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OK Dom, you are getting very close to the target. Look at everything going on in the Church and tell me if you disagree with me. All I see is one example after another that tells me that religious education (in english) has been a total failure for decades. I am referring to poor texts and poor catechesis and good volunteers who work with this junk.

Did I tell you about the people who believe they can baptize their child in any church as long as they bring him up Catholic? Hello!!!!

Hi, Dom:

I’m 36, so I too was raised pretty much at the nadir of Catholic catechesis. I always went to Mass, but didn’t really get that interested in what the Church teaches til my early 30’s. Pretty much what you said sums it up, but I guess I’d include some simple apologetics, along w maybe going through the parts and prayers of the Mass and what the significance of each is.

There was also a woman, Leila? I think her name was, who went to BC and is sort of a Catholic revert. She wrote a good column on our generation’s (lack of) catechesis. It’s sort of long, but it was good - I’ll see if I can dig it up.

Best -

We had an audio tape sex Ed lecture by Father Curran in my CCD class.  This was around 1977.

I did not know what the Immaculate Conception was until I was 30. 

catechesis? What’s that?

Really, my experience is only marginally better than what you describe, Dom. We learned our prayers, and memorized some stuff, and we had one teacher who was willing to be strong and tell us that things like abortion is wrong and you have to go to church every sunday, and not a whole lot more. I was very embarassed when I got here to college and realized how very little I had learned at my Catholic school in the late 80’s, and I learned not a single thing in the confirmation class I took in the early 90’s. My best friend and I played cards quietly in the back of the room while the other students memorized the Hail Mary.

I’m sick and tired of meeting people who left the church because they didn’t know what she teaches. They thought they did, but what they thought they knew was nonsense. What a sad reason to leave, and shame on us. This is an issue I want to do something about, if only I knew how.

You didn’t memorize the Hail Mary until high school?  Wow, I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad.

Most of what you talk about I learned in elementary school.  Back in the 60s the CCD program at my parish had the reputation of students getting into trouble on CCD night.  My mother took a look and said “no thanks.”  So I didn’t attend CCD. 

There was no sex ed in elementary school in the 50s, so there was time to teach the important stuff—prayers like the Angelus, the Memorare, the Hail Holy Queen, the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity.  In 8th grade we studied Church history.  What I was most curious about but not able to learn much about back then was Byzantine Catholicism.  It was mentioned briefly in the history class, but we got the impression it was a dirty little secret no one talked about.  Questions went unanswered.  The Baltimore was good for teaching the basic stuff and we used it every year.

Abortion was not mentioned.  Nor birth control.  That came later.  We studied the Mass in all its parts and had to know the vocabulary that accompanies it, like the names of vestments and Mass implements.  We studied the Commandments and the Commandments of the Church.  Memorized them in fact.  We read about the lives of the saints and talked about their feast days.  We knew about apparitions and talked some about the Popes.  It sounds as though my elementary school Catholic education was better than later CCD classes.  How sad.

I was quite well catechized in the early 1960’s.  By my Catholic friends.  I was a Lutheran.

Now that I am Catholic I am appalled by the way CCD has failed my children.  (I’ve had a lot of my own work to do with them.  What the heck, the last two aren’t even enrolled…)  The Lutheran Church did a better job with teaching me the Creeds and the ten commandments than CCD ever did with my children.  In fact, the Lutheran explanation of the difference between transsubstantiation and consubstantiation was more cogent and helpful than the crap my children learned.  And what I found in the texts during my years as a CCD teacher.  So I brought along my own Baltimore Catechism.  Boy, the DRE really loved that.

I shall soon be 35 and went through CCD about the same time as you, with the same results, of course.  There really is no good reason why I should be a Catholic today.  We learned nothing at all—NOTHING!  We either colored pictures (5th grade, mind you) or we read idiotic vignettes about the poor and oppressed.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Yet somehow, through the grace of God, I took interest in the Church and read everything I could get my hands on.  My smallish Catholic high school hadn’t bought many books since the late 60s, which was a boon for me.  I went to a Jesuit university in the northeast.  Again, no reason to be Catholic there.  There were NO courses in anything resembling systematic/dogmatic theology.  It was all scripture classes (and not very good at that).  I managed to rack up 27 hrs in theology.  Since I refused to take “Modern Theology,” I missed a major by a hair, though I did have a double major in philosophy and classical languages.  The philosophy department was stuck in the 60’s; the only worthwhile professor I had taught the “Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.”  He was a fantastic prof. (a bit on the eccentric side) who taught me much, esp. how to suffer a white martyrdom with grace amid looney fanatics, which came in handy many times.
I am the youngest of seven.  Only my oldest sister and I are practicing Catholics (hell, Catholics at all!).  I attribute my fallen siblings state directly to the years of poor catechesis in the CCD programs and the Catholic high school we all attended.  God have mercy on us.

