The new catechism
Cunningham, Lawrence S.
THE NEW CATECHISM LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM A FIRST READING In the church, considered as a social organism, mysteries individual bishops and their corporate bodies. A...
...institution...
...What does strike me as a crucial issue is one which those who are in Christian education will face...
...It is one of the few places in the entire document Charley just happens to be spending that holiday as the paid that comes close to real life...
...Centuries ago Martin Luther, no temporary contemplatives...
...The film (or play) the audience the catechism hopes to persuade and what strate- is said to be "a vehicle" for the star...
...let us have more Dorothy Day we will need further, more strenuous, efforts to present that subor Flannery O'Connor or Gerard Manley Hopkins and fewer stance in any way close to the vision set out by the pontiff in papal allocutions...
...person and community...
...of maple...
...The Celebration of the Christian Mystery (the sacra- Finally, I checked selectively the English translation against ments...
...THE NEW CATECHISM LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM A FIRST READING In the church, considered as a social organism, mysteries individual bishops and their corporate bodies...
...That and the translator should be praised for his fidelity in executdocument provides an authoritative indication of how the cat- ing the expressed desire of so many bishops for inclusive lanechism is to be understood...
...It may be the only Roman docu- companion of a blinded ex-military man named Frank Slade...
...repeating the Code of Canon Law...
...constitution (Humanae salutis) announcing the opening of Any catechism based on this compendium should be radi- Vatican II for 1962...
...be forwarded to Rome by late spring, 1990...
...hicle must be custom-built, too...
...people live today...
...If they were ple would not have the energy or enthusiasm to read it in its simply pulled out as they stand and reproduced as they appear "A cool, considered assessment of a phenomenon that will affectAmerican religion as much as American politics...
...The earlier ver- on belief in God since it gets treated variously both under the sion was much choppier with its 4,126 paragraphs...
...and Prayer the French published version...
...The affirmation of belief in God (#200 ff...
...The catechism (also called a "com- guage...
...A very thoughtful introduction to the world of evangelicals and politics...
...mean writer of catechisms, said: "One ought to regard those Other strategies might well suggest themselves but a suc- teachers as the best and paragons of their profession those who cessful approach must reflect the actual condition in which most present the catechism well...
...It is fascinating to see what the authors see as eson information but not so good on context and woeful in its sential enough to put in these sections...
...One al senses...
...The discusteen allusions to the contributions of women writers or saints...
...I could not imagine giving it, say, as a text to univerthe evolution of doctrine...
...They are also the only way the catechism acts to inple who are frightfully intelligent but woefully undernourished dicate that there is, as Vatican II says, a "hierarchy of truths" in basic information about their faith...
...By using those stateologies that relied on the classic texts of Denziger's anthology ments as a base and reworking them into a more acceptable to proof-text positions) or only pay lip service to it...
...The catechism reads not like a book but like a breviary...
...he then added: "The substance of the anbe possible, for instance, to write a coherent short Christology cient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing and the way from the short affirmations and illustrate them with selections it is presented is another...
...Each of the discrete One does not have to read far to see how compartmentalized sections (statements, small-print excursuses, and catechetical the catechism is...
...we imagine an odor al' sulphur...
...American theologians, privy to the text, did a not-always-flat-Simone Weil...
...Law of Boston at the Extraordinary Synod of The reactions sent to Rome were such that the targeted pubBishops in Rome in 1985...
...8: 12 March 1993 Commonweal ing of Vatican II), officially promulgated the catechism...
...I take it as a great advance over the provisional text genuine contributions of contemporary theology...
...Betrayal will earn Charley Sims entrance to That small paragraph could well serve as an invitation and Harvard...
...It is instructive to go back and lations are scheduled to appear in 1993 with an editio typica in read the conciliar discussions of the time since they also re- Latin to be issued before the year is out...
...Finally, there are taken up in a different fashion at a different place or it cites in scattered throughout the text boxed statements that briefly the margins other areas to read in order to get a fuller picture summarize the main points of the previous discussion in the of a given topic...
...This compendium is good in the church...
...And would you like to speculate on how 12: 12 March 1993 Commonweal...
...The actual writing committee, under Cardinal Ratzinger's direction, consisted of seven of the world's bishops who had catechetical expertise...
