I recently came across the July 25, 2010 bulletin of St. Thomas More Parish in Chicago. Besides offering 2 Latin Masses per week and Confession prior to 9 of its 22 weekend and weekday Masses, the parish also uses its bulletin as a tool for catechesis.
Page 7 of this particular bulletin carried the heading “10 Facts of the Roman Catholic Faith,” with each of the following headings followed by a brief paragraph of explanation, including references to the Catechism and Church documents where appropriate.
1. Women Will Never Be Priests
2. Fridays Are Still Days Of Penance
3. The Bible Is A Catholic Book
4. The Mass Is The Same Sacrifice As Calvary
5. Annulments Are Not Catholic Divorces
6. In Vitro Fertilization Is Morally Unacceptable
7. There Is No Salvation Outside Of The Catholic Church
8. In An Emergency, Anyone Can Baptize
9. Hell And Purgatory Still Exist
10. Catholics Don’t Worship Mary And The Saints
DOR, like many dioceses, has two generations of poorly catechized Catholics inhabiting its pews (when they bother to attend Mass at all). This is something any parish could do to help rectify that situation.
Tags: Orthodoxy at Work
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If 95% of Catholics contracept, I can assume, 95% have not been properly educated from the pulpit on a whole list of issues. That means, out of 60 million or so Catholics in the USA, over 50 million are blind to critical issues of the faith.
Bravo St. Thomas More, Chicago.
I suspect that our diocese is not interested in such orthodox topics as would be addressed in the CCC. It is into “relationships” and “journeying”, not doctrine or dogma. The catechism is probably not even on the shelves of most of our priests, deacons and other “leaders.” There are so many simple things that parishes could do but even when you offer to do it for them they find all kinds of reasons why it can’t be done. Heck, most sermons lack any real orthodox teaching based on a good Bible commentary, the CCC, church fathers, etc. Much comes from dissident authors or fluff authors promoting the latest fad on “how to be church.” Lately, it’s on being “inclusive.”
CATECHIZE? What in the world is that? Never heard of it. No such thing in the Diocese of Rochester.
This is just another example of people of all ages drawn to the light. Here in Ra Cha Cha, few want to go into the darkness.
Valuable info. Lucky me I found your site by accident, I bookmarked it.
physician assistant,
Welcome to Cleansing Fire! And thank you for the compliment.