Why don't we use the Baltimore Catechism anymore?

[buzzoff1031]

BTW, we have a great catechism right now.

In every age we are tempted to believe the state of the Church is the worst. Don’t fall for it. There are tremendous catechists at work right now. I do not ever remember getting such good teaching in the past. Fr Barron, JP2, Pope Benedict, our bishops. Tthe teachers at our high school, who are very orthodox and real Christians living the faith also. Our pastoral associate who does all the baptism and confirmation and adult ed classes… An unbelievable witness to the faith. There are also some bad catechists I suppose. There have always been good and bad. We are not called to dwell on the bad.

It does seem as though, and I hope with all that is in me that i do not offend anyone (and I only use this term because I’m a convert and new, there for not traditional), that traditionalists seem to be down on the state of the Church right now. I’m not saying it’s great, but I am saying that she is guided by the Holy Spirit. And our Lord Himself promised us that the gates of hell will not prevail! Now does that mean bad things won’t happen in the Church? Of course not. Look at the abuses and Fr. Cutie (remember him? ). However, I do think we need to have caution in critisizing the Church at anygiven time. Not that we shouldn’t at times…just be cautious about it. I mean, after all, Martin Luther started out simply to reform the Church and look what happened there.

 

[Seeker1961]

BTW, we have a great catechism right now.

In every age we are tempted to believe the state of the Church is the worst. Don’t fall for it. There are tremendous catechists at work right now. I do not ever remember getting such good teaching in the past. Fr Barron, JP2, Pope Benedict, our bishops. Tthe teachers at our high school, who are very orthodox and real Christians living the faith also. Our pastoral associate who does all the baptism and confirmation and adult ed classes… An unbelievable witness to the faith. There are also some bad catechists I suppose. There have always been good and bad. We are not called to dwell on the bad.

Ok, so since the late 1980’s we have had a new catechism. Have new texts been developed for use in the schools and parish programs? I didn’t notice it when my goddaughter was going through her religious education in the early 90’s but perhaps it was not yet complete or her parish had not adopted it. At 26 she is still nominally Catholic, but not so strong on doctrine.

Sadly, we seem to have lost the generation between the late 1960’s and the late 1980’s. It would be wonderful if we could somehow reclaim those folks.

 

[sw85]

In my opinion, the Baltimore Catechism taught students how to memorize, but not how to apply what they had learned.

I used the Baltimore C. until high school. The good nuns rarely discussed the hows and whys of Church teaching. I memorized the book, but didn’t know what it meant to live as a Catholic. I just knew the facts.

Well, if the polls are any indication, Catholics today don’t know how to practice it and don’t even know the basics of their faith, so abandoning the BC doesn’t seem to have ushered in much improvement.

That was my experience too. The only thing I came away with was a horror for mortal sin and the fear of going to hell.

But these are good things. And they are things sorely lacking in the present age. Obviously coming away with nothing else isn’t good, but it’s clear people nowadays aren’t coming away with anything new, either. My RCIA class was a joke, for instance. And my youth minister ex-girlfriend, while we were still talking about marriage, made clear she and I were to handle the children’s catechesis and not even to think of trusting it to church functionaries. And she’s hardly a rad trad!

I have heard that before, but I have never really understood how you could know the facts but not know how to apply them. We studied theology on a deeper level in high school but without the foundational facts, I don’t think I would have understood the deeper theology. I know some of the kids from schools that didn’t use the BC had a tougher time.

It’s kind of like the times tables. You can do algebra without having memorized the times tables, but knowing them makes it a whole lot easier.

I don’t quite get the complaint, either. Right knowing is logically prior to right willing. It may not be sufficient but it is clearly necessary. And, again, its pretty clear that Catholic nowadays aren’t just not rightly willing, they’re not even rightly knowing. Oftentimes I doubt their ignorance is even culpable. How many homilies that sound like children’s stories can people endure before they walk away with the conclusion that the Church has nothing interesting or useful to say about anything?

The math analogy is a good one. People used to complain about the horrors of forcing rote memorization of math facts. Nowadays I spend lots and lots of time (and make lots of money) tutoring people in statistics who cannot even do basic math without the aid of a calculator, and very often can’t even do it with it.

BTW, we have a great catechism right now.