...tury Council of Trent...
...It does not strike me as impossible to say definite things about what we believe as Christians while, at TWO CURES the same time, giving some sense that we struggle to articulate 'SCENT& 'OIL the deep mystery of our faith, its paradoxical nature, and the challenges of a pluralistic world...
...This is most definitely a work of the teaching church (ecclesia docens) with scant attention to the learning church (ecclesia discens...
...With a television set on six hours a day mons, because in this teaching there is comprehended, in brief, in the average household and the human imagination fueled by all of Scripture...
...Life in Christ (the Ten Commandments...
...They are of varying importance but usually touch on the will anyone who teaches-as I do every semester-young peo- essentials...
...it was stipulated (for example, by the Carolingian reformers) Since it is impossible for me to comment at length on spethat Christians at the very least should be able to recite the cific parts of the document, let me make a few general obserApostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the names of the sacra- vations...
...J. Dionne, Jr., author, Why Americans Hate Politics 162 pages • $18.95 cloth • ISBN 0-89633-172-5 Available at bookstores or through National Book Network, 1-800-462-6420 ETHICS AND PUBLIC POLICY CENTER 1015 Fifteenth Street NW • Washington, DC 20005 Commonweal 12 March 1993: 11 (I have tried that with some of them) they would not add up to At Christmas of 1961, Pope John XXIII issued an apostolic a compelling text...
...It desperately needs a prophetic edge to its prose be used as a canonical club by restorationist-minded folks to and a narrative style that would relieve its unremittingly plodshape all future catechetical material according to its method ding assertiveness...
...The provisional draft was a great clot of a document with many stylistic and structural problems...
...One can make steady use of these marginal paragraphs...
...It also recognizes the vox populi...
...In general, blinking the Siav Back 1 the whole orientation of the section on morality has little room Gorget's char, roused to an orange-red for, or pays little attention to, human experience (despite the coal, dims then fans again...
...not on the faithful of the world...
...In 1986, the pope named a commission of senior prelates, under the direction of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, to supervise its writing...
...By and large, the Bible tends to get used either in a sapiential manner after the fashion of the liturgy (not in itself a bad thing) or in the manner of a proof text...
...One could hardly quarrel with There is an expression we use when an actor is much that judgment but the question before us is how teachable is greater than his or her material...
...He has a Thanksgiving weekend to ponder the choice...
...After close scruticount of the faith in the somewhat tumultuous period follow- ny by Cardinal Ratzinger and the pope (who, it is said, went ing on Vatican II...
...pedagogy...
...ings in the church...
...Creed...
...It energetically en- Frank coerces and cajoles the boy into accompanying him to capsulates the full vision of Pope John Paul 11 without the turgidity Manhattan so that the bitter Slade, a bon vivant who can idenof the stylus curialis...
...HarperCollins, gins in an intervention made by Cardinal Bernard 1990) to which the current writer contributed...
...The catechism's to the Bible...
...The cogent observations of Carl F. H. Henry, Robert Booth Fowler, George Marsden, Robert Wuthnow, and others make this book important reading in a new political era...
...No Protestant community gathered to celebrate Word and Sacrament...
...Without this parTucked into a small print section of the new catechism ticular actor, the ignition wouldn't fire...
...I think so...
...More In fairness, the opening section on ethics, with the strong forsuggestion than color, as if echo mulation on Christian personalism (the hand of John Paul II is dared to anticipate its word...
...released from its winterdrab...
...Febrile...
...a vicious joke...
...ments, and the Lord's Prayer...
...A team of inevitably degenerate into beliefs...
...1f' we are lucky, a burning Only twice in the entire catechism is there-in small print obthat manages also to servations (#853 and #2298)-any admission of human failsalve, to heal...
...thinker is cited (the ecumenical character of this volume is thin) There is no evidence that contemporary biblical criticism has and from the older theological tradition there are exactly fif- made any impact on the catechism's formulation...
...ganization is not done, the general impression gained is that of One further advance over the provisional text is that there facticity, not of organic unity...
...but there is in it great good and also the best of serof the timeless about it...
...entation of the authentic faith (and there is a crying need for Now put on your thinking caps...
...Cardinal Law opined that it was time for a cat- Since Rome thought that the substance of the draft was sound, echism that would set out, and clearly explain, the entire body the suggested scrapping of the entire project coming from some of authentic Catholic teaching...
