At the risk of overstating things, Thomas Groome is responsible for the poor catechesis of nearly two generations of American Catholics over the past forty+ years.
Okay, maybe I’m being a bit hyperbolic.
When he was in seminary right around the time of the Council, one of his assignments was to teach a high school theology class. Being the clueless, yet dutiful seminarian he was, he thought it would be great to take his lecture notes from the great classes he was taking in seminary and use those as his guide for teaching his students. Needless to say, he bored the kids to tears. Then one day he had an “epiphany” and put his notes away and asked the kids what
they wanted to talk about. And Shared Christian Praxis was born. This is Groome’s catechetical methodology that says we don’t teach our students but merely all share together our spiritual experiences.
He’s a charming guy with a disarming Irish accent. I’ve heard him speak. It’s one of those cases where it’s not nearly so much what he
says but what he
does not say. References to things like the Church, Scripture, the Sacraments, and so forth are minimal.
I haven’t read this particular book of his but have his seminal “Christian Religious Education.” His books are good to read if you want to understand how we got into the catechetical mess we are in. But it’s not something I’d recommend reading for good ideas.
