Traditional Catechism Lessons

[whm]

The following link includes some very detailed catechism lessons that originated in the 1950’s (i think). It seems to have comments in a smaller font that may reflect canon law chances since then. Do you think these lessons are a fair representation of traditional catholic beliefs?

The sections dealing with marriage and raising children are quite striking compared to modern materials.

olrl.org/Lessons/

 

[Wesley7]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church published by the Vatican is better.

 

[Wesley7]

Thanks!

 

[yinekka]

Catholic Culture has this to say about Our Lady of the Rosary Library from where you sourced your catechism.

*Unfortunately, the site is tainted by a lack of obedience and humility regarding the Liturgy. Much of the material found here directly rejects Vatican II and the New Mass. Additionally, the overall tone of the site subtly reinforces this stance. So, while there seems to be some useful information to be found here, other sources should be used when possible.

Some of the explanations of Catholic doctrine are incomplete or misleading."

An example of this is the article on the teaching that there is no salvation outside the Church. The author uses quotes from Church documents and the Saints to reiterate the Church’s assertion that outside of Her there can be no salvation. Unfortunately, he leaves it at that. There is no mention of the fact that the Church does not deny the possibility of salvation of those earnest and sincere persons outside Her fold who live and die in invincible ignorance of the true faith.

Another and related example is the answer given to the question “What will happen to those who do not practice religion?” The author simply states that those who do not practice religion will go to Hell. There is no further explanation or qualifier offered.*

……catholicculture.org/culture/reviews/view.cfm?recnum=865&repos=2&subrepos=0&searchid=627888
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The Catechism was published in the 1950s and so it is not surprising that ideas dealing with marriage and raising children have changed over the last 60 years. You might be better off sticking to the Catechism of the Catholic Church or the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church – both available online.

 

[Ockham]

Considering how rare true catechesis has become from the pulpit perhaps slightly flawed on the internet is better than none at all.

 

[Shin]

I’ve always found Our Lady of the Rosary Library a wealth of good information.

Many good traditional books, prayers, and resources, and a great shop at charity prices.

Catholic Culture is often a good resource for reviews of sites, but they are themselves, not traditional in many ways and so their bias shows that way towards many traditional sites, where they equate fidelity with whatever is currently popular rather than timeless tradition.

If one wanted to one could do a ‘Catholic Culture’ style review of ‘Catholic Culture’ itself and poke holes in it easily enough in regards to its so-called ‘fidelity’.

 

[Shin]

Well, I don’t want to knock it too much as it is a good resource generally. But in this case especially it certainly needs to do better is my thought. OLRL isn’t perfect… but what is?

 

[yinekka]

they [Catholic Culture] equate fidelity with whatever is currently popular rather than timeless tradition.

Shin, could you give me some examples with links to support what you claim?

 

[corsair]

Shin,
I agree with you on this issue. I have never been overly impressed with “Catholic Culture” as a good traditional site.

 

[choy]

Considering how rare true catechesis has become from the pulpit perhaps slightly flawed on the internet is better than none at all.

so you will accept a flawed teaching just because you can’t get a better teaching from where you are?

thats not right

its like walking around a city you’ve never been before without a map, and compare it to walking around with the wrong map. at least if you don’t have a map, you can stop and ask for directions. if you have the wrong map which you don’t realize is the wrong map, you’ll continue to follow it without asking for directions and get lost

 

[Ockham]

No, choy, it’s probably better to believe there is no salvation outside the Church then to think there is. The complete statement is of course better, but if you had to choose between yes or no what is your ‘truth’?

 

[choy]

No, choy, it’s probably better to believe there is no salvation outside the Church then to think there is. The complete statement is of course better, but if you had to choose between yes or no what is your ‘truth’?

i don’t agree
being 50% right also means being 50% wrong
sometimes a flawed belief is more dangerous than no belief. Muslim extremism is one good example. for Christianity, you can point to the thousands of Protestant denominations. you can’t say that Protestants never get anything right, they do get something right. but see the division it causes the faith. many follow a Jesus that is made-up in the minds of their teacher, and these teachings are based on the Bible. but these are not complete lies, they are half truths.

 

[Ockham]

So is there salvation outside the Church, truthslayer?

 

[Shin]

they [Catholic Culture] equate fidelity with whatever is currently popular rather than timeless tradition.

Shin, could you give me some examples with links to support what you claim?

Well, I’m not in the mood to sift through them and make citations, or start a CC knocking thread – it isn’t all bad, far from it and can be very useful – I will simply expand a little more, you can take it or leave as you choose.

I’ll will say that they can equate criticism of the novus ordo with infidelity in their site reviews, which is not the case – but they do not equate many of the practices of the world with infidelity, immodesty, immoral banner ads, these are often passed over. They love Christopher West for example. Christopher West green vs. OLRL red? Ha!

They’ll knock a site for just using pre-Vatican II resources and not anything later. What is wrong with that? Was the Church up till then somehow off?

If you know what tradition is, and you know what one might call ‘pop Catholicism’ a sort of popular with the world integration of it that gets put out a lot lately, you just well – have to take one look at Catholic Culture, and you can tell they’re not traditional Catholicism, which is the real fully authentic Faith. If you know what traditional Catholicism is, you can pretty much see where it is at a glance or where it isn’t. If you don’t… well, you learn that by experience.

Traditional Catholicism takes chastity more seriously, modesty in dress more seriously, liturgy more seriously, and doesn’t believe tradition is some sort of blank slate that can be rewritten just because it’s not carved in dogmatic stone.

That’s not to say that CC isn’t quite useful in that they give the reasons for their ratings, which allows you to sift through them and ignore the bad bits, and the other good resources… But their brand of Catholicism is clearly a good bit something new, not something timeless… which in the end does not exist.

So I pray for them that they will make more progress, because I have had a lot of good of them.

 

[Dancelittleewok]

So is there salvation outside the Church, truthslayer?

I don’t choy is saying that. I’ll repeat something I said on a different thread:

Sure ideas can be found outside other denominations, but that doesn’t make that correct. Beliefs that are outside the Church in Protestant denominations–such as the real presence, Sacred Scripture, etc.–were first held in the Church first. The Church doesn’t condemn beliefs that adhere to the Truth but rather only the wrong ones. Since the Church has a set of dogmas and only accepts the right ones (whether outside or inside), you cannot say it encourages relativism.

It would be incorrect to say that salvation can be found outside the Church but rather individuals that are outside of the Church are saved through the Church. But “no salvation outside of the Church” topic goes beyond the scope of this thread.