There are three things that have bothered me about how catechesis of Catholic children is done in much of the United States. First, we treat it like another class at school. Second, there is little to no effort to show the faith as something practical to their lives. Third, there is little to no parental involvement in the programs.
When I consider these three issues, they seem to be connected in my eyes. Instead of seeing catechesis as molding and forming their lives on earth in preparation for eternal life, it seems to be viewed as another class that has material that needs to be crammed into the kids heads. Just as math class gives the kids the concepts of mathematics, religious education gives them the concepts of Church teaching.
With this focus on the material, there seems to be a lack of making the faith practical and desirable for the kids. Now, I’m not talking about merely having them do “social justice” days, which usually ends up being a community involvement track. That’s a good start, but what about seeing the importance of the Mass and devotional life? Some of the traditional prayers, such as the Our Father and Hail Mary, may be presented to the kids, but there is no concept of developing a prayer life. How about encouraging them to live the Church’s moral theology? The moral theology of the Church is where the theological rubber meets the road, but there seems to be no movement to encourage the kids to explore and live what the Church teaches morally. Same problems with communal involvement, sacramental life, and most other areas of Church teaching and life.
Of course, at this point, I’m sure some are saying, “Father, that’s your job to fix it if you see it’s a problem!” Yes, that’s true, it is my job, but there’s far more going on here than just Father falling down on the job. As the Catechism teaches:
The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. “The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.” The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law. Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.” Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them (CCC 2221-2223 – Emphasis mine)
Herein lies one problem I see with many kids at religious education: they’re being dropped off for their once-a-week-Christianity-fix, and never setting foot in the Church otherwise. They, along with their parents, almost never attend weekly Mass, and are there only if the kid is “performing” in the children’s choir. Religious education is being seen as free babysitting for an hour on Wednesday while “checking off” teaching the Catholic faith to their children.
The problem with our current model is that there is no reinforcement from the parents about the importance of the Catholic faith. Catholic parents are falling down on their “first responsibility,” as the Catechism phrases it. After all, it’s not important to the parents, so why should the kid take it seriously? Because the kids don’t take it seriously, and there’s no encouragement from the parents to take it seriously, anything the catechists present just go right over the kids’ heads. Unfortunately, this is what I see here in too many cases. School academics are taken seriously, sports are taken really seriously (to the detriment of everything else), but religious education is blown off.
How do we fix this? I don’t know. Is it possible to reach the parents and convince them to take their faith seriously? Maybe, but most of them have gone through a program very similar to what we have today, with similar results. They probably can’t tell you how many sacraments the Church has, nor more importantly how those sacraments influence their daily lives. Too many Catholics don’t know what it means to be Catholic.
This needs to be changed immediately. We can’t allow another generation to fall away from the Church. I’m open to suggestions on how to reach the kids and help them to know, live, and love the Church’s teachings.
Yes, yes, yes — agreed on all three points.
I’d love to see more inter-generational catechetical programs put into place. My family had a wonderful experience with such a program when we lived in rural Iowa. Many parishes seem reluctant to explore that option, either because they believe they are weak on doctrine (they don’t have to be) or because they don’t want to make the investment of time and energy (which is considerably more than a traditional classroom model).
We also need to reclaim Confirmation from the “theology of graduation” that has grown up around it in religious education programs. When Confirmation becomes an ending point of religious education, it makes it difficult to instill a love of lifelong faith formation.
One thing we don’t see here as often is the Confirmation as “religious education graduation”, but that’s only due to our diocese shifting Confirmation from high school to 3rd grade as part of the sacramental “restored order”. This doesn’t mean that the kids are becoming more educated in the faith, but rather they just drop off at about the same time without the excuse of “graduating” from religious education. So, while it’s changed the mindset with the sacrament, it hasn’t fixed the problem.
Hi there Father;
This has been a bone of contention for me for ages. All I remember about CCD growing up was that it was on Wed. nites and there were boys there. Ha! Very sad. As a 19 yr. old I did not know ANYTHING about the Blessed Virgin Mary, much less what the Church taught. As a mom of seven and who homeschools I believe that ‘blessing of the pumpkins’ in Oct. CCD and the ignoring All Saints Day is deplorable. Which is why I yanked my kids out of CCD at our nearest church here and brought them home. WATERED DOWN CATHOLICISM is just as bad or worse than none at all. Jesus Christ has just become a man who did a lot of nice things. I have believed for a long time that bringing the parents back into the Church by requiring some sort of class that they are to attend would be helpful. The TV has become the altar of the home and people do not want to LIVE THE LITURGICAL CALENDAR! Most of the time they say, What is that? My husband is a 1st grader Catholic (convert) but refuses to go to any classes. He does read and that has helped. He says I am a High School Catholic talking down to him, but its because I LOVE THE CHURCH AND ADORE CHRIST and ALL that He teaches! My family would LOVE to go together and do something like this. My husband would even do that. EVEN if the parents were sitting in with the kids! It has to get down to basics. Adoration is a MUST. Teaching and sitting in Adoration go together. My kids now ASK TO GO! I would LOVE TO BE ON A TEAM TO CREATE something like this. The gift of faith TRULY is a GIFT!