I’m older than all of you ;-D; and suffered through 12 years of ‘traditional’ catholic education at the hands of many well intentioned but determined nuns who resorted to whatever was convenient to maintain strict control in classrooms packed to overflowing.  The average class size was 55; inter departmentatl education had not yet been invented.  Like Pavlov’s dogs, we responded to ‘bells’ and ‘clickers’.  The Baltimore Catechism was THE golden rule!

I wish I had been taught that Jesus was a Jew; that He was born, died and resurrected in the Middle East; that He never went to Rome.

I wish someone had explained to us that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Latin and that there are other Catholic Churches in the East that retain His words and language for the Consecration and other portions of their liturgy. 

I wish someone had told us about the authenticity and liturgical reverence of the Eastern Catholic Traditions. 

Since no one imparted this to me back then, I more than happily share it with your, dear readers.  If you have not yet done so, I would encourage you to discover the Eastern Catholic Churches that are in full communion with the Magisterium.  You can learn more about these traditions at this link:

Catholic Rites and Churches:  http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/catholic_rites_and_churches.htm

To locate an Eastern Tradition in your community, click on this link:

Eastern Catholic Churches in the US:
http://www.crosslink.net/~hrycak/ch_indx-s.html

Rod Dreher, who often reads this blog, will certainly agree.  Hearing the Qadeeshat (Trisagion) chanted in Aramaic is a moving experience. 

“The Eastern Churches are the Treasures of the Catholic Church” - Pope John XXIII

Hi, Papaefidelis:

You said it well - what this is really about being given the answer to WHY. Why be Catholic? If there’s poor-to-no catechesis, we just don’t have that answer, and hence all the CINOs around us who feel that anything is okay as long as everyone is “okay” with it.

Best -

Dittos on the Eastern Churches (NOT rites)...I transferred over to the Melkite Church after attending Divine Liturgies for almost 10 years…and it is a beautiful liturgy as are all those in the East. No fads or experimentation. Just Heaven on Earth.  Maybe Benedict XVI will bring back the great liturgical tradition of the West…

No Carrie, you misunderstand. Perhaps I did not state it clearly.

I went to a Catholic school from Kindergarten to 8th grade. At that school I learned my prayers, and we memorized a lot of things, and learned odd bits and pieces, such as the parts of the Mass and what have you, but no real solid theology. I memorized a lot of things, but we never learned the reasons behind things. I did not go to a Catholic highschool and therefore I had to take a regular confirmation class. All the other kids, who had not been at Catholic school from K-8th had to memorize things which I had learned a long time before. My friend and I knew that all already, so we played cards in the back, but we had to attend the classes anyway. I myself have known the Hail Mary so long, that I don’t even remember learning it.

High school is the age when we really ought to be delving deeper into the faith, and ought to be taught to start dealing with faith at a more mature level than “Jesus loves me this I know” and other very happy but rather shallow stuff. But unfortunately, CCD classes for these kids had evidently been so bad that they were still at a level of learning the basics. Therefore I learned nothing there, I was never taught by them to deal with things at a level above that of a 10 year old. Which is why so many people I knew back then have left the Church.

I’m 39, but an adult revert who had a secular education. And a very weak RCIA experience in my mid-20s mostly with people “fixing” mixed marriages or preparing thereto. I didn’t help by allowing the RCIA director to be cavalier about the rules.

I have a good confessor, but to be perfectly honest the last couple of years I have been hanging around St. Blogs have been as good of a Catholic Education as I’ve had. Sad but true. I wrote the following to Victor Lams in some private correspondence last year:

<blockquote>
Dude, it was only a couple of years ago that I even learned that Sundays aren’t part of Lent, and so you could put your fast on hold (though I have done so only once in three Lents and vowed never again; it just felt icky and unclean, like cheating on your wife based on an indulgence).

