Why don't we use the Baltimore Catechism anymore?

[OraLabora]

(cont’d)

Catechesis is much more than just “facts.” Catechesis is understanding the plan of salvation, it is understanding that we as human beings are separated from God, and it is a gulf so wide that there is nothing we can do to overcome that sweeping chasm. It is understanding and accepting the fact that we are sinful human beings and acknowledging that we are in need of a Saviour. That is not something we innately know.

Nobody denies the need to teach the faith. This discussion seems to hinge on the degree of preaching heaven vs. hell and on the manner of teaching the faith.

But that is what is so great about the Baltimore Catechism. It is not a book of great theology and complicated thought. It simply sets out the very basic teachings of the Catholic Church in a very easy and understandable format. I was learning from the BC when I was 7 years old.

I think we started learning it at 6 in Quebec. But it didn’t sink in. I came back to the Church when I was 39. For 13 years I learned all the doctrine that there was to learn, all the dogma, the liturgy, etc, certainly far more than the average person in the pew. But I still didn’t get it until 13 years later when I was 52. I would say though that the seeds were sown in the Blessed Sacrament chapel at the abbey where I would sit in His presence regularly. And again that’s a fairly “emotional” experience, that is, in the heart, rather than a rational experience.

Catholics need to know the basics of their religion, and that includes the four last things, which are death, judgment, hell and heaven. We are not Adam and Eve, we are Catholics living in a very complicated and evil age, and without knowledge, we are easy prey for every charlatan out there.

There’s nothing inherently more evil in this era than in any other before it, and there has never been a shortage of charlatans. I think also St. Paul paints a picture that stands as true in this age as his:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
23 And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things.
24 Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves.
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature.
27 And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
28 And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers,
30 Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.
32 Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.

(Romans 1)

Yes he spoke of the wages of sin being death. But that’s not all the Bible teaches.

Please ask yourself honestly why are you opposed to use of the Baltimore Catechism?

I can’t speak for Tim but in my case, I am against that sort of Catechism because it is too simplistic; and the generation of lost Catholics in my region were formed by it. I therefore believe that returning to it won’t do a thing to reverse that trend since it never prevented them from leaving in the first place, in fact many have told me that it turned them off. It fed the loss, it didn’t feed a desire to stay in the faith. We have learned better teaching methods over the years. The problem today is not the absence of the Baltimore Catechism, it’s the catechists not believing what they teach and that’s part of a wider social problem; there are plenty of catechists out there who teach that the Real Presence is merely symbolic; do you really think the Baltimore Catechism would change that? You yourself say we live in a complex age. I’m afraid that simplistic solutions to complex problems aren’t likely to work.

Why are you opposed to the preaching of the four last things? To leave people to their own resources and trusting their uneducated conscience is a very dangerous thing to do. If you don’t believe me, just look around you and you will see the evidence of that everywhere.

You are being disingenuous here. We’re not talking about not preaching that damnation is a real possibility. We are talking about overemphasis on damnation being a real possibility, without enough emphasis on God’s love, and our need to trust Him, and work on true inner conversion. We’re also talking about the manner of preaching it. What I would like to hear more of is not being cowed into fear of Hell. I want to hear witness from someone who was near the brink of Hell, but by giving his life over to God, was pulled back from it. Those are the experiences that Tim meant by being “touched by God”. Trust me, it is clear when this happens, as my own experience showed me. Do you really think I could mistake the salvation of my marriage for an act of the devil?

 

[Brooklyn]

The sentence that I have bolded above explains a lot.

Brooklyn, I hope you will think about what I’m going to say. And I hope that it is OK for me to say this. It’s just my opinion, and I hope with all my heart that I am totally wrong about you.

It is wrong of you to divide the Catholic Church in your mind. The Bible and the Church caution us to avoid being “factious,” and I think this is what you are doing.

You have allowed yourself to get into a state of mind where you can see no good at all in the “modern” parishes, and I think this is a dangerous path for you to go down.

Many of the parishes that you and your mentors label with a derisive term are very likely in total or near compliance with the all the Church rubrics, and most importantly, they are doing what Christ commanded, which is to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass daily. Many Catholics who attend these parishes are faithful, humble, and seeking to follow the Lord Jesus and be true to His Church.

For some reason, you are not seeing all this good stuff, and you are not meeting the good, faithful Catholics. I’m not sure why you have had such rotten luck meeting really good Catholics. It seems that the only Catholics you are meeting are those who are under-catechized, “cafeteria” Catholics. No wonder you are so discouraged with the state of the Church.

Have you considered trying some “new meeting places” and attempting to seek out those Catholics in your area who are serious, studious, and sold-out to Christ and His True Church? There are lots of them, really.

Perhaps you are thinking too much of the past and idealizing it. Perhaps it’s time to try to come to terms with the present. Meeting other good Catholics will help you do this.