Really? Do you mean the CCC? If so, my own experience with it has not been good. I find it confusing, awkward, terminologically heavy-handed, and peppered with quotes from theological documents pulled out of context and often structured in such a way as to induce the ignorant to error (how many Catholics have I spoken with here at CAF have cited the section on conscience as proof-positive that they can believe what they want and the historical consensus of Church teachings be damned?).

Brother JR here has said before it is not even really meant for use by the laity, which makes me wonder why in the heck anyone thought it was a good idea to produce it in the first place. You can’t read it without a rigorous grounding in theology, yet such a grounding precludes the necessity for a catechism in the first place, sooo…

One advantage to the BC and other short catechisms is that they don’t require a rigorous seminary background or otherwise tons and tons of free time to read and understand. And they aren’t written in the kind of agonizing, hand-wringing, obscurantist and borderline gibberishy style that people of modest intellect and limited resources can’t understand.

In every age we are tempted to believe the state of the Church is the worst. Don’t fall for it. There are tremendous catechists at work right now. I do not ever remember getting such good teaching in the past. Fr Barron, JP2, Pope Benedict, our bishops. Tthe teachers at our high school, who are very orthodox and real Christians living the faith also. Our pastoral associate who does all the baptism and confirmation and adult ed classes… An unbelievable witness to the faith. There are also some bad catechists I suppose. There have always been good and bad. We are not called to dwell on the bad.

I don’t think we need to believe the Church is in the worst state ever to nevertheless believe it’s in a bad state. There’s an infinite range of values between zero and one, after all.

Then again I also disagree with your assessment that JPII was a particularly strong catechist. Looking back on some of his documents, I just see obscurantist gibberish, often peppered with some really strange and borderline questionable sentiments and often gussied up in such a way that it’s hard to tell what’s his personal musing and what’s actually authoritative teaching. I’m still trying to sort out what, exactly, the Church presently teaches with respect to the death penalty, for instance. And its new found silence on the evils of forcing mothers to work to help sustain families is equally strange. As for the bishops, no less an authority than Card. Dolan himself is on record stating that the bishops handling of catechesis the last several decades has been borderline cowardly. I hope and pray they find their voice and step up their game, but I can’t see that they’re making any improvements in this respect. Their handling of the HHS mandate business has been simply abysmal; a very sound opportunity to catechize forcefully on the evils of contraception squandered in favor of banal mewling about “religious freedom.” Sigh.

 

[clem456]

I was going to reply to this post until I read the following:

Then again I also disagree with your assessment that JPII was a particularly strong catechist. Looking back on some of his documents, I just see obscurantist gibberish, often peppered with some really strange and borderline questionable sentiments and often gussied up in such a way that it’s hard to tell what’s his personal musing and what’s actually authoritative teaching. .

Good night.

 

[Corki]

Ok, so since the late 1980’s we have had a new catechism. Have new texts been developed for use in the schools and parish programs? .

Yes, the Faith and Life series of catechism texts incorporates a Q&A format like the BC used but referenes the CCC for the answers.

I didn’t notice it when my goddaughter was going through her religious education in the early 90’s but perhaps it was not yet complete or her parish had not adopted it. At 26 she is still nominally Catholic, but not so strong on doctrine.

Many parishes don’t like the F&L series (it’s the only one I have seen that directly uses the CCC for a source). It has an orthodox “flavor” which often clashes with the ideas of some RE teachers and DREs. It is also not easily adapted for parish use but it works very well in Catholic schools. Each lesson is more “meaty” than can be covered in a 50 minute, once a week CCE class.

Sadly, we seem to have lost the generation between the late 1960’s and the late 1980’s. It would be wonderful if we could somehow reclaim those folks

Yes, we did. This is one reason why the Bishops are pushing adult religious ed at the parish level. There are several parishes in our diocese that require parents of CCE students to come to classes. We catch some of that lost generation that way.

 

[Seeker1961]

The parish I attend is doing a pretty good job of offering adult formation. They have a series going now using Fr Barron’s Catholicism and they are about to start one on the Theology of the Body.

Sadly I work nights so I have not been able to attend. I also don’t know how many people are going and how popular the programs are.

 

[buzzoff1031]

Their handling of the HHS mandate business has been simply abysmal; a very sound opportunity to catechize forcefully on the evils of contraception squandered in favor of banal mewling about “religious freedom.” Sigh.

