0ne of the most astounding things about the Church in North America is its traditionalism. Visitors from other lands, particularly from the old Catholic countries of Europe, are often surprised at our strict adherence to and observance of even the minutiae of Church discipline. They admit quite readily that they had been led to expect the exact opposite. We have a reputation for an off-hand approach to things, for a lack of interest in detail, for getting things done quickly but not necessarily thoroughly, and they had expected these sweeping generalizations to apply to our attitude toward many things in the Church. Yet, probably nowhere in the world is the observance of Church customs and laws as strict as in the strongly Catholic areas of North America.
All this is, saving certain exaggerations, to the good. But in the subject at hand, namely the teaching of religion, one cannot help but wonder whether this traditionalism is working to our benefit. That there is a catechetical movement sweeping the Catholic world is a heartening and exhilarating fact. Unfortunately, it is also a fact that North America has not been in the forefront of this movement. Indeed the observer must sometimes wonder whether any knowledge of this catechetical revival has penetrated into certain schools and localities.
Despite progress and advancement in other areas of Catholic life, we must recognize and admit that we are behind in the catechetical movement. There is reluctance to consider or accept change in methods of teaching religion and to admit the need for a re-evaluation of the content of religious instruction. We are willing to reconsider curricula in line with modern insights on the teaching of the physical and social sciences; we are prepared to venture into new fields to meet the educational needs of our times; we are willing to criticize the content of many of our courses of instruction. But when it come to reevaluating our procedure in teaching religion, there is hesitation. The suspicion begins to grow that any re-evaluation of content and method in religious instruction is fraught with danger, and that innovation borders upon heresy. The false impression that the catechetical revival is an attempt at innovation is one which must be corrected at once if we in North America are to benefit by the success and experience of those spearheading the catechetical movement abroad during the past half-century.
The modern catechetical revival is a restoration, not an innovation. In the same way that the Restored Liturgy of Holy Week is a return to previous Catholic liturgical custom, so is the modern catechetical renewal an attempt to return to the way of presenting the Christian Faith which prevailed in the Christian community for sixteen hundred years prior to the Protestant Revolt.
Commenting upon the necessity for Christian scholarship to re-examine its heritage, Dom Celestin Charlier says: "'Back to the primitive Church'...has always been the watchword of renewal.... It is true that we cannot neglect our living evolution.... But the Church can return to the living source of her tradition, to find there the renewal of her youth and the energy for fresh advance."1 The roots of the Church's catechetical heritage are implanted in her teaching the essential Good New-of our salvation in Christ through a biblical narrative style and always in a prayerful, liturgical setting. Biblical-liturgical catechesis is by no means an innovation for religious education.
Nor is it a mere coincidence that the revived interest in catechetics, which stresses the importance of presenting our doctrine in the context of the Bible and the liturgy, began with pope St. Pius X and the liturgical renewal. In the fullest sense, liturgy and catechetics are inseparable, for the liturgy is part of the ordinary magisterium of the Church; it is the ordinary way in which, from season to season and year to year, the Church renews and reviews for us in prayerful dramatic action the principal truths of the faith.
LITURGY AND CATECHETICS
In every [liturgical] year the whole revelation of faith returns, mystery by mystery, dogma by dogma, precept by precept, upon our intelligences and upon our hearts. The lex credendi is the lex orandi, and the worship of the Church preaches to the world without, and to the faithful within the sanctuary. To those that are without, it is a visible and audible witness for the kingdom of God: to those that are within, it is a foresight and a foretaste of the beauty and the sweetness of the worship of eternity.
If preachers will follow the Church as it moves year by year in the cycle of eternal truths, and will explain pastorally in simple and manly words the epistles and gospels by which the Church, or rather the Holy Ghost, teaches us the meaning of the feast and fast as they come and go, they will year by year declare to their Hocks the whole counsel of God...."
Cardinal Manning (1879)
It is perfectly correct to say that the liturgy offers the classic religion course for all. While no complete systematic theological presentation of divine revelation is to be found in the liturgy, nevertheless the principal mysteries of faith form its main pillars: namely, Christ and His work. As the two principal Christological dogmas of the Creed revolve about the Person of Christ and the work of Christ, these two dogmas are presented in the two cycles of the Liturgical Year: the Christmas cycle and the Easter cycle. The teaching on grace and the Holy Spirit completes the teaching on Christ's work in the Creed. This same teaching is fitted into the Liturgical Year as the completion of Christ's work in the Pentecostal sequence.2 It was all but inevitable that the liturgical revival and the catechetical revival should develop simultaneously, and that the liturgy be restored to the place which it once held in the Christian community as a major instrument of religious education as well as the source of our life in God.
