A Sexagesima Sunday Thought About Our Catechism(s)

It's Sexigesima Sunday in the traditional Church Liturgical calendar. We're being reminded that Lent is coming. Prepare.

This past week I read an article about the current state of our catechism(s). There have been more than one catechism in recent decades, the latest and greatest being the Catehcism of the Catholic Church ("CCC"). Go over to Crisis Magazine if you want to read all about it.

Growing up, we were taught from the Baltimore Catechism (Age Alert! Age Alert!). The format was Question-Answer. The nuns who taught us (Sisters of Charity) drilled us over and over and over. Since those bygone days, that approach has come under criticism. It was "robotic," this memorization approach. I've heard this (or some related variation) from acquaintances. These weren't experts, just ordinary folks. The tone of the criticism comes with a kind of "I was oppressed" patina. Really?

As a Catholic who spent considerable years wandering in a religious desert, you might think that - at least in my wandering years - I might be "sympatico" with that attitude. Wrong. I always got the point of the drilling and memorization. And today's children, subjected to whatever the current main stream catechesis has been, demonstrate conclusively that the Sisters had it right. 

Even after years in the desert, the fundamentals never escaped me. And when I finally worked my way - slowly, but surely - back to the practice of my Catholic Religion, there was a base from which I could launch myself from the desert sands, like a rocket headed for the heavens - actually, of course, for Heaven.

All those drills, all that repetition and memorization built a foundation, a solid base, upon which I could begin to rebuild the practice of my Catholic Religion that I had dismantled and left almost in ruins for so many years. 

What of our children today? Are they receiving the bricks, the mortar they need to build a solid base upon which to build the practice of their Catholic Religion? Maybe this will help answer the question: 

Imagine hiring someone whom you believe is a skilled mason. You charge him with building a new staircase leading to the front door of the home you just bought. The old one is beyond repair, the victim of age and neglect by the previous owner. The mason shows up with a sack of cement and some bricks. You observe him, expecting to witness an expert at work. Instead, he dumps a couple of wheelbarrows of bricks in front of your door, rips open the sack of cement, scatters it over the bricks, and pours water over the whole mess. The mason announces he's completed his job and waits for payment.

Crazy, eh?

So many of our children have been catechized in the same way. And they've been left with a lump of bricks and mortar, piled haphazardly, then soaked in water - similar to the work of our rogue mason. When you look at it, you can't make anything of it. And neither can the kids.

Because we home-schooled our own children, I didn't really understand how awful catechesis in this country (and the world?) was at first. We tried to teach our kids their religion, catechism included - in a straight-forward manner similar to my Baltimore Catechism days. Over time, however, the truth began to emerge through a combination of observation and my own occasional reading of commentary from reliable Catholic sources.

One clear and simple example of observation would take place every First Friday, when my wife and I would attend morning Mass. The grammar school children attended and would be seated in the front of the church, adults behind. So you could see how little they seemed to understand and respond to the various parts of the Mass. They did not genuflect getting into or out of their pews. They received Communion in the hand in a kind of casual, distracted, sometimes even irreverent manner. I could go on, but you likely get the point. Besides, its a bit disconcerting just thinking about it all.

Now add some of the points made in the article we referenced above, especially those related to various "changes" being made to the current Catechism. Such "fluidity" does not lend itself to having confidence that what you're learning is truth with a capital "T." If things can be changed or switched as they have been lately, can we really take seriously what the rest of the Catechism teaches? Maybe some of that will change too. Why bother to learn and retain what we learn?

If this concerns you - and it should - here's a suggestion: Why not get yourself a copy of that old Baltimore Catechism and study it. Or you could consider getting a copy of the venerable Catechism of the Council of Trent - first published in the 16th century. The Trent Catechism was published after the nuclear explosion and destruction of the unity of the Church perpetrated by Martin Luther and the various other Protestant "reformers." It was designed to instruct Catholic pastors and priests in the certain truths of the Faith, with solid recommendations about how to communicate these to the faithful.

Despite my being grounded reasonably well since my return to the practice of my Catholic Religion, I've recently taken up a steady reading of the Catechism of the Council of Trent. It's been like sipping a fine vintage red wine. I heartily recommend it (as well as the wine).

The lack of solid catechesis now manifests itself in the huge percentage of people claiming to be Catholic who simply have no idea what our Holy Religion teaches. And the worst manifestation of this comes when you observe their clueless children. It's painful to witness. Someone will bear responsibility.

So on this Sexagesima Sunday, if any of this matters, and if you could use a thorough tune-up of your own knowledge of your Catholic Faith, pull out your old Baltimore Catechism or go and find a pdf of the Catechism of the Council of Trent on the internet. Take some time to launch yourself into ongoing study. You could do this just on Sundays. Or maybe a few times a week. And, hey, Lent would be good time to get going with this, right?

Happy Sexagesima Sunday!