Ok, I whole-heartedly disagree. You’ll notice on the page here–usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/awareness-week/articles.cfm–that there are a number of articles stating the chruch’s teaching behind NFP. And, frankly to me, the whole argument behind why the bishops are saying that this mandate violates our religious liberties is stated clearly in most stories I hear. In other words Church teaching–catechesis. The fight for religious freedom and the catechesis about why go hand in hand. a HUGE part of the recent Fortnight for Freedom was catechesis(from the usccb’s website “Through prayer, study, catechesis, and peaceful public action during the Fortnight for Freedom, we hoped to remind ourselves and others all throughout the United States about the importance of preserving the fundamental right of religious freedom.”)…not to offend necessarily, but where have you been?

 

[Seeker1961]

Ok, I whole-heartedly disagree. You’ll notice on the page here–usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/awareness-week/articles.cfm–that there are a number of articles stating the chruch’s teaching behind NFP. And, frankly to me, the whole argument behind why the bishops are saying that this mandate violates our religious liberties is stated clearly in most stories I hear. In other words Church teaching–catechesis. The fight for religious freedom and the catechesis about why go hand in hand. a HUGE part of the recent Fortnight for Freedom was catechesis(from the usccb’s website “Through prayer, study, catechesis, and peaceful public action during the Fortnight for Freedom, we hoped to remind ourselves and others all throughout the United States about the importance of preserving the fundamental right of religious freedom.”)…not to offend necessarily, but where have you been?

Honestly, I didn’t see a whole lot of catechesis going on around here. We got a video speech saying that the HHS and the people behind it were bad, and we got an extra Mass on July 4th. There really wasn’t a lot of connection made between the protest and the Catechsim or the teachings of the Bible. The overwhelming impression was about current politics, not about the eternal teaching of the Church and WHY the HHS was an affront to it. A Catholic who only attended Mass weekly probably didn’t come away with a real understanding. You had to do work on your own and have a strong foundation in the faith to really get it.

 

[YoungTradCath]

I was going to reply to this post until I read the following:

Good night.

What’s wrong with that? It’s a forceful critique, maybe unwarranted–not expressing any personal opinion here–but what, exactly, is necessarily wrong with what he said?

 

[TimothyH]

What’s wrong with that? It’s a forceful critique, maybe unwarranted–not expressing any personal opinion here–but what, exactly, is necessarily wrong with what he said?

Having the opinion, and even expressing the opinion that Blessed John Paul II was not a strong catechsist is one thing, but asserting that what he wrote was “Jibberish” and that it was “Gussied up” can hardly be characterized as objective criticism.

It sounds more like invective. I think the Holy Father, no matter who he is, deserves better.

-Tim-

 

[Indyann]

Well, if the polls are any indication, Catholics today don’t know how to practice it and don’t even know the basics of their faith, so abandoning the BC doesn’t seem to have ushered in much improvement.

But these are good things. And they are things sorely lacking in the present age. Obviously coming away with nothing else isn’t good, but it’s clear people nowadays aren’t coming away with anything new, either. My RCIA class was a joke, for instance. And my youth minister ex-girlfriend, while we were still talking about marriage, made clear she and I were to handle the children’s catechesis and not even to think of trusting it to church functionaries. And she’s hardly a rad trad!

I don’t quite get the complaint, either. Right knowing is logically prior to right willing. It may not be sufficient but it is clearly necessary. And, again, its pretty clear that Catholic nowadays aren’t just not rightly willing, they’re not even rightly knowing. Oftentimes I doubt their ignorance is even culpable. How many homilies that sound like children’s stories can people endure before they walk away with the conclusion that the Church has nothing interesting or useful to say about anything?

The math analogy is a good one. People used to complain about the horrors of forcing rote memorization of math facts. Nowadays I spend lots and lots of time (and make lots of money) tutoring people in statistics who cannot even do basic math without the aid of a calculator, and very often can’t even do it with it.

Really? Do you mean the CCC? If so, my own experience with it has not been good. I find it confusing, awkward, terminologically heavy-handed, and peppered with quotes from theological documents pulled out of context and often structured in such a way as to induce the ignorant to error (how many Catholics have I spoken with here at CAF have cited the section on conscience as proof-positive that they can believe what they want and the historical consensus of Church teachings be damned?).