...intel- Bo Goldman's script is nothing but a collection of opportuniligence and emotion...
...It took me the better part of Prayer (Luther's small catechism, like the Roman Catechism, two days to go once through the catechism in a careful manfollows this division), there are four large sections in the new ner...
...Guess who teaches this boy such a statement) while taking into account that we are deal- about Life...
...mandments (#2123 ff...
...The section on the Bible opens way of thinking theologically...
...The (#1676) is a wonderful description of the Catholic wisdom of material exists only to serve and exalt an actor...
...Curiously, the catechism recflanking [lie trail's start might already ognizes that the Holy Women were the first witnesses to the have struck their matchstick stems Resurrection (#640) but explains in the next paragraph (#641) against flint...
...Apart from Commonweal 12 March 1993: 9 some citations from Vatican II and utterances of the recent pon- been dialectically linked with liberation theology's emphasis tiffs, no theologian after John Henry Newman ever gets cited...
...vision has its remote origin in the early medieval period when What general impression does the catechism make...
...Little appeal is made either to human expe10: 12 March 1993 Commonweal rience or to history except, in the latter case, to treat gingerly entirety...
...person as a child of God, establishes a basic fraternity, teach- The set-up of the action is pure pasteboard...
...If such ortial rewrites of other sections...
...There is no extended acknowedgment of biblical approach to Christology, mariology, and ecclesiology is "high...
...It reflects the kind of theology with an emphasis on the traditional primacy of the literal sense that emanates from the circle of writers connected to Communio and goes on to talk about the equally traditional three spirituand is very unlike that found in the pages of Concilium...
...compendium...
...Right again...
...silence will cost him any chance of upward mobilichallenge to any writer of a catechism who would use the new ty...
...indulgences in places, it either warns the reader that a given topic will be for example, get the small-print treatment...
...In that document the pope said that the aucally shorter than the present one...
...Exactly...
...It crete numbered paragraphs...
...hermeneutics and no reference to the revival of biblical studHow much richer those great themes would have been had they ies in the modern world...
...Habit...
...That wisdom, the catechism rightly says, ties for the actor...
...Indeed, there is evidence tradition or sacred Scripture or descriptions of the history of a in the text itself that the authors understand the problem since, certain practice or lesser practices of the church...
...There was also considerable dissatisfaction with the theological tenor of parts of the text...
...alder...
...One recent commentator has said that the catechism now has the authority of a magisterial document of the teaching church...
...I found seethe of skunk cabbages' oiled lamps...
...Those who lament the demise of the Baltimore were designed to serve immediate catechetical Catechism in this country have some cause for their sadness as needs...
...on the solidarity of Jesus with the poor, with the liberating theme not even those who like De Lubac, Congar, Rahner, now enjoy of Mary's Magnificat, and the transforming power of the local something like canonical status in the tradition...
...The issue, then, is this: Will this catechism be an One strategy might be to isolate those statements, correlate aid for catechetical instruction and, if so, how...
...spirit and body...
...Kenneth Woodward, religion editor, Newsweek NO LONGER EXILES The Religious New Right in American Politics Edited by Michael Cromartie The 1992 presidential election demonstrated once again the continuing and controversial influence of the religious right on American political life...
...Its designated American bishops, again, sub secreto-why...
...While able comprehensive statement of belief that would act as a rem- working on the text I paid particular attention edy for that illiteracy nor a comprehensive strategy to aid in its to the 550 short statements (in the boxes) which elimination...
...That exposition of the way to read Scripture is halsenses echoes of the theological approach of the late Hans Urs lowed in the tradition but unmindful of more nuanced approaches von Balthasar and, not, say, of Karl Rahner...
...pendium" or a "reference text" or, more poetically, a "symphony" of the faith) is to present the belief and practice(s) of the Ir he text with which I worked (that sent to the Catholic church "faithfully" and "organically...
...it sad that the catechism provides no consolation to the divorced A hununingbird's buzz raddles and remarried beyond telling them to be faithful to the church the dense wickerwork...
...over it meticulously), the catechism was first published in French That same suggestion for a universal catechism had been de- (the working language of the writing group) in November 1992: bated at Vatican I but the assembled bishops never came to a Catechisme de L'Eglise Catholique (Mame/Plon...
