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The Faith of the Catholic Church: A Summary
This new summary of Christian Doctrine presents the most important questions of life and faith and answers them in simple language, faithfully following the format, content and spirt of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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June 5, 2023
I will try and reorganise my shelves to find a better place to put this small work - and my three stars reflect not a commentary on the quality of the exposition of theological argument, even less an endorsement of those beliefs - rather simply an acknowledgement of not being sure how to rate it. If I rated it on my belief in the Catholic Church it would be a one, but then this is more a work of exposition the proselytizing.
What I really acquired this for was to see how the Catholic Church presented and explained itself in contrast to the way it presented and explained itself in my school days (1960s in the USA and 1970s in Ireland). Now I have no idea how things are explained in Catholic Schools today and I have no memory of a work similar to this when I was in school (the closest would have been the old penny catechism) but reading this I can not but help see that things are different. No doubt this reflects the long gestation of Vatican II and it changes - I had not even made my first communion when the council met and made its changes and I was not brought up in any extremist Catholic sect but the priests nuns and other educators who passed on the message and teachings of the faith had all been formed in the pre-Vatican II world. It takes along time for things to really change, for new generations of educators free of 'old' way's to make an impact and for changes like Vatican II to become imbedded and the new orthodoxy.
All of this is rather a long winded way of approaching what for me was most different, and thus, interesting in this little work, it was an absence, the centrality of the Catholic Church, of being a Catholic and being different (although) right from everyone else (this is a perspective of a Catholic from English speaking countries, always slightly on the fringe when it comes to theology and moral ethics were French, German and of course Italians thinkers predominate in Vatican circles). This work looks at things like various prayers and creeds to define what the Catholic Church believes. It is not without discussion of either the Church or sacraments but compared to my youth they hardly feature.
When I was at school the first thing about be a Catholic, about what we believed was the Church as institution, the Pope as the ultimate authority figure and the sacerdotal role of the Church and its priests in our lives. All of this was special, powerful and unique too us as Catholics. No one else had the 'true presence', our priests were able to turn bread and to wine into 'God' by a process of transubstantiation (I am simplifying greatly), and the communion host was so precious that I was told stories of how how communists (in China originally but the story was recast for a setting in Vietnam but then this was the 1960s) and committed sacrilege by breaking open the tabernacle and throwing consecrated hosts onto the ground and how a pious Catholic boy had gone and, not picked them up as only a priest could do that, it would be sin for the boy to touch the host, but gone on his knees and reverently eaten scattered host off the floor by licking it up so as not to touch it and to prevent the hosts being trod trod on and further defiled. Of course the boy was discovered and killed). The only person who could 'make' a priest was a bishop and only the Pope could make a bishop. All of this was terribly important and as far as I can see a million miles from the Catholicism as taught today; even if so many of the basic beliefs in transubstantiation, the Pope, etc. are still taught the whole underlying belief system has changed so as to be unrecognizable.
I don't say that this is either good or bad, I just find it odd that what was supposedly eternal and unalterable can be changed so easily. People can believe what they like, institutions can change but I worry that we will forget the other Catholic church that existed in its absolutist form for so many hundreds of years and condemned and cared nothing for so many and they will try and make us believe that they have always been as they are. Some of us remember different.
What I really acquired this for was to see how the Catholic Church presented and explained itself in contrast to the way it presented and explained itself in my school days (1960s in the USA and 1970s in Ireland). Now I have no idea how things are explained in Catholic Schools today and I have no memory of a work similar to this when I was in school (the closest would have been the old penny catechism) but reading this I can not but help see that things are different. No doubt this reflects the long gestation of Vatican II and it changes - I had not even made my first communion when the council met and made its changes and I was not brought up in any extremist Catholic sect but the priests nuns and other educators who passed on the message and teachings of the faith had all been formed in the pre-Vatican II world. It takes along time for things to really change, for new generations of educators free of 'old' way's to make an impact and for changes like Vatican II to become imbedded and the new orthodoxy.
All of this is rather a long winded way of approaching what for me was most different, and thus, interesting in this little work, it was an absence, the centrality of the Catholic Church, of being a Catholic and being different (although) right from everyone else (this is a perspective of a Catholic from English speaking countries, always slightly on the fringe when it comes to theology and moral ethics were French, German and of course Italians thinkers predominate in Vatican circles). This work looks at things like various prayers and creeds to define what the Catholic Church believes. It is not without discussion of either the Church or sacraments but compared to my youth they hardly feature.
When I was at school the first thing about be a Catholic, about what we believed was the Church as institution, the Pope as the ultimate authority figure and the sacerdotal role of the Church and its priests in our lives. All of this was special, powerful and unique too us as Catholics. No one else had the 'true presence', our priests were able to turn bread and to wine into 'God' by a process of transubstantiation (I am simplifying greatly), and the communion host was so precious that I was told stories of how how communists (in China originally but the story was recast for a setting in Vietnam but then this was the 1960s) and committed sacrilege by breaking open the tabernacle and throwing consecrated hosts onto the ground and how a pious Catholic boy had gone and, not picked them up as only a priest could do that, it would be sin for the boy to touch the host, but gone on his knees and reverently eaten scattered host off the floor by licking it up so as not to touch it and to prevent the hosts being trod trod on and further defiled. Of course the boy was discovered and killed). The only person who could 'make' a priest was a bishop and only the Pope could make a bishop. All of this was terribly important and as far as I can see a million miles from the Catholicism as taught today; even if so many of the basic beliefs in transubstantiation, the Pope, etc. are still taught the whole underlying belief system has changed so as to be unrecognizable.
I don't say that this is either good or bad, I just find it odd that what was supposedly eternal and unalterable can be changed so easily. People can believe what they like, institutions can change but I worry that we will forget the other Catholic church that existed in its absolutist form for so many hundreds of years and condemned and cared nothing for so many and they will try and make us believe that they have always been as they are. Some of us remember different.
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