It’s something I hear on Catholic radio from time to time, and it’s a statement that fails to accurately assess the problem it is addressing. It’s the conviction that poor catechesis is the reason why many Catholics reject Church teaching on the Eucharist and other important doctrines—or do not even know the doctrines. But it isn’t just that poor catechesis is blamed; I believe there is truth to that. The real problem is that poor catechesis gets all the blame for the problem. However, poor catechesis is only the tip of the iceberg. Other reasons hide under the surface, reasons we may find too chilling to face (and that could be the reason they are overlooked).
The hard truth of the matter is that a major reason why anyone—Catholic or not—does not learn the truth or even rejects it, is that they are not passionate about it. And why are we not passionate about it? Could it be that we just don’t love the Body of Christ, the Church? And why would we not love that Body of Christ? Is it because we don’t love Christ, the Head of the Body? How can we say we love the Body of Christ while we don’t love the Head of the Body? I’m not trying to be judgmental here, but let’s face it: If we love someone, we will want to learn more about them. If we love God, we will want to learn more about Him; in fact, we will keep wanting to learn more about Him, not being satisfied with just a few morsels of truth but wanting to go ever deeper. It comes down to what I call the five Ls. If you:
Love the Lord, you will
Look for His truth,
Learn it,
Listen to it, and
Love it.
What we must face is that perhaps many people in the Church are weeds growing up with the wheat. There, I’ve said it, and it may be painful, but like some medicine, it may be rough to swallow but in the end will produce good. And besides, Jesus himself predicted this would happen! (Matthew 13:24–30)
Now if it is true that many unconverted people attend Catholic parishes, then what the Church should be doing is emphasizing the Gospel message in its catechesis. That message is the divinely established norm (see Rom. 10:14–17, 1 Cor. 1:21) through which people come to faith and become true disciples of Christ, but that genuine discipleship will not come about if that Gospel is not taught, preached, and emphasized frequently and consistently. That precious Good News should dominate the instruction in OCIA programs and parish religious education.
Speaking of religious education, I have taught children in a Catholic parish, and I can assure you that the catechesis of children places heavy emphasis on the practice of the Catholic faith, that is, the externals, such as making the sign of the cross, genuflecting, bowing, and memorizing prayers like the Our Father, Glory Be, and Hail Mary. They are taught the seasons of the liturgical calendar, how to pray the rosary, the hierarchy of Church leadership, the lives of saints, and other aspects of the Catholic faith. These things are important and should not be underestimated, but neither should the Gospel. Sadly, the Gospel message receives little attention in such catechetical materials, if even at all. For example, in a workbook given to students in my church’s Parish Religious Education Program (PREP), the Good News was barely mentioned, perhaps on just one page and in passing. This should not be! The Gospel message should take up at least half of that workbook, and it should have that emphasis in every year of catechesis—even into adulthood!
If we are going to blame poor catechesis for ignorance and rejection of the truth, then we must fix what is broken about our catechesis, or, to put it more precisely, we must include what is missing from our catechesis: the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
About the Author
The author of this blog, Jeremy (Jehanne), is a Catholic who strives to think God's thoughts after Him and obey Christ's exhortation to take up the cross daily and follow Him on the way to Golgotha. He likes reading theology, evangelizing, and, of course, writing.
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