....When I did return to the Faith, I was unable to find employment in
my undergraduate major, history, so I began to volunteer teaching CCD in my
parish, St. Agatha in Redford Twp., hoping eventually to land a job there teaching history. This required
me to earn catechist certification offered by the Archdiocese of Detroit, which
I did in 1978. No sooner had I completed the requirements, when a combination
Religion/History opening occurred at Benedictine High School in Detroit. I taught there for one year, after which I landed a job teaching
Scripture (for which I, by true Catholic standards, was woefully unprepared to
do) at St. Agatha, where I remained for one year. I then took a
position at a Catholic high school in a suburb of Detroit, where I have been
ever since. Since 1995, however, and my “reversion” (no doubt through the
prayers of my Mom) to the fullness of Catholic teaching, I have made ten year study of the post-conciliar years in the United States, for which my
training in history and as a catechist at the St. John Bosco Institute for
Catechetics, as well as twenty-five years as a catechist in the Archdiocese of
Detroit have come in handy. As to the book, there is very little that is
original; rather I offer a synthesis of much that I have read in the sources and in print regarding the years
immediately following the Second Vatican Council, though my interpretation of Paul VI on the state of the Church in 1972 I believe to be somewhat original. I decided to write the book out of my experiences as a catechist
(1978-2000) and a life-long student of history.
I s the Holy Father being "sifted like wheat" of late? I ask this because he has made some interesting remarks of late, such as: Pastors should not be “putting our noses into the moral life of other people.” Isn't there the requirement that confessors and a pastors priests have some sense of the moral life of those to whom they minister? S econdly, during a question-and-answer session , Francis spoke of a “pastoral cruelty,” such as priests who refuse to baptize the children of young single mothers. “They’re animals,” he said . Most priests are very generous in extending baptism to infants, realizing that they are not responsible for the sins or shortcomings of their parents. Those who do, at times, delay baptism do so for other reasons, such as little evidence for a well-founded hope that the child will be raised in the faith. There are some prudential judgments to be made and pastors are required to make them (see canon 868). ...


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