The present catechetical renewal began in earnest some fifty years ago as a full-scale reaction against the slavish method of teaching religion which had been accepted almost without question for the previous few hundred years. It is no exaggeration to say that a strict adherence to question-answer manuals and question-answer procedures had become the established order after the Protestant Revolt. This order persists even today in many areas of the Christian world. We shall have occasion to point out the origin of the strict question-answer method of catechizing and the pitfalls which it presented for Catholic teachers who adhered strictly to it. For the present let it suffice to say that by the twentieth century, this method gave religious educators great cause for alarm. In fact some of the best minds in the Church were concerned about our procedure in religious education because of the increasing ignorance of the adult Catholic in religious matters.
The first part of the catechetical renewal, beginning about 1900, was directed to evaluating methods of teaching religion. In the light of new studies in the psychology of learning and the development of appropriate pedagogical procedures, the pictureless little catechism text, with its precise and exact theological formulas which were to be committed to memory after analysis, was found wanting. Since that time great advances have been made in improving religious pedagogy and in preparing catechism materials.
This concern with method was certainly necessary in the early twentieth century. It was not until later that the need was felt to re-evaluate the content of religious instruction. At present the concern of experts in catechetics is less with "how" than with "what" to teach in religion. It is the substance of the Christian message which holds the attention of the catechetical world today.
While content must always take precedence over method in religious instruction, there is a delicate relationship between the two which has an effect upon the whole matter at hand. One affects the other almost necessarily. To appreciate something of how the dry, stereotyped method of catechizing from a question-answer handbook came about, and the consequence of this for teaching the content of the Christian message, it is necessary for a moment to look back into history.
Prior to the de-Christianization of society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the teaching of religion in the schools was of no great concern to the Christian community. Catholic parents living in a solid and traditional Catholic atmosphere saw to it that children understood the content of their religion and lived it in accordance with a deep spirit of faith and the application of the truths of faith to daily life. In other words, Christian society was permeated with Christian ideals; Christian doctrine, as such, did not have to be taught as if it were something apart from life. This was true especially of the Middle Ages. Even after the Protestant Revolt, the Christian world for the most part retained some semblance of religious orientation.
However, a great change took place in the centuries following the sixteenth, which affected the structure of Christian living and its outlook upon life. This change was bound to be rejected in the content and method of religious instruction. We are speaking of the rise of secularism: the practical exclusion of God from the many areas of everyday life, public and private.
The dissolution of a situation in which Christian teaching and Christian life were one and the same, in which the family assumed its primary role as educator in Christian truth and living, was due not only to the secularization of society but to another phenomenon: the presence of heresy in the Western world. There was an urgent need, following the Revolt, to provide Catholics - adults and children as well - with exact answers to combat the heretics. Parents more and more left to the school the task of teaching religion to 'children. But a lack of efficient teaching and the intense concern with exact repetition of correct formulas led gradually to a reliance upon theoretical and ultimately unrealistic approaches to the subject of religious instruction. Apologetics was certainly necessary for combating heresy, but the apologetic approach was adopted on every level of religious education. Religion as a life to be lived gradually succumbed to the notion of religion as a series of propositions to be committed to memory after careful analysis.
The very type of book which was in use soon after the Protestant Revolt, and which has continued in use in some cases until our own time, is a commentary on the unpedagogical and unpsychological approach to the subject. Guy de Bretagne summarizes the situation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. "Children were summoned to catechism classes at a younger age. Priests, school teachers, lay catechists had to replace the parents who more and more relinquished their duties. At the age of nine or ten, children who lived in an unChristian atmosphere often lost any sense of religion. It was already too late. However they were given the same text-books composed by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theologians for children of twelve to fifteen years of age brought up in a Christian atmosphere. As catechism teachers were not well prepared... they made the children learn by heart formulae which were explained word for word. Catechism became primarily a teaching. The book assumed an exaggerated importance, and instead of being a point of arrival, it was considered a starting point."3
It is true that the insights into pedagogy which have been achieved through the application of the findings of psychology, so far-reaching in the last fifty years, have made their great impression on our present-day catechetical method. And, for this reason, it is not surprising that the erst reaction to a catechetical re-appraisal was in the area of methods of teaching. Many forward-looking and apostolic-minded teachers and administrators in the educational field saw with horror the shortcomings in the systematic teaching of religion, particularly to small children. Since the most obvious evil was a failure in method, they quite naturally attempted to apply the remedy to the ill. Within the past fifty years, under the impetus of the Munich School, pastoral theologians and catechists have sought a change in method, concentrating upon improved textbooks and pedagogy. It would, however, be an unacceptable simplification to say that the catechetical renewal is solely a matter of improved methodology.
