Vatican has approved National Directory for Catechesis

LINTHICUM HEIGHTS, Md. (CNS) -- The Vatican has approved the U.S. National Directory for Catechesis and it is scheduled to be published in May, Catholic educators were told Jan. 10 at a national symposium on the directory.

The publication of the new directory will mark "a promising new moment for the church in the United States," Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, told the gathering of about a dozen bishops and nearly 200 leaders from diocesan religious education offices across the country.

The new directory reflects significant changes in catechetics since the 1970s, including the emphasis throughout the church in recent years on placing catechesis more clearly within the framework of the church's fundamental mission of evangelization. The new document also reflects changes brought by the publication of the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" in 1992 and a new General Directory for Catechesis issued by the Vatican in 1997.

Archbishop Buechlein, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Catechesis, said a notice had gone out to the bishops Jan. 7 that the Congregation for Clergy, the Vatican agency in charge of catechetics, gave its approval of the directory.