Talk:Catechism

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The "improved definition" says the same thing as the old definition, in denser language. It is not an improvement. I've merged the two versions, to stop the competing reverts. I should point out to the anonymous editor, however, that Catechetics is not actually the act of instruction itself, but the science of instruction. Mkmcconn — 16:27, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Unverified claims about Catholic teaching

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (see below) is the catechism that is most widespread use among Catholics today. It is the official Catechism of the Church. (No sources, but it's true!)

For Catholics obedient to the Pope of Rome (are you a catholic otherwise?), all the canonical books of the Bible (including the six books which do not appear in the Hebrew canon), plus the current Catechism of the Catholic Church or an approved compendium, constitute the complete and best resource for fully attaining to God's revelation to mankind. (This is clearly NOT roman catholic teaching; when the CC only accepts three on each other depending sources for understanding of the revelation: The Holy Scripture, The Sacred Tradition and the Magisterum (which is defined in the catechism as: "Bishops, with priests as co-workers... are authentic teachers, of the apostolic faith, endowed with the authority of Christ." pagph. 888) (So this is not the same thing as a catechism!)

Catholics believe that Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition expressed by the Catechism (Not the catechism! "The Magisterium": the communion of the bishops togheter with the people) of the Catholic Church are both necessary for attaining to the fullest understanding of all of God's revelation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.67.174.43 (talk) 22:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Not to stir up controversy...

~~ Simba 17:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Not to stir up controversy, but the further and further I read into this article, the more and more the concept of Catechism seemed similar to a form of brainwashing referred to in pyschological teachings. The oft-given example is that a child molester who has had custody of the abused child from a young age or birth will constantly re-assure them that the things they do together are "not wrong" and "perfectly normal." The way they reinforce this (which is usually counter-intuitive to the child, necessitating the reinforcement) is to constantly ask them questions with expected answers, in the same format as Catechisms. It is also noteworthy that modern-day cults (Waco, Children of God, Heaven's Gate, etc.) employ the same Catechism-style question-and-answer format to enforce their ideals upon impressionable minds. Now, whether brainwashing even works in the first place is heavily disputed, and I'm certainly not mentioning this just to ruffle the already-quite-ruffled feathers of Christianity in general, I just couldn't shake off the connection, especially since catechisms are usually memorized by the very young, at the behest of their parents, sometimes against their own wishes and against their own personal beliefs.

I personally recognize my own bias on the subject, and will therefore not edit the article in any way to incorporate the brainwashing connection, I'd just like to open up discussion on the subject. I could be quite wrong, so let's discuss. ~~~

One cannot deny that one may put the method of catechism to nefarious uses; however, it has existed before catechism itself (Socratic and Rabbinic schools mentioned in the article) and even a scalpel may be used to save someone's life or to end it. And quoting Preface 10 of the Roman Catechism, repeated in paragraph 25 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.

Of course, even then the track record of such a method is less than perfect. I say this as someone who went through two years of Catechism in my 9th and 10th years completely unmoved by my teachers' efforts, only to find my faith at double that age on my own. So you probably need not worry that children are being brainwashed in most churches you find on the street... successfully, anyway :-) Wtrmute 19:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV, unencyclopedic, where do I begin?

The section on the Catechism of the Catholic Church is overlong, filled with non-neutral POV and purple prose, and overall is unencyclopedic. Just a few excerpts that I find somewhere on the scale of "questionable" to "ridiculous":

• "a work of remarkable organization and breadth, containing articles of elegant reasoning and historical insight"
• "may construct any lesson needed for the time-tested Socratic Method of posing and answering questions, or for other methods, with complete confidence in the fidelity of the answers"
• "It also functions admirably for individual study as well"
• "avoiding any mistaken comparisons to simplified Q&A teaching aids"
• "the serious catechist quickly realizes that this teaching tool accomplishes its ideal suitability to task through its definitive subject index, intelligent frontmatter tables, strict absence of redundancy, exhaustive footnoting"
• "writing style that fulfills a seemingly impossible balance between concise definition and transparently readable clarity"
• "Catechists find that it functions admirably both for individual or group reference and as an on-the-spot teaching aid"
• "Such an excellently made map to its subject is it, that facility with its contents easily constitutes facility with definitive Catholic teaching"
• "Its excellence of execution can stand as a best practices model for the 21st century scholar's art"
• "its' excellent subject index elegantly provides the functionality of a Question and Answer format but with a far greater degree of flexibility"
• "Because of the excellent index, teachers can easily reference The Catechism of the Catholic Church for answering questions 'on the fly' with the highest confidence in its fidelity to the subject matter"

Let's set aside the sheer frequency of the word "excellent" in a passage that praises "strict absence of redundancy" for now... I've got no problem if the author is a fan of the Catechism, but this does not fit "a best practices model for the 21st century scholar's art." --Kuronekoyama 04:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you whole-heartedly on this matter and made the appropriate edits along with adding a bit of content. When I have more time I will try to enrich this section. -- A.Augustinus

Seconded, and added {{POV-section}} before ever seeing the debate here. --Neurophyre^(talk) 08:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I took a stab at cleaning up the section, but left the POV tag as a pointer to this discussion. --Neurophyre^(talk) 08:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)