Toward the end of the first quarter of this century, it became evident that improved methods were not sufficient for effectively transmitting the message of salvation. What was lacking in the student-teacher, and catechist as well, was a precise understanding of the Christian doctrine itself. "It must be carefully borne in mind that a person... will never be able to teach the catechism to the young and to adults without preparing himself thoroughly for it."4 There can be no inspired explanation of the Scripture and of the message of God for man until it resides first in the mind and the heart of the teacher. The living voice of the inspired catechist has from apostolic times been the primary instrument in religious education. In fact, the word catechesis means "to resound." Hence there is a serious obligation on the part of the catechist to "make heard" the Christian message correctly and precisely. "The teacher gives herself, with the truth adhering. There is no way of giving the truth without giving oneself.... The very essence of being possessed by any truth at all is a desire to tell it."5
The next step in the catechetical revival, therefore, proved to be even more important than the one to improve methods. It was found advisable to establish, in teachers' colleges especially, a course in theology calculated to give the student-teacher a more profound, more illumined, more inspired understanding of the message of Christ, that the teacher, in turn, might pass it on to his pupils. In modern terms we say that a need was felt for "kerygmatics."
By the kerygma (message) is meant that body of essential truths which God meant to be specifically and emphatically proclaimed. The kerygma, then, is the publicly announced message of salvation. The kerygmatic approach to teaching religion stresses the call of the Father for us to share by grace in the divine life through Our Lord Jesus Christ so that we may attain the glory prepared for us in the Kingdom of God.
There are many who will say that even before the kerygmatic revival, catetchists were stressing the essential content of the Good News with emphasis upon the God-life shared through grace. This may be true. But the arrangement of content in most catechisms in use on this continent gives equal weight to every item. Thus, a sense of the unity of the message and its joyful aspect are weighed down by too many and too varied details. Too often, also, "knowing the catechism word for word" has preceded knowing the spirit and appreciating the meaning of the message. Logical rather than psychological considerations have predominated in the teaching of religion since the sixteenth century.
Furthermore, a certain sameness of presentation with unvaried repetition has tended to destroy interest as well as joy in the study of catechism. Brother Vincent Ayel, F.S.C., editor of Catéchistes, a French catechetical review, has observed, "Take the case of a child who travels along with the same catechism manual from the age of six to fourteen (or even longer), every year bringing with it the same monotonous assembly of the same ideas, the same explanations and the same formulae. Note in passing that in the same period several times his reading books, his arithmetic and geography textbooks have been changed. A feeling of disgust becomes linked with the catechism, for the child is a growing being with a vital and profound need of novelty, change, new points of view.... Each year catechesis ought to provide something new, mark a real discovery.... But this distribution during the years of growth should not... follow deductive adult logic. It will be guided by a psychological first principle... : the taking into account of the evolutionary curve of the child's and adolescent's mentality."6
All good catechists have recognized the need for adaptation to the psychology of the child.7 The kerygmatic approach to teaching religion is based upon it.
The modern catechetical movement is a carefully balanced attempt to produce two things: (1) preparation of the teacher for a more profound understanding of the message which he has to impart and of which he is the herald; and (2) provision of the teaching materials for the methods which are necessary for the proclaiming of the message. These are the twin facets of the religion teacher's task: to know what and how to teach.
There has been some talk of the conflict or "opposition" between content and method in religious instruction. This is correctly termed "opposition" only when there has been an exaggeration in one direction or the other. But there is no need whatsoever for opposition between content and method. On the contrary, there is an absolute need for both these components.8
A teacher who does not understand the message which he is proclaiming is not only incompetent but perhaps a menace. The teacher who, understanding the message himself, is yet unable to communicate it to the minds and hearts of children is a rather useless instrument. This second condition is more unlikely than the first because he who understands the Christian message is necessarily on fire with it and that fire will communicate itself. However this is no excuse for failure in method on the part of the teachers. Enthusiasm and good will are not sufficient; skill and the proper pedagogical approach are a duty for the religion teacher.
