a tour of the catechism of the catholic church

Tour of the Catechism

A tour of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in about 72 ten minute segments by Fr. Daniel Mahan, pastor of St. John the Apostle Church in Bloomington, IN

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The New Catechism of the Catholic Church

The New Catchism of the Catholic Church

Fabian W. Bruskewitz, S.T.D.

In 1985, our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, summoned an extraordinary session of the International Synod of Bishops. This was to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, which concluded in 1965. The purpose of this extraordinary assembly was to see what effect the Council had on the Universal Church in the twenty years that had passed since its closing. In the course of that extraordinary assembly of the International Synod of bishops, a proposal was made by Bernard Cardinal Law, the Archbishop of Boston, to issue a universal catechism, a compendium of the Catholic Faith.

In his remarks, His Eminence, Cardinal Law, pointed out that young people in Boston, St. Petersburg (at that time called Lenigrad) and Santiago in Chile, all enjoyed the same culture. They wore blue jeans and listened to the same kind of music. There was no reason then, the Cardinal pointed out, why they could not also have a certain uniformity in their appreciation and acceptance of Catholic doctrine.

The Cardinal was picking up on a very strong suggestion made in several learned papers delivered in Paris and Lyon in France by Josef Cardinal Ratzinger in 1983, in which His Eminence focused attention on the breakdown of organic catechetics which has taken place since the late 1960's. Cardinal Ratzinger said, "One no longer has the courage to present the Faith as an organic whole in itself, but only as selected reflections of partial anthropological experiences founded in a certain distrust of the totality. It is to be explained by a crisis of the Faith, or more exactly, of the common Faith of the Church of all times."

On June 22, 1994, the English-speaking world began to enjoy the fruit of the intervention of Cardinal Law in 1985, and of the far-sighted and fore-sighted speeches of Cardinal Ratzinger in 1983.

Pope John Paul II, in issuing the Catechism stated:

A catechism must present faithfully and organically the teaching of Sacred Scripture, the living Tradition of the Church, and the authentic Magisterium, as well as the spiritual heritage of the Fathers and saints of the Church, in order to allow the Christian mystery to be known and to revive the faith of God's people. It must take into account the presentations of doctrine which the Holy Spirit has entrusted to the Church over the centuries. It must also help to illumine with the light of faith the new situations and problems which have not been posed in the past. The Catechism, therefore, contains both the new and the old, for the Faith is always the same and the source of ever new lights (Apostolic Constitution, Fidei Depositum, no. 2).

The text of the Catechism itself says: "This Catechism stresses the presentation of doctrine. Its aim is to aid in deepening the knowledge of the Faith. By doing so, it is meant to increase the maturity of the Faith, to root Faith in life, and to make it evident through personal witness."

Catechisms and the Catechism

The Catechism with which we are, perhaps, most familiar in pre- Vatican Council days, is known as the Baltimore Catechism. This catechism was collaborated on by the Bishops of the United States in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, which took place in 1884. It was put together and finally issued in 1885 by Cardinal Gibbons who, at the time, was the head of the American hierarchy. It took the American Bishops from 1829 to 1885 to put together the Baltimore Catechism, which in turn, derived from what was called the Roman Catechism or the Catechism of the Council of Trent. This document, similar to the Catechism of the Catholic Church which came out on June 22, 1994, was issued in 1565 by Pope Saint Pius V, and was to be the basis of various national catechisms and textbooks.

The Baltimore Catechism was set out in a question-and-answer format, and while its focus and emphasis was not necessarily that which contemporary pedagogues would appreciate, or for that matter, some theologians, liturgists, Scripture scholars and others, it did have the great advantage of being a more or less complete skeletal outline of the Catholic Faith. Although it was often presented in books that lacked illustrations and were dry-both in the graphic presentation of the material and in the way it was presented-the Baltimore Catechism should not be faulted since it also had many advantages, and it certainly formed and trained many generations of Catholics in our country in a correct knowledge of our holy religion.

The Baltimore Catechism, which was issued in 1885, was revised by a committee of American Bishops in 1941, and it was set out in a formula that geared it to various educational levels. It also was, at that time, permitted to be a basis for other catechetical presentations in the United States, and, consequently, enjoyed a more vigorous revival in the decades immediately preceding the Second Vatican Council.

Catechesis in Church History

The history of catechisms in the Catholic Church goes back to the very earliest days of the Church. There is a document called the Didache, which sets out in a rather systematic way the beliefs, practices, and moral imperatives of the early Christians. The Didache dates from the end of the first century, and so, it is an extraordinarily ancient type of catechetical document.

The earliest Fathers of the Church frequently set out a series of catechetical instructions to be used mainly in pre-baptismal preparation; that is to say, in the first centuries of the Church, most people who became Catholics were already adults, and, as a result, they had to undergo a catechumenate or a preparation for Baptism which included instruction in belief, in practice, in prayer and in Christian life, before they were accepted into the Church. It was generally presumed that the children of such converts, who were themselves baptized in infancy, would be instructed by the families who had received a thorough catechetical preparation for Baptism.

Among the Fathers of the Church, the most significant in the development of catechetics and catechisms was St. Augustine, who wrote a classic work called, De Catechizandis Rudibus, or "How to Catechize the Ignorant," linking salvation history to faith, to hope, and ultimately to charity. It was presumed in St. Augustine's work that ignorant people who were instructed in the Faith would themselves provide home instruction to their children, and that this instruction would be supplemented by liturgical homilies in church.

St. Gregory the Great, the first Pope who bore that name, also was an important figure in catechetical development. He wrote a series of "Books of Dialogue" which expressed to pastors, parents, and teachers the proper way of handing down the Faith, as well as giving to these people the content of the Faith. He also wrote a book of pastoral regulations for Bishops and for priests, and a long series of pastoral homilies which contain catechetical material of great significance.

It must be remembered that the art of printing with movable type was invented by John Gutenberg in approximately 1450, and until that time books were extremely rare, and frequently were only in manuscript form, and extremely expensive. As a result, illiteracy was far more widespread than even today in the Third World. This meant that for many people their catechetical instruction came, not so much from books, but the living word passed on in families, and also, passed on in the liturgy. The readings from Scripture in liturgy and the sermons of great length were, in the pre-television, pre- entertainment, pre-radio age, a source of fascination and enjoyment for large numbers of people, as well as a source of instruction.

The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were in themselves a living catechism. The statuary and the magnificent stained glass windows were books of the Bible as well as books of catechism for the people who regularly attended Mass in these beautiful and splendid buildings. By simply going about buildings such as the Cathedral of Cologne, or the Cathedral of Milan, or the Cathedral of Bruges, or the Cathedral of Brussels, or the Cathedral of Rouen, one could find an entire compendium of the Catholic Faith and of the story of salvation history centered on Jesus Christ. As printing came into vogue and paper was more widely and readily available, books of catechetical material became widely diffused throughout the Church.

Great missionary saints, such as St. Bede, St. Alquin, and St. Boniface, were extraordinary catechists. Even great geniuses who worked in the theological sciences, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, also popularized the content of our faith and were known for writing and diffusing catechetical instructions. The Mendicant Orders, that is, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and similar groups that arose in the high Middle Ages, were particularly effective in spreading the Faith, and in assisting those who already believed, to have a better grasp of their faith through catechetical knowledge.

It was in the Middle Ages where the distinction became blurred between what we might call "evangelization" and "catechetics." In Scripture, one can see a very clear line between what is called kerygma and didache, kerygma being the proclamation or announcement of faith to those who do not yet believe. This proclamation must be done, of course, in a fascinating, interesting, and coherent way, so that logic and beauty coincide and help bring one to belief. Didache, on the other hand, is something that succeeds kerygma. Once one believes and accepts the Faith, then examination of that Faith in its entirety-its implications and its history, and so on-must be set forward in a systematic and regular way.

These two concepts of kerygma and didache correspond, more or less, to the concepts of evangelization and catechetics, evangelization being the initial approach to people with the Gospel of Christ, and catechesis being the completion and crowning of the work of evangelization. These distinctions, even in our day, are not always well-maintained, and perhaps, they should not be, since obviously, evangelization must contain catechesis and catechesis must be deeply involved in the structure of evangelization.

One of the deplorable developments in the history of the Church was the decline in religious knowledge in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Clergy were frequently unworthy of their calling and were often selected, at least in the lower ranks, from ignorant classes, education of the clergy being sometimes of a minimal sort, and occasionally being more worldly, secular, and profane than theological and doctrinally complete. Lay people themselves oftentimes walked in ignorance and superstition. This matrix or soil was very fertile for the Protestant Revolution, and when attacks against the Faith were made by the so-called "Reformers," large numbers of bishops, clergy and lay people were led astray for many reasons, not in the least because of their failure to grasp in a systematic, organic and complete way, the realities of our Catholic Faith.