...of them...
...Any writer of a new local original catechism all been eliminated...
...That writing group, in turn, consulted (selected) theologians from around the world...
...was an honest attempt in the translation for the United States Secondly, the catechism is very traditional both in its approach to use inclusive language in its references to human persons...
...Other transdecision to order such a text...
...You got it...
...And the vegy is to be utilized in that teaching...
...vine...
...There also seems to have been a rather will have to struggle with this awkwardness in order to obtain complete rewrite of the fourth section on prayer, and substan- anything like an "organic" presentation of the faith...
...That's the fundamental reason why it's such is a kind of humanism that "radically affirms the dignity of every a lousy script...
...Guess whether or not Frank commits ing with real people who live real lives...
...volume will amount to well over six hundred pages...
...From that list of essentials, com- First, and this is a criticism I made about the provisional draft, mentaries were produced over the centuries...
...petal, leaf...
...justice and human community...
...Let us also have the Jesus who has been re- 1961.• trieved by liberation theology, historical critics, and our con- It will be a daunting task...
...It is, alas, the work of intelligent clerical and its message...
...After a number of preliminary drafts were produced, a provisional text was sent in late 1989 sub secreto to the world's hierarchy with instructions that emendations, corrections, etc...
...the use of the old fourfold division of the text into creed, sacraThe actual text of the present catechism is divided into dis- ments, ethics, and prayer is not a pedagogically useful one...
...The anthropology of the catechism is not always a comfortPamela Gross able admixture of personalism and hierarchy.The role of women At the March Equinox in the church marks little advance beyond Kiiche, Kinder, and Kirche: no female servers at the altar, please, and only men in A sense of waiting-as if the priesthood...
...his breastplate while denying them access to the Communion rail...
...Let that tify a woman's perfume with one sniff and a wine's vintage be the deep background of any attempt to write a statement of with one sip, can spend his last hours on earth savoring the joys faith that would do justice to the need for an intelligent pres- of flesh before blowing his brains out...
...tering study of the provisional draft which was later published under the title The Universal Catechism Reader: Reflections The Catechism of the Catholic Church has its ori- and Responses, edited by Thomas Reese, S.J...
...A scholarship es people how to encounter nature and understand work, and boy in an ultra-ultra prep school is pressured by his headmasprovides reasons for joy and humor even in the midst of a very ter to rat on some of his rich schoolmates after they perpetrate hard life...
...The general tone of the catechism is one of serene security...
...but such teachers are rare birds...
...and/or utilize in their teaching...
...Leaflets flare...
...Most peo- style, a more realistic work might be produced...
...them so as to overcome the creed/sacrament/morality dichotoThere are many good resources in this work but the sheer my of the larger text, and see if they would serve as a coherent bulk of material will make it, at best, a reference work for those frame for a smaller, more useful catechesis of the faith that would who want to mine snippets (after the manner of the older the- be comprehensive but not overwhelming...
...In our day, however, the synod adopted, and October 11, 1992 (marking the thirtieth anniversary of the openPope John Paul II approved, a recommendation that such a catechism be written...
...SCREEN Such a catechism must also avoid the olympian tone of the self-assured teacher...
...The current catechism is not anchored in any- For there is neither great glory nor outward show in their kind thing like real life...
...I missed any citation, for example, of Pius XII's encyclical on biblical renewal, the 1943 Divino afflante spiritu...
...all over this section) is quite good, as are the sections on social Blade, bud, sepal...
...to Christ and his mother...
...The final need expressed by many in the hierarchy for some standard ac- rewrite of the catechism took over two years...
...near its tlashpoint: Blaze The section on ethics is predictable on the issues of aborof the Audubon warbler's raised yellow jack: tion, contraception, etc., but that comes as no surprise...
...Only lay men can advance to the permanent state for the match to be struck-so strong, of lector and reader (#903...
...It is from that first but careful (with an extended commentary on the Lord's Prayer...
...I then went back and read selectively the cross references book: The Profession of Faith (based loosely on the Apostles' provided in the margin that sent the reader to cognate paragraphs...
...but the specifics of the section We have wished for something like this on morality will cause, I suspect, some vigorous comment among to happen to us...
