M
Maranatha
Guest
The controversy over whether to include the story of Thomas Merton in the National Adult Catechism drags on. The USCCB has completed the first draft after removing the story of Merton and submitted the draft to the Vatican for approval.
The highly organized Catholic liberals have organized a writing campaign with a form letter that states: Congratulations on the completion of work on the new American Catholic Catechism that you and your editorial board submitted to the bishops for approval in November. We hope the book will serve as a powerful tool for evangelization in the years to come, particularly among young Catholics. We agree that presenting profiles of faithful Catholic leaders as models to introduce each of the book’s chapters will be an effective technique for attracting and instructing readers, and we were pleased to learn that efforts by ultra-conservative critics to persuade the bishops to omit Cesar Chavez and Cardinal Bernardin from the catechism were unsuccessful.
The National Catholic Reporter is tracking the letter writing campaign. An update from the Editor’s Desk, The Merton Seasonal … is still engaged in an effort to reverse the decision by the U.S. bishops to remove a profile of Merton and has drafted a letter to Bishop Donald Wuerl, chairman of the committee charged with writing the catechism, as well as to U.S. bishops’ conference president Bishop William Skylstad, explaining why the decision should be reversed.
Catholic Conservatives, in A report from Catholic World News, stated: “ Thomas Merton. Now Merton may have been an influential writer, but he was also a monk who was not faithful to his vows, including his vow of chastity. It is shocking, in fact, that the story of such a man could have been included in the draft of an official Church catechism.”
The highly organized Catholic liberals have organized a writing campaign with a form letter that states: Congratulations on the completion of work on the new American Catholic Catechism that you and your editorial board submitted to the bishops for approval in November. We hope the book will serve as a powerful tool for evangelization in the years to come, particularly among young Catholics. We agree that presenting profiles of faithful Catholic leaders as models to introduce each of the book’s chapters will be an effective technique for attracting and instructing readers, and we were pleased to learn that efforts by ultra-conservative critics to persuade the bishops to omit Cesar Chavez and Cardinal Bernardin from the catechism were unsuccessful.
The National Catholic Reporter is tracking the letter writing campaign. An update from the Editor’s Desk, The Merton Seasonal … is still engaged in an effort to reverse the decision by the U.S. bishops to remove a profile of Merton and has drafted a letter to Bishop Donald Wuerl, chairman of the committee charged with writing the catechism, as well as to U.S. bishops’ conference president Bishop William Skylstad, explaining why the decision should be reversed.
Catholic Conservatives, in A report from Catholic World News, stated: “ Thomas Merton. Now Merton may have been an influential writer, but he was also a monk who was not faithful to his vows, including his vow of chastity. It is shocking, in fact, that the story of such a man could have been included in the draft of an official Church catechism.”