Brother JR here has said before it is not even really meant for use by the laity, which makes me wonder why in the heck anyone thought it was a good idea to produce it in the first place. You can’t read it without a rigorous grounding in theology, yet such a grounding precludes the necessity for a catechism in the first place, sooo…

One advantage to the BC and other short catechisms is that they don’t require a rigorous seminary background or otherwise tons and tons of free time to read and understand. And they aren’t written in the kind of agonizing, hand-wringing, obscurantist and borderline gibberishy style that people of modest intellect and limited resources can’t understand.

I don’t think we need to believe the Church is in the worst state ever to nevertheless believe it’s in a bad state. There’s an infinite range of values between zero and one, after all.

Then again I also disagree with your assessment that JPII was a particularly strong catechist. Looking back on some of his documents, I just see obscurantist gibberish, often peppered with some really strange and borderline questionable sentiments and often gussied up in such a way that it’s hard to tell what’s his personal musing and what’s actually authoritative teaching. I’m still trying to sort out what, exactly, the Church presently teaches with respect to the death penalty, for instance. And its new found silence on the evils of forcing mothers to work to help sustain families is equally strange. As for the bishops, no less an authority than Card. Dolan himself is on record stating that the bishops handling of catechesis the last several decades has been borderline cowardly. I hope and pray they find their voice and step up their game, but I can’t see that they’re making any improvements in this respect. Their handling of the HHS mandate business has been simply abysmal; a very sound opportunity to catechize forcefully on the evils of contraception squandered in favor of banal mewling about “religious freedom.” Sigh.

Well, Mr. sw85,

You have been Catholic for about 3 months now and are obviously more brilliant and erudite than Pope John Paul II, himself. (Not to mention all the Bishops)

You make lots of money, so why don’t you write a catechism for grade school children that, not only requires children to regurgitate words on a page, but also allows for lessons in the practical use of memorized lessons?

Oh, and that joke of a RCIA class, was it really a joke, or were you just not listening? It appears you were absent when prudence and humility were mentioned. If they were not mentioned, maybe you could write a program for RCIA, too.

 

[JillianRose]

We have the YOUCAT now!! It rocks. It not the books that have been used its the passion. To be a great teacher you need two things: KNOWLEDGE about the subject your teaching and Passion!! Also, lately, the parents I meet in my sons class, could careless about religion class. When the parents don’t care the kids don’t. Sometimes with these childern these teachers are given, there is only so much you can do with the raw material you are teaching… When we start OWNING why we are Catholic are children will too!!

 

[JillianRose]

Well, Mr. sw85,

You have been Catholic for about 3 months now and are obviously more brilliant and erudite than Pope John Paul II, himself. (Not to mention all the Bishops)

You make lots of money, so why don’t you write a catechism for grade school children that, not only requires children to regurgitate words on a page, but also allows for lessons in the practical use of memorized lessons?

Oh, and that joke of a RCIA class, was it really a joke, or were you just not listening? It appears you were absent when prudence and humility were mentioned. If they were not mentioned, maybe you could write a program for RCIA, too.

The new YOUCAT Rocks!! I can even read it to my 6 year old. I read the 900 plus page catechism and boy its a tough one to get thru!!

 

[JillianRose]

That was my experience too. The only thing I came away with was a horror for mortal sin and the fear of going to hell. In my archdiocese, we used the Baltimore Catechism until 1967 or 1968.

I did not know this… This would explain a lot about the “Catholic” guilt my parents and grandparents used on us. I do think a little Catholic guilt is good.

 

[Indyann]

The new YOUCAT Rocks!! I can even read it to my 6 year old. I read the 900 plus page catechism and boy its a tough one to get thru!!

Is YOUCAT online? I only read a very few excerpts when it first came out.

 

[JillianRose]

Hi… I have it on my kindle. Also I have seen it at my Catholic book store. It is not scary. The mettle from the pope to our young ones is beautiful. You will love. I will try to post the letter. Its something we all need to buy and give our children this year for Christmas. Peace out…xo

 

[YoungTradCath]

Is YOUCAT online? I only read a very few excerpts when it first came out.

It is, but you have to pay for it.

