If you have any interest in Religious Education and passing on the Catholic Faith to the next generation, you need to read this post. Fr. Simon nails the problem with current RE programs and Catholic schools: they’re not working. The Catholic Faith is not being passed on to the children and grandchildren of our parishioners. Sure, they’re being taught the teachings of the Church, and they’re receiving the Sacraments, at least First Confession, First Communion, and Confirmation.
The problem is: they’re not receiving the Faith. We’re not evangelizing them. How many have made it a habit to regularly (by regularly, I mean at least once a month) receive the Sacraments of Eucharist and Confession after their First Holy Communion and Confirmation? How many develop a great love for the Mass and the Eucharist, and wouldn’t miss Sunday Mass for anything (even High School sports)? How many truly desire a relationship with Christ, and seek opportunities for prayer and reflection on the Scriptures? How many joyfully desire to follow the Church’s teachings, both easy and difficult, out of love for Christ and His Church? Finally, how many are boldly proclaiming their love for Christ and desire for the salvation He promises to their family and friends?
In most communities I’ve seen, the answer to all those questions is essentially none. There might be a handful of kids in any parish that truly develop any excitement for the Catholic Faith and seek to follow Christ with their lives, but that group is an extremely small percentage of kids who go through religious education programs. Worse, it seems that percentage is growing smaller. In this parish, the majority of kids who attend Wednesday Religious Education classes do not attend Sunday Mass. The kids receive their one hour of “church class”, and that’s all they get.
This is not good. This is not healthy. This is not passing the Catholic faith on to the next generation. We are not evangelizing the children in our parishes and communities, because we are not showing them what it means to be Catholic, and the importance of Christ in our lives.
So, what’s the answer? I don’t know, but I think Fr. Simon is on the right track. Instead of worrying about cramming the teachings of the Church into kids’ heads, we need to be showing them by our lives how those teachings are important to us and how they help us to draw closer to Christ. Example: instead of being satisfied by telling kids about the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we need to restore a reverence for the Blessed Sacrament in our actions — especially in front of the Tabernacle — and share how important receiving Our Lord is in our daily lives. In other words, we need to walk the walk before they’ll listen when we talk the talk.
To make one thing clear: this will fail if we try to water down the teachings of the Church to make them more palatable. The teachings of the Church are exciting, powerful, challenging, and life-giving, but become dull, powerless, simplistic, and lifeless if we minimize them or try to explain them away. The Catholic faith is attractive if it is first lived in its fullness, then taught in its fullness without excuses or compromises. We trust in God’s mercy, but we don’t demand it by flaunting what He revealed through His Son.
So, what do you say? How do we truly pass on the Catholic faith, and make disciples of the children in our parishes?
I think teaching about morality is important, and Theology of the Body is all well and good. However, TOTB and related topics (contraception, abortion, ‘gay marriage’ and other biggies) dominate HS-level RE programs in orthodox parishes, along with apologetics…that’s not good. The Liturgy is neglected; I think this is a product of the Lifeteen-based model of youth ministry. I’ve already noticed how weak my understanding of the Sacraments-what they are, what they do for us, their connection to morality (I’m thinking Aquinas has an answer for this in the Summa Theologica…), among so many more possible questions. The parts of the Mass, let alone the parts of the prayers are not understood…I only knew the answer in our RE class Jeopardy game to a question about the Epiclesis because I’ve bothered to learn about the Eucharistic Prayer. I wish we talked about how we are inclined to Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, and what those are. I hope we can talk about those in relation to the Mass as well next year. Also, I hope to talk about the Eastern Churches and the Extraordinary Form.
Oh and we need to recover good language for describing our Faith. Ex: Transubstantiation is frequently described using the word ‘transformation.’ That just leads to misunderstandings and confusion.
Matt, all those are excellent comments, and absolutely right on. I think any religious education program that focuses on living the faith instead of just talking about it will necessarily deal with all the liturgical points you bring up. Liturgy is essential to living the Catholic faith. In fact, as the Second Vatican Council points out, the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our faith. The Mass is truly the most important thing we do as Catholics, and everything we do flows from our participation at Mass.