The need for catechists became very acute at the time of the Protestant Revolution. This was particularly the case because Martin Luther was a very skilled propagandist, as well as an excellent user of the newly-invented art of printing. He was also a good pedagogue and a master of the German language. This enabled him to propagate his ideas by means of catechetical instruction. The Catholic answer in catechetics came from such people as St. Peter Canisius. He was the paramount Catholic catechist of the 16th century, and he formulated what later became the standard procedure for catechetical activity: he issued under his studious care a large catechism, also called "a major catechism," which was a rather exhaustive compendium of the teaching of the Catholic Church. Then he issued, deriving from the large catechism, a smaller catechism which was put in question- and-answer form, and which was meant to be a popular textbook, intended to be widely diffused among the laity for their instruction. The major catechism was intended mainly for teachers, catechists and the clergy; the smaller catechism was meant as a summary or precis of the larger catechism and intended for wider diffusion.

The Council of Trent, which was summoned to confront the crisis that the Protestant revolt brought about in Christianity, intended to draft two catechisms-one for the learned, and one to be for the unlettered and children. Only the first was completed in 1566. The purpose of this catechism was to communicate the realization "that all Christian knowledge and eternal life is to know Jesus Christ, that to know Christ is to keep His commandments, and to know that charity is the end of the commandments and the fulfillment of the law."

This catechism of the Council of Trent was the basis for the Roman Catechism issued by Saint Pius V in 1565, and later revised and issued again in 1583 by Pope Gregory XIII. The Catechism of the Council of Trent particularly, because of its completeness and its doctrinal orthodoxy and integrity, was strongly recommended by Pope Leo XIII, Pope St. Pius X and Pope Pius XI.

Many catechisms, especially those issued by great saints such as St. Vincent de Paul, St. John Baptist de la Salle, and St. Robert Bellarmine, were based on the Roman Catechism, as were the various national catechisms issued through the centuries, such as our own Baltimore Catechism.

Furthermore, the Roman Catechism remains of great value and has a great deal in common with the new Catechism of the Catholic Church which Pope John Paul II has issued.

Around 1770, Bishop Richard Challoner, an English Catholic Bishop, issued an "Abridgement of Christian Doctrine" which is a summary of the Catechism of the Council of Trent in simple, direct English, and this was the basis of what was called for many years the "Penny Catechism." It was intended for ordinary people written in a way that could be easily understood, and was widely diffused, not only in Great Britain and the British Isles, but throughout the English- speaking world, including the United States.

The Catechetical Renewal

Beginning in the 1930's, but gaining momentum and reaching a climax in the late 1950's and early 1960's, something called "the catechetical renewal" took place in large areas in the Church. There was a new and revised interest in certain areas of ecclesiastical life. There was a "Scriptural renewal" and "liturgical renewal" with efforts to revive, renew, and reinvigorate many aspects of Church life, particularly catechetics. Social justice teachings were also particularly vivid in the minds of many people.

It was clear by the 1930's that large areas of the working classes of Europe, the environs of the great cities such as Paris and Madrid, had been lost to the Church through Marxism, socialism, secularism, and growing materialism. Large numbers of people found the catechetical instruction, as it was given, to be irrelevant, uninteresting, and monotonous. Ardent people with pastoral zeal- sometimes correct and sometimes misguided-attempted to make catechetical instruction more interesting, beautiful, enticing, so that the intellectual content of the catechisms could be more easily apprehended. There began to grow, unfortunately, a certain dichotomy or separation between what was called "content" and "presentation." Some people in the Church began to question whether the "nicer presentations" were not being done at the expense of content and integrity, whereas other people were questioning whether people were grasping the content of the Faith because of the dry presentations that were being made of it. Obviously, content and presentation can be done together so that the presentation can be done beautifully, wholesomely, and appealingly at the same time that the content is integrally presented.

The Second Vatican Council made an impact on the Church, and much of the inspiration of the liturgical, Scriptural and catechetical renewal was incorporated into the sixteen documents of the Council. Almost immediately after the Council catechetical revisions began to be made wholesale. There was widespread discarding, frequently by teachers, of the previously sound catechisms. These were exchanged throughout the entire world for catechisms that were of a different nature and sometimes of questionable quality.

This changeover, along with the cultural shock that came from the vernacular in the liturgy and other "innovations," unleashed many people from their moorings, and caused them to question even essential doctrines, beliefs, and practices of the Faith. Many began to say "I do not know what I am to believe anymore." Unfortunately, the bishops and other clergy were also sometimes infected by certain kinds of slogans and shallow thinking. Occasionally, especially in America, the slogan "new and better" became an outlook in religious matters, so that everything that was "new" was thereby declared to be "better." Some bishops and pastors of the Church were concerned about this matter, and consequently there was a great deal of interest in regularizing and systematizing the general situation of catechetics.

The problem of inculturation also came to bear on catechetics. The Second Vatican Council was sensitive to the variety of cultures in the world, and although human nature is the same, the culture in which this human nature is lived is quite different in one part of the world or another. It is quite one thing to live in the culture of the aeronautical and space technology laboratory of California, and to live in the jungles of Rwanda and Burundi in Central Africa. Cultural variations came to bear rather systematically on catechetics, and the baby was sometimes thrown out with the bath water, i.e., some persons who were involved in catechetical matters maintain that this or that is not pertinent or relevant to a particular culture. That might be agreeable if "this or that" were an accidental or superficial aspect of our religion; but when it became essential or basic to our religion, it was quite another issue.

In Africa, for example, monogamy was sometimes discarded because people maintained that one man having many wives was part of the African culture, and therefore the Gospel had to adapt to the ways of Africa. In the United States, many people maintained that contraception and contraceptive sterilization are a basic part of our American culture, and that we must discard that aspect of catechesis which teaches the inherent evil of such practices.

This confusion resulted in the issuance by the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome, which is the department of the Holy See in charge of catechetics, of a General Catechetical Directory, and then each country was invited to issue a national catechetical directory, adapting the General Catechetical Directory to the culture of the country. These catechetical directories were designed principally for the people involved in catechesis; catechetical content was also contained in the directories.

Many people used the occasion of the Second Vatican Council to spread abroad a whole series of ideas, some of which were far removed from the Council and far removed from the Catholic Faith itself. Alarmed by these developments, our present Holy Father summoned the Bishops of the world through the International Synod of Bishops, to gather in Rome and consider the entire matter of catechetics. Following that session of the International Synod of Bishops, the Pope issued a document called Catechesis Tradendae, which summarized, synthesized and presented very dearly what the bishops and the Holy Father agreed upon, as necessary structures in regard to catechetics.

The new Catechism of the Catholic Church should be read and understood in the light of its history, especially Catechesis Tradendae and the General Catechetical Directory.

The Structure of the Catechism

What is the structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church? There is a four-fold structure following what has been since the earliest days of the Church the way in which the catechism is presented. The first part sets forth the mystery of faith, that is, what Catholics believe. This is based on the Creed. The second part is based on the celebration of that faith, and the way in which the grace and salvation of Jesus is mediated to the world. This has to do with the Sacraments. The third part of the catechism concerns the Faith working through love as it is expressed in Christian life, that is, what we must not only believe and celebrate, but what we must do in order to be saved, and the basis of this is the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. The final part of the Catechism's structure is about how we are related in our belief, our celebration, and our action to God Himself, and this is based on prayer. The prayer structure that is used for this final section of the Catechism is the Our Father.

Thirty-nine percent of the text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is devoted to the Creed, twenty-three percent is devoted to the Sacraments, twenty-seven percent to the Commandments, and eleven percent to Prayer.

The doctrines of the Catholic Church are founded and rooted in God, Who is absolutely perfect and totally unchangeable. Consequently, the Catholic Faith is, as St. Jude tells us in the Bible, that which is "delivered once and for all to the saints" so there is a completely unchangeable element in the Catholic Faith.

Contrary to what popular press reports have sometimes indicated, the Catechism is not a revision of the Faith or some soft of list of new sins that have recently been discovered and invented. Rather, the Catechism does serve the purpose of applying the unchangeable Catholic Faith in its basic and essential elements to the new conditions and situations of our world.