You must realize that any parish (or any Protestant fellowship, too) has a large majority of people who seem to be “luke-warm”. Some people call them “pew-sitters.” They keep coming week after week, but they never seem to be doing much and certainly don’t demonstrate a lot of passion or enthusiasm. However, it is wrong to judge these people as “bad Catholics.” We don’t know the state of their soul. And in God’s Eyes, they may be more righteousness than everyone because they keep the faith, even though their lives are rather ordinary and they don’t seem to accomplish great things.

Certainly there are miscreants in the Catholic Church and in each parish–there will always be miscreants, but to condemn entire parishes and label them in the most negative terms (“Nice” Church) because of the miscreants is just wrong.

And yes, sadly, there are plenty of Catholics who are doing great harm to the Church by their public witness.

But praise God, there are still plenty of good Catholics! I think that if you could find and associate with these Catholics, you would have a more positive and hopeful view of the Church, and realize that there aren’t two different Catholic Churches at all, but One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, with many different kinds of members.

Godspeed to you.

I’m finding this thread to be unbelievable. The OP, way back, writes and says why can’t we still use the Baltimore Catechism. It served the church for well for generations, helped us all to learn what the church teaches,and then anyone who supports that view gets pounded You call me factious, someone else tells me I’m disingeneous. I have been hit right and left on this thread.

You, Cat, did not answer my posts at all. When you are ready to address the specific issues that I brought up in my post to you, I will answer you. The Church is in a deep spiritual crisis, and I can only repeat that if you do not see it, you are not facing reality. That is not to say that there are not many good devout Catholics doing many wonderful things. I know quite a few of them myself. I am proud and honored to know many good Catholics, many good priests.

But I am also not deluding myself that the majority of Catholics have no idea what the Church teaches, and even worse, they don’t care.

We cannot solve the great problems in the church unless we are willing to face them. I don’t believe you want to face up to the reality of the state of far too many Catholics and the state of our world. We really have nothing more to discuss as long as you ignore the facts that I have pointed out to you.

 

[Brooklyn]

OraLabora - I’m sorry, but your posts are just way too long to respond to. The one thing I want to say is that you admit that you are well catechized. That would mean that you have a firm foundation on which to stand when things started falling apart in your life. Don’t you think the fact that you know your religion was one of the major reasons why you were able to recognize God when he worked in your life?

I was away from the Church for 38 years. I think one of reasons I found my way back is because I was so well catechized through the Baltimore Catechism when I was young. As a child, I was thoroughly grounded in my faith. When I fell away as a young adult, I still had that foundation which helped bring me back in later years.

You think the BC is too simplistic? Like I posted earlier, we are not all Thomas Aquinas. More of us are closer to the level of St. Bernadatte of Lourdes The Baltimore Cathecism lays out precisely and plainly all the major dogmas of the Church. Anyone who learns the BC will be extremely knowledgeable in their faith. Right now that can only be said of a very small percentage of Catholics.

And you want to stop with the insults? I really don’t like being judged and called “disingenous.” You don’t know the first thing about me, and it is rude and insulting. You really do owe me an apology for that remark.

And also, could you self-edit and make your posts shorter? They’re way too long to read thoroughly.

 

[Melchior_1]

OraLabora - I’m sorry, but your posts are just way too long to respond to. The one thing I want to say is that you admit that you are well catechized. That would mean that you have a firm foundation on which to stand when things started falling apart in your life. Don’t you think the fact that you know your religion was one of the major reasons why you were able to recognize God when he worked in your life?

I was away from the Church for 38 years. I think one of reasons I found my way back is because I was so well catechized through the Baltimore Catechism when I was young. As a child, I was thoroughly grounded in my faith. When I fell away as a young adult, I still had that foundation which helped bring me back in later years.

You think the BC is too simplistic? Like I posted earlier, we are not all Thomas Aquinas. More of us are closer to the level of St. Bernadatte of Lourdes The Baltimore Cathecism lays out precisely and plainly all the major dogmas of the Church. Anyone who learns the BC will be extremely knowledgeable in their faith. Right now that can only be said of a very small percentage of Catholics.

And you want to stop with the insults? I really don’t like being judged and called “disingenous.” You don’t know the first thing about me, and it is rude and insulting. You really do owe me an apology for that remark.

And also, could you self-edit and make your posts shorter? They’re way too long to read thoroughly.

I hope you see the irony of you writing as much as you did above, when all you could have said was “tl;dr” and generally get the same attitude and point across.

 

[TimothyH]

I’m not offended by what you said, but I most certainly disagree. With all due respect, your reply sounds very protestant. One of my biggest problems with protestantism is that so much of it is based on emotion - Jesus loves us and saves us and that’s all we really need to know. But what does He save us from? Bad feelings? Is Jesus’ role in our lives just to make us feel better about ourselves?