A commenter on one social network mentioned a family program for religious education, where the parents would gather once a month at the parish and receive their “assignments” for the month. At the end of the month, the families would gather in small groups and present on what they learned. If the program was designed well, I could be a great boon for both the kids and the parents, but it would also be a lot of work for the religious education volunteers and priests. It is something I really want to explore, because you’re right, the current system doesn’t work and is easily watered down.
I agree Father. As a 6th grade catechist it’s frighteningly apparent that these kids aren’t in regular attendance at Mass AND that nothing much ‘catholic’ happens at home. This is a drudgery on Wednesday afternoon for them. My last class of 8 had only 4 that will go on for Confirmation. This years class of 5…who knows. All we can do is keep trying.
Few kids know the name of their parish, their priest, their diocese or bishop. Liturgical colors/seasons? Nada! None knew how to pray the Rosary–or why?! Saint stories are a big hit–but are viewed as fairy tales. Oh, and my favorite from last week: “Confession is to be done before First Holy Communion Miss Sarah–you don’t have to do it after that, right?” {sigh}
As a convert I’m able to focus more than most on what it is to be Catholic–what’s different about where I came from and how blessed they are to be Catholic. I’m even able to throw in a bit of insight on how to evangelize non-catholics, but I’m still learning my Catholic faith too. There’s not enough time, there’s not enough back up from parents, and I am a volunteer with no training. It’s a frustrating picture over all.
Sarah, we’re struggling with the same situation here. The only exposure to the Catholic faith many of these kids get is 1 hour on Wednesday afternoon. Outside of that, nothing.
I guess I’m feeling the same frustration that you are, which is why I put up this post. It has produced some good conversation on a couple social networks that I might try to summarize on Monday or Tuesday, so there is hope for something better.
As I said on twitter, the reason that parents don’t care and don’t do a better job is poor catechizing from their generation. Being responsible for your kids’ spiritual education is a daunting task, and even though I was a youth minister for close to 10 years, I still have moments where I feel inadequate. The average Catholic parent nowadays is of nominal faith, or is married to someone who really doesn’t care (and consequently leaves all religious upbringing to one parent’s shoulders). It’s hard!
I was raised by older parents, who knew how to make the home a subtlety Catholic one. This is an area that parishes could really step up and help parents in. Crucifixes in every room, a picture of Jesus with children in the kids’ rooms, having a patron saint and celebrating their feast day (also celebrating their baptismal days), saying a Hail Mary when you wash your hands, praying when you see an ambulance or a fire truck – all Catholic common sense things that parents just don’t know about.
Oh, I agree that the lack of Catholic involvement in their families is due to lack of catechesis of their parents. The parents of the kids are about my age, and my catechesis was pretty weak. Not quite as bad as “butterflies and rainbows”, but not far from it. I like the idea of giving parents resources to develop a Catholic identity in their families.
We have a deplorable Religious Ed program in our parish. Nobody wants to teach, parents don’t want to go, and children don’t want to go. You are right about it being like just another class in school. AND, the kids have to be there at 8:30 AM on a Sunday. MOST of the kids at our Catholic School that go to a religious ed program go to AWANA’S, and they LOVE IT. They can’t wait to go every Wednesday, and they try to get their friends to go. So, how can we get that LOVE back to our own RE program in our parish??? The kids have to WANT to go..you can’t imagine how HARD it is for the parent to force their kids to go to RE. Make the classes interesting and enjoyable…..can’t we take the Awana program and “make it Catholic”?
Unfortunately, you’re describing the problem I see in many parishes. No volunteers, no parents, and no desire from the kids. Not a good combination for fanning the flames of discipleship in the kids.
That’s a good question. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about Awana, other than the one meeting I attended back about 4th grade or so. I enjoyed it (the fact I remember it after all these years attests to that!), and can see the appeal as I think back. My concern is that Protestant theology is so deeply ingrained in Awana that it would be all but impossible to separate the two. (Same concern I have with vacation bible study programs that have both Catholic and Protestant tracks, BTW.)
Something I’ve just found that I’m going to keep my eye on is Kids 4 Jesus. This sounds like it might be a similar idea as Awana, including parental involvement, and they’re advertising a new religious ed program for parishes along the same line that they’re testing. I’m going to check out their guidebooks, as they have them on the site in PDF format (and not secured, surprisingly!).
hi folks! i think we’re all in agreement here that catholic youth in america are not getting the truth about the Faith, they are not seeing good examples of living out the faith in their homes, and “graduate” from their faith education and stop formation… i’m know there are infinite other reasons/influences affecting religious education, so the question is…
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?! anyone have any solid suggestions for a catechist teaching 2nd year confirmation to implement in teaching a class of 15 yr olds?