AFTER BALTIMORE, WHAT?:
Keifer, Ralph A
AFTER BALTIMOR] WHAT? RALPH A. KEIFER ed. And one would think from reading An American Catholic Catechism that mixed marriages were a non-problem in this country. Both American efforts, An...
...The book is unabashedly scholar-ly and will not have instant or popu-lar appeal...
...Social justice is tacked on as a kind of afterthought to the ten command-ments...
...Seabury, $10...
...And it creates a new myth to explain the matter...
...The fullest treatment on the Holy Spirit-and that is not much- is in the section on morality...
...The difficulty is that reliance on official teaching requires that some gaps be filled and that the author compensate for excess of of-ficial attention to some minor issues...
...Oddly, it is considered before God...
...The Catholic Catechism JOHN A. HARDON, S.J...
...But it does not provide much toward a perspective on core Catholic teaching...
...Prayer gets all of seven lines under some questions about God's activity in the world...
...As for questioning infant bap-tism, the impression is given that all the difficulties are in Europe...
...By way of contrast, prayer is mentioned seventeen times in The Common Catechism and one of those entries is twenty-one pages long...
...But The Catholic Catechism should prove no threat to those who are concerned to promote a different approach to the Catholic faith...
...Parish religious education is so busy responding to the vocal right that the needs of the not-so-conservative are often overlooked...
...Both American efforts, An Ameri-can Catholic Catechism and The Catho-lic Catechism fare rather badly when compared with The Common Cate-chism...
...The Catholic Catechism's basic assumption is that the language, style, philosophical framework and cate-gories of the preconciliar theology An American Catholic Catechism GEORGE J. DYER et ah, Ed...
...Also, the preponderance of lines like the fol-lowing is apt to deter popularity: "When we speak of Christ's mediation and of Mary's subordinate co-operation with him, we are talking abstractly about what the redemption means con-cretely...
...It de-scribes its goal as providing a "concise source book on the principal teachings of the Catholic Church...
...Its ten pages on indulgences (as compared to five on baptism) may reflect the proportion of official concern during the past four hundred years or so...
...Questions of au-thority in the church are given equal space with the rest of the treatment of the church, perpetuating the im-pression that the Catholic understand-ing of the church is primarily institu-tional and hierarchical...
...But the prob-lem is, what does "This is my body" mean...
...For example, there is a separate section on Mary, in spite of the lead of Vatican II, which urged that Mariology be in-tegrated with Christology and ec-clesiology...
...It might have been ex-pected that some effort would have been made to provide substantial guid-ance in this critical area...
...Paul, it does not entertain any possibility that there was not an historic situation of or-iginal justice and holiness and an his-toric fall...
...The Catholic Catechism does not suc-ceed very well at this...
...Its format and style of pres-entation clearly reflect the impact of contemporary biblical, historical and theological investigations in an engag-ing way, and there is a deep awareness of problems of unbelief in the mod-ern world...
...In some ways, the result is useful...
...But The Common Catechism is apt to be far more helpful to those who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with preconciliar Catholic thought pat-terns and perspectives...
...Wouldn't "morally wrong" do...
...The author is also extremely fond of a style of biblical interpretation that was beginning to be unacceptable thirty years ago...
...Be-cause of this, specifically American is-sues receive little attention...
...They will welcome a coherent, fresh, and intelligent account of the Chris-tian faith...
...The result of the use of this conven-tional framework is serious imbalance...
...It summarizes both Protestant and Catho-lic viewpoints, including points of ecumenical convergence as well as mat-ters of dispute among and within the churches...
...The rela-tion of the Spirit to the church is not mentioned, and there is nothing on the Spirit in the sections on grace and eschatology...
...In spite of its denials, An American Catholic Catechism com-municates the impression that the Christian doctrine of original sin is based primarily on the first chapters of Genesis...
...There is also a certain amount of coinage of new obfuscations...
...In the worst of American cate-chetical conventionality, the question of the morality of the arms race gets one line in passing, while masturbation gets two-thirds of a page...
...It appears in the section on creation...
...In the course of a para-graph, the verbs change from could to did...
...An American Catholic Catechism also has a love of jargon...
...Overall, An American Catholic Cate-chism gives the appearance of being a compendium of materials for an-swering questions which are apt to be raised by rather conservative church-goers...
...But there are occasional generous nods to the Calvinist tradition and some ap-preciation of the unique situation of the Anglican communion as a church containing both Protestant and Catholic elements...
...On the other hand, in The Common Catechism the question of original sin is placed in the section on redemption, after a full chapter titled "The New Creation," and is taken up specifically only after' a full discussion of personal sin...
...There are summa-tions of official Catholic teaching on just about every major issue, past as well as present...
...The Common Catechism carefully integrates the findings of biblical studies and ecumenical theological con-vergence into its format and presenta-tion...
...The Common Catechism requires only intelligence and literacy to be read and appreci-ated...
...Catholic dissent from the common American view of confirma-tion as a sacrament of witness or maturity is not mentioned...
...All three books manifest a concern to summarize the more sig-nificant changes that have taken place since Vatican II...
...But in view of the presence of this movement in American Catholicism, An American Catholic Catechism's lack of a serious discus-sion of the Holy Spirit is a deplorable omission...
...A useful case in point is the question of morality...
...Doubleday, $9.95 The Common Catechism JOHANNES FEINER & LUKAS VISCHER, Ed...
...To say that it means that Christ is somatically present literally puts the question in Greek...
...And so there is more about such things as infused virtues, or dulia, hyperdulia and latria than the average Catholic, even the average educated Catholic, might care to know...
...The very range of these books, from the ecumenical The Common Catechism to the conservative and ostensibly "of-ficial" approach of The Catholic Catechism is itself a manifestation of the pluralism that is now a fact of Catholic life...