Despite appearances at St. Blogs, Victor, there are a LOT of details I don’t know, largely because of my peculiar life history—lapsed upon emigration from Scotland at 12 (the year before confirmation started), confirmed at 25 after being in RCIA class only from January to Easter (rather than September), and have been basically a nomad my whole adult life because of my profession (newspaper editor) and so have never developed strong ties to any city, much less parish or priest. I try to live the Catholic faith as best I can, in as comprehensive, rigorous and orthodox a manner as I can, but any lifelong Papist around whom I could run intellectual circles on just about anything, could run circles around me.

...

I’ve often reflected on this, and it’s come out in sharper relief in the past year I’ve been reading St. Blogs, but the habits and structures of my mind are VERY Protestant. I don’t have much of a sacramental imagination, e.g.
</blockquote>

I will be 40 in 2 weeks and getting more grey every day

I’ve commented on this blog before about the poor catechesis that existed and still exists at St. Mary’s Faith Community in Hales Corners WI.

I think THE most important thing that I didn’t learn was the REAL PRESENCE of Christ in the Eucharist.  After turning 18, I basically stopped going to mass - why? why not!  Mass was boring, same old thing every week.  Nothing special about it.  Nope.  Nothing special at all.  In the following 18 or so years, I searched on and off for Christ.  Little did I know . . .

People leave the Church and look for Christ.  How utterly shameful!!  Not shameful for the well-intentioned person who left the Church, but shameful for US - all of us for not screaming at the top of our lungs CHRIST IS HERE!  In the flesh!

theresa wrote:
“unfortunately, CCD classes for these kids had evidently been so bad that they were still at a level of learning the basics”

from my experiences with teaching CCD, I can guess that part of the problem might have been that some of these kids didn’t attend any classes between their first communion preparation and their confirmation preparation. At least this is what seems to happen around here. Parents want their kids to receive the sacraments but don’t place any value on the education. Cultural Catholicism with no substance.

As far as what we can do to change this… We can volunteer as CCD teachers so that the next generation of kids doesn’t suffer what we did.  We can help to create adult education programs in our parish to recatechise the lapsed. We can pray for our priests and DREs and for all parents, they have a monumental task ahead. We can support Catholic parents by giving them and their kids good books such as bibles, lives of the saints, church history, children’s missals, etc. so that they can learn about their faith outside of CCD. Maybe we can even donate such books to CCD programs at our parishes so that teachers can give them out. I know we’d like to do more at our parish but we are always strapped for cash.

CCD was for those quasi catholics who didn’t send their kids to the real schools, the catholic ones (that is what some believe, yes, not me now, mind you (is joke)).

If they would have been sent to catholic schools, they could have gone through my experience. An excellent foundation in orthodox catholicism in the elementary school, taught by sisters and lay people. But at the 8th grade level, you can’t get too deep.

But then, one could experience catholic high school education in the mid 70s.

I was quickly set straight on what I had been taught:

-there was no resurrection
-the eucharist is a symbol
-helping the oppress rise against their evil political and economic overlords is more important than salvation
-there were women priests in the early church
-all that sex stuff, well, its really OK
-would like you some more felt for your banner?

Thanks Father, thanks Sister!

Hi folks -

I am 35 years old and was also enrolled in CCD during the 70’s.  I agree with you all that there was very little substance to what I was taught.  I remember being taught “God is Love” and that God is my Father.  I do not remember any instance of being told about Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  In fact, I distinctly remember brining up an Old Testament Bible story (not sure which one now) and having the teachers stare at me with blank expressions - they didn’t even know what I was talking about. 

My personal feeling about this is that we shouldn’t lay the blame so heavily on the CCD programs as the primary locus of degerating catechesis.  Ultimately, it’s the parents fault if the faith is not handed on in a meaningful way to children.  The church has been extremely clear in the last 100 years that parents are the primary educators of their children.  Parish CCD programs cannot, no matter how good they are, make up for lack of parental witness to the faith. 

My parents taught me nothing about being Catholic.  I learned about Jesus, the Bible and Chrisitanity from my Grandfather who was a Pastor of a small Nazarene church.  I was lucky to have his witness to faith in Jesus - it planted the seeds that have borne the fruit of my faith. 