Catechesis is much more than just “facts.” Catechesis is understanding the plan of salvation, it is understanding that we as human beings are separated from God, and it is a gulf so wide that there is nothing we can do to overcome that sweeping chasm. It is understanding and accepting the fact that we are sinful human beings and acknowledging that we are in need of a Saviour. That is not something we innately know.

Remember the story of the Ethopian eunuch in the book of Acts? Philip found him reading the scriptures, and Philip asked him: “Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest?” (Acts 8:30). The eunuch answered: “And how can I, unless some man shew me?” Verse 35 says: “Then Philip, opening his mouth, and beginning at this scripture, preached unto him Jesus.” That means catechesis.

No, we don’t need to be Thomas Aquinas to be saved, thank God. We also have St. Bernadette of Lourdes, a little peasant girl who didn’t even understand what Immaculate Conception meant, and yet our Blessed Mother chose her to spread her message.

But that is what is so great about the Baltimore Catechism. It is not a book of great theology and complicated thought. It simply sets out the very basic teachings of the Catholic Church in a very easy and understandable format. I was learning from the BC when I was 7 years old.

Catholics need to know the basics of their religion, and that includes the four last things, which are death, judgment, hell and heaven. We are not Adam and Eve, we are Catholics living in a very complicated and evil age, and without knowledge, we are easy prey for every charlatan out there.

You say: “For me, all the catechisms in the world don’t add up to one millisecond of God touching me in a profound and deeply personal way.” Do you trust your sinful human nature enough to know when God “touches” you and that it is not the devil? The devil is far more cunning and far more clever than any of us. Just look at all the millions and billions of people around the world who have been deceived into believing lies. And we know that the devil is the father of lies.

Please ask yourself honestly why are you opposed to use of the Baltimore Catechism? Why are you opposed to the preaching of the four last things? To leave people to their own resources and trusting their uneducated conscience is a very dangerous thing to do. If you don’t believe me, just look around you and you will see the evidence of that everywhere.

That’s a huge mistake you are making my friend, that having God’s presence in your life in a visceral, palpable way is nothing more than emotion, and therefor Protestant. On the contrary, it is a promise from Jesus.

Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:23)

You should pray that you be given that gift if you have not.

I never said I was opposed to any catechism, nor am I opposed to teaching about the four last things. You read that into my words. I never said anything like it.

Anyone who reads my posts knows that I love scripture, and one of the spiritual senses of scripture is the eschatological sense - how scripture points us to the four last things - death, judgement, Heaven and Hell. Scripture is part of my life on a daily basis.

Please don’t confuse the Holy Spirit working in your life to emotionalism. The Holy Spirit is real, and can be felt, and known intimately, and when it happens, all the catechisms in the world will become mere straw for you.

-Tim-

 

[buzzoff1031]

I posted a sermon in which a priest criticized bishops for not preaching about hell. I have never put down any specific bishop or priest and most certainly have never criticized the Holy Father in any way.

If you are implying that I have " downed our Bishops, Pope or current Catechism", you owe me an apology, because that is patently false.

I didn’t intend on it coming across that way. I forget this is a message forum at times and that people are not privy to my thoughts… But, no I was just referring to a couple of other posts that I had seen, not yours. Sorry.

 

[buzzoff1031]

Another way of saying it is that the faithful can get by with imperfect contrition, but that God wants the faithful to have perfect contrition. Doing what is right out of love for God is much, much better than doing what is required from the fear of hell.

 

[Brooklyn]

That’s a huge mistake you are making my friend, that having God’s presence in your life in a visceral, palpable way is nothing more than emotion, and therefor Protestant. On the contrary, it is a promise from Jesus.

Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:23)

You should pray that you be given that gift if you have not.

I never said I was opposed to any catechism, nor am I opposed to teaching about the four last things. You read that into my words. I never said anything like it.

Anyone who reads my posts knows that I love scripture, and one of the spiritual senses of scripture is the eschatological sense - how scripture points us to the four last things - death, judgement, Heaven and Hell. Scripture is part of my life on a daily basis.

Please don’t confuse the Holy Spirit working in your life to emotionalism. The Holy Spirit is real, and can be felt, and known intimately, and when it happens, all the catechisms in the world will become mere straw for you.

-Tim-

I am talking about emotion without knowledge. If we base our spirituality only on what we feel, we are very vulnerable to the enemy. Our Lord has given uis a brain and expects us to use it. I can only point back to the story of of Philip asking the Ethiopian eunuch as he read scripture, "Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest? " and the eunuch replying: "And how can I, unless some man shew me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.

I do not confuse the Holy Spirit with emotionalism, but I fear that many people do. Of course I have had very emotional moments in my spiritual life. Coming back to the Catholic church after 38 years and realizing that I was quite literally at the gates of hell and being snatched back through the mercy of God is an unbelievably emotional experience. Of course I know the Holy Spirit is real. But I don’t know that purely through my emotions. I do not trust my heart. My heart has led me astray time and time again during my life.