For reasons which we leave to more theoretical books on this subject, the catechetical movement has had its greatest vogue in the countries of Europe where the greatest progress has already been made in the teaching of the profane subjects. Germany, Belgium, Austria, and France are in the forefront of the tremendously important drive to adapt the findings of applied psychology to the teaching of religion and to place the teaching of religion at the pinnacle of the curriculum where successive popes have asked that it be set. The center of the modern catechetical movement has been in continental Europe.9
It is not, therefore, surprising that Europe should also be taking the lead in the production of new catechetical texts. These show definite advances in arrangement of content and in suggested methods of instruction. In an essay entitled "General Tendencies in Contemporary Catechetics, Father Pierre Ranwez, S.J., says "After considerable thought had been given to the method of teaching and to the need for coordinating the various educative agencies, religious education began to attend to the content of the lessons themselves. The catechism had, of course, been taught to children from their earliest years. often enough this catechism had become a summary of theology rather than an introduction to the Christian message. Rut a summary, educators began to see, is normally understood only by those who have first assimilated that which is summarized. More than that, the abstract notions of theology are only within the reach of those who have been in direct contact with the Story of Salvation. The way that God has made Himself known to men is through His providential intervention from the time of Adam's sin up to the return of Christ to the Father in glory. Such is the message entrusted to the Church...-. But to children it is primarily the Story of Salvation that must be presented. Before learning definitions of the Holy Trinity or of the two natures in Jesus Christ or of grace, the child must erst have learned that God is Someone, a Father all-powerful and all-kind who led and protected the Children of Israel as a father watches over his family, who sent His Son Jesus to redeem us, and who continues, in His Church and through His Spirit, to be present among us."10
A most notable event in the development of catechetical texts has been the publication of what is known as the German Catechism. In some ways, it is the fruit of the most advanced thinking of the kerygmatic school. It is doubtful that the German Catechism can serve in every area of the world as a text, or that its content can be adapted for all as courses of religion. This is true of most of the new European catechisms. However, it is a giant stride forward in the presentation of the content of our religion. The French and Dutch Catechisms likewise evidence considerable care in preparation and presentation.
In our part of the world, anything like a dramatic effort to present religion kerygmatically has come slowly.11 The text most widely used in the elementary schools of English-speaking North America is the Baltimore Catechism. It is prescribed generally for the dioceses of the United States, and has been adopted in many Canadian dioceses. The Revised Catechism presents us with a remarkably concise summary of the content of the faith. It has been criticized for its too-difficult terminology as well as for the sequence of presentation. There are arguments to support both sides of the issue. However, this point is agreed upon by a majority of catechists: few modern experts in catechetics will accept a question-answer book for the first years of the grade school. In the appropriate place we shall discuss the whole problem of questions and answers, but this at least must be established - that children of the erst few years of school need the illustrative and narrative approach through the teaching of the Scriptures and the liturgy, rather than any primarily theoretical or systematized instruction.
It is a principle of pedagogy that repetition is the mother of good studies. Some catechists in America accepted the principle without question for decades. However, most catechists today question the advisability of presenting children with similarly worded questions and answers over a period of seven or eight years, even when new questions and answers are inserted in an effort to meet the mental development of pupils in advanced grades. Repetition is surely a sound principle, but "sameness" of repetition is mentally and spiritually sterilizing.12
Brother Vincent Ayel observes, "Satiety, the 'done this before' feeling, saturation, are certain to be produced by the yearly repetition of the same program, the same book."13
In most cases, the traditional catechism procedure follows a horizontal pattern, taking dogma in one year, Commandments in another, and the sacraments and worship in still another. The procedure seems to ignore the organic development of the child as well as the inherent unity of Christian doctrine. Every child should grow naturally and organically in every period of his life, not only in his knowledge of the doctrines of the Church but also in their practice in his spiritual life. A catechism which features the horizontal arrangement would limit this to growth in sections.
The responsibility for the official teaching of religion and use of texts rests with the bishop of the diocese. This does not mean that the exact sequence of the text or its precise construction must be the only determining factor of the instruction in the classroom unless the bishop of the diocese has given specific orders to that effect. Ordinarily, adjustment and adaptation are left to the educational authorities, and no one would wish to restrict the development of the material.