The new Catechism of the Catholic Church is what would be called in old parlance a major catechism or larger catechism. This kind of greater catechism is not meant to be a catechetical textbook to be put in the hands of children and ordinary people on a regular basis. It is intended for bishops, for priests, and for catechism teachers. The Holy Father says, in presenting the Catechism:

This catechism is not intended to replace the local catechisms duly approved by ecclesiastical authorities, the diocesan bishops, and episcopal conferences, especially those that have received approval of the Holy See. It is intended to encourage and assist in the writing of new local catechisms which take into account the different situations and cultures, but which carefully guard the unity of faith and fidelity to Catholic doctrine.

This does not mean that the new catechism is not and should not be accessible to all the faithful. As a matter of fact, I would urge all to go to your Catholic bookstore and procure a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to read it carefully, to study it, and let it be along with Sacred Scripture itself, a great source of nourishment for your Catholic beliefs, establishing and helping you to intellectualize and conceptualize on a more secure basis what the Lord reveals and teaches us in and through His Catholic Church. It is not an exclusive book for bishops, priests, and catechists, although they are the focus of the publication.

There is no doubt that the Church intends the Catechism of the Catholic Church to be the criterion against which local catechisms must be judged and understood.

Characteristics of the Catechism

What are the characteristics of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church? As I mentioned before, it is structured in the basic and traditional catechetical way, that is, the Creed, Sacraments, Commandments, and Prayer. Archbishop Christoph von Schoenborn, who is the principal editor of the Catechism, which in its original language was in French, but which in its official text is to be in Latin, sets down several characteristics that mark this catechetical effort at this time in the Church's history.

The first thing that characterizes the Catechism of the Catholic Church is its principle of unity. The Catechism presents an organized synthesis of the foundations and essential content of Catholic doctrine as regards both faith and morals. Unity is a most important principle and is one of the marks of the Church itself. This does not mean dull uniformity, but that perfect kind of unity that makes us one both in time and in space.

In other words, despite our historical and cultural differences, we, approximately one billion Catholics throughout the world, believe the same essential doctrines, and when culture and the Gospel conflict, it is the culture that must be changed and evangelized. This does not mean that Western European or North American culture is to be imposed on other peoples any more than Mediterranean culture is to be imposed on us. What is does mean is that while the Gospel can wear various cultural clothes, in itself it is not meant to be transformed by culture but to be the transforming agent of culture.

The new Catechism not only unites us who are Catholics at the present time, but unites us with all those Catholics who have gone before us. Stretching back in our historic continuity the Catechism puts us in touch with the integral and complete Catholic Faith as it was given to the apostles as they have conserved and preserved it through the centuries, and as they have passed it on to us.

The second principle that guides the Catechism of the Catholic Church is what the Second Vatican Council calls the "hierarchy of truth." This does not mean there is some kind of principle of subtraction, namely, that there are some essentials in the Faith and the rest is left to free discussion or can be dismissed as not significant. What the hierarchy of truth means is that there is a principle of organic structure in the intellectual formulation of our faith. The mystery of the Blessed Trinity and the central place of Christ as well as the Creed, Sacraments, Commandments, and Prayer are the way in which the Catechism forms a common structure.

The Christocentric emphasis of the Catechism is clear from what it says:

Christ, the Incarnate Word and Son of God, is taught. Everything else is taught with reference to Him and it is Christ alone Who teaches. Anyone else teaches only to the extent that he is Christ's spokesman, enabling Christ to teach through his lips. Every catechist should be able to apply to himself the words of Jesus, "My teaching is not Mine, but that of Him who sent Me."

Again, the Catechism says: "The first and last point of reference for a catechesis will always be Jesus Christ Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. By looking to Jesus in faith, faithful Christians can hope that He will fulfill His promises in them."

Cardinal Ratzinger, speaking about this Trinitarian and Christocentric focus of the Catechism said: "The structure of catechesis appears through the principal events in the life of the Church which correspond to the essential dimensions of Christian existence. Thus is born from the earliest time a catechetical structure, the kernel of which goes back to the origins of the Church."

This was the structure that the authors of the Catechism of the Council of Trent used. That was possible because it was not a question of an artificial system, but simply of the synthesis of mnemonic material indispensable to the Faith which reflects at the same time elements vitally indispensable to the Church. The Creed, Sacraments, Commandments, and the Our Father, these four classical and master components of catechesis, have served for centuries as the depository and resume of Catholic teaching. They have also opened access to the Bible as the life of the Church. They correspond to the dimensions of Christian existence: the Creed says what we should believe and hope, the Commandments tell us what we are to do, the Sacraments and the Doctrine of the Church itself tell us how to accomplish and celebrate these things, and the Prayers tell us how to go from hope into charity.

The next characteristic of the Catechism which Archbishop von Schoenborn mentions is that of realism, realism in approaching the content of Faith. The Catechism says, "This Catechism stresses the presentation of doctrine. Its aim is to aid in deepening the knowledge of the Faith. By doing so, it is meant to increase the maturity of the Faith to root faith in life, and to make it evident through personal witness."

The Catechism also states:

We do not believe in formulas but in the realities they express and which allow us to grasp them. Still, we do approach these realities with the help of formulations of the Faith. These permit us to express and to transmit the Faith, to celebrate it in community, to assimilate it, and through it to live ever more fully.

What the Holy Father wants, then, with this new Catechism of the Catholic Church, is that all of us, his children, children of God and people of God, will have the opportunity to possess in its fullness what is called "the Deposit of Faith." In First Timothy, St. Paul says, "Guard the deposit." In Second Timothy, he says, "Guard the noble deposit." In introducing the Catechism, Pope John Paul II says, "Guarding the deposit of Faith is the mission which the Lord entrusted to His Church and which He fulfills in every age."

This is why the Pope says, "The new Catechism of the Catholic Church is the Church itself calling on us to entrust to young Catholics once more the deposit that is their rightful inheritance."

The Usefulness of the Catechism

Now, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church is a book that should be on the shelf of every Catholic family that wants to be current in ecclesiastical matters. Of course, it is not the kind of book with which one curls up on a cold winter night and reads in one or two sittings. It is a book of reference, and a book that requires a considerable amount of thought and discussion.

The way the Catechism is arranged is particularly useful because at the end of each significant section, there is a brief summary of that section, in short, encapsulated statements. This enables the larger text to be somewhat compressed and synthesized. Obviously, it would be a loss simply to refer to these brief summaries at the end of each chapter rather than to the fullness of the Catechism itself, which has an incredibly rich content.

Owning and using a copy of the new Catechism will enable an educated Catholic to obtain once more a grasp of the Faith, and an authentic interpretation of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and I might add, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. We all know quite well that not only Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, but the teachings of the Council itself have been subject to considerable distortion, mutilation, and even serious misinterpretations by many people, some with malicious and some with benign intention.

The Catechism will enable one to look very carefully at questionable expositions of the Faith with a measuring rod by which such expositions can be judged orthodox and Catholic, or something less and other.

In Catechesi Tradendae, as well as in the new Catechism, our Holy Father is particularly concerned that the Faith be presented in its integrity and its fullness. Beauty and splendor are part of the Faith, but the beauty and splendor of the Faith are seriously marred if the Faith is not presented as an organic whole. To leave out aspects of our Catholic belief and practice because they may not be appealing to certain areas of contemporary society is a grave disservice to our fellow human beings. This is why those charged in a special way with passing on the Faith (the hierarchy of the Church- bishops and their prime collaborators, the priests and deacons-and then, all those who work in the field of education, especially parents, teachers, catechists and religious educators) would be doing a serious disservice to their vocation were they to fall short of an integral presentation of the Faith.

From constant discourses, it is clear that the Holy Father considers the Catechism of the Catholic Church to be in many ways the primary work for which his pontificate will be noted in history. He considers the Catechism to be a gift to the Church, to be an ecclesiastical event, without comparison, that manifests the Church in her first divine mark, which is to say, her oneness. The Church, we know, is one in doctrine as well as one in worship and government. It is the Catechism of the Catholic Church which will enable her to shine forth in her unity with renewed splendor and beauty.

The Holy Father writes, in introducing the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, that it is a:

...sure and authentic source book for the teaching of Catholic doctrine, especially for the composition of local catechisms. It is also offered to the faithful who want to understand better the inexhaustible riches of salvation. It seeks to give support to ecumenical efforts, motivated by the desire for the unity of all Christians, by demonstrating with precision the content and harmonious coherence of the Catholic Faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, finally, is offered to everyone who asks the reason for the hope that is in us and who would like to know what the Catholic Church believes.

