H
HagiaSophia
Guest
Since we recently have had some discussions regarding catechisms and the different ones, thought the following might be interesting:
"…In June of 2002 the American Catholic bishops voted to prepare a National Adult Catechism for the United States. Many might ask: Why yet another catechism when we already have the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)?
The answer is that the CCC was never intended to be the Church’s sole and exclusive statement of her faith. When Pope John Paul II (bio - news) officially promulgated the CCC on October 11, 1992, by the issuance of his apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum, he declared that the CCC was “not intended to replace the local catechisms duly approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, the diocesan bishops, and the episcopal conferences.” Rather, the new universal Catechism was being issued as “a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine and particularly for preparing local catechisms.” (emphasis added) Indeed the 1985 extraordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops which had called for the preparation of the CCC in the first place did so with the intention that it might be “a point of reference for the catechisms or compendiums that are prepared in various regions.”
Thus, even as the Church prepared and issued her first universal catechism in more than 400 years,** the CCC was never intended to be the only one;** it was taken for granted, and indeed it was desired, that various countries and regions would have their own catechisms adapted to their own particular societies, cultures, and conditions. The famous Baltimore Catechism that served American Catholics for so long, we should recall, was a remote offshoot and adaptation of the great 1566 Roman Catechism, or Catechism of the Council of Trent. Given the many challenges and obstacles to faith in the secularized America of the 21st century, it is surely both appropriate and desirable that a National Adult Catechism (NAC) tailored to our particular society and culture should be available. There are questions of faith that need particular emphasis in a society such as ours now engaged in a continuing “culture war.” The real question is: how good is the draft NAC which a bishops’ Editorial Oversight Board completed in May, 2002, and submitted to all the bishops for comments, corrections, and criticisms? The quick answer is that the proposed volume is quite good on the whole–although, as we shall see, some important modifications and corrections do need to be made…"
cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=20616
"…In June of 2002 the American Catholic bishops voted to prepare a National Adult Catechism for the United States. Many might ask: Why yet another catechism when we already have the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)?
The answer is that the CCC was never intended to be the Church’s sole and exclusive statement of her faith. When Pope John Paul II (bio - news) officially promulgated the CCC on October 11, 1992, by the issuance of his apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum, he declared that the CCC was “not intended to replace the local catechisms duly approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, the diocesan bishops, and the episcopal conferences.” Rather, the new universal Catechism was being issued as “a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine and particularly for preparing local catechisms.” (emphasis added) Indeed the 1985 extraordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops which had called for the preparation of the CCC in the first place did so with the intention that it might be “a point of reference for the catechisms or compendiums that are prepared in various regions.”
Thus, even as the Church prepared and issued her first universal catechism in more than 400 years,** the CCC was never intended to be the only one;** it was taken for granted, and indeed it was desired, that various countries and regions would have their own catechisms adapted to their own particular societies, cultures, and conditions. The famous Baltimore Catechism that served American Catholics for so long, we should recall, was a remote offshoot and adaptation of the great 1566 Roman Catechism, or Catechism of the Council of Trent. Given the many challenges and obstacles to faith in the secularized America of the 21st century, it is surely both appropriate and desirable that a National Adult Catechism (NAC) tailored to our particular society and culture should be available. There are questions of faith that need particular emphasis in a society such as ours now engaged in a continuing “culture war.” The real question is: how good is the draft NAC which a bishops’ Editorial Oversight Board completed in May, 2002, and submitted to all the bishops for comments, corrections, and criticisms? The quick answer is that the proposed volume is quite good on the whole–although, as we shall see, some important modifications and corrections do need to be made…"
cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=20616
