Reclaiming catechetics.

Many Catholics are aware that since the mid-sixties very serious problems developed in elementary and secondary Catholic schools about the lack of proper catechetics or education courses in the Catholic faith. This went hand in hand with dissent from Catholic orthodoxy among theologians and biblical scholars teaching at universities or other institutes of higher education which reached its height of influence in the early eighties.

At the same time, new methodologies of teaching called for an end to memorization, and the provision of wordy treatises in which length and breadth of discussion were substituted for doctrine and content.

The result was such a decline in religious knowledge that an entire generation of young people may be said to have grown up not knowing the fundamentals of Catholic belief.

Today we are witnessing attempts to recover and strengthen episcopal oversight over the Catholicity of institutions, teachers, and programs on all three levels of education, elementary, secondary, and higher learning.

Msgr. Vincent Foy emphasizes the usefulness of the diocesan catechetical office, provided it closely adheres to the guidance of the Church's magisterium.

Editor

"We have one Teacher-Jesus Christ."

Pope John Paul II 

St. Paul admonished the young bishops Timothy and Titus to guard "the deposit of faith." He did not ask them to change it or add to it or subtract from it, but to guard the precious "deposit of faith," the teaching of Christ.

In Canada today this precious "deposit of faith" is not well guarded or transmitted. It has often been changed or simply neglected. One is grieved to observe the religious illiteracy of Catholic children both in primary and high schools. Often children do not know even essential prayers like the Hail Mary or the Act of Contrition. Many do not know of Christ's Divinity, or what the Mass is, or what a Sacrament is. It has been estimated that no more than ten to fifteen percent of Catholic school children go to weekly Sunday Mass and frequent the Sacraments.

The recent squabble between the Ontario English Teachers' Association (OECTA) and the Ontario Catholic Schools Trustees Association about the Witnesses to Faith document is a symbol of the catechetical chaos afflicting our schools (see June '99 C.I, pp. 16-19). The Teachers' Association defends those who dissent from Catholic doctrine and objects to even fundamental requirements of teachers as required by Church law.

Recently I learned how a small group of students in a Canadian Catholic high school played out a Satanic ritual in which a Sacred Host was placed in the centre of a pentagram and stamped upon. This atrocity is a symbol of the smoke of Satan that has filtered into Catholic schools in Canada. The situation is rightly called catechetical chaos.

Christ is our one Teacher

In his Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi tradendae, (Handing on the Faith), October 1979, Pope John Paul II stressed that all authentic catechesis is Christocentric.

Catechesis is Christocentric in three principal ways:

1. The Person of Christ is at the heart of all right catechesis.

2. He is "The Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14,6). The intention of the teacher must be to transmit not one's own opinion, but the teaching of Christ.

3. Authentic catechesis is done with Christ's authority in the way in which He ordained. He ordained that it be done through the Hierarchical Church, through Peter and his successors, through the Apostles and their successors in union with Peter. That and that alone is authentic catechesis. Anything less is a betrayal of Christ, His Church, parents, teachers and children.

Christ said to His Apostles, "He who hears you hears Me." He did not say, "He who hears the theologians, the experts, the psychologists, the sexologists, the bureaucrats, and unions hears Me." Unless catechesis is in harmony with the law and directives given to us by the Church, which acts with Christ's authority, we have catechetical chaos. That is what we have in Canada today. We look at the components of authentic Catholic catechesis to see where the calamity has its roots.

In place of Christ: parents first

The Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi tradendae (n. 68) and the General Directory for Catechesis (nn. 226-7) as well as numerous other documents define the supremacy of parents in catechesis. The Code of Canon Law states simply: "Parents, and those who take their place, have both the obligation and the right to educate their children" (c. 793.1).

In summary it can be said that family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches all other forms of catechesis. Parents receive in the Sacrament of Matrimony "the grace and the ministry of the Christian education of their children" (Pope John Paul II, Christifideles laici, 1988).

Parents who value the virtue of their children are well-advised to withdraw them from courses in sex education contrary to the teaching of the Church. Such is the abominable Fully Alive program. When the primary right of parents is not respected, we have catechetical chaos.