__________________________________________________________________________

Taken from: The March/April 1996 issue of The Catholic Faith Published bi-monthly by Ignatius Press. To subscribe, call: 1-800-651-1531 Or write:  The Catholic Faith P.O. Box 160 Snohomish, WA 98291-0160.

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Engaging Students with a Church Tour

Kathleen Butler Liturgy and Sacraments , Primary Grades

One of my favorite days of the year is when I lead second-graders on a church tour as part of their preparation for First Eucharist . I like to show them and their parents things in the church they might never have noticed or things they may see all the time but not fully understand what they are or why they are there.

Before one such tour last spring, I launched into my usual welcome speech. I explained that everything we were going to see was sacred and designed to bring us closer to God in some way. As we entered the church, I pointed out the image of the Holy Trinity above the front doors. I explained that the fonts with holy water remind us of our Baptism and that the stained-glass windows tell a story about God. (I also observed that in order to see them, we have to lift our eyes up toward heaven.) We talked about the slain lamb carved into our altar, the living lamb engraved in our crux gloriosa behind the altar, and what they mean to us in the Eucharist. We talked about the tabernacle and how to genuflect in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Their eyes lit up at that aha moment ; they were asking thoughtful questions about what they were seeing. “They were getting it!” I told myself.

I then led them into the sacristy and showed them where the priests and altar servers put on their vestments. I showed the kids how the priests folded and stored their stoles in special drawers after Mass, noting that even these vestments were sacred items. One young man sighed and asked incredulously, “Is everything in this place holy?”

That was my aha moment . I suddenly realized some of these students were seeing these things for the first time. I never considered that some of the people in the tour did not go to Mass on a regular basis. My parish has an overflow Mass in another space, so some of the children attend that Mass and never spend time in the actual church. The students knew the basic vocabulary— ambo, crucifix, altar , and Lectionary —but beyond the words, it wasn’t meaningful.

What can we do to help our students engage more fully with their church?

Encourage Mass attendance.

This is the obvious solution, and it assumes they will actively participate (which may not be the case). Teaching about worshipping as one community of believers emphasizes that we are the Body of Christ. You can model this for the children by attending Mass at a time where your students can see you.

Emphasize the importance of attending Mass in your communications with parents. Be welcoming and sensitive, especially to those families who may not have a history of regular attendance or families of two faiths.

Tour your church.

Take students into the church (and sacristy, if possible). You can make the tour as advanced as you like, depending on the grade level. Younger grades may respond to an exploration or a scavenger hunt. Show them something as basic as a kneeler, but then explain why we kneel when we do. Connect liturgical actions with their meaning. Explain why we are silent after the priest says, “Let us pray.” For younger children, explain how to behave in church. They could even practice approaching the altar with their arms folded over their chest if they haven’t received First Eucharist and walking back down the aisle with their hands folded. With permission, show them the Lectionary and the Gospel book up close when you explain their significance.

Borrow a Mass kit.

Ask your liturgy director or sacristan if you can borrow a Mass kit to use as a teaching aid in class. Letting the kids see and hold a chalice, a paten, and a purificator will personalize the experience when they receive the sacrament.

Research your church’s iconography.

If this information does not exist already, you may have your work cut out for you. As you point out the icons and sacred art that decorate your church, be willing to share your interpretation of the art and explain how the images influence the way you understand and practice your faith. Discuss the church’s architecture and design. I like to show my class photos of churches around the world. Some are considerably grander than our parish church, and others are smaller by far. I let the children point out similarities and differences, which always leads to discussions of other Catholic churches they have visited. This is the perfect segue into an explanation of how Catholic Christians all over the world worship in the same way, even though where we worship may look different.

Have a vestment demonstration.

Ask your parish priest or deacon to visit your class with some sample vestments to explain what they are and how they’re used. It will give the children some small-group time with clergy and let them see that, indeed, all of these things are holy.

A church tour will help students and their families encounter Christ in a new way. Do you take your class on a church tour? If so, what features do you point out? What aha moments  have you noticed among your students?

Check out the DVD Come and See , which includes a Tour of a Church as well as a segment on Your Role at Mass and another on Ritual Matters .

• church tour
• second grade

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7 comments on engaging students with a church tour.

Touring the church is one of my favorite classes for my first graders as well.

One thing I’ve been intentional about in the last few years is taking them over to the church on a regular basis. I know many of them don’t go to Mass, but I want them to be comfortable in the church and I also want them to experience the sacredness of being in the church. Sometimes we go over to look at things, the church tour, the advent wreath, the nativity scene, but we also go over just to pray, last time we were talking about marriage and holy orders, so went to pray for our families and the priests.

I’m always amazed and thrilled to see how excited they are to go to the church. Last year I had one girl who particularly loved kneeling in front of the tabernacle and it was beautiful.

That’s such a great idea to go to the church for prayer. It seems so obvious, and now I’m wondering why we’ve never done it. Thanks for sharing.

I do the tour as part of our First Communon workshop. This is the third church have done the tour and except for tailoring it to each church basically do the same tour. I always start and finish at the altar and share the words Jesus and the Priest say. At the baptismal font always ask how many were baptized at this church. Parents are part of the day so if the kids can’t remember then parents can and say that your head was above this font. We have a beautiful window of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette in our choir loft and have two of my older kids act out the story while I read it

The week before classes start in September, I invite the incoming 1st graders and their families to attend the 11:30 Sunday Mass. Immediately afterward I have refreshments in the gym for everyone (bagels, fruit, muffins, coffee, juice). While they eat, I discuss an overview of the Religious Ed program (handouts included). Then we go back into the church for a family tour in the form of a “Scavenger Hunt”. Each family has their own set of instructions to locate 12 different items/places in the church. One parent acts as the guide. Families end up in either the Sacristy where the Pastor shows them all the vestments or in the Chapel where the Parochial Vicar gives them a tour the Reconciliation Room. Along the way on the Scavanger Hunt, the 1st grader collects 5 letters to spell out the word “Jesus” and he/she receives a little prize. This has been well-attended over the years and the parents enjoy meeting other 1st grade parents.

Great ideas. I have a church tour with Confirmation class! I may have to include the parents! It’s amazing how, even in our small church, we take for granted (or sometimes don’t notice) the things that have been there for years. It can be an eye opener.

I usually take my 2nd graders who are preparing for the Sacraments of Reconciliation and First Holy Communion over early in our school year (Sept.). I’m so blessed to have our wonderful Deacon lead the tour. Afterward I ask them to write about one thing they learned or especially enjoyed seeing. This year many were impressed with the tabernacle and being allowed to see it up close. But my favorite was one little girl who wrote, “I learned that I am the church.” You see our deacon explained that the church is not the building but the people who in it who come to worship God.

I’ve done this my class before and was surprised how little many of my students knew about it.

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'A step back in time': America's Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways

Across the United States, the Catholic church is undergoing an immense shift

MADISON, Wis. -- It was the music that changed first. Or maybe that’s just when many people at the pale brick Catholic church in the quiet Wisconsin neighborhood finally began to realize what was happening.

The choir director, a fixture at St. Maria Goretti for nearly 40 years, was suddenly gone. Contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe.

So much was changing. Sermons were focusing more on sin and confession. Priests were rarely seen without cassocks. Altar girls, for a time, were banned.

At the parish elementary school, students began hearing about abortion and hell.

“It was like a step back in time,” said one former parishioner, still so dazed by the tumultuous changes that began in 2021 with a new pastor that he only spoke on condition of anonymity.

It’s not just St. Maria Goretti.

Across the U.S., the Catholic Church is undergoing an immense shift. Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change, with the promise of eternal salvation replaced by guitar Masses, parish food pantries and casual indifference to church doctrine.

The shift, molded by plummeting church attendance, increasingly traditional priests and growing numbers of young Catholics searching for more orthodoxy, has reshaped parishes across the country, leaving them sometimes at odds with Pope Francis and much of the Catholic world.

The changes are not happening everywhere. There are still plenty of liberal parishes, plenty that see themselves as middle-of-the-road. Despite their growing influence, conservative Catholics remain a minority.

Yet the changes they have brought are impossible to miss.

The progressive priests who dominated the U.S. church in the years after Vatican II are now in their 70s and 80s. Many are retired. Some are dead. Younger priests, surveys show, are far more conservative.

“They say they’re trying to restore what us old guys ruined,” said the Rev. John Forliti, 87, a retired Twin Cities priest who fought for civil rights and reforms in Catholic school sex education.

Doug Koesel, an outspoken 72-year-old priest at Blessed Trinity Parish in Cleveland, was blunter: “They’re just waiting for us to die.”