Father Francis Connell, C.SS.R., in his essay "Catechism Revision," has said, "No one will claim that the revised [Baltimore] Catechism is beyond all possibility of just criticism or improvement."14 He added later, "The C.C.D., under whose auspices the catechism is published, is always prepared to modify the text in response to any suggestion that would definitely improve the content or the mode of presentation found in the present text."15
In this regard, Father Hofinger makes the point, "Can we not, immediately, without changing the catechism itself, teach according to the order of presentation: Faith - Sacraments: Prayer (with the Sacrifice of the Mass) - Commandments? And more important than making such an external rearrangement, which should not meet with any considerable difficulties, is to make sure of the inner transformation of the teacher's own outlook which will result in the right presentation according to the two main divisions: God's Love, Our Response. Whenever we are teaching the Creed or the Sacraments, we must indicate again and again how the content strikingly manifests at every step the gift-giving love of God and how it incites us to grateful reciprocal love. And all the lessons on Prayer and the Commandments should, in the same way, be treated as welcome opportunities for reminding ourselves and our students of how we are to thank God for His love. Thus our teaching can become truly 'kerygmatic,' whatever the arrangement of the texts we must use for the present."16
In the following pages, we shall outline principles governing the teaching of religion and present certain suggestions as to approach. It must be understood in advance that these suggestions are to be submitted to the rules of the dioceses in which the instruction is being given, and if a particular catechism is prescribed, the content must be in terms of that catechism. There is nothing, however, to prevent a teacher from using the best of pedagogy in order to achieve the highest of aims.
1 The Christian Approach to the Bible (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1958), p. 240.
2 Josef A. Jungmann, S.J., The Good Tidings and Our Profession of Faith, synopsis-translation of Die Frobotschaft und Unsere Glaubensverkundigung (Notre Dame, Ill.: University of Notre Dame Press, n.d.), p. 21.
3 Guy de Bretagne, "The History of the Catechesis," Lumen Vitae, V (April-September 1950), p. 368.
4 Pius X, Acerbo Nimis.
5 Frank J. Sheed, Are We Really Teaching Religion? ( New York: Sheed and Ward, 1953), pp. B, 10.
6 "Progressive Nature of Catechesis," Lumen Vitae, XII ( January-March 1957 ), pp. 72-73.
7 See The Adaptive Way of Teaching Confraternity Classes by Sister Mary Rosalia, M.H.S.H. (St. Paul, Minn.: Catechetical Guild, 1959).
8 "The spiritual needs of the world today are enormous. We must answer the call. It is not sufficient to improve methods in order to reach the aim. Above all, we must penetrate deeper into the Christian Message, which is a mysterious truth. We have the wide and noble task of making Jesus Christ known and loved. It is not possible to love what one does not know, but it happens that knowledge does not always bring love. Our mission will not be complete, if we do not succeed in inspiring the love of Our Lord." Bishop Forni, "Address to the Members of the International Catechetical Year" quoted in "International Survey: International Organizations," Lumen Vitae, XIII ( January-March 1958), pp. 149-150.
9 Father Johannes Hofinger, S.J., in The Art of Teaching Christian Doctrine (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1957), gives a bibliography in which thirty-five of the publications on religious education are in German, nine in French, and only three in English. For a bibliography of catechetical publications in English, see Jungmann, Handing on the Faith (New York: Herder and Herder, 1959) and Camilo J. Marivoet, C.I.C.M., "A 'Minimum Programme' for the Formation of Catechists for Primary Schools," Lumen Vitae, XIV (September 1959).
10 Gerard S. Sloyan, ed., Shaping the Christian Message: Essays in Religious Education (New York: Macmillan, 1958), p. 117.
11 Report of Sr. M. Benedicta, I.H.M. "This survey gave us a very good general picture of the status of religious education in the United States. It was most gratifying to discover how many Superintendents of Schools expressed the wish for a revitalization and shift in content. Several publishers of Religion textbooks are already working on a shift in content and are organizing according to the Biblical-Historical approach." Quoted in "International Survey: America," Lumen Vitae, XIII (October-December 1958), p. 763.
12 . "With an increased understanding both of child psychology and of the pedagogical task which is involved in catechetical teaching, the judgment on the concentric cycle has undergone a change. True, for the learning of a set number of necessary questions or for a minimum of knowledge to be learned by heart, the concentric principle was of value. But there was always the danger that the doctrine presented always in the same way, and always in the same setting, would degenerate into a mere knowledge of words and of phrases." Jungmann, Handing on the Faith, p. 156.
13 Op. cit., p. 72.
14 The Confraternity Comes of Age (Paterson, N. J.: Confraternity Publications, 1956), p 199
"The Catechism text must be kept up to date. The Revised Baltimore Catechism has from time to time incorporated disciplinary and other changes as they emanated from the Church's magisterium. New material to a significant extent is now being prepared for inclusion in the text." Joseph B. Collins, Confraternity Teacher's Guide (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1961), p. xiii.
15 "Is the Baltimore Catechism Outmoded?", American Ecclesiastical Review, CXLI (January 1960), pp. 1-9.
16 Op. Cit., p. 80