The Youcat has done something that almost no other book I've found has done: it has made the teachings of the faith accessible to people who have a marginal interest and a low reading level.
Mind you, the big green Catechism is great. (I still haven't made my way completely through it, but I've read most of it at one time or another.) However, it's scary-looking and huge and intimidating.
The Youcat, though, with its yellow cover and Q&A format, is pretty low-key. It transmits important information easily, painlessly.
I've been using it during our parish's Confirmation Boot Camp and in any class I teach since it's been released. You might say I'm a shameless fangirl. You'd be correct.
It's as important (and as easy) for parents to read as it is for the youth for whom it's written. Over the years, I've noticed a mantra that seems to come around and around and around, coupled with the "you're a convert so of COURSE you're a better Catholic" myth that seems so prevalent. It's the "I can't POSSIBLY teach my child! I don't KNOW enough."
I'm a catechist. I want to help. But what I do isn't primary catechesis (except with my own kids). What I do is similar to what all the farmers around me do: I plant. I might even cultivate. The growing, though, is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Much of my job as a catechist (and as a writer of things catechetical in places like this) is to encourage and equip parents. YOU CAN DO IT. And here's a tool that will help.
As I told my Confirmation students this week: it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to doubt. It's okay to stomp and scream and shake your fist (unless you're my two-year-old, and then we have a different set of standards). God can take it. It's NOT okay to walk away, to give up, to toss in your hat and chalk it up to "the Church needs to get with the times."
Obedience, the bad word of our times. It's also something we don't appreciate enough. I can ask and ask and ask (and I do, just ask my priest). Seeking knowledge isn't bad. And here's part of the arsenal you need to be ready for that part of the job.