At St. Maria Goretti, once steeped in the ethos of Vatican II, many parishioners saw the changes as a requiem.

“I don’t want my daughter to be Catholic,” said Christine Hammond, whose family left the parish when the new outlook spilled into the church’s school and her daughter’s classroom. “Not if this is the Roman Catholic Church that is coming.”

But this is not a simple story. Because there are many who welcome this new, old church.

They often stand out in the pews, with the men in ties and the women sometimes with the lace head coverings that all but disappeared from American churches more than 50 years ago. Often, at least a couple families will arrive with four, five or even more children, signaling their adherence to the church’s ban on contraception, which most American Catholics have long casually ignored.

They attend confession regularly and adhere strictly to church teachings. Many yearn for Masses that echo with medieval traditions – more Latin, more incense more Gregorian chants.

“We want this ethereal experience that is different from everything else in our lives,” said Ben Rouleau, who until recently led St. Maria Goretti’s young adult group, which saw membership skyrocket even as the parish shrank amid the turmoil.

They are, Rouleau said, happily out of touch with a liberal city like Madison.

“It’s radical in some ways,” Rouleau said. “We’re returning to the roots of the church.”

If this movement emerged from anywhere, it might be a now-demolished Denver football stadium and a borrowed military helicopter carrying in Pope John Paul II.

Some 500,000 people descended on Denver in 1993 for the Catholic festival World Youth Day. When the pope’s helicopter landed just outside Mile High Stadium, the ground shook from the stomping.

The pope, whose grandfatherly appearance belied an electric charisma, and who was beloved both for his kindness and his sternness, confronted an American church shaped by three decades of progressive change.

If the church is often best known to non-Catholics for its opposition to abortion, it had grown increasingly liberal since Vatican II. Birth control was quietly accepted in many parishes, and confession barely mentioned. Catholic social teaching on poverty suffused churches. Most priests traded in their cassocks for plain black shirts with Roman collars. Incense and Latin became increasingly rare.

On some issues, John Paul II agreed with these liberal-minded Catholics. He spoke against capital punishment and pushed for workers’ rights. He preached relentlessly about forgiveness – “the oxygen that purifies the air of hatred.” He forgave his own would-be assassin.

But he was also uncompromising on dogma, warning about change and cracking down on liberal theologians. He urged a return to forgotten rituals.

Catholics “are in danger of losing their faith,” he told crowds at the final Denver Mass, decrying abortion, drug abuse, and what he called “sexual disorders,” a barely veiled reference to growing acceptance of gay rights.

Across the nation, fervent young Catholics listened.

Newman Centers, which serve Catholic university students, became increasingly popular. So did FOCUS, a traditionalist organization working on American college campuses. Conservative Catholic media grew, particularly the cable TV network EWTN, a prominent voice for increased orthodoxy.

Today, conservative Catholic America has its own constellation of online celebrities aimed at young people. There’s Sister Miriam James, an ever-smiling nun in full habit who talks openly about her hard-partying college days. There’s Jackie Francois Angel, who speaks in shockingly frank detail about sex, marriage and Catholicism. There’s Mike Schmitz, a movie-star handsome Minnesota priest who exudes kindness while insisting on doctrine.

Even today, surveys show most American Catholics are far from orthodox. Most support abortion rights. The vast majority use birth control.

But increasingly, those Catholics are not in church.

In 1970, more than half of America’s Catholics said they went to Mass at least once a week. By 2022, that had fallen to 17%, according to CARA, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University. Among millennials, the number is just 9%.

Even as the U.S. Catholic population has jumped to more than 70 million, driven in part by immigration from Latin America, ever-fewer Catholics are involved in the church’s most important rites. Infant baptisms have fallen from 1.2 million in 1965 to 440,000 in 2021, CARA says. Catholic marriages have dropped by well over two-thirds.

The shrinking numbers mean that those who remain in the church have outsized influence compared with the overall Catholic population.

On the national level, conservatives increasingly dominate the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference and the Catholic intellectual world. They include everyone from the philanthropist founder of Domino’s Pizza to six of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Then there’s the priesthood.

Young priests driven by liberal politics and progressive theology, so common in the 1960s and 70s, have “all but vanished,” said a 2023 report from The Catholic Project at Catholic University, based on a survey of more than 3,500 priests.

Today’s young priests are far more likely to believe that the church changed too much after Vatican II, tangling itself up in America’s rapidly shifting views on everything from women’s roles to LGBTQ people.

“There really aren’t very many liberals in the seminaries anymore,” said a young, recently ordained Midwestern priest. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the turmoil that engulfed his parish after he began pressing for more orthodox services. “They wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

Sometimes, the shift toward orthodoxy happens slowly. Maybe there’s a little more Latin sprinkled into Mass, or an occasional reminder to go to confession. Maybe guitars are relegated to Saturday evening services, or dropped completely.

And sometimes the changes come like a whirlwind, dividing parishes between those thirsting for a more reverent Catholicism and those who feel their spiritual home has been taken from them.

“You’d leave Mass thinking, ‘Holy cow! What just happened?’” said another ex-parishioner at St. Maria Goretti, whose family eventually left the church, describing the 2021 promotion of a new pastor, and a sudden focus on sin and confession.

Like many former parishioners, he spoke only on condition of anonymity, worried about upsetting friends still at the church. Diocesan clergy did not respond to requests for interviews.

“I’m a lifelong Catholic. I grew up going to church every Sunday,” he said. “But I’d never seen anything like this.”

The new outlook has spilled across America.

In churches from Minnesota to California, parishioners have protested changes introduced by new conservative priests. In Cincinnati, it came when the new priest abandoned gospel music and African drumming. In small-town North Carolina, it was an intense focus on Latin. In east Texas, it was a right-wing bishop forced out by the Vatican after accusing Pope Francis of undermining church teachings.

Each can seem like one more skirmish in the cultural and political battles tearing at America.

But the movement, whether called conservative or orthodox or traditionalist or authentic, can be hard to define.

It ranges from Catholics who want more incense, to Latin Mass adherents who have brought back ancient prayers that mention “the perfidious Jew.” There are right-wing survivalists, celebrity exorcists, environmentalists and a handful of quasi-socialists.

There’s the Catholic news outlet railing against the Vatican’s “wicked entourage,” and the small-town Wisconsin priest who traces COVID-19 to a century-old prophecy and warns of looming dictatorship. There’s the recent “Catholic Prayer for Trump,” a $1,000-a-plate dinner at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, featuring a string of conspiracy theorists.

Yet the orthodox movement can also seem like a tangle of forgiveness and rigidity, where insistence on mercy and kindness mingle with warnings of eternity in hell.

Looming over the American divide is PopeFrancis, who has pushed the global church to be more inclusive, even as he toes the line on mostdogma.

The orthodox movement has watched him nervously from the first days of his papacy, angered by his more liberal views on issues like gay relationships and divorce. Some reject him entirely.

And the pope clearly worriesabout America.

The U.S. church has “a very strong reactionary attitude,” he told a group of Jesuits last year. “Being backward-looking is useless.”

You can find this new vision of Catholic America at Latin Masses in Milwaukee, the pews crowded with worshippers even at noon on a weekday. It’s in conferences held in California wine country, at reinvigorated parishes in Tennessee and prayer groups in Washington, D.C.

And it’s at a little Kansas college built high on a bluff above the Missouri River.

At first glance, nothing seems unusual about Benedictine College.

Students worry about unfinished essays and the complexities of dating. They wear cutoff shorts on warm autumn afternoons. Football is huge. The cafeteria food is mediocre.

But look deeper.

Because at Benedictine, Catholic teaching on contraception can slip into lessons on Plato, and no one is surprised if you volunteer for 3 a.m. prayers. Pornography, pre-marital sex and sunbathing in swimsuits are forbidden.

If these rules seem like precepts of a bygone age, that hasn’t stopped students from flocking to Benedictine and other conservative Catholic colleges.

At a time when U.S. college enrollment is shrinking, Benedictine’s expansion over the last 15 years has included four new residence halls, a new dining hall and an academic center. An immense new library is being built. The roar of construction equipment never seems to stop.

Enrollment, now about 2,200, has doubled in 20 years.

Students, many of whom grew up in conservative Catholic families, jokingly call it “the Benedictine bubble.” And it might be a window into the future of the Catholic Church in America.

In a deeply secular America, where an ever-churning culture provides few absolute answers, Benedictine offers the reassurance of clarity.

“We don’t all agree on everything, obviously,” said John Welte, a senior majoring in economics and philosophy. “But I would say everyone has an understanding of, like, truth.”