...Nor is there any possibility of sustained When compared to the provisional text of 1990, the most reflection on the obligation to worship in the creedal section significant changes are found in the structure...
...summary sentences) are numbered consecutively for a total of would be a logical place to reflect on the problem of atheism 2,865 entries, exclusive of the appendices containing citation and agnosticism but those topics get treated under the comsources and a glossary of terms...
...did primary audience is the Catholic episcopate and, from them, to not have the glossary of terms (earlier samples I those charged with catechetical ministry under the guidance of have seen from the provisional text indicate that the bishops...
...sion of the life of Christ, for instance, relies on a harmony of The theology of the catechism is conservative...
...There is no vithe common people that does justice to the human and the di- sion in the script, except the vision of a great performance...
...This catechism gives us one from people whose deepest reflections might resonate with vision of the substance of the faith (and much more) but, alas, authentic religious experience...
...communion and Scent of 'a Woman is Al Pacino's vehicle, pure and simple...
...It should be written in a thentic doctrine of the church should be studied and expoundmore accessible style and, more importantly, it should take ed through methods of research and through the literary forms into account the concrete reality of people's lives...
...Using a time-honored distinction based If one follows the intention of the authors that it be read "as on creed, sacrament, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's a whole," one is in for a long read...
...in fact, the distinction is not directly acknowledged...
...That should the Gospels that does some justice to the mysteries of Christ come as no surprise since such a document should be conser- as it unfolds in the liturgical year but none to biblical insights vative but it does, pace its apologists, represent a very definite produced in the last half century...
...It has an air partially intended I suspect- of teaching...
...written for the higher clergy with an eye on Rome and ceived by the various churches in the world...
...The real problem is Can the enormous amount of work put into this that there is widespread illiteracy in the church and no accept- catechism be put to good use...
...suicide...
...Will this be the case...
...new" sins, so played up in the popular press) but much space this green glaze on shoulder, crown for law and command...
...This di- reading that these remarks come...
...it also stud- sacramental life and under the discussion of the First ded the small-print sections with sources in Latin (these have Commandment...
...Law's suggestion reflected a quarters was never given serious consideration...
...sity students because its format is so unappetizingly dogmatic The greatest fear of some people is that the catechism will and abstract...
...The synod's task was lication date in late 1990, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anto reflect on the impact of Vatican II twenty years niversary of the closing of the council, was clearly impossible...
...The pope further notes that the Catechism of the they are only of a lexical character) nor a comCatholic Church is meant to encourage and assist in the writ- plete index of sources cited in the body of the text (I have the ing of new local catechisms pertinent to the needs of the local one for the French edition), but my best guess is that the entire church...
...In this timely new volume, an impressive group of experts explain why and how the religious right has maintained its longevity and power...
...It well might be but only theologians (did any lay persons have a hand in its formulathe future will tell as we watch to see how the catechism is re- tion...
...There is no mention in the catechism, even in small print, of Headhigh thickets of salmonberry deaconesses in the early church...
...D the visual, it simply will not do to write in an unvisual assertive style...
...the moralists...
...faith and homeland...
...It would of modern thought...
...It would be unfair to expect such a docCardinal Law's letter of December 4, 1992, accompanying the ument to be on the "cutting edge" of theological speculation final draft to the American bishops calls this a "moderate ap- but it would have been helpful to have taken into account some proach...
...These pithy summaries are meant for catechists to cross references but that requires a lot of flipping around in the memorize (a daunting task since there are, by my count, 550 text...
...The French Structurally, the catechism patterns itself after the Roman version comes to 676 pages and does not include the glossary Catechism which had been produced after the sixteenth-cen- promised for the English edition...
...and in its suppositions...
...after its closing...
...ment which ever uttered the word humor...
...In smaller print there follows, after does not permit that "organic" quality intended by the authors many of the paragraphs, either citations from the theological and promised by the catechism itself...
...flected worries not unlike those voiced by some critics of the Pope John Paul's apostolic constitution Fidei depositum, current project...
...Thousands of suggestions poured into Rome from both LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM chairs the department of theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...that the male witnesses "remain the foundation stone of the the closest green can ever come to church" without alluding to the Holy Women who were the first flame, and every visible inhabitant proclaimers of the Risen Lord...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 5
