Today, every significant religious education program in this country has gone through a “conformity process” of review and correction, a collaboration that engaged the bishops’ conference, experts, and publishers. They demanded it be a well-utilized reference, not placed forgotten on a shelf. bishops waged a steady pressure campaign to root religious instruction in the catechism. In the world of religious education, the U.S. After all, the debates that spawned the need for such a book did not end with its arrival. The publication of the catechism was not immediately embraced by everyone. One flaw is a maddeningly inadequate index, still not fixed after 30 years. It’s a sizable book, about 900 pages, with paragraphs numbered for reference and a glossary as well. Gregory of Nazianzus: “We must remember God more often than we draw breath.” But it then adds, “we cannot pray ‘at all times’ if we do not pray at specific times,” launching a presentation on types of prayer. “Prayer is the life of the new heart,” one section begins, and quotes St. That fourth section on prayer was particularly pastoral and meditative. One friend of mine, upon reading it for the first time, called it “lyrical.” Divided into four parts, its pillars were the profession of faith, the sacraments, the moral teachings, and prayer. It sought to communicate not just the breadth and depth, but also the beauty of the Church’s teachings.įor those who have a distant memory of rote learning as typified by the Baltimore Catechism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church was a surprise. It drew heavily on the Fathers of the Church and Scripture as well as Church documents. But the catechism itself reflected the spirit of the council. Two decades after the council, there was a felt need among Church leaders for an authoritative compendium of what the Church taught. ![]() Pope John Paul II wanted to create the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I think of my mom’s question. But for many Catholics, the changes, both superficial and significant, were dizzying. ![]() If there had been no council, I firmly believe, the Church would have been in much worse shape in the tumultuous years that followed. Yet her question, for me, was an example of the confusion that did exist in that period of upheaval and change that followed the council (and that simultaneously was taking place in much of the rest of the world.) Vatican II was a gift of the Holy Spirit. She lived for a time in a lay Christian community long before the Second Vatican Council, and she was a part of the English liturgy movement, also before the council. My mom had been well formed in the faith. It was a question my mom asked me a few years after I started working as a Catholic journalist.
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