“There are certain things you can just know in your mind: This is right, and this is wrong.”

Sometimes, people here quietly admit, it goes too far. Like the students who loudly proclaim how often they go to Mass, or the young man who quit his classics course because he refused to read the works of ancient Greek pagans.

Very often, talk here echoes the 13th-century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed God could be found in truth, goodness and beauty. Sometimes, they say, that means finding God in strict tenets about sexuality. Sometimes in the haunting beauty of Gregorian chants.

“It’s a renewal of, like, some really, really good things that we might have lost,” said Madeline Hays, a pensive 22-year-old senior biology major.

She takes the church’s rules seriously, from pre-marital sex to confession. She can’t stand modern church architecture. She’s seriously considering becoming a nun.

But she also worries about poverty and America’s wastefulness and the way Americans –including herself – can find themselves slotted into the political divide without even knowing it.

She wrestles with her belief in an unerring Catholic doctrine that can see good people, including some of her own friends, as sinners.

Yet she doesn’t want change.

“The church wouldn’t be the church if it changed things it had set down as, 'This is infallible doctrine and this will not change through the ages,’” she said.

They understand that in Benedictine’s small, mostly closeted gay community. Like the young man, once deeply religious, who suffers in silence as people on campus casually throw around anti-gay slurs.

He’s thought many times of leaving, but generous financial aid keeps him here. And after many years, he’s accepted his sexuality.

He’s seen the joy that people can get from Benedictine, how some will move back to Atchison after graduation, just to stay close.

But not him.

“I don’t think I’ll come back to Atchison – not ever.”

For decades, the pews at St. Maria Goretti were filled with the families of plumbers, engineers and professors from the University of Wisconsin, just a couple miles up the road. The church is a well-kept island of Catholicism tucked into the leafy residential streets of one of America’s most liberal cities.

Like so many other parishes, it had been shaped by the ideals of the 1960s and 1970s. Poverty and social justice became tightly interwoven with sermons and parish life. Gay people felt welcome. Some of the church’s moral absolutes, like the contraception ban, became forgotten dogma.

Change arrived in 2003 with a new bishop, Robert C. Morlino, an outspoken conservative. Many liberals remember him as the man who lambasted the message of acceptance in the modern hymn, “All Are Welcome.”

His successor, Bishop Donald J. Hying, steers clear of public battles. But in many ways, he quietly carries on Morlino’s legacy, warning about “the tangled thinking of Modernism.”

In 2021, Hying named the Rev. Scott Emerson, a onetime top Morlino aide, as pastor of the Madison church.

Parishioners watched - some pleased, some uneasily - as their spiritual home was remodeled.

There was more incense, more Latin, more talk of sin and confession.

Emerson’s sermons are not all fire-and-brimstone. He speaks often about forgiveness and compassion. But his tone shocked many longtime parishioners.

Protection is needed, he said in a 2023 service, from “the spiritual corruption of worldly vices.” He has warned against critics – “the atheists, journalists, politicians, the fallen-away Catholics” – he said were undermining the church.

For some, Emerson’s changes were welcome.

“A lot of us were like, ’Hey, more confession! Sweet!” said Rouleau, who ran the parish young adult group. “Better music!”

But the parish – which in mid-2023 became part of a two-church “pastorate” amid a diocese-wide restructuring - was shrinking fast.

For decades, many traditional Catholics have wondered if the church would – and perhaps should – shrink to a smaller but more faithful core.

In ways, that’s how St. Maria Goretti looks today. The 6:30 a.m. Friday Mass, Rouleau says, is increasingly popular among young people. But once-packed Sunday Masses now have empty pews. Donations are down. School enrollment plunged.

Some who left have gone to more liberal parishes. Some joined Protestant churches. Some abandoned religion entirely.

“I’m not a Catholic anymore,” said Hammond, the woman who left when the church’s school began to change. “Not even a little bit.”

But Emerson insists the Catholic Church’s critics will be proven wrong.

“How many have laughed at the church, announcing that she was passe, that her days were over and that they would bury her?” he said in a 2021 Mass.

“The church,” he said, “has buried every one of her undertakers.”

Associated Press journalist Jessie Wardarski contributed to this report.

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'A step back in time': America's Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways

MADISON, Wis. — It was the music that changed first. Or maybe that’s just when many people at the pale brick Catholic church in the quiet Wisconsin neighborhood finally began to realize what was happening.

The choir director, a fixture at St. Maria Goretti for nearly 40 years, was suddenly gone. Contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe.

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‘A step back in time': America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — It was the music that changed first. Or maybe that’s just when many people at the pale brick Catholic church in the quiet Wisconsin neighborhood finally began to realize what was happening.

The choir director, a fixture at St. Maria Goretti for nearly 40 years, was suddenly gone. Contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe.

So much was changing. Sermons were focusing more on sin and confession. Priests were rarely seen without cassocks. Altar girls, for a time, were banned.

At the parish elementary school, students began hearing about abortion and hell.

“It was like a step back in time,” said one former parishioner, still so dazed by the tumultuous changes that began in 2021 with a new pastor that he only spoke on condition of anonymity.

It’s not just St. Maria Goretti.

Brothers Leven Barton, left, Florian Rumpza, center, and Angelus Atkinson, sing in Latin during Catholic Mass at Benedictine College, Dec. 3, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Across the U.S., the Catholic Church is undergoing an immense shift. Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change, with the promise of eternal salvation replaced by guitar Masses, parish food pantries and casual indifference to church doctrine.

The shift, molded by plummeting church attendance, increasingly traditional priests and growing numbers of young Catholics searching for more orthodoxy, has reshaped parishes across the country, leaving them sometimes at odds with Pope Francis and much of the Catholic world.

The changes are not happening everywhere. There are still plenty of liberal parishes, plenty that see themselves as middle-of-the-road. Despite their growing influence, conservative Catholics remain a minority.

Yet the changes they have brought are impossible to miss.

Generations of U.S. Catholics are giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change. It has reshaped parishes and universities across the country, leaving them sometimes at odds with much of the Catholic world. (AP Video/ Jessie Wardarski)

The progressive priests who dominated the U.S. church in the years after Vatican II are now in their 70s and 80s. Many are retired. Some are dead. Younger priests, surveys show, are far more conservative.

“They say they’re trying to restore what us old guys ruined,” said the Rev. John Forliti, 87, a retired Twin Cities priest who fought for civil rights and reforms in Catholic school sex education.

Doug Koesel, an outspoken 72-year-old priest at Blessed Trinity Parish in Cleveland, was blunter: “They’re just waiting for us to die.”

At St. Maria Goretti, once steeped in the ethos of Vatican II, many parishioners saw the changes as a requiem.

“I don’t want my daughter to be Catholic,” said Christine Hammond, whose family left the parish when the new outlook spilled into the church’s school and her daughter’s classroom. “Not if this is the Roman Catholic Church that is coming.”

But this is not a simple story. Because there are many who welcome this new, old church.

They often stand out in the pews, with the men in ties and the women sometimes with the lace head coverings that all but disappeared from American churches more than 50 years ago. Often, at least a couple families will arrive with four, five or even more children, signaling their adherence to the church’s ban on contraception, which most American Catholics have long casually ignored.

They attend confession regularly and adhere strictly to church teachings. Many yearn for Masses that echo with medieval traditions – more Latin, more incense more Gregorian chants.

“We want this ethereal experience that is different from everything else in our lives,” said Ben Rouleau, who until recently led St. Maria Goretti’s young adult group, which saw membership skyrocket even as the parish shrank amid the turmoil.

They are, Rouleau said, happily out of touch with a liberal city like Madison.

“It’s radical in some ways,” Rouleau said. “We’re returning to the roots of the church.”

A woman and child kneel during Catholic Mass at Benedictine College, Oct. 29, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

If this movement emerged from anywhere, it might be a now-demolished Denver football stadium and a borrowed military helicopter carrying in Pope John Paul II .

Some 500,000 people descended on Denver in 1993 for the Catholic festival World Youth Day. When the pope’s helicopter landed just outside Mile High Stadium, the ground shook from the stomping.

The pope, whose grandfatherly appearance belied an electric charisma, and who was beloved both for his kindness and his sternness, confronted an American church shaped by three decades of progressive change.

If the church is often best known to non-Catholics for its opposition to abortion, it had grown increasingly liberal since Vatican II. Birth control was quietly accepted in many parishes, and confession barely mentioned. Catholic social teaching on poverty suffused churches. Most priests traded in their cassocks for plain black shirts with Roman collars. Incense and Latin became increasingly rare.

