Catholic Teaching

[StColette]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jul 12 2004, 12:36 PM'] I agree. In all honesty, if we could just get people to teach the fundamentals of what being a catholic is we would be in a whole lot better shape. My CCD teachers taught heresy as well. If I was gonna teach RCIA to people, these are what I would focus on in depth (I kinda think it would have to be like a 10 or 11 month course ):

Nicean Creed
Baptism
Holy Communion
Confession
Confirmation
Marriage
Holy Orders
Anointing of the Sick
Mary & the Communion of Saints
The Universal Church (intro to the Rites, Canon Law, Councils, Catechism, etc)
Common Prayers (Rosary, Angelus, St. Michael, Divine Mercy Chaplet, Liturgy of the Hours, O my Jesus, Hail Holy Queen, etc)

I kinda think if everyone got at least basic understanding of that stuff, we would be in way better shape.

- Your Brother In Christ, Jeff [/quote]
I completely agree Jeff, those subjects would be great ones to teach !!

[qfnol31]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Jul 12 2004, 01:58 PM'] Confirmation should be adminstered aground age 7 or 8. In is not a rite of passage but simply the last past of the scraments of Initiation. [/quote]
I agree personally.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Jul 12 2004, 05:56 PM'][quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Jul 12 2004, 01:58 PM']Confirmation should be adminstered aground age 7 or 8. In is not a rite of passage but simply the last past of the scraments of Initiation.[/quote]
I agree personally. [/quote]
I agree, that is the proper age for Confirmation in the Latin Rite.

[St. Catherine]

My thing with not forcing comes from my husband because he teaches confirmation class. The kids that are forced to go end up being a distraction to the class and part of the reason why some confirmation classes are not as indepth as they need to be. The kids that want to know their faith are being held back by the kids that are forced to be there. The age group for confirmation here ranges between about 7-9 grades.

[cmotherofpirl]

That is the worst age to try to teach a kid anything.!!

[ICTHUS]

Whatever happened to the Bible being able to equip the man of God for every good work?

[cmotherofpirl]

All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice. 2 Timothy

So its profitable. But not the whole of it.
THe Bible is not the sole rule of Faith.

Therefore, brethren, STAND FAST, and hold the TRADITIONS which ye have been taught, whether BY WORD, or our epistle." (2 Thes. 2:15)

"Now I praise you brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ORDINANCES (the Greek text says, 'keep the TRADITIONS'), as I delivered them to you." (1Cor 11:2)

"And the things that thou hast HEARD of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2)

"By which ye are saved, if ye keep in MEMORY what I PREACHED (verbal teaching not written) to you, unless ye have believed in vain." (1Cor 15:2)

Edited July 13, 2004 by cmotherofpirl

[Crusader_4]

I also think interactivity getting kids to experience the faith first hand by either visiting elders having one on ones with Priests stuff like that makes a huge impact.

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Jul 12 2004, 07:01 PM'] All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice. 2 Timothy

So its profitable. But not the whole of it.
THe Bible is not the sole rule of Faith.

Therefore, brethren, STAND FAST, and hold the TRADITIONS which ye have been taught, whether BY WORD, or our epistle." (2 Thes. 2:15)

"Now I praise you brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ORDINANCES (the Greek text says, 'keep the TRADITIONS'), as I delivered them to you." (1Cor 11:2)

"And the things that thou hast HEARD of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2)

"By which ye are saved, if ye keep in MEMORY what I PREACHED (verbal teaching not written) to you, unless ye have believed in vain." (1Cor 15:2) [/quote]
However, what were these traditions except those things which were already written down in the Letters and Memoirs of the Apostles themselves??

[cmotherofpirl]

Not exactly.

Pauls writings were very early. When he is writing to Timothy to hold fast to tradition learned since childhood, he would have been referring to Jewish writings.
There was no canoned NT at that time. Jewish scriptures were still revered.

