Tuesday 21 June 2011

Catechesis . . .

A lot has been said and written about poor catechesis in recent years. Not just poor catechesis but a general decline in any sort of catechesis.

This affects not only our children but also our adults who have sadly been lacking good teaching in their formative years.

As Pope St Pius X said,

“If faith languishes in our days,” he said, “if among large numbers it has almost vanished, the reason is that the duty of catechetical teaching is either fulfilled very superficially or altogether neglected.

His point was that it was one of the primary duties of the priest to ensure that his parishioners received adequate catechesis. One can engage the laity in supporting the priest in this endeavour; indeed, nowadays it is almost essential as most priests find themselves without an assistant priest in the parish. It is nevertheless the responsibility of the Parish Priest to avail himself of every opportunity to help the people develop a better knowledge and understanding of their faith.

Todd Hartch develops this idea further in his excellent post on 'Catholic Thing' here

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