 

[Cat]

Honestly, I didn’t see a whole lot of catechesis going on around here. We got a video speech saying that the HHS and the people behind it were bad, and we got an extra Mass on July 4th. There really wasn’t a lot of connection made between the protest and the Catechsim or the teachings of the Bible. The overwhelming impression was about current politics, not about the eternal teaching of the Church and WHY the HHS was an affront to it. A Catholic who only attended Mass weekly probably didn’t come away with a real understanding. You had to do work on your own and have a strong foundation in the faith to really get it.

(referring to boldface, mine, above)–Anytime someone has to do work on their own to learn something, they will truly learn it and it will be established deeply within their minds and souls. Babies are spoon-fed, mature people are able to feed themselves.

The Mass is not the time for an in-depth theology lesson. I don’t know about your diocese, but ours has a Catholic newspaper that included quite a few in-depth articles explaining the bishops’ stand against the HHS mandate. Also, our parish distributed several excellent teaching pamphletes. Finally, our parish offered a one-evening class featuring a doctor, a lawyer, and a priest who each explained the problems with HHS, and the priest in particular explained the theology.

For that matter, a Catholic who is wavering in his faith could have learned the theology against HHS from many Protestant churches and organizations who joined with Catholics to speak out against the mandate.

The textbook isn’t nearly as important as the teachers (although of course, when it comes to Catholicism, the textbook must be approved by Holy Mother Church). A good teacher doesn’t need a textbook–their lives are their text, and they teach by example as much as by words.

A good teacher can show any group of students not only the “basics” of the Faith, but also how to apply these basics to their lives right where they are now, not “someday.” An excellent teacher can bring passages of Scripture and various catechisms to life, and inspire students not only to memorize passages and spout them on command, but more importantly, to love these passages and to seek to apply them to their lives. An amazing teacher can encourage students to give their lives and hearts to Jesus and His Church.

A good teacher teaches students how to learn for a lifetime and be “disciples of Christ.”

The BEST teachers that any child can have are their own parents (and grandparents). Even if the church-appointed religious education teacher is not excellent (as described above), there is no excuse for a child to grow up not knowing Who the Lord Jesus is, and what His Church is. And again, parents should teach not primarily with words, but through everyday example of a holy life and faith walk.

However, words are important. Perhaps in the past, it was adequate to spoon-feed children and adults information and expect them to digest and assimilate the information. But in today’s “wired” world, this simply is not going to work. The teachers must teach the history and apologetics for the faith, or at least be able to point their students to sources that can teach them this important background information.

As for those who would condemn the catechesis and the catechists after Vatican II, I encourage them to look around. There were plenty of Catholics who came through the post-Vatican II time just fine, with their faith intact. Just look at all the elderly and middle-aged people sitting in any Mass–these people were children living through Vatican II, and they survived whatever catechesis they got, and they are the pillars of the local parishes today.

Finally, we all need to recognize that when all is said and done, no teacher or parent can force a child to stick with the Lord and to keep the faith. It is a personal decision that each person must make for themselves. There are many people who have received excellent catechesis from the best teachers who have ever lived, and they still choose to walk away from it all and follow the wrong path. The best example is Judas Iscariot, who sat face to face with the Lord Jesus, and STILL chose money over faith.

 

[twf]

For those who find the Catechism of the Catholic Church too “meaty” for the average lay person, why aren’t we doing more to promote the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is in Q&A format like the Baltimore, or, as previous posters have mentioned, the new Youcat (Youth Catechism). In fact, both of these options carry greater weight and authority than the Baltimore Catechism - these are documents promulgated by the Holy See itself - the Baltimore Catechism was never more than a local American catechism with no universal authority. (Not to say that it contains errors - it just doesn’t carry the same level of authority).

 

[MissRose73]

I’ve purchased copies of the Baltimore Catechism series, and found it very informative. I also have my mother’s grade 5 catechism book from her Catholic school years (Pre Vatican 2). I know that my catechism years were not very good as I was born in the 1970’s, and had my faith formation starting in grade 1. I learned more from reading the various Catechisms.

To be honest, we should have some form of ongoing religious education for adults too especially for those of my generation and those born right around the time Vatican 2 came into effect. I’ve read my sister’s kids religious education lessons, some of the stuff I know, other things I did not.