On some issues, John Paul II agreed with these liberal-minded Catholics. He spoke against capital punishment and pushed for workers’ rights. He preached relentlessly about forgiveness – “the oxygen that purifies the air of hatred.” He forgave his own would-be assassin.

But he was also uncompromising on dogma, warning about change and cracking down on liberal theologians. He urged a return to forgotten rituals.

Catholics “are in danger of losing their faith,” he told crowds at the final Denver Mass, decrying abortion, drug abuse, and what he called “sexual disorders,” a barely veiled reference to growing acceptance of gay rights.

Across the nation, fervent young Catholics listened.

Newman Centers, which serve Catholic university students, became increasingly popular. So did FOCUS, a traditionalist organization working on American college campuses. Conservative Catholic media grew, particularly the cable TV network EWTN, a prominent voice for increased orthodoxy.

Today, conservative Catholic America has its own constellation of online celebrities aimed at young people. There’s Sister Miriam James, an ever-smiling nun in full habit who talks openly about her hard-partying college days. There’s Jackie Francois Angel, who speaks in shockingly frank detail about sex, marriage and Catholicism. There’s Mike Schmitz, a movie-star handsome Minnesota priest who exudes kindness while insisting on doctrine.

Even today, surveys show most American Catholics are far from orthodox. Most support abortion rights. The vast majority use birth control.

But increasingly, those Catholics are not in church.

In 1970, more than half of America’s Catholics said they went to Mass at least once a week. By 2022, that had fallen to 17%, according to CARA, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University. Among millennials, the number is just 9%.

Even as the U.S. Catholic population has jumped to more than 70 million, driven in part by immigration from Latin America, ever-fewer Catholics are involved in the church’s most important rites. Infant baptisms have fallen from 1.2 million in 1965 to 440,000 in 2021, CARA says. Catholic marriages have dropped by well over two-thirds.

The shrinking numbers mean that those who remain in the church have outsized influence compared with the overall Catholic population.

On the national level, conservatives increasingly dominate the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference and the Catholic intellectual world. They include everyone from the philanthropist founder of Domino’s Pizza to six of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Then there’s the priesthood.

Young priests driven by liberal politics and progressive theology, so common in the 1960s and 70s, have “all but vanished,” said a 2023 report from The Catholic Project at Catholic University, based on a survey of more than 3,500 priests.

Today’s young priests are far more likely to believe that the church changed too much after Vatican II, tangling itself up in America’s rapidly shifting views on everything from women’s roles to LGBTQ people.

“There really aren’t very many liberals in the seminaries anymore,” said a young, recently ordained Midwestern priest. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the turmoil that engulfed his parish after he began pressing for more orthodox services. “They wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

Students leave after attending a Catholic Mass at Benedictine College, Dec. 3, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Sometimes, the shift toward orthodoxy happens slowly. Maybe there’s a little more Latin sprinkled into Mass, or an occasional reminder to go to confession. Maybe guitars are relegated to Saturday evening services, or dropped completely.

And sometimes the changes come like a whirlwind, dividing parishes between those thirsting for a more reverent Catholicism and those who feel their spiritual home has been taken from them.

“You’d leave Mass thinking, ‘Holy cow! What just happened?’” said another ex-parishioner at St. Maria Goretti, whose family eventually left the church, describing the 2021 promotion of a new pastor, and a sudden focus on sin and confession.

Like many former parishioners, he spoke only on condition of anonymity, worried about upsetting friends still at the church. Diocesan clergy did not respond to requests for interviews.

“I’m a lifelong Catholic. I grew up going to church every Sunday,” he said. “But I’d never seen anything like this.”

The new outlook has spilled across America.

In churches from Minnesota to California, parishioners have protested changes introduced by new conservative priests. In Cincinnati, it came when the new priest abandoned gospel music and African drumming. In small-town North Carolina, it was an intense focus on Latin. In east Texas, it was a right-wing bishop forced out by the Vatican after accusing Pope Francis of undermining church teachings.

Each can seem like one more skirmish in the cultural and political battles tearing at America.

But the movement, whether called conservative or orthodox or traditionalist or authentic, can be hard to define.

Rev. Gabriel Landis officiates a Catholic Mass at Benedictine College, Dec. 3, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

It ranges from Catholics who want more incense, to Latin Mass adherents who have brought back ancient prayers that mention “the perfidious Jew.” There are right-wing survivalists, celebrity exorcists, environmentalists and a handful of quasi-socialists.

There’s the Catholic news outlet railing against the Vatican’s “wicked entourage,” and the small-town Wisconsin priest who traces COVID-19 to a century-old prophecy and warns of looming dictatorship. There’s the recent “Catholic Prayer for Trump,” a $1,000-a-plate dinner at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, featuring a string of conspiracy theorists.

Yet the orthodox movement can also seem like a tangle of forgiveness and rigidity, where insistence on mercy and kindness mingle with warnings of eternity in hell.

Looming over the American divide is Pope Francis , who has pushed the global church to be more inclusive , even as he toes the line on most dogma .

The orthodox movement has watched him nervously from the first days of his papacy, angered by his more liberal views on issues like gay relationships and divorce . Some reject him entirely.

And the pope clearly worries about America.

The U.S. church has “a very strong reactionary attitude,” he told a group of Jesuits last year. “Being backward-looking is useless.”

Pope Francis waves to the crowd during a parade, Sept. 26, 2015, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, Pool, File)

You can find this new vision of Catholic America at Latin Masses in Milwaukee, the pews crowded with worshippers even at noon on a weekday. It’s in conferences held in California wine country, at reinvigorated parishes in Tennessee and prayer groups in Washington, D.C.

And it’s at a little Kansas college built high on a bluff above the Missouri River.

At first glance, nothing seems unusual about Benedictine College.

Students worry about unfinished essays and the complexities of dating. They wear cutoff shorts on warm autumn afternoons. Football is huge. The cafeteria food is mediocre.

But look deeper.

Because at Benedictine, Catholic teaching on contraception can slip into lessons on Plato, and no one is surprised if you volunteer for 3 a.m. prayers. Pornography, pre-marital sex and sunbathing in swimsuits are forbidden.

If these rules seem like precepts of a bygone age, that hasn’t stopped students from flocking to Benedictine and other conservative Catholic colleges.

At a time when U.S. college enrollment is shrinking, Benedictine’s expansion over the last 15 years has included four new residence halls, a new dining hall and an academic center. An immense new library is being built. The roar of construction equipment never seems to stop.

Enrollment, now about 2,200, has doubled in 20 years.

Students, many of whom grew up in conservative Catholic families, jokingly call it “the Benedictine bubble.” And it might be a window into the future of the Catholic Church in America.

In a deeply secular America, where an ever-churning culture provides few absolute answers, Benedictine offers the reassurance of clarity.

“We don’t all agree on everything, obviously,” said John Welte, a senior majoring in economics and philosophy. “But I would say everyone has an understanding of, like, truth.”

“There are certain things you can just know in your mind: This is right, and this is wrong.”

Sometimes, people here quietly admit, it goes too far. Like the students who loudly proclaim how often they go to Mass, or the young man who quit his classics course because he refused to read the works of ancient Greek pagans.

Very often, talk here echoes the 13th-century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed God could be found in truth, goodness and beauty. Sometimes, they say, that means finding God in strict tenets about sexuality. Sometimes in the haunting beauty of Gregorian chants.

“It’s a renewal of, like, some really, really good things that we might have lost,” said Madeline Hays, a pensive 22-year-old senior biology major.

Benedictine College students, from left, Madeline Hays, Niki Wood, Ashley Lestone and Hannah Moore gather for evening prayers in a room which they converted to a chapel in the house they share, Dec. 3, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

She takes the church’s rules seriously, from pre-marital sex to confession. She can’t stand modern church architecture. She’s seriously considering becoming a nun.

But she also worries about poverty and America’s wastefulness and the way Americans –including herself – can find themselves slotted into the political divide without even knowing it.

She wrestles with her belief in an unerring Catholic doctrine that can see good people, including some of her own friends, as sinners.

Yet she doesn’t want change.

“The church wouldn’t be the church if it changed things it had set down as, ‘This is infallible doctrine and this will not change through the ages,’” she said.

They understand that in Benedictine’s small, mostly closeted gay community. Like the young man, once deeply religious, who suffers in silence as people on campus casually throw around anti-gay slurs.

He’s thought many times of leaving, but generous financial aid keeps him here. And after many years, he’s accepted his sexuality.

He’s seen the joy that people can get from Benedictine, how some will move back to Atchison after graduation, just to stay close.