...In The Common Catechism, Christian morality is presented as a response in faith, as part of life before God...
...The section under the first commandment discusses everything from vows to superstition, but man-ages to avoid a positive treatment of Catholic prayer life...
...If so, it does answer a general need, and may be particularly useful to people who are involved in adult education...
...For instance, The Common Catechism mediates the classic two or seven sacra-ments argument by pointing out that there is a broader view of sacrament influencing the Catholic definition, and by highlighting the common under-standing of baptism and eucharist as "special" among the sacraments...
...The question of charisms escapes notice...
...An American Catholic Catechism gives the general impression of new wine in some very old skins...
...An even more serious difficulty is that The Catholic Catechism requires sufficient theological education to dis-tinguish official teaching from the author's own assumptions and em-phases...
...While An American Catholic Catechism shares the same perspective, it uses the ten commandments as a format for dealing with specific moral questions...
...The cumulative ef-fect of such precious language is to give the book an unnecessarily techni-cal and undesirably clerical flavor...
...One has the impression that the teaching of Trent has been upheld in a very cautious manner...
...An interesting American touch in An American Catholic Catechism is a question on the pentecostal or charis-matic "baptism in the Holy Spirit...
...Unlike The Common Catechism, An American Catholic Catechism makes little attempt to show the ecumenical convergence of thinking on sacraments...
...In fairness, it must be observed that in most places this work handles areas of dispute with honesty and clarity, with a fair presentation of varied posi-tions and without attempting to create false harmonies...
...An American Catholic Catechism's treat-ment of baptism and confirmation is especially weak...
...An American Catholic Catechism acknowledges and often explains such developments, but does not allow them to influence its style...
...Seabury, $10.95 THE appearance of three catechisms for adults this year is an event of some significance...
...The mon Catechism occasionally lapses into pulpitese like "backsliding," but the lapses are rare enough to be pardon-able...
...The ambiguous American civic religion and American problems of racial prejudice are not even mentionmanuals are normative structures for the presentation of Catholic teaching...
...Its vig-orous stand on social issues will prob-ably distress American Catholic con-servatives who are inclined to fudge on this area of Catholic teaching...
...With the current interest in prayer and spirituality, an extensive treatment of the subject might have been expected...
...Contrary to new Roman documents (beginning with the rite for the baptism of children), in-fant baptism is given the lion's share of attention...
...Not entirely satis-fied with the official description of Christ's eucharistic presence as "sub-stantial," An American Catholic Cate-chism describes it as "somatic...
...Echoing the good old days when things we didn't approve of were rash, scandalous and offensive to pious ears, it describes the notion of sperm banks from anonymous donors as "repugnant...
...The over-whelming amount of New Testament material associating the gift of the Spirit with baptism is virtually passed over...
...But its treatment of original sin is an artificial harmoniza-tion of contemporary and traditional views...
...The prayer di-mension of sacramental celebration is barely mentioned, and there is no positive treatment of prayer forms, tradi-tional or otherwise...
...While An American Catholic Catechism denies the necessity of an individual Adam at the beginning of the human race, it insists that original sin must be understood as a single primal fault...
...Appealing to St...
...Perhaps an even more useful ex-ample of the failure in format and presentation is the treatment of or-iginal sin...
...Yet it is clear that the clock is not being turned back...
...The result is a speculative muddle in An American Catholic Catechism...
...Mankind could gradually have evolved to a point where it was capable of free choice...
...One also won-ders whether contemporary biblical scholarship and plain honesty have been respected as well...
...This is not to say that An American Catholic Catechism is much more oriented to the American scene...
...The Com-mon Catechism carefully separates the question of the individuality of Adam from the broader issue of original sin -something that An American Catho-lic Catechism fails to do...
...It is a real handbook for those who are not specialists in the-ology...
...The invitation was given to and the de-cision made by one man who acted for the race...
...Its aim seems to be to introduce conservative churchgoers to new currents of thought and to do it in gentle steps...
...While it comes up with many new answers, its frame of reference is the theology and thought patterns of fifteen or twenty years ago...
...They will be a generation in search of a tradition and innocent of the old frames of reference...
...But it will be an extremely worthwhile handbook for a genuinely adult religious education...
...The treatment of the church is es-pecially distressing...
...Which is only a fancy way of begging the question...
...The Catholic Catechism aims to summarize and synthesize the official teaching of the Catholic Church...
...Consider-ing our gargantuan defense budget, it should have occurred to An American Catechism that American Catholics probably spend more time earning tax money for the arms race than they do masturbating...
...Somatic, one assumes, means Christ's bodily presence...
...An American Catholic Catechism also has some very serious omissions...
...But the presentation of ma-terial leaves much to be desired...
...An American Catholic Catechism frequently uses latinate technical argot, e.g., "parvity of matter" and "artificial insemination in vitro...
...The question is answered positively and sympathetically...
...The Common Catechism is probably the most successful of the three...
...Its basic approach is to summarize both of-ficial teaching and respectable con-temporary developments, leaving room for a certain pluralism and even some ambiguity...
...In contrast, The Common Catechism helpfully separates the narrower issue of authority from the rest of its treatment of the church by some three hundred pages...
...It reflects a general desire to provide a positive presenta-tion of Catholic/ Christian teaching in a coherent way...
...Its major deficiency, if it can be called such, is its German origin...
...Given that rather limited aim, it is a useful book...
...Inevitably, because of a different ecumenical situa-tion from our own, the Protestant side is given a distinctively Evangelical (i.e., German Lutheran) tone...
...The Common Catechism may also prove to be some help if and when the younger generation returns to church...
Vol. 102 • July 1975 • No. 9
