Sorry, it does seem somewhat random, but I came across the statistics by the USCCB some time ago, and it gave me a jolt to see that the offenders/offences mostly were from the pre-Vatican II era when all was supposed to be reverent and pious. It was put about in traditional circles, around the time when the scandal became public, that it was a result of ill formation in the ‘modernist’ seminaries etc.It does make one question just how good the good old days were, after all.
…Perhaps they can’t churn out a few lines of Catechism by rote as they might have done in the past, but they can discuss their faith with better knowledge and with a better, critical understanding of basic Catholic theology. Pupils at school discuss and explore the concepts that underpin their faith these days, they question and think. That is a lot more productive than having them learn catechism and scripture by rote without daring to challenge or criticise a word of it.
It’s clear you have a very limited perspective & experience with “modernist” Catholics, as you call them, and pre-V2 Catholics. Just FYI, pre-V2 Catholics were well-formed, almost consistently – certainly with much more predictabiility than Catholics who were formed after V2. The reason is this: their catechesis generally rocked. It was taught not by volunteer parents who hadn’t been trained themselves, but by those trained in theology (including both priests and vowed religious). In addition, there was attention to the philosophy and the language behind the theology, something most often lacking today, unless one receives seminary training or attends a quality theological school as a layperson. Thirdly, Catechism classes as they were called (not “CCD” then) were twice a week, not once. Fourthly, there were more practicing Catholics at that time who also had some exposure to Catholic K-12 education, either briefly, or entirely. (I’m not even speaking of those who also went on to Catholic college.) In that K-12 education, there was a further deepening of education in the faith: apologetics, history, and spirituality, especially. Fifth, memorization of key facts of the faith supplemented the understanding of the precepts, did not replace understanding. Catholics with a bare high-school education were far more literate about their faith than the typical post-V2 Catholic (obviously with exceptions among those who chose and sought more catechesis, and more often than not, post-V2 Catholics have had to seek it; it has not been readily available to them, let alone mandated).
Sixth, the piety was, on average, far superior to the diminished piety in modern Catholics, for the simple reason that Catholics were not confused, nor were they influenced by pressure to make liturgy as informal as possible. Such submitting to pressure would have shocked a pre-V2 Catholic, because they were convinced of The Real Presence and the transcendence in every Catholic Church in the world. Now, instead, one watches in horror while 9-year-olds approach the communion line talking, chewing gum, with hands in pockets, and then throw the host up in the air and twirl it on their tongue. Sounds like a great job, whatever her catechist did for her.
Now to seminaries:
FYI (again), “modernist” seminaries refers to the post-V2 formation of priests. Some (not all) of those seminaries gave priests an insufficient education in the faith. (Some practicing priests today have revealed that unfortuante fact, and they themselves have chosen to expand that insufficient education; shocking and shameful that they would have had to do that, and I’m sure the phenonmenon was not universal, but it was far too frequent. Once would have been too frequent. One seminary would have been too many.)
Some of those seminaries (some of the faculty within them) taught outright heterodoxy. Luckily, it is doubtful that seminaries today have much in common with that period. JP2 and BXVI had a positive influence on seminary training, and it’s my belief that among the most fervent of today’s laity, many by their faith commitment have contributed indirectly to the restorative pressure on seminaries to produce orthodox priests.
Now to scandals:
I presume you mean pedophile scandals? The revelations of those may have coincided with the modernist time period, but generally the occurrences themselves were many years prior,
often pre-V2, sometimes at about the same time as V2. But the publicity began to break during the same time, coincidentally, of “modernist” seminary formation. Nevertheless, the coincidence was not necessarily related.
All of this has nothing to do with whether you yourself are a good catechist or not. None of us here is in any position to judge that. But, as ProVobis mentioned, the judgment of the general direction of catechesis (still) can be determined by its fruits. More than half of today’s Catholics (whatever age) can’t talk themselves out of a paper bag if their lives depended on it. All of the articles, sruveys, interviews, questionnaires, informal talks, and the abundant evidence on CAF, all points tp a profound deficiency in knowledge of the Faith: doctrine, liturgy, and spirtuality. Also, the behavior at Mass overwhelmingly confirms that, which is why some of us look high and low for parishes which witness quite the opposite, and we guard those parishes carefully.
Separately, as someone who works professionally in secular education, on many levels, I agree with ProVobis, since I have the evidence: the criitcal thinking skills of modern students (all faiths) are considerably inferior to those of their parents’ generation.
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They were reverent and pious.I refer to the highly authoritarian climate that wicked perpetrators took advantage of. The fact that it took an opposite climate to bring to light what was hidden, is telling.