But not him.

“I don’t think I’ll come back to Atchison – not ever.”

St. Maria Goretti parishoner Anna Buss, 10, pauses in front of a shrine to Pope John Paul II before Mass, April 2, 2005, in Madison, Wis. (John Maniaci/Wisconsin State Journal via AP, File)

For decades, the pews at St. Maria Goretti were filled with the families of plumbers, engineers and professors from the University of Wisconsin, just a couple miles up the road. The church is a well-kept island of Catholicism tucked into the leafy residential streets of one of America’s most liberal cities.

Like so many other parishes, it had been shaped by the ideals of the 1960s and 1970s. Poverty and social justice became tightly interwoven with sermons and parish life. Gay people felt welcome. Some of the church’s moral absolutes, like the contraception ban, became forgotten dogma.

Change arrived in 2003 with a new bishop, Robert C. Morlino, an outspoken conservative. Many liberals remember him as the man who lambasted the message of acceptance in the modern hymn, “All Are Welcome.”

His successor, Bishop Donald J. Hying, steers clear of public battles. But in many ways, he quietly carries on Morlino’s legacy, warning about “the tangled thinking of Modernism.”

In 2021, Hying named the Rev. Scott Emerson, a onetime top Morlino aide, as pastor of the Madison church.

Parishioners watched - some pleased, some uneasily - as their spiritual home was remodeled.

There was more incense, more Latin, more talk of sin and confession.

Emerson’s sermons are not all fire-and-brimstone. He speaks often about forgiveness and compassion. But his tone shocked many longtime parishioners.

Protection is needed, he said in a 2023 service, from “the spiritual corruption of worldly vices.” He has warned against critics – “the atheists, journalists, politicians, the fallen-away Catholics” – he said were undermining the church.

For some, Emerson’s changes were welcome.

A man prays during Catholic Mass at Benedictine College, Oct. 29, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

“A lot of us were like, ’Hey, more confession! Sweet!” said Rouleau, who ran the parish young adult group. “Better music!”

But the parish – which in mid-2023 became part of a two-church “pastorate” amid a diocese-wide restructuring - was shrinking fast.

For decades, many traditional Catholics have wondered if the church would – and perhaps should – shrink to a smaller but more faithful core.

In ways, that’s how St. Maria Goretti looks today. The 6:30 a.m. Friday Mass, Rouleau says, is increasingly popular among young people. But once-packed Sunday Masses now have empty pews. Donations are down. School enrollment plunged.

Some who left have gone to more liberal parishes. Some joined Protestant churches. Some abandoned religion entirely.

“I’m not a Catholic anymore,” said Hammond, the woman who left when the church’s school began to change. “Not even a little bit.”

But Emerson insists the Catholic Church’s critics will be proven wrong.

“How many have laughed at the church, announcing that she was passe, that her days were over and that they would bury her?” he said in a 2021 Mass.

“The church,” he said, “has buried every one of her undertakers.”

Associated Press journalist Jessie Wardarski contributed to this report.

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Easter: April 30th

Tuesday of the fifth week of easter; optional memorial of st. pius v, pope and religious.

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April 30, 2024 (Readings on USCCB website)

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Optional Memorial of St. Pius V: O God, who in your providence raised up Pope Saint Pius the Fifth in your Church that the faith might be safeguarded and more fitting worship be offered to you, grant, through his intercession, that we may participate in your mysteries with lively faith and fruitful charity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

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• A Six-year Pontificate, a Dynasty of Evangelizing Zeal | Pope Saint John Paul II
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When we bring our gifts to the altar at the Offertory of the Mass, we repeat with grateful hearts the words of the Offertory prayer: "Shout with joy to God all the earth, sing ye a psalm to His name; come and hear, and I will tell you, all ye that fear God, what great things the Lord hath done for my soul, alleluia." Among the great things the Lord hath done for my soul is the regeneration of that soul. Then, too, He has bestowed on me the sonship of God, making me share the spirit of Christ; He has given me membership in His Church, and has sent to me the Holy Ghost. —Benedict Bauer, O.S.B, from The Light of the World , Vol II

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The Seven Principles of A Living Catechism

From an interview with Peter C Schattauer

By Naomi Meints ’25, NVP Fellow

In a recent blog post , I explored A Living Catechism, an exciting new project created specifically for today’s churches to understand what we stand by and reflect on what it means to be a Lutheran in the 21st century. A Living Catechism was created as a collaboration between Reverend Matthew Fleming, the director of the organization Church Anew (a ministry housed at St. Andrew Lutheran Church , Eden Prairie, MN), and Dr. Deanna Thompson, the Director of The Lutheran Center for Faith, Values and Community at St. Olaf College. It was born from the idea of revamping the way we communicate the best of Lutheran belief and practice for the 21st century. They asked if there was a way to introduce a new catechism, not replacing Luther’s catechisms, but one that speaks to our modern lives in a way that makes our churches feel alive and thriving. These resources of the project are created to meet people on their level so that everyone can be engaged with a guide that fits the unique challenges of their lives!

A Living Catechism is based on seven principles that strive to articulate the core beliefs of Lutherans in the 21st century. I recently interviewed Peter C. Schattauer, Associate Director of The Lutheran Center here at St. Olaf, about what the principles are and why they’re important. These are the first steps to understanding both A Living Catechism and the basic beliefs of Lutheranism. These principles exist to provide the framework for the updated catechism and guide us in understanding the most important core tenets of the Lutheran faith. These principles are a summary of only the most crucial key points of our denomination’s beliefs, and are broken down into simple language and paired with Biblical evidence to meet any curious reader on their level. The principles are: 

• God becomes human for us in Jesus Christ.
• God meets us in bread, wine, and water.
• God feels our pain and suffering .
• God delights in our goodness and judges sin.
• God speaks to us through Scripture and Spirit.
• God compels creation toward mercy.
• God loves us eternally.

Peter explained the backstory of these seven principles, why each of them were chosen, and how they’re connected to A Living Catechism. Deanna Thomson initially brought the idea for these principles to A Living Catechism after her experiences at the Luther Congress, a small gathering of Lutheran leaders, in summer 2022. Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin, President of United Lutheran Seminary, spoke on the principles that define a 21st century Lutheran, and he landed on these seven. Specifically, they were born from honest conversations that emphasize the priorities of marginalized Lutherans. Regarding the creation of these principles, Peter said: “He named those seven principles because he saw them as the principles best able to take on the challenges of life in the world today, which is an undercurrent of a living catechism. We want to explain what it means to be Lutheran in an invitational, accessible way. We think these principles say something that can help us and those who are seeking something like this to face the challenges of our world, and face the challenges of our lives. So we started with those seven principles”.

We want to explain what it means to be Lutheran in an invitational, accessible way. We think these principles say something that can help us and those who are seeking something like this to face the challenges of our world, and face the challenges of our lives. Rev. Peter Carlson Schattauer, Associate Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values and Community

While each of these principles are unique and equally important parts of understanding and living the Lutheran identity, there are truths that connect all of them together. One of those most important connections that was emphasized is the actions of God. It is important to remember that God is present and active in our modern lives. All things in creation are from God, who exists as an active, creative, and loving creator. On this topic, Peter stated: “You know, I think that a really important thing that we are saying Lutherans believe about God is that God acts; that God does things in the world. Because each of these principles starts with an action of God in some way. And I also think that in so many of these they are about ways that God is with us, that God’s action in the world is always an action of moving towards people and seeking deeper and more honest relationships with humans”. This is only one of the themes explored in the principles of A Living Catechism. All of these principles and more will be explained in depth in upcoming blogs, so stay posted to learn deeply about each of these enlightening and inspiring principles!

I think that a really important thing that we are saying Lutherans believe about God is that God acts; that God does things in the world. Rev. Peter Carlson Schattauer, Associate Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values and Community

These seven principles are a crucial part of understanding A Living Catechism and its presentation of understanding a modern Lutheran faith. However, this list is only the beginning, as the guidelines for living well in the faith are abundant, as well as the opportunities to question and explore what it means to be Lutheran. I encourage everyone to read these well and think about what it means in your unique life. If you’re curious about this and similar projects, you can learn more at the 2024 Conference for Worship, Theology, and the Arts: Nourishing Vocation happening at St. Olaf College July 29-31. This is a chance to learn more about exciting projects such as A Living Catechism and its accompanying resources, but also participate in opportunities to reflect upon and discuss these ideas of Lutheran life at the conference. I hope you also look forward to watching where this project goes and continuing to engage in these questions and discernment! 

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