The New National Adult Catechism Revisited

The complete article is available from Catholic World Report here.
The following are excerpts from the article. (with permission)

The New National Adult Catechism Revisited
By Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn and Kenneth D. Whitehead
Nov. 01 (Catholic World Report)

Last year, in commenting on the draft National Adult Catechism (NAC) that will eventually be issued by the United States bishops (see CWR, December 2002), we offered the judgment that “the proposed volume is really quite good on the whole;” but we also judged that “some important modifications and corrections…need to be made.” Careful examination of the revision of this draft NAC that was completed in June 2003, and then circulated to the bishops for further comments, reveals that further improvements indeed have been made. The book really is quite good in some of the ways we will try to indicate. That is not the whole story, however.

The Introduction states that it is the express intention of this National Adult Catechism to challenge our contemporary American “culture of disbelief, relativism, subjectivism, and differences about morality.” Faced with these tendencies in our contemporary culture, Christians are required to exhibit “moral courage,” the document states. All this is very good.

To illustrate how the document at its best proceeds to do what its Introduction states its aim to be, we may take as an example Chapter 20, on the Sacrament of Holy Orders. ... this chapter contains a complete and excellent, if brief, treatment of the Catholic priesthood. In an era when the typical “new catechetics” has so often tended to downgrade the sacrament of Holy Orders in favor of an amorphous view of an egalitarian “Christian community,” the draft NAC strongly reaffirms the ordained priesthood as an indispensable component of the true Church as established by Jesus Christ.

And the fact is that very many of the chapters in the present draft NAC, like this Chapter 20, do reflect the authentic faith and practice of the Catholic Church. As now written, this text represents a marked improvement over just about everything that is out there except the CCC itself. The latter, however, is much lengthier, and as good as it is, it is not too adaptable to specific RCIA, adult education, or senior high school religious education courses as such. Thus the NAC could serve very real needs if it comes out right in its final form.

UNFORTUNATE MODELS
If this were all that needed to be said about this draft NAC, we would be on the verge of a new era in Catholic religious education in the United States, with a readable and usable text—one that actually expounds the complete and authentic Catholic faith and its normative practice—being now at long last made available to Catholics in this country. Unfortunately, however, in its present form, the text still contains elements that could seriously compromise that eventuality. In a number of places in the text, there is evidence of a kind of cultural timidity or political correctness in the face of some contemporary ideological trends. In some cases, the editors of the draft NAC seem to have been unwilling or unable to challenge contemporary culture with the fullness of the Catholic vision.

If our tone at times seems unduly negative or critical, we persist nevertheless, because we do not believe that the bishops of the United States can afford to issue an official teaching instrument that is anything less than 100 percent authentically Catholic; or that can in any way be compromised by our contemporary decadent American culture.

Having said this, we now turn immediately to the very first “story” in Part 1, Chapter 1, of the draft NAC, and we find that, incredibly, the supposed “exemplary Catholic” featured in this first story is none other than that lapsed monk, Thomas Merton, a one-time professed Catholic religious, who later left his monastery, and, at the end of his life, was actually off wandering in the East, seeking the consolations, apparently, of non-Christian, Eastern spirituality.

This chapter actually speaks about “those who have drifted away from the faith,” yet does not see the irony inherent in the fact that Thomas Merton was himself apparently one of these. ... The choice of Merton here surely resembles the recent choice of the pro-abortion Leon Panetta as a member of the bishops’ National Review Board on clerical sex abuse—one of those mistakes that ought not to have been made. And this will undoubtedly be the reaction of many Catholics if this particular story is retained in the final NAC draft; it will likely be taken as one more piece of evidence that the American bishops still don’t “get it.”

Most of the stories included in the text do not suffer from the same unsuitability. On the contrary most of them are quite well chosen, beginning with the sketch of John Carroll, the first United States bishop, and ending with the beloved Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. As we have already noted, all of the American canonized saints and “blessed” are included, along with such truly exemplary Catholics such as Orestes Brownson or Dorothy Day (the latter, again, lived her dedicated Catholic life after having repented of her early profligacy and her sin of abortion).

With further regard to these stories, however, we are still obliged to ask whether it is appropriate to include such near-contemporary figures as Sister Thea Bowman, farm-labor organizer Cesar Chavez, or the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. The Church wisely defers her beatifications and canonizations to a time after the deaths of those so honored, usually long after.