You have been arguing with me during this whole thread. Many posts back I asked you a specific question and all you gave me was a sarcastic answer. Now you tell me you are not opposed to catechesis, although you make such statements as “Catechesis is facts. Facts don’t build faith. Faith is trusting God, and all the facts in the world don’t teach people faith. All the facts in the world don’t teach people to trust God.” I completely and totally disagree with that statement. The main reason I trust God is because, through catechesis, I learned that he emptied himself out for me, came to earth and died a bloody death on the cross so that I can be saved from hell. I didn’t learn that through emotionalism. I learned that through catechesis, and that built my faith.

As one of your examples of how catechesis doesn’t work, you said: “St. Paul was perhaps the best catechized character in the Bible, and he persecuted the Church visciously until God acted in his life on the road to Damascus.:” The Apostle Paul knew the Jewish religion when he was persecuting the Church. Then he was converted, taken away for 3 years while he was taught by Christ personally - catechized - and came back as the greatest apostle. I could use the word “disingenuous” to describe your statement, as someone did with me, but I don’t think you were guilty of that. You just don’t know your facts because you haven’t been properly taught. Do you think Paul could have done the great works he did without being properly catechized? How do we teach what we don’t know?

I am very glad to hear that you are not opposed to catechesis and not opposed to the teaching of the last four things, although earlier in this thread you jumped down my throat because I said that the misery on this earth is not the same as hell. Maybe if the last four things had been taught, you would have understood what I was saying and not gotten on your high horse as you did.

If and when I am in heaven with Jesus Christ, then as you say, the catechisms of this world will beome “mere straw” because then I will have the reality and no longer be fighting my sinful human nature. Until then, as a sinful human being, I need instruction and guidance. How do I even examine my conscience without catechesis? Fortunately, the Church knows this, even though you seem to place little importance on it. I have the BC, the current Catechism of the church, the Catechism of Trent, and 2000 years of spiritual reading and teaching, and I need them all. I struggle each and every day to stay on the straight and narrow road to heaven. Knowledge of our Lord and His Great Sacrifice is vital to my salvation.

You seem to be all over the place, first making one statement and then contradicting it with another. Maybe, like me, you need catechesis.

BTW, the verse you quoted is basically the definition of what it means to be Christian, that is, the Trinity abiding in us. By saying, “You should pray that you be given that gift if you have not”, are you implying that I am not Christian?

 

[Brooklyn]

I didn’t intend on it coming across that way. I forget this is a message forum at times and that people are not privy to my thoughts… But, no I was just referring to a couple of other posts that I had seen, not yours. Sorry.

Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[Brooklyn]

I hope you see the irony of you writing as much as you did above, when all you could have said was “tl;dr” and generally get the same attitude and point across.

Ad hominem attacks do nothing to shed light on any subject.

 

[OraLabora]

OraLabora - I’m sorry, but your posts are just way too long to respond to. The one thing I want to say is that you admit that you are well catechized. That would mean that you have a firm foundation on which to stand when things started falling apart in your life. Don’t you think the fact that you know your religion was one of the major reasons why you were able to recognize God when he worked in your life? .

I became well-catechized after I returned to the Church, and I catechized myself starting at age 39. The type of learning of the BC (and the Quebec Catechism) doesn’t work for me. It didn’t stick. I remembered very little of it.

It’s only after God became relevant in my life again that I took the trouble of learning my faith. It’s my nature, once something becomes relevant in my life I want to learn it in detail. When something isn’t relevant (to me) it doesn’t stick and believe me I didn’t find my faith relevant at all until I was 39.

The way I came back to the Church actually was by debate with some Evangelical friends. They were trying to recruit me. So one summer I took up their challenge and read the New Testament. What I read there didn’t jive with what they were saying, too many inconsistencies especially around the Real Presence. It didn’t make sense that we were supposed to take a literalist view of the Bible except for the Real Presence. Either it is or it isn’t. When I started to relearn Catholicism, it started to make sense and I returned.

 

[Melchior_1]

Ad hominem attacks do nothing to shed light on any subject.

It’s not an ad hominem. You told the guy “I didn’t read what you wrote, because you wrote too much”. You actually said that twice in one post, if I’m not mistaken. In internet parlance, you can say “tl;dr” and get the same effect and save yourself some time typing. Also ironic; you probably have written the most in those thread, if you want to add up the amount of characters typed.

Anyway, what we have here is some people (yourself) are have more of an affinity to be like Spock (logic) and others are leaning more towards a bit more like McCoy (emotions).

The trick, just like those characters, is that one needs to incorporate aspects of both, which is why Kirk is the leader within the Power Trio.

 

[Brooklyn]

It’s not an ad hominem. You told the guy “I didn’t read what you wrote, because you wrote too much”. You actually said that twice in one post, if I’m not mistaken. In internet parlance, you can say “tl;dr” and get the same effect and save yourself some time typing. Also ironic; you probably have written the most in those thread, if you want to add up the amount of characters typed.