In place of Christ: the bishop

It is by divine law that the bishop has the teaching office in the Church. As we read in Vatican II: "The order of bishops is the successor to the college of the Apostles in teaching authority and pastoral rule" (Lumen gentium, n. 22). The General Directory for Catechesis tells us that "The Bishop has primary responsibility for catechesis in the particular Church" (a. 22) and "The organization of catechetical pastoral care has as its reference point the Bishop of the diocese" (n. 265).

Responsibility for determining the fitness of teachers and their qualification pertains to the bishop: "The local Ordinary is to be careful that those who are appointed as teachers of religion in schools, even non-Catholic ones, are outstanding in true doctrine, in the witness of their Christian life, and in their teaching ability" (c. 804, n. 2).

As for qualifications for removal, the determining authority comes not from school boards or principals but from the bishop. "In his own diocese, the local Ordinary has the right to appoint or to approve teachers of religion and, if religious or moral considerations require it, the right to remove them or to demand that they be removed" (c. 805).

The bishop's authority has its limits, not from below in the hierarchical scale but from above. The bishop is subject to the Holy See in his direction of catechesis (cf. c. 775 n.1). It is his obligation to implement the legislation and teaching of the Church in the whole area of Catholic education.

It is when the directives of the Holy See are not observed that catechesis degenerates. In many parts of Canada, school boards have replaced the bishop in directing religious education. In Ontario in October 1997, the Catholic School Trustees Association (OCTSA) issued a booklet Witnesses to Faith. Although acknowledging the ultimate authority of the bishop, the booklet says: "To trustees falls the ultimate responsibility for the direction and governance of Catholic schools" (p. 20). In this they are asserting an authority they do not have. It is their function to implement and apply the programs and policies set by the bishop either directly or through the Catechetical Office.

When the bishop relinquishes full authority over catechesis or when he does not implement the directives of the Holy See, we have catechetical chaos.

In place of Christ: the Cateclietical Office

The Catechetical Office is the Church institution helping the bishop in his responsibility of catechesis. Such an office was mandated in every diocese by a decree called Provida sane in 1935.

The General Catechetical Directory of 1971 tells us that the function of the Diocesan Catechetical Office is to supervise the entire catechetical organization--"The Catechetical Office is the means which the bishop as head of the community and teacher of doctrine utilizes to direct and moderate all the catechetical activities of the diocese. No diocese can be without its own Catechetical Office" (n.126).

The General Directory for Catechesis of 1997 quotes word for word the 1971 Directory in reaffirming the competency of the Catechetical Office. It goes further and lists its obligations in detail (n. 266). Under the bishop, the Catechetical Office has full authority over all the requirements for teachers, texts, and programs.

In much of Canada today school boards have either been allowed to usurp, or have usurped, the authority of the Catechetical Office. The latter has often been reduced to resource providers.

Where the Catechetical Office has been stripped of its authority and function as the bishop's delegate, we have catechetical chaos.

In place of Christ: pastors

Although all members of the Church have the duty to share the work of catechesis, "It is pastors of souls especially who have the serious duty of attending to the catechesis of the Christian people" (c. 773). Much particular legislation in Canada emphasized this duty and right of pastors.

The Second Provincial Council of Toronto (1938) decreed that pastors, and associates according to the direction of the pastors, were to visit schools frequently and inspect and supervise each part of the school at least twice a month (n.20). In the First Synod of the Diocese of London, ON (1956), it was legislated: "In Catholic schools the pastor or curate shall as far as possible visit each class regularly to supervise and supplement the religion instruction imparted by the teachers. This is particularly necessary where lay teachers are concerned" (Statute 236 n.1).

In Canada, in lock-step with the introduction of the Canadian Catechism (the predecessor of the present Born of the Spirit catechism series) came the diminution of the role of pastors and their associates in our schools. Many parish priests refused to involve themselves in the childish charades and meaningless pseudo-liturgical projects of the Canadian Catechism. They were shocked by its doctrinal poverty, and attempts to teach Catholic doctrine were often considered intrusive. In some dioceses parish priests were reduced to resource persons.

The law of the Church clearly places the pastor in charge of catechesis in his own territory including all Catholic schools in his parish. His rights and obligations are spelled out in Canons 776 and 777 of the new Code of Canon Law.