DOGGED USE OF "INCLUSIVE" LANGUAGE
Turning from the introductory stories to the format of the draft NAC, we find ourselves obliged to point out yet another defect in the document. The editors apparently accept the premise of today’s radical feminists that the generic term “man” in English—meaning not an individual male but rather humanity in general— somehow does not include “woman.” Although this generic meaning has been standard in English for more than a thousand years, and is still shown in all dictionaries, it is of course the contention of modern radical feminism that “woman” is not included in the term, and hence there supposedly arises a need for so-called “inclusive language” that does explicitly include female members of the genus Homo Sapiens. Thus, “he who laughs last, laughs best” must be changed to become “he or she who laughs last, laughs best.” The demand for such inclusivity extends even to pronouns, and thus “to each his own” becomes “to each his or her own.” And so on.

The editors of the NAC, apparently in order to avoid having to use the generic term “man,” have composed virtually the entire narrative of the draft in the first person plural, using “we” and “us"—as if the principal aim of the editors was somehow to avoid at all costs the generic use of the word “man.” The result resembles an attempt to justify the slogan popular among “liberal” Catholics: “We are the Church.”

Most of the time, the reader does not particularly notice this use of the plural, except when reminded by a particularly clumsy locution or upon encountering such words as “humankind.” But it stands out in the unusual title of Chapter 6: “The Creation of Man and Woman,” and the subtitle with that chapter "The Fall of Man and Woman." Then, there recur in the narrative such stilted locutions as: “God created humans.” It seems indisputable that the editors of this document do not believe that “woman” is already included in the generic term “man.” In other words, they do accept the premise of the radical feminists. And it seems to be their clear intention to enlist all the Catholic bishops in the endorsement of this position.

Other Concerns
And speaking of expectations, a sentence that appears in Chapter 14 reading, “the faithful are expected to attend Mass” on Sundays and Holy Days, like the sentence that appears in Chapter 18, “we are expected to confess our sins,” should be changed to read that we are strictly obliged to do these things.

At the end of Chapter 28, Father Theodore M. Hesburgh should not be quoted—not only because the draft NAC should avoid citing near-contemporaries as a general rule, but also in this case because Father Hesburgh has been one of the principal leaders of those Catholic colleges and universities which have resisted (and continue to resist) the implementation of Pope John Paul II’s apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae. It will be hard for the average Catholic to understand how the bishops could cite in one of their own teaching documents—and thus single out for special respect—a priest who for many years openly disregarded their authority.

In Chapter 29’s section entitled “Three Challenges for a Culture of Life,” the death penalty is simply equated with abortion, euthanasia, and “other life-threatening acts.” Later on, in the section specifically on the “Death Penalty,” little is explained beyond simply quoting CCC #2267.... There is great confusion among Americans today about all this issue. The NAC should attempt to explain the current teaching and its implications as clearly as possible.

The brief, two-paragraph discussion of homosexuality in Chapter 30, while correct in what it states on the subject, is nevertheless wholly inadequate considering the current situation in the United States. In view especially of the surprising and disconcerting success of the gay-rights movement, this topic needs to be treated much more fully. As it stands, the present treatment risks being classed with those who seem to stress that the most important aspect of the Catholic teaching on homosexuality is that there should be no “unjust discrimination” against homosexuals, and that they should be treated with “respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” This brief section fails to place homosexuality in it proper context as a serious disorder, and to emphasize that homosexual acts are always gravely sinful. “Unjust discrimination” against homosexuals is hardly the main problem in America today, where the full reality of “gay marriage” may be upon us, as it already is in Canada.

As we noted at the outset, the decision to base this document primarily on the Catechism of the Catholic Church was a very wise and happy one. An American document thus grounded has the potential to help restore and revitalize authentic Catholic faith and practice in the United States. It can be a fit instrument for handing on the faith to the next generation. But it has to be right.

[AUTHOR ID] Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn and Kenneth D. Whitehead have written and spoken frequently on catechetics, and are the joint authors of Flawed Expectations: The Reception of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Ignatius, 1996).

I certainly recommend reading this entire article and the previous one from December 2002.