Anyway, what we have here is some people (yourself) are have more of an affinity to be like Spock (logic) and others are leaning more towards a bit more like McCoy (emotions).

The trick, just like those characters, is that one needs to incorporate aspects of both, which is why Kirk is the leader within the Power Trio.

I did his read his posts. It was just way too much to respond to, and I think he could have said the same thing much more succinctly making it easier to respond.

However, I did want to make the ponts that I did, that he was well catechized as he said and even though he downplays the importance of catechesis, that is most likely a major factor in the positive outcomes in his life. So, no, I couldn’t have just said: “tl;dr.” If you look at my post, you will see that.

Yes, I know I have posted more than anyone else here, but I don’t think any of my inividual posts have been too long to respond to, since people seem to have no problem responding to them, although I must admit most of it has been negative. If anyone does agree with me, they’re keeping mum. And each time I have posted, it has been to answer someone else

Interesting Star Trek analogy. I guess I do tend more toward logic and not emotion. I find emotion to be very misleading. Emotion should be the by-product of logic, and not the other way around.

 

[Cat]

38 years away from the Lord and His Church?!

That is so very sad.

Wouldn’t it be better to raise up our children and catechize them in such a way that they don’t fall away from the Lord and His Church?

All of us who are parents know that sometimes, no matter how great a job a parent does, a child will still fall away from all that is good and go down a bad street. But at least a Christian parent who has done their job can take heart and claim the Lord’s promise in Proverbs 22:6.

So yes, definitely teaching a child a good Catechism is going to be helpful–but it’s so sad to think that 38 years has to go by. That’s over half of an average American’s life!

All children will go through a period of rebellion. But hopefully for many Christian children, this will not mean rejecting their faith. I can honestly say that my husband and I have never been “away” from the Lord. And we know plenty of people who never have fallen away.

I think that the way we were catechized as children and teenagers helped us to stay close to God. We were not Catholic. We were raised evangelical Protestant (Conference Baptist for me, Assemblies of God for my husband.) **Our upbringing emphasized a lot of BIble teaching, good leaders who truly lived their faith outside of the church doors, and lots of service opportunities. **

I think this model of catechesis is a good one, and I think that Catholic parishes should consider using it if they don’t already. It’s a three-legged stool, very stable–knowledge, example, and service. If you study the Gospels, you will see that this is how Jesus formed His disciples. In fact, when my husband and I were growing up, our churches called it “discipling” rather than “catechesis,” and I think that this word is much better to give parents and church leaders an idea of what is needed to bring up a child in such a way that they don’t depart from it.

If you just teach facts and figures (the Bible, a Catechism, a textbook, etc.), kids will certainly learn, but it won’t mean much to them, as we see from testimonies from Brooklyn, OraLabora, and others in this thread. The kids will fall away because Christianity is just another “school subject” to them.

If you just do role-modeling, then the kids will get a certainly sense of what being a Christian means in real life, but they won’t have any knowledge to back up their faith and thus will get confused and fall away when someone (e.g., a knowledgeable Protestant!) questions their beliefs.

If you just do service projects, then Christianity is no different than a community volunteer organization. Kids will eventually give it up for a more appealing volunteer organization without a list of what they see as “cumbersome rules.”

A side note for those involved with youth work in the Church:
My husband and I started dating when we were fifteen, and our WISE church leaders encouraged us to serve God TOGETHER–we were assistants in teaching Vacation Bible School, and we did a lot of music together in the church. This was so incredibly wise–I just can’t say enough good about these teachers–nowadays, many evangelical Protestant teachers are discouraging young dating couples from even sitting together in church, let alone working together for Him and His people. This is foolishness, and IMO, causes young people to become disillusioned with Christianity and fall away.

Yes, we’ve been through hard times, including being kicked out of our Protestant church and wandering about for a few years without any church (we attended Mass during this time in obedience to the Lord’s command to not forsake assembling ourselves with other Christians). But we’ve never turned away from God, and we’ve always strived to remain in a Christian church.

 

[Melchior_1]

Interesting Star Trek analogy. I guess I do tend more toward logic and not emotion. I find emotion to be very misleading. Emotion should be the by-product of logic, and not the other way around.

1. *"Captain, the logical course of action in this situation is to let the inhabitants of Pupolon fend for themselves. We need the device keeping the planet’s orbit stable, or risk endangering the very existence of The Federation. I am aware of the consequences for the local population, Doctor, but simply rushing in to ‘save the high priestess’ will leave us open to a Klingon ambush with a 78.52% probability of outright destruction.

“I realize this is a hard choice, Captain, but the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few.” *

1. *"You can’t seriously be considering this! Screw the Prime Directive, there’s no time for debate! We have to act now to rescue the High Priestess; forget the the device, and think about doing what’s right!

