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Catechetical Books: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Associate Pastor's Column
Sunday, October 1, 2006

OK, so you open your child’s new religious ed book for this year, and you find this: “A prayer tradition: Hindus use mechanical aids such as prayer wheels.”

I’m sure we have all seen catechetical programs that are anything but Catholic. The books are colorful and have lots of clown pictures, full of insipid stories; the students are asked to “share” with no notion of boundaries or privacy; teachers get the kids to do lots of arts and crafts (I even know of one 8th grade class where the children were given Tinker Toys and commanded to “build their own Church); and nothing is learned. If schools taught Math or Science like this, the parents would be protesting in the streets.

Shortly before entering the Archdiocesan seminary, I taught 10th grade religion and Spanish at a local Detroit high school. On the first day of class, I quickly discovered that the youth did NOT know what the Trinity was, what the theological virtues were, and they had no notion of grace or sacraments or inspiration or conscience or dogma.

Catechesis is the education in the faith of children, young people and adults. In America, it is, in most cases, used as an effective tool for destroying the faith instead of building it. Msgr Michael Wrenn wrote two excellent studies on the matter, Flawed Expectations and Catechisms and Controversies, books which are a real call to reform catechesis, so that it recovers its role of passing on the teachings of the Apostles.

A friend of mine from a nearby diocese was given a book to use as the course textbook to 6th grade students. Here are some excerpts: “What Do you Do???? You friend just found out he is HIV-positive. What do you do?” “The following is a list of gods and goddesses ancient Greeks and Romans worshiped....” “A prayer tradition: Five times each day devout Muslims stop whatever they are doing, turn toward Mecca, kneel with their forehead touching the ground, and offer prayers to Allah…” “A prayer tradition: The followers of Sufism, a division of the religion of Islam, practice a sacred dance. In this dance they spin around rapidly until they enter a trance…” “A prayer tradition: Hindus use mechanical aids such as payer wheels…” “The following is a version of Psalm 23, translated for Native Americans by an unknown missioner: The Great Father Above is a Shepherd Chief; I am his and I want not. He hold out to me a rope and the name of that rope is Love. And he draws me and he draws me…” This last quote is written over a picture of an Indian feather ritual. Oh, then there’s the whole section dedicated to Zen Buddhism. All this in the hands of tender 6th grade students.

My friend called these passages to the attention of the DRE and pastor, neither of whom actually looked through the books, but, to their credit, they were shocked and retracted the New Age, relativist books.

I’m very happy that our cluster will be hosting a catechesis program at St. Josephs for confirmation students. We already have twelve students, with a number of parents who are still thinking about it. The course will prepare these youth for the sacrament of confirmation. Some will be confirmed in 2007, some in 2008. A couple have already been confirmed but their parents want them to get a more serious catechesis, concerned that perhaps their children got something like the textbook we just mentioned as their primary source. I’m also very happy that these students will learn a lot about their faith, more than their peers, and that their families are all good examples of how to put the Catholic faith into practice.

The dates of the course are on our parish web calendar, http://saint-joseph-detroit.org/calendar/month.php, the second and fourth Wednesday of each month until the end of May. We will be using sources Rome gave us: Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Compendium. I have ordered a text book from Ignatius Press designed for Confirmation candidates, and I will study it to see whether it will be profitable for us.

Therefore pray and do penance for the many Catholic children scandalously exposed to such weird catechetical programs as sixth grade books which introduce them to Zen Buddhism. And if you have a seventh, eighth or ninth grader who could use a dynamic course in which to learn solid Catholic truth, don’t forget to sign them up before October 2 in our cluster’s program.

Picture: The Holy See published this superb summary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in question and answer form. Both the Catechism and the Compendium should be standard books of every Catholic home’s library.