens…and our catechism suffered. Parents were poorly catechized, and a lot of our traditions and Sacraments were reduced to “things that Catholics do.” I never really understood the fullness of Baptism growing up, and didn’t have an appreciation for the True Presence in the Eucharist until I educated myself as an adult. I had godparents…but what were they? An extra aunt and uncle to send me presents on my birthday, right? That coupled with a general shifting of educational responsibility from parents to schools resulted in a crop of parents who saw CCD as a place to leave their kids for a few hours so they could go get stuff done. Now, this is of course all speaking in a very general sense - there are parishes and dioceses today that have wonderful catechism programs. But I think (in the US, at least) the Church as a whole has suffered for this.

If the seminarians of the 1960s were entering the seminaries with the idea of progressivism, this could have and should have been derailed by the older priests teaching them. Always there’s this excuse that priests misinterperted Vatican II. How and why did that happen to so many in all places? It wasn’t the laity. We weren’t asked when the churches were changed with statues and altars removed etc.

 

[Dirt]

What is the basis for this conspiracy? I’ve often heard others refer to this re. seminaries of the 1960s etc. but has anything been written about it? Also it would seem that those in charge of these seminaries were there way before Vatican II. If you were the head of a seminary in 1960, you’d be at least 40 years old which means the ones involved in a conspiracy had themselves entered the priesthood in 1940 or earlier.

The first major warning was in 1907 here:
papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10pasce.htm

this doctrine continued to spawn itself through the 1900’s until the present day. There are numerous books written by many who describe and track this decline in formation at many seminaries. Some authors are mainstream, some are sede, but the facts remain that many of our Priests have received as poor a formation as many lay faithful have. You are factually correct when you state that many of the Superiors of the seminaries were in place prior to Vatican Council II. But we do not know, nor cannot know the state of their ideology and leanings, which seem to have been liberated in the fallout after V-II.

 

[cjmclark]

If the seminarians of the 1960s were entering the seminaries with the idea of progressivism, this could have and should have been derailed by the older priests teaching them. Always there’s this excuse that priests misinterperted Vatican II. How and why did that happen to so many in all places? It wasn’t the laity. We weren’t asked when the churches were changed with statues and altars removed etc.

This is assuming that the “older priests teaching them” weren’t caught up in the progressive fervor themselves. There was a lot going on at the time that engendered a great deal of moral permissiveness in the name of “social justice.”

(EDIT: It should be noted that I am only specifically discussing the Church in the United States. I can’t speak for what was really going on worldwide or whether or not liturgical abuses committed in the wake of Vatican II were common overseas.)

Also, the laity might not have been asked, but neither did they as a whole stand up and decry the liturgical abuses that did happen, due in large part to a lack of proper catechism and theological education. Many people seemed to be as comfortable receiving the message as the priests were in giving it. This is the era that gave rise to the phenomenon now known as “cultural Catholics” - people who accept the forms of Catholic worship while either actively rejecting or simply being ignorant of the substance.

 

[cjmclark]

This is assuming that the “older priests teaching them” weren’t caught up in the progressive fervor themselves. There was a lot going on at the time that engendered a great deal of moral permissiveness in the name of “social justice.”

(EDIT: It should be noted that I am only specifically discussing the Church in the United States. I can’t speak for what was really going on worldwide or whether or not liturgical abuses committed in the wake of Vatican II were common overseas.)

Also, the laity might not have been asked, but neither did they as a whole stand up and decry the liturgical abuses that did happen, due in large part to a lack of proper catechism and theological education. Many people seemed to be as comfortable receiving the message as the priests were in giving it. This is the era that gave rise to the phenomenon now known as “cultural Catholics” - people who accept the forms of Catholic worship while either actively rejecting or simply being ignorant of the substance.

Also please note that I am not discussing any legitimate changes to the Liturgy or to parishes that happened following Vatican II. I am strictly addressing actual (rather than perceived) liturgical abuses and the issue of priests sending mixed messages about Church teachings.

In other words, while I may not enjoy Marty Haugen’s music, I don’t equate that with a priest telling someone it’s ok to use ABC for contraceptive purposes.

 

[aicirt]

The first major warning was in 1907 here:
papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10pasce.htm

this doctrine continued to spawn itself through the 1900’s until the present day. There are numerous books written by many who describe and track this decline in formation at many seminaries. Some authors are mainstream, some are sede, but the facts remain that many of our Priests have received as poor a formation as many lay faithful have. You are factually correct when you state that many of the Superiors of the seminaries were in place prior to Vatican Council II. But we do not know, nor cannot know the state of their ideology and leanings, which seem to have been liberated in the fallout after V-II.

Thanks for the information. I’ll read it and get back to you with my questions.