“What’s that, Spock? ‘Logic?’ If we listened to your cold reasoning, you’d have us look for that stupid Cosmic Keystone while innocent people suffer! The greater good? Better in the long run? The Klingons will kill us in five minutes if we go to rescue the high priestess unprepared? Dammit man, dare we call ourselves human if we don’t?! What do you mean ‘Thank you?’” *

Both, in their extremes, have their flaws.

 

[Cat]

I want to pick up on this theme for a minute. I understand where Tim is coming from. We have confronted major crises in our lives and felt the guiding hand of God leading us out of it. As Catholics, we worship with all our senses, in a very sacramental way: taste, smell, sound+music, touch, an speech; and we also worship as whole persons which includes our intellect (of varying capacity) and our emotional responses (of varying capacity). We needn’t fear our emotions. The great mystics have had intense emotional responses to feeling God’s very real presence. People who fear their emotions build a false front and fear going deep into their hearts to confront who they truly are, both the good and the evil (we all have both in us).

I don’t like getting personal on these forums but I feel compelled to relate my own experience. Until about 2 years ago, I certainly was a “well catechized” Catholic. But as Tim says I was just a sinner with good knowledge. What I didn’t grasp was that it isn’t “all about me”.

At that stage my 22-year marriage had failed the 5 last years were very painful and lonely years. I was in Europe visiting a monk friend in a monastery in France, when my wife e-mailed me that she wanted to end it and end it now. I got the e-mail at the airport in Paris before my flight home as there was no e-mail available at the monastery.

When I got home she told me she wrote my spiritual director (a Benedictine monk and our abbey’s oblate director), in exasperation about all my foibles and that she’d had enough. And I have some serious ones (and so does she). Both my wife and I experienced difficult childhoods… but that’s another story. I had done the usual confession thing: go in with my “list” of sins, but it was a never-ending cycle. What I hadn’t done was confront my worst darkness; I started to do that in silent and solo meditation at a small chapel in the monastery in France.

When I heard she wrote my spiritual director I asked to meet him. I had arrived home on the Sunday and met him on Thursday morning. I just opened up my heart to him (as my wife had done in her letter). I still have no idea what she wrote him and he didn’t break her confidence. I think that’s when I really started to understand about humility and understand how I owned my issues, couldn’t blame others for them, and how I couldn’t control my wife’s response to them, I had to work on them myself.

That’s when the miracle happened. I got home (I worked from home at the time), opened up my e-mail, and there was a brief e-mail from my wife that simply said “I think we’re going to be OK.”. Nothing else. We both had to learn to accept each other as we were, it wasn’t “all about me” and we owed it to the other to work on ourselves rather than expect the other to “change”.

All I can say is that our marriage for the past two years has been blissful. The usual cycle of argument and recrimination was broken.

I’m by no means perfect, we both still wrestle with our respective sins; we have instead learned to be patient with the other. The Rule of St. Benedict has been especially helpful in teaching how to live with the foibles of others. But I have a sense of conversion. Confession has taken on a whole other meaning to me now, where it is a means of learning to live with my flaws, to accept myself as I am, to forgive myself as well as ask God’s forgiveness, to trust that forgiveness, and thus, to feel those flaws losing their grip on my life.

My point is that at one point all the intellect and catechesis in the world didn’t help my wife and I become better Christians. I believe the direct hand of God was involved. A real, palpable and direct interaction in our lives that operated on our hearts rather than our intellect.

Do I trust my emotions to enough to know God touched me? Not always. But in this case, I sure as heck do believe my emotions were spot on. It happened because we finally truly opened ourselves up to trust him. I remember thinking on the plane home how calm I felt, after the initial shock of reading her e-mail, thinking I had no other option but to trust Him to get me through this crisis. When I really turned my life over to His care when was when I really started to understand what salvation. And what it isn’t about, and it isn’t about being able to rattle off the catechism responses one learns by rote.

This is such a glorious, encouraging post. Thanks so much for sharing. And thanks for all your work on this thread.

 

[OraLabora]

I did his read his posts. It was just way too much to respond to, and I think he could have said the same thing much more succinctly making it easier to respond.

However, I did want to make the ponts that I did, that he was well catechized as he said and even though he downplays the importance of catechesis, that is most likely a major factor in the positive outcomes in his life. So, no, I couldn’t have just said: “tl;dr.” If you look at my post, you will see that.

Yes, I know I have posted more than anyone else here, but I don’t think any of my inividual posts have been too long to respond to, since people seem to have no problem responding to them, although I must admit most of it has been negative. If anyone does agree with me, they’re keeping mum. And each time I have posted, it has been to answer someone else

Interesting Star Trek analogy. I guess I do tend more toward logic and not emotion. I find emotion to be very misleading. Emotion should be the by-product of logic, and not the other way around.