There were many other things in circulation besides Paul's letters. The letter of Clement was read in Churches as well.

And not everything made it into scripture.That is why Tradition of the Fathers can hold equal weight with Scripture.

[daugher-of-Mary]

[quote]While a baby in the Eastern rite does recieve Baptism, Holy Communion and Confirmation all at once, the child does not recieve Communion again until the reach the age of reason.[/quote]

Nay, in my Ruthenian parish, infants/young children receive under the species of the Precious Blood at every Mass. This was reinstated 1-2 years ago (I believe through the entire eparchy). I'm not sure about the other Rites.

[p0lar_bear]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Jul 12 2004, 08:56 PM'] Whatever happened to the Bible being able to equip the man of God for every good work? [/quote]
So we just hand a kid a Bible and say, "good luck"?

Even if one believes in the [i]false doctrine [/i]of sola scriptura, this is a ridiculous idea. People need to be taught, need to have things explained to them. In the early Church, new converts received teaching for more than two years before being baptized and for some time after.

There are a number of articles in the reference section demonstrating that sola scriptura is neither biblical or practical.

That, however, is not the topic of this thread. The topic is how we teach people the truths of the Faith.

[catholicguy]

[quote name='Crusader_4' date='Jul 12 2004, 12:34 AM'] I am putting this up for debate curious on your thoughts that the current Catholic teaching system both School system, and Catechism classes within parishes are not sufficent to teaching our Children about the faith anymore.  I  think that our parishs should focus more on a socratic method allowing Children to ask questions and introduce the faith as more hands on rather then simple doctrinal beliefs.  I have always found that its easier to teach when the student is willing and wants to explore rather then being forced to learn.  So i think there needs to be mroe innovation (not nessciarly more fun and games) but create an atmosphere of discovery where it gives youth a chance to build good consciences and learn how to become docile.  Also they have a chance to question teachings and get solid answers rather then evertyhing often being fed to them with little or no choice in exploring the material.  Also i think we need better qualified teachers and the whole catechims has to be different then normal teaching style the last thing children want is to go to a cathechims monday night or on the weekend that is exactly like regular school the whole program in my eyes needs a good refreshing. [/quote]
If you get Catholic Family News (and if you don't I [u]highly[/u] suggest that you do), there is an article called [i]No Authority, No Truth [/i]that basically states opposite of what you have as far as "I think that our parishs should focus more on a socratic method allowing Children to ask questions and introduce the faith as more hands on rather then simple doctrinal beliefs." Unfortunately, it is not available online. I think it may be in the future, though. To check later the website address is: [color=red]we don't link to sites not faithful to the Catholic Church[/color] It makes very good points about how "hands on learning" has destroyed education, and that is what is happening with priests' teachings from the pulpit, which is why the Church is in a crisis: the priests either don't know or don't believe or don't teaching the doctrine of the Church. If that was done, many problems would be gone. If we had a strong Magisterium (not "every Bishop decides for himself"), then this would obviously help, too. Eileen Spatz is a new writer for Catholic Family News, but her work is very good.

Edited July 14, 2004 by cmotherofpirl

[St. Catherine]

[quote]It makes very good points about how "hands on learning" has destroyed education, and that is what is happening with priests' teachings from the pulpit,[/quote]

Is this talking about education ingeneral or only religious ed? Either way I think hands on education is important in both. You cannot solely rely on hands on education though for everything there has to be instruction to go along with it.

[p0lar_bear]

"Hands-on" education is important and can be very helpful in catechesis. HOWEVER, it should not be the primary means of catechesis. Teaching children to exercise virtue, participating in liturgical or para-liturgical events, discussing how God has worked in their lives, teaching them [i]lectio divina[/i], etc are examples of valuable "hands-on" education. The point is that they need a solid foundation so they know what virtue is and how to exercise it, what the liturgy means, etc. Some truths simply cannot be know from experience alone and experience can often lead us to the wrong conclusions.