On Catechesis

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." It was thus that Jesus commanded his Apostles, giving them the Holy Spirit that they might explain with authority all that He had taught them. From the beginning, catechesis has always meant the Church’s effort to win disciples for Our Lord, to lead others to faith in Him as the Son of God that they might have the fullness of life in His name. It has also meant to teach these disciples to build up the Church, the Body of Christ, through teaching the Deposit of the Faith in an organic, systematic manner. Until Vatican II, catechesis was primarily doctrinal, consisting in instruction in the didache, the “Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles” before baptism. This doctrine was encapsulated in the Apostles Creed, the twelve fundamental doctrines which in the form of a profession of faith summarized Apostolic teaching. Over time, the fundamentals of the Faith came to be divided into Creed, Commandments, Sacraments and Prayer, the structure of our present-day Catechism.

I am one of the generational Catholics schooled in the Faith by the teaching of the Baltimore Catechism prior to Vatican II, which the postconciliar religious education establishment had branded as defective pedagogy; my quarrel with them is not over their contention concerning the style of teaching, but rather their view that the truths of the Catholic faith on the existence and nature of God, the creation and Fall, the Incarnation and Redemption, and the Church set down in the Baltimore Catechism were defective as well.

Thus I find Msgr. Pope's recent article enlightening on mistakes made in Catechesis, all of which are discussed in my book....

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You Cannot be Right or Left Wing on the Apostles' Creed!

MONDAY last I posted that Pope Francis might not be all that the secular media consider him to be, recommending a First Things piece on the matter. Today we read of Archbishop Chaput's interview with John Allen of the National Catholic (?) Reporter , in Rio for WYD. What caught my attention was the Archbishops's comment that alienated, non-serious Catholics perhaps interpret the Pope's openness as being less concerned than his predecessors with doctrine, and that it is already true that "the right wing of the Church" has not been happy with his election. As I argued in The Smoke of Satan , and as George Weigel has eloquently posited in Evangelical Catholicism , the political terms left and right are woefully inadequate as measurements of one's standing in the Body of Christ. There are only the orthodox, and the heterodox.

Dancing With Mr. D: Grooming the Little Children

A former pro-transgender activist said she regretted her previous work in pro-transgender activism, adding she felt she was "indoctrinated" on gender ideology in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming," Kay Yang, a former employee of a location in New York, said. Grooming in this context means "to get into readiness for a specific objective." Kay works as a 'deprogrammer' to help parents and children who have been 'indoctrinated' by the 'cult-like' transgender agenda. Yang herself previously went by they/them and worked as a 'trans educator' in schools for years. Listen to her testimony.

Libido Redux

I post from time to time the elephant-in-the room evil of pornography , and borrowed this from the Opinionated Catholic : There’s a situation in counseling I come across all too often: a couple will typically tell me first about how stressful their lives are. Maybe he’s lost his job. Perhaps she’s working two. Maybe their children are rowdy or the house is chaotic. But usually, if we talk long enough about their fracturing marriage, there is a sense that something else is afoot. The couple will tell me about how their sex life is near extinction. The man, she’ll tell me, is an emotional wraith, dead to intimacy with his wife. The woman will be frustrated, with what seems to him to be a wild mixture of rage and humiliation. They just don’t know what’s wrong, but they know a Christian marriage isn’t supposed to feel like this. It’s at this point that I interrupt the discussion, look at the man, and ask, “So how long has the porn been going on?” The couple will look at eac...

Land O' Lakes and the University of Our Lady

In my chapter on Catechesis I did not discuss Catholic Higher Education, as I had not the competence to contribute beyond Catholic priest and famed sociologist Msgr. George Kelly's https://www.amazon.com/battle-American-church-George-Anthony/dp/0385174330 COMMENTARY | JUL. 20, 2017 The Spirit of Land O’Lakes: A Recent Student’s Perspective COMMENTARY: Part of a Register Symposium Jonathan Liedl I can’t help but get defensive when confronted with overstatements about the demise of the University of Notre Dame, my alma mater. After all, my Catholic faith blossomed on Our Lady’s campus, nurtured by friendships with well-formed Catholic peers living out their faith with joy and fidelity. At precisely the moment when the simplistic worldview of my youth was beginning to falter under the pressure of existential questioning, these friends witnessed to me the beauty and satisfaction of a life wholly Catholic. I have similar sentiments for another oft-maligned Ca...

John Paul the Great on Spiritual Warfare

In preaching the Papal retreat for 1976, Cardinal Wojtyla warned of “rebellion,” i.e ., the apostasy of the present age, the source for the present crisis of faith facing the Church. I believe it is consistent with Church teaching on spiritual warfare to see in St. Paul’s “son of perdition” one who would lead humanity away from the Church toward a humanist, man-centered world-view claiming the right of authorship of the moral law. This also explains why those who dissent from Church doctrine and the authority of the magisterium claim an amorphous “spirit of Vatican II” (an “anti-word?”) as their authority for what amounts to unbelief. In our own time the reader perhaps has experienced the war for the soul of men waged between the authentic Christian humanism of the Gospel, which permeates the teaching of John Paul the Great, and the “new humanism” which violates the rights of God as true Author of all that is good. John Paul II had it just right: “Without the Creator, the creature vani...

Dancin' With Mr. D.: "Abolish the Priesthood" by James Carroll

N ow, what would the prince of this world like to see more than what ex-priest James Carroll has called for in his recent screed in the Atlantic : the abolition of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Why? He says because the Church’s reputation and membership have suffered under the continual revelations of sexual abuse by those he erroneously labels "pedophiles, in reality the homosexual network of priests aided by bishops(homosexual and heterosexual), and cardinals who’ve protected each other at the expense of many victims. In his own words: Clericalism is both the underlying cause and the ongoing enabler of the present Catholic catastrophe. Only by dismantling the clerical hierarchy can the Church end the perpetual scandals, move into the modern age, and preserve the faith of its believers. Let us set the record straight by quoting a victim of priestly sexual abuse : "both clericalism and homosexuality in the ...

BISHOPS BISHOPING!! UK bishops lament 'gay marriage' approval :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

UK bishops lament 'gay marriage' approval :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Dancing With Mr. D: The Two Popes

F irst Things, a journal published by The Institute of Religion and Public Life, an educational institute aiming to advance a religiously informed public philosophy has thoroughly exposed the new Netflix movie The Two Popes , featuring Anthony Hopkins as an irritable Pope Benedict and Jonathan Pryce as a beaming Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, today is known as Pope Francis. The plot has Bergoglio considering retirement but instead is beckoned to see Pope Benedict in the Vatican. The two then spend days becoming friends and Benedict tells Bergoglio he is going to resign and anoint Bergoglio as his successor. Wrong . None of this happened. As John Waters writes in First Things: Bergoglio did not in 2012 fly to Italy to meet with Pope Benedict at Castel Gandolfo to ask for permission to retire. The two men did not spend days together getting to know each other. Pope Benedict did not give Cardinal Bergoglio advance knowledge of his intention to resign...

LIBIDO REDUX!! book on the modeling industry

Kylie Bisutti, former Victoria's Secret model discusses her new book on the modeling industry and how to help girls with self-body image issues! Guys, A MUST SEE!!! If this video interests you... see here.

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