Please don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t downplay the importance of catechesis. As I noted I self-catechized. The discussion centers on the Baltimore Catechism, and its “challenge-and-response” rote-learning style. It is that style of catechesis that I am not in agreement with. It didn’t work for me, and I know it didn’t work for many others because my entire generation, formed with that type of catechesis, was essentially lost except for a few trickling home. In my case I had to relearn everything as I didn’t retain it.

As for emotion: I was educated and worked as a scientist and now as an IT analyst in the sunset years of my career. Logic plays a very important role for me. However, I was masking my emotions. God gave us both, intellect and emotions. We have to learn to keep both in balance. All intellect, or all emotion, is not good though we all exist at various points on the scale. I’ve known too many people who suppress their emotions and end up very miserable as a result, even though on the surface they are nearly perfect Catholics (I knew a monk like that and he left the monastery).

I don’t know where this notion comes from that “one size fits all” when it comes to human development. I see Human Resources departments make the same mistake, assuming that everyone comes from the same cookie-cutter, and if they don’t, by God they’ll force them to fit by brainwashing them to the “corporate culture”. One size does not fit all. One has to tailor the message to include everyone.

There hope that’s brief enough

 

[TimothyH]

I am talking about emotion without knowledge. If we base our spirituality only on what we feel, we are very vulnerable to the enemy. Our Lord has given uis a brain and expects us to use it. I can only point back to the story of of Philip asking the Ethiopian eunuch as he read scripture, "Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest? " and the eunuch replying: "And how can I, unless some man shew me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.

I do not confuse the Holy Spirit with emotionalism, but I fear that many people do. Of course I have had very emotional moments in my spiritual life. Coming back to the Catholic church after 38 years and realizing that I was quite literally at the gates of hell and being snatched back through the mercy of God is an unbelievably emotional experience. Of course I know the Holy Spirit is real. But I don’t know that purely through my emotions. I do not trust my heart. My heart has led me astray time and time again during my life.

You have been arguing with me during this whole thread. Many posts back I asked you a specific question and all you gave me was a sarcastic answer. Now you tell me you are not opposed to catechesis, although you make such statements as “Catechesis is facts. Facts don’t build faith. Faith is trusting God, and all the facts in the world don’t teach people faith. All the facts in the world don’t teach people to trust God.” I completely and totally disagree with that statement. The main reason I trust God is because, through catechesis, I learned that he emptied himself out for me, came to earth and died a bloody death on the cross so that I can be saved from hell. I didn’t learn that through emotionalism. I learned that through catechesis, and that built my faith.

As one of your examples of how catechesis doesn’t work, you said: “St. Paul was perhaps the best catechized character in the Bible, and he persecuted the Church visciously until God acted in his life on the road to Damascus.:” The Apostle Paul knew the Jewish religion when he was persecuting the Church. Then he was converted, taken away for 3 years while he was taught by Christ personally - catechized - and came back as the greatest apostle. I could use the word “disingenuous” to describe your statement, as someone did with me, but I don’t think you were guilty of that. You just don’t know your facts because you haven’t been properly taught. Do you think Paul could have done the great works he did without being properly catechized? How do we teach what we don’t know?

I am very glad to hear that you are not opposed to catechesis and not opposed to the teaching of the last four things, although earlier in this thread you jumped down my throat because I said that the misery on this earth is not the same as hell. Maybe if the last four things had been taught, you would have understood what I was saying and not gotten on your high horse as you did.

If and when I am in heaven with Jesus Christ, then as you say, the catechisms of this world will beome “mere straw” because then I will have the reality and no longer be fighting my sinful human nature. Until then, as a sinful human being, I need instruction and guidance. How do I even examine my conscience without catechesis? Fortunately, the Church knows this, even though you seem to place little importance on it. I have the BC, the current Catechism of the church, the Catechism of Trent, and 2000 years of spiritual reading and teaching, and I need them all. I struggle each and every day to stay on the straight and narrow road to heaven. Knowledge of our Lord and His Great Sacrifice is vital to my salvation.

You seem to be all over the place, first making one statement and then contradicting it with another. Maybe, like me, you need catechesis.

BTW, the verse you quoted is basically the definition of what it means to be Christian, that is, the Trinity abiding in us. By saying, “You should pray that you be given that gift if you have not”, are you implying that I am not Christian?

I never jumped down your throat. I’m sorry you think that.

-Tim-

 

[Cat]

I’m finding this thread to be unbelievable. The OP, way back, writes and says why can’t we still use the Baltimore Catechism. It served the church for well for generations, helped us all to learn what the church teaches,and then anyone who supports that view gets pounded You call me factious, someone else tells me I’m disingeneous. I have been hit right and left on this thread.

You, Cat, did not answer my posts at all. When you are ready to address the specific issues that I brought up in my post to you, I will answer you. The Church is in a deep spiritual crisis, and I can only repeat that if you do not see it, you are not facing reality. That is not to say that there are not many good devout Catholics doing many wonderful things. I know quite a few of them myself. I am proud and honored to know many good Catholics, many good priests.