To disregard the supervisory and teaching role of the pastor is to promote catechetical chaos.

In place of Christ: teachers

An undeviating constant in the teaching and law of the Church is that teachers of the Faith must be witnesses to the Faith. Pope St. Pius X, who launched the catechetical renewal in this century, taught that the first fundamental principle governing catechetical instruction was that the teaching be the consequence of the interior life of the one who teaches.

Canadian bishops, in their first plenary meeting at Quebec in 1909, called for catechists who were both pious and solidly grounded in the Faith (decree n. 314). In their pastoral letter they said to parents: "The lessons and example of the teachers, even as your own, provide for the child either life or death, according as they convey to his soul truth or error, virtue or vice."

In his encyclical On the Christian Education of Youth of December 31, 1929, Pope Pius XI gave us the truism, quoted by subsequent popes, that good schools are not so much the result of good methods as of good teachers. In a letter to the Congress of the World Union of Catholic Teachers, Aug. 5, 1957, Pope Pius XII said: "The teacher is the soul of a school. A Catholic teacher who is deeply convinced of his Catholic faith and practises it as his second nature before the youth entrusted to him, serves Christ and His Church as well as one could in the highest form of the lay apostolate."

In the guidelines of the Congregation of Catholic Education called "The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School" of April 7, 1988, we are given the essential requirements of a Catholic teacher. We read: "The religion teacher is the key, the vital component, if the educational goals of the school are to be achieved. But the effectiveness of religious instruction is clearly tied to the personal witness given by the teacher; this witness is what brings the content of the lessons to life."

Countless magisterial documents, including the Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi tradendae of 1979 and the General Directory for Catechesis of 1977, call for teachers to be witnesses to the Faith as well as faithful to Church teaching. In the Directory we read: "The charism given to [the teacher] by the Spirit, a solid spirituality and transparent witness of life, constitutes the soul of every method."

The law of the Church is precise and concise: "Formation and education in a Catholic school must be based on the principles of Catholic doctrine, and the teachers must be outstanding in true doctrine and uprightness of life" (c. 803).

When dissenters and those who do not practise their faith are tolerated, as in the policy of the Teachers' Association, catechetical chaos is inevitable.

The instruments of Catechesis

The Church as teacher has given us superb instruments of catechesis: the what and how of forming Christ in us. Although there are secondary instruments there are two primary ones: The General Directory and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In his recent Apostolic Exhortation The Church in America of January 22, 1999, Pope John Paul II says, "I heartily recommend the use of those two resources, of universal value to everyone involved in catechesis in America. It is to be hoped that both documents will be employed in the preparation and the evaluation of all parochial and diocesan programs of catechesis...."

As the General Directory points out, the Catechism and Directory are two distinct but complementary instruments at the service of the Church in catechetical activity. The Catechism is a "statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to and illuminated by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition, and the Church's magisterium (n.120). The General Directory gives us the principles of pastoral theology and the means by which catechesis is to be directed and governed.

Unhappily, the call of Pope John Paul II continues to go unheeded in Canada. The instruments of catechesis used in most parts of our country are ill-designed to hand on the faith.

Defective instruments of catechesis such as Born of the Spirit and Fully Alive are a major source of catechetical chaos in Canada.

Listening to Christ: the cure

Christ our teacher, through His Church, has given us a marvelous body of catechetical laws and directives. It is admirably designed to hand on the Faith and ultimately to evangelize the world. It inspires vocations to the priesthood and religious life, including the contemplative life. It promotes modesty and chastity. It instructs in all the ways to withstand the onslaughts of the whole pagan media conglomerate. It helps form men and women courageous enough to advocate Christian principles in education, politics, medicine, and the marketplace. It prepares young people to live God's law of life and love in the married state. It educates to esteem the supreme gift of life from conception to natural death. It instructs in all the ways of spiritual growth: prayer, the Mass, the Sacraments, devotions, self-discipline and the acceptance of the Cross. It points all towards holiness and Heaven. It esteems love of God and others above all. It is wonderfully designed to build up the City of God in this passing city o f man.

May we in Canada listen to Christ!

Msgr. Foy was Director of Catechetics of the Archdiocese of Toronto under the late Cardinal James McGuigan.