I love that expression-the source and summit of our faith.
I am DRE at one parish and teach the Confirmation class in another. I love teaching the class and we go over the parts of Mass and the Gospel on Sunday. They love being able to tell me what the sermon was about or the Gospel. They pay attention so they can answer it and learn something in the process. They are an amazing group of kids, some who are there of their own accord because mom and dad don’t really care. And once a month we spend most of the class at Adoration thanks to the new priest in the parish (my former parish). Kids want the Truth, its just that most do not know where to look. Most of the kids I teach have parents who know less about the Faith than the student. And many teachers, sadly, are not solid enough in the Faith to teach. Many of my own kid’s teachers always told me they learned a lot of basics from my children. I treat my class like they are worthy and capable of learning the True Faith (not the watered down) and these kids even want to come during the summer. Being a DRE is a lot tougher. I wish I had the power to do what Fr. Simon speaks about, but in some cases small steps are needed.
Something drastically different is certainly needed! Keep doing the same thing and keep getting the same (lack of) results is not a good pattern to be in.
I’ve often wondered what parish religious education would be like if instead of educating the children and not the parents, we did it the other way. Focused all resources on educating the parents and then let them educate the kids…
Think of it – moms and dads evangelized in the formal program – topical classes, bring in (orthodox of course) university professors to teach the more advanced parents who’ve been in the program a few years…
Light a fire in mom and dad, and then watch them form their whole family in the faith…
Miriam, I agree 100%. Due to poor catechesis over the last 40 years, we’ve lost the parents, and now we’re losing the children. I’m looking very strongly at programs that are home-based, with monthly parish meetings. Will it work? I don’t know, but I do know it’ll be a fight. These parents don’t want to take responsibility for bringing their children up in the faith, otherwise they’d be at Mass each week, so the weekly RE program is a way for them to feel like they’ve “fulfilled their responsibility” without actually doing anything.
What I like about these home-based programs is that they require parents to learn about the material for themselves before presenting it to their kids. Maybe, just maybe, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, their spiritual fires will be kindled. I guess I’m just afraid that too many parents will blow it off, and the kids would get even less of a education in the faith.
I think one of the most important things in this vein is to discuss prayer, sacraments and so on as REAL things, things that really exist and are active in our lives. My own CCD experience tended to sort of skate over the theological angle so it came across as “Confession is how God forgives our sins; now let’s talk about forgiveness in our REAL lives and how can we show our little siblings that we’re sorry when we hurt them?” I did St Louis de Montfort’s consecration this year and I almost couldn’t understand what he was talking about in terms of graces and effects and merits; it was humbling to realize that I apparently didn’t actually believe that prayer had real effect beyond a sort of “well that’s a nice thing to do”. (Of course I also had it drummed into me that prayers “aren’t magic spells” and QED it doesn’t actually matter what you say.) I think the theory has been that too much theological detail and language is splitting hairs or being narrow-minded, and simultaneously we should strive to show “practical” applications at all times. I can appreciate this but in my own experience, in a child’s mind, it boils down to, “daily life is what’s real and spiritual things aren’t.”
I think what it comes down to is role models and relationships; and what makes it so difficult is that you can’t automate either of those things. The guy who teaches the confirmation class at my parish tries to get young adults who are regular mass-goers to come in and talk to the class about every other week. That’s really imperfect to say the least but I think it’s on the right track.
This, Julie. I definitely agree. There’s a need to make prayer life real for kids. Having hands on experience be a big part of formal classes can make a difference. At one parish I know, the class went into the church together just once all year (to pray the Stations during Lent). Sad. At another parish on the other hand, they hold a regular Children’s Holy Hour before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. Plus they take the classes (all of them, not just the ones making First Communion that year) to Confession at least once during each term.
It’s just wonderful! If the point of Religious Ed classes is to bring kids closer to Jesus, it makes total sense. It’s all well and good for a catechist to stand in front of them and talk *about* Jesus, but how much better to bring them directly into the presence of Jesus and let Him talk to them?