But I am also not deluding myself that the majority of Catholics have no idea what the Church teaches, and even worse, they don’t care.

We cannot solve the great problems in the church unless we are willing to face them. I don’t believe you want to face up to the reality of the state of far too many Catholics and the state of our world. We really have nothing more to discuss as long as you ignore the facts that I have pointed out to you.

Forgive me if I have failed to answer your posts.

What do you want me to say? That the Church has problems? Of course She does. I know that. I would be foolish to deny it.

Do you want me to say that the Church should chuck all of Her current teaching methods and return to what was done 50 years ago? I will NOT say that. I will trust the bishops and the pope to tell the Church what to teach and how to teach it. I will NOT presume to tell these illustrious servants of Christ what to do!

I do not see the Church the way you apparently see it. I don’t think I ever will, because to me and my husband, the Church is our beacon, our “saving place.”

My husband and I spent the first 47 years of our lives in evangelical Protestant churches, and we loved it all. We thought we knew the truth. We certainly did know Jesus Christ, and learned to love Him. We worked hard, and were in the church or involved with some church project 5-6 days/evenings per week. We LOVED our friends in our churches, and met many wonderful people, including missionaries who had been tortured for their faith.

We were involved in many successful ministries over the decades, and could have easily been finalists for “Evangelicals of Evangelicals.” Ever watch the Simpsons on TV? We were like Ned Flanders–that was us!

But then an unbelievable (but true) series of occurrences led to us being ousted from our church (during a tribunal that was called by our church).

We went from being happy and busy 7 days a week in church life to NOTHING. For the first time in decades, since we were toddlers, we were actually home on Wednesday nights and turned on the television.

We had nothing, no lives. We still had our faith in Jesus. We trusted Him only, but no man or woman after the horrible way we had been mistreated by people we thought were good.

We didn’t even trust the Bible anymore. I stopped reading it–this was unthinkable, but I could no longer trust a book that had been used to justify treating me and my husband and our daughters with such cruelty. At this point in my life, I believe that the doctrine of sola Scriptura was created by Satan himself, and is a doctrine of hell.

To make a long story short, we found the Catholic Church–or should I say, SHE found us. Praise God forever!

This dear Church, the True Church of Jesus Christ, became a beautiful castle to us after our scourging in the evangelical Protestant world. It truly was a Light in a very very dark place.

Brooklyn, maybe for you, the Church is a miserable place. But not to us. Yes, of course we recognize that the Church has problems and yes, we have met some pretty sorry Catholics.

But we also recognize that this Church IS and ALWAYS WILL BE the Church that Jesus Christ founded. Jesus still works through the Catholic Church and He always will.

We have also met so many MANY good and faithful Catholics in our parish and in other parishes–we simply can’t look at the Church of Christ with such a gloomy outlook as you have. To us, She is glorious.

 

[Seeker1961]

Please don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t downplay the importance of catechesis. As I noted I self-catechized. The discussion centers on the Baltimore Catechism, and its “challenge-and-response” rote-learning style. It is that style of catechesis that I am not in agreement with. It didn’t work for me, and I know it didn’t work for many others because my entire generation, formed with that type of catechesis, was essentially lost except for a few trickling home. In my case I had to relearn everything as I didn’t retain it.

As for emotion: I was educated and worked as a scientist and now as an IT analyst in the sunset years of my career. Logic plays a very important role for me. However, I was masking my emotions. God gave us both, intellect and emotions. We have to learn to keep both in balance. All intellect, or all emotion, is not good though we all exist at various points on the scale. I’ve known too many people who suppress their emotions and end up very miserable as a result, even though on the surface they are nearly perfect Catholics (I knew a monk like that and he left the monastery).

I don’t know where this notion comes from that “one size fits all” when it comes to human development. I see Human Resources departments make the same mistake, assuming that everyone comes from the same cookie-cutter, and if they don’t, by God they’ll force them to fit by brainwashing them to the “corporate culture”. One size does not fit all. One has to tailor the message to include everyone.

There hope that’s brief enough

It’s interesting to me because while I had the BC in my school, friends of mine who grew up around the same time did not-and I can count on one hand how many of those folks are still Catholic. Most of them are either unchurched entirely, or they are now Protestants because that more closely images what they were taught. From that admittedly anecdotal evidence, I thought that perhaps my friends and I who had that firm foundation built by memorizing those facts of the faith stayed in the Church. I did take some time off, but it was only 5 years. Others in my age group “finished” after Confirmation. Then, I looked at my now 26 year old godchild, who still considers herself Catholic and occasionally goes to Mass, but despite my best efforts is a nominal Catholic. Her religious education was severely lacking in my eyes, and since I’m only the godmother, I didn’t have as much influence as I had hoped. Her father is Catholic, but rarely attends Church-another product of the post-BC era.