Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 15 — The Georgia Bulletin. March 1. 1990
Bishop Says Catechism Draft Confuses Faith,Opinion
Bishop Lucker
of developing and
BY JERRY FILTEAU
WASHINGTON (CNS) -
The main focus of
catechetics should be
adults. Bishop Raymond A.
Lucker of New Ulm, Minn.,
told more than 2,000
religious educators gat
hered in Washington for the
18th annual East Coast
Conference for Religious
Education.
Speaking Feb. 23 on
“Catechesis for Christian
initiation” — the keynote
speech for the three-day
conference — Bishop
Lucker stressed that initia
tion in the faith is not a
onetime thing but a “lifelong process"
nurturing a relationship with God.
, “The chief form of catechesis is catechesis of adults,” he
said. “No one graduates from catechesis.”
He also spoke about the proposed new Catechism for the
Universal Church, a draft of which the Vatican sent out to
the world’s bishops late last year for consultation and revi
sion.
He praised some aspects of the draft and criticized
others. But he said one of his “most serious concerns” is a
fear that the universal catechism will “be a distraction
from the central concerns of catechesis” —■ that it is a "pro
cess of conversion” that is “lifelong.”
“Catechesis is not a textbook,” he said.
Those who think “our problems will be solved” by a book,
even if it is “a perfect summary of the truths of the faith,”
have missed the centrality of conversion in catechetics, he
said.
Early in his talk Bishop Lucker recalled his years before
the Second Vatican Council as director of religious educa
tion for the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.
He said that in those days “I was so arrogant that I defied
people to come up with a (religious) question to which I
didn’t have the answer.”
Then he lived in Rome during the last two sessions of
Vatican II, he said, and underwent a basic "conversion,” a
new experience of faith.
“ I was so surprised when I learned the church could — in
deed. had to — reform. We had been taught that the church
was a ‘perfect society,’” he said.
“I was so surprised when I first learned that initiation
was a lifelong process.... I was so surprised when I realized
initiation was for adults ... that initiation involved the com
munity.”
"We used to think that religious education was for in
struction, and we still do,” he said. That is an important
aspect, he added, but “we need to remember constantly
■that religious education is about faith.... Religious educa
tion is about conversion.... Faith is the total human
response to the living word of God.”
Bishop Lucker emphasized he was not trying to downplay
efforts at religious education of young people — “we need
more, not less” — but that adult education was needed to
make youth education more effective as well.
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“How is a child able to say at some point. ‘Jesus I love
you”?” he asked. “How is a child able to come to the
Eucharist and say, ‘I want some’?”
“That comes through witness," especially of parents but
also of other adults in the community, he said.
Speaking about the draft of the proposed Catechism for
the Universal Church, he said he agreed with the
document’s basic structure, although others have criticized
it, and he thought the sections on social justice, on the
church and on the Our Father were ail "quite good.”
But he said one “major issue” he saw was “a confusion
between what is in fact (the matter) of faith — what’s
essential — and what is theological opinion.”
"That’s a very critical issue.” he said. He described the
document as going well beyond a simple expression of the
“central message of faith” and entering into a large
number of areas that are still open to discussion. If the
catechism is going to do that, he said, “it should not give the
impression that these are closed” to debate or other forms
of theological expression.
He said he could not get through even a few pages of the
text before being “overwhelmed by the sexism of the
language. Obviously that has to change.”
He criticized the section on moral teaching for its “great
emphasis on the law and obedience” rather than on the call
of Jesus and the response of discipleship.
He said the Vatican’s May 31 deadline for responses is too
short, and the lack of extra copies makes consultation very
difficult. Each bishop received only one copy of the docu
ment. which is more than 430 pages.
“We know in this country how important it is to consult”
with educators, pastors and others, he said. “If there is a
broad consultative process, people are more likely to
receive (the final document) well.”
Reviews were mixed as the draft of the Vatican’s propos
ed Catechism for the Universal Church began to move
seriously into public view in late February.
The draft catechism summarizes — in far greater depth
and detail than any popular catechism could — the truths of
faith, worship and morality by which Catholics are suppos
ed to live.
Severe criticisms have emerged over the catechism’s
focus on natural law in the section on morality, its use of
Scripture, its length and its pervasive use of what critics
are calling "sexist” language.
It has been praised for emphasizing social justice as a
proper part of moral teaching and for its rich language in
sections on liturgy and prayer.
Archbishop William J. Levada of Portland, Ore., the only
U.S. representative on the catechism’s writing committee,
told a symposium of catechetical publishers in Washington
Feb. 21 that if the catechism’s final version “is well done,”
it could “shape the mind of the church for decades, perhaps
centuries, to come.”
In Italy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the
Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and
head of the commission in charge of developing the
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catechism, told students at the University of Rome Feb. 15
the draft is a “marvelous work,” although still
"imperfect.”
The draft catechism was sent to the world’s bishops for
consultation last November and December, but under a
stamp of secrecy — a fact which contributed to significant
delay in public reaction, even by those who received it im
mediately.
Archbishop Pio Laghi, papal pro-nuncio to the United
States, mentioned the draft catechism in a speech to the
symposium of catechetical publishers Feb. 20. and later
told Catholic News Service the "secrecy” protocol was
meant to avoid wide distribution of the draft, not to prevent
bishops from consulting with theologians and catechetical
advisers.
One of the first public critiques of the draft catechism
came in late January, when Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese
convened a panel of scholars at the Woodstock Theological
Center in Washington to analyze it. Their conclusions,
relayed at a press conference Jan. 28, were that the draft
needs major revisions if it is to meet the ..challenges of
teaching the faith into the 21st century.
Several described it as virtually ignoring theology since
the Second Vatican Council in areas of morality and Scrip
ture scholarship.
Father Reese, a sociologist and political scientist with the
Woodstock Center at Georgetown University in Washington,
convoked a similar panel in 1988 when the Vatican sent out
a draft document on the role of bishops' conferences. The
scholars roundly rejected that document. Father Reese
sent the conclusions to bishops’ conferences around the
world, and they were echoed by many conferences in
negative responses sent back to the Vatican.
In an article slated for publication Feb. 28 in The Tablet,
England’s leading Catholic opinion magazine, Father
Reese described the draft as "fatally flawed,” saying, “It
cannot be saved by amendments that only tinker with the
text,”
Papers by six Woodstock symposium participants were
brought together in a special March 3 issue of America, a
Jesuit national Catholic magazine of opinion and commen
tary. A seventh was to be published in the March 9 issue of
Commonweal, a leading lay Catholic magazine.
Father Reese told Catholic News Service Feb. 26 that he
planned to send the America, Commonweal and Tablet ar
ticles to each U.S. bishop and to the world’s conferences of
bishops.
Archbishop Levada, in his talk to catechetical publishers,
said a proper understanding of the catechism’s purpose and
its development as a church project could forestall some of
the criticisms of it.
He emphasized the document is not meant as a textbook
for “everyCatholic or Catholic-to-be.”
It is being written for bishops first, and through them for
catechetical publishers and directors, for use as a “point of
reference by which any catechetical material can be judg
ed for the soundness and comprehensiveness of its ap
proach,” he said.
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