I taught CCD for years and we had great materials, great teachers and great support from the pastor—it didn’t make one bit of difference to the kids who didn’t see it lived out by their parents.  They couldn’t have cared less. 

Now that I am a father of two small children I understand the pressing need to be the primary educator of my children.  I fully plan to catechize my children myself.  If my parish requires that they go to CCD, then fine—but they will not be going to learn the faith, only to prove to the pastor that they are receiving the necessary instruction. 

I think that parishes should scrap the model of CCD that they have now and go for a model that requires parents to participate at the very same time as their children.  Make them all go to sacramental prep together.  What to you all think?

Many excellent ideas, Melanie!  I’m going to volunteer to teach CCD.  I work full-time so I suspect I’d be teaching the middle school kids in the evening.  That could be a lot of fun!  They’re old enough to get into interesting topics (but I’d probably need to cover some basics first).

But my daughter is almost 14 and I’ve been looking for some good/interesting Catholic books for teenagers, especially on the lives of saints and it’s not easy.  Seems most books have been geared towards young children or grownups…

Although born Catholic and baptised young, I rarely went to mass as a child.  (There was that 1 year, 1st grade in a parochial school)  My CCD came in high school sitting in the Fr. Wearden’s office with a Baltimore Catechism in 1978. 

I’ve been an assistant in CCE for the last 5 years.  We’ve used various books that the CCE director has chosen.  Many of them were too new-agey-touchy-feely-I-must-have-great-self-esteem books for my liking.  One of the books had a section on other religions like Islam, Buddhism,  Hindu.  I don’t think they are equivalent to Christianity and we shouldn’t teach our kids that they are morally equivalent.

We have nothing for next year.  I will have the same kids as 8th graders (3rd year with this group) as the primary teacher instead of assistant.  I’ve suggested using Baltimore.  I think they need to know the foundational stuff.  I think they need to know where in the Bible Mass comes from. Why the Eucharist is soo important. I think they need to know why we have a Pope.  Why we honor Mary. Why our Priests, Bishops, Cardinals and Pope are not elected or selected the same way our Protestant bretheren do.

I think they need to understand that sin is sin is sin and just because it’s 2005 there is nothing new.  It’s still sin. 

I think we should teach Catholic guilt.  You sin, you should feel bad, you should go to confession, you should try to avoid the occassion of sin in the future.  (oh, I need to pay attention to that last one)

They think I’m harsh. 

Michael,

As a parish religious education director, I completely agree: the model we have now is not ideal. We can give the kids a great education, but if they’re not getting it at home (or not even going to Mass!) then it will fall on deaf ears. The best we can hope is that a seed is planted and that someday the Holy Spirit will nudge that seed into growth and they’ll have a foundation to start with.

My brother has a good idea about relligious education. We should require that the parents come in for instruction, not the kids and that we teach the parents how to pass on the faith to their kids.

Lynne,
My 12-year-old nephew is reading some saint books from Ignatius Press geared to that age group. If you start at this page and go through the list, you will find several books that tell the stories of saints for a teen audience.

Jaded…

“I think we should teach Catholic guilt” - great quote! LOL

Thanks, Dom.  I’ll check that link out…

I always thought the Immaculate Conception referred to Jesus - until I returned to the Church in ‘98.

I went to Catholic schools in the 1970’s.  It was all about helping the poor.  Nothing about the richness of the Faith itself. 

Lynne, I second Domenic’s suggestion. (I was about to write it myself before I paged down and saw that he mentioned it.)
I’m afraid I almost grabbed the book on St Thomas Moore out of my soon- to- be- nephew’s hand and paged through it. He said he’s read it several times and has quite a few in the series.

the complete series can be found listed here: http://www.ignatius.com/category.aspx?SID=1&Category_ID=155&

I’m 36 and my story mirrors Michael’s. I gave it a valiant try at BU at the Newman Center when I made my confirmation…but still nothing was taught.

EWTN saved me…I watched 3 hrs a day for about a year and that gave me some sort of footing.

We’re very weak and susceptible to heresy right now due to this lack of catechesis.

One thing I have learned: theological liberals are either evil themselves or are complicit with it.

The disheartening thing is to see what is proposed for my children in the form of CCD/Catholic schools today: pure Lutheranism masquerading as Catholicism.

Melanie, great minds think alike (lol).  Thanks for the additional link…

There’s got to be others whose conversion was due in no small part to Karl Keating’s “Catholicism and Fundamentalism!”  I was given the book by a well meaning friend, as a response to some Protestant materials I had given him.  Changed my life.

Ever since, the institutional church (starting with the incredibly bad bishops appointed by Pope John Paul II and ending with the stereotypical feminazi sister who runs what my diocese laughingly refers to as the “ministry formation” program) has done it’s best to convince me I’ve made a huge mistake.  Some days I think they’re right.

The RCIA group was a bunch of well intentioned kids who were in no way ready for someone steeped in the pentecostal tradition and could throw scripture at them from memory.  To their credit they rallied, researched every question and came back with (usually) the right answers.  They were totally on their own.  The DRE was truly amusing, also a volunteer, but she’d been indoctrinated by the diocese’s above mentioned “ministry formation” program.  I drove her nuts by insisting that Dorothy Day, fine woman that she was, was not the Pope and never would be. 

None of them are still in the Church today.  In fact, out of my entire group, there’s only two families (there were about 12 of us) still at the Church.  Most, I think, were just filling in squares, never having finished confirmation as teens.  At least one left to attend a church that offers a Tridentine mass.  The only parish that offers one in America’s largest diocese. 

So, given that stellar track record, my kids aren’t enrolled in CCD.  I’ve fought bitter fights with the parish to get them the sacraments, embarassing the current DRE to point that she once, in front of the pastor, told me “well, since you believe in hell, you can just go there!” 

What do I wish I’d been taught in CCD?  The Catholic faith would have been nice…

During the few years that I didn’t attend Catholic schools I had catechism lessons from my mother (which was not a good thing - not so much because she was a convert who hadn’t learned much herself but because she was abusive.)  My high school religion classes were a joke at best and ruinous to the students’ faith at worst.

  I did enroll my dd in CCD for 1/2 a yr. before her First Holy Communion (Msgr. later said she could have taught the class & didn’t require it of ds) and I also taught CCD in the early-70s (while still a teen) and the late-80s/early-90s (pre-K for both.)  Each time we moved, I’d donate books and videos to the parish school of religion (except for a few treasures I’m saving for future grandchildren.)

  I really starting learning when my family began homeschooling.  The Keating book that wbeckham mentioned was very helpful down here in the deep South and my kids read it later as teens.  We used everything from the Baltimore Catechism to IP’s wonderful series to reprints of great old books (The Outlaws of Ravenhurst, for one.)  When my kids hit high school age they discovered Peter Kreeft in my bookcases and fell in love.

  Lynne, you may want to check out Catholic homeschooling sites for book ideas.  One suggestion is Bethlehem Books, which has some terrific historical fiction for older kids and teens.

I had 12 years of Catholic School education during the 50’s and 60’s.  After graduating from high school, I worked for Sadlier Publishing Company in NYC (major publisher of Catholic Religious Education materials to this day) - just in time to witness the development of the “New Vatican II Editions.” 

I remember talking to one of the authors of there First Confession textbook and being told that she had spend the whole night trying to finish the text.  She shared the frustration of having to meet a deadline for the publisher and felt they would have accepted blank pages, as long as they met their deadline.  She was also very aware that what she was working on would have a profound effect on the spiritual development of so many children.

Then in 1993, I gave up a nice paying job to work full time in Catechetical Ministry, after having volunteered to teach classes for the previous 25.

What I’ve learned:

- you cannot give a child a firm foundation in faith with catechists who have no idea what the Church teaches, yet we are forced to beg for volunteers who just do not have the time to continue their own religious education.  Try getting a catechist “certified” in the Archdiocese of Boston!

- most programs consist of 24 - 30 hours of classroom time, usually on weekends when children are anxiously waiting for class to end so they can go to a birthday party, or after school when they are already burned out

- you cannot provide a sound program without the support of parents and a pastor who is committed to faith formation on all age levels.  Many parents today feel that they are meeting their obligation in dropping kids off and picking them up.  Many pastors would prefer to have volunteers to run their programs because they are under the impression that there is not enough work to warrant a salary

- we would not be in this mess if the Catholic Church either, 1) stayed with pre-Vatican II teaching or 2) stayed with Vatican II teaching.  The result is that we have many Catholics who have no idea what the difference is.  And these are our catechists.

Good grief!  No wonder we’re in a mess!