CATHOLIC
MEDIA COALITION
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WHY CATHOLICS VOTED FOR KERRY IN THE PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION by
The Orlando Truth
The Failure of Religious Education in the United States
Even
though Senator Kerry lost the 2004 Presidential Election, the high
percentage of votes he received from Catholics (48%) demonstrated the
failure of Catholic educators, over the last 40 years, to provide the
basic essentials of instruction in the Roman Catholic Faith. In November
2003, the American Catholic Bishops discovered the problem that author
educator Geraldine Stafford wrote about 20 years ago in Why
Johnny Doesn’t Believe (Homiletic and Pastoral Review, January 1984).
At that time, she wrote: “Defective textbooks and teaching methods based
on the experiential approach to learning resulted in widespread religious
illiteracy among Catholic youth. Young Catholics were rejecting the
Church’s teachings because they lacked
even an elementary knowledge of such basics as the Ten Commandments, papal
infallibility, original sin, grace, and the sacraments. Today a
majority of young Catholics, like the generation educated before them,
know very little about the Church and its teachings.” Now,
in 2004, a report published by the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) repeats her findings.
A task force headed by New Orleans Archbishop Hughes has determined
that our high school religious education programs are abysmal at best, and
dangerous at worst. After reviewing the 25 most popular catechetical
instructional series on the market, the Bishops’
Task Force concluded that NONE of the 25 series were acceptable, and
what is worse, they were NOT even
fixable. According to Bishop Hughes: “The Committee has looked at 25
reviews of individual high school texts and has not been able to grant a
declaration of their conformity to the official Catechism of the Catholic
Church (Ed: cited by Pope John Paul II to be a sure norm for teaching the
Faith) to any one complete high school series whose texts are most frequently
used in this country. Two thirds of the series reviews have ended with the
judgment that the materials were inadequate for conformity. They also could
not be amended and therefore needed
to be entirely rewritten. What causes us concern is that inadequate
materials are in widespread use across
the country.” Dissent
of the Liberal Modernists Even in our Roman Catholic Universities,
the same pattern of failed religious instruction emerges. When once
premier Catholic institutions, such as Notre Dame, Georgetown, Fordham and
Boston College employ dissenting theologians who teach erroneous
doctrines, what can we expect at the high school and elementary school
levels of instruction? Typical of such Catholic University level of
instruction is the textbook
Catholicism (Third Edition, 1994) authored by Fr. Richard McBrien,
who has served as Chairman of the Theology Department at Notre Dame. His
text is one of the most popular used by Catholic colleges in America. Yet
whatever else it may do, it is likely to leave Catholic students
doctrinally illiterate. As Msgr. Nelson Logal concluded: “McBrien’s
book illustrates how some of our dissenting theologians can put the Faith
of the Catholic Church through the shredder
of their updating speculations and still claim that the bits and
pieces represent Catholicism”. Msgr. George Kelly of St. John’s
University in New York observed: “Even when McBrien admits the existence
of some infallible dogmas, he places such constraints on them as cultural
conditioning and the ever-changing ‘historical consciousness’ as to
limit their significance”. Although the USCCB Committee on Doctrine has
consistently criticized McBrien’s Catholicism,
instances of unsatisfactory or
questionable expositions of Catholic teachings in that textbook remain so
numerous as to prevent more than a few to be cited here. His textbook:
This Third Edition textbook has never been able to obtain an IMPRIMATUR (Certification of
authenticity in presenting the Catholic Faith) from any Bishop. In fact, earlier editions of this text, published
as early as 1981, were so riddled
with theological errors that they had to be supplemented by an entire
full volume edition of changes, to rectify false and misleading
statements. This current edition obviously still has far to go to
present the truth of the Roman Catholic Faith.
Religious Instruction in Diocese of Orlando Is it any wonder then, that if our Catholic
College textbooks misrepresent the
Faith, that the religious textbooks in use at the high school and
parochial school levels are similarly
deficient, as Archbishop Hughes Task Force discovered.
In our Diocese of Orlando, Bishop Dorsey has promulgated an approved list
of religious textbook publishers (including HARCOURT and SADLIER), from
which local parochial and high schools may choose for their educational
needs. Consider one of the most popular religious
instructional textbook series used in
our Diocese of Orlando, namely that published by HARCOURT
RELIGION PUBLISHERS also located in Orlando. Their instructional
series is titled: Walking by Faith. These
books are not just poorly written. They are an attack on our Catholic
Faith. The pattern is consistent – teach a little doctrine and then
bring it into the ‘real world’ by making that message secondary to
community relations. The community, rather than God, is what these texts
are emphasizing. Jesus is portrayed as a kind of divine figure from the
past Who taught about the importance of how we all relate to each other
and our neighbors in the community.
These books suggest that Jesus and His agonizing atonement for our sins
are something that happened a long time ago. In our modern culture, we are
told that the pressing issues are not sin, sacrifice, and prayer but
concern for the health of the community and proper utilization of natural
resources. Jesus is out of the
picture as far as the goal of our faith and hope and devotion. Jesus
is merely a traffic director, pointing the way to our sharing with our
neighbors. The
discussion about the Mass is similarly confused.
The Mass is depicted as not really the same sacrifice as
Calvary, but rather as an opportunity where we gather to cultivate our
relationships with each other. We
are to wonder what a sacrifice is and are not told about the existence
of sin and the atonement gained by Jesus’ bloody sacrifice of Himself on
our behalf. The book downplays Jesus’ giving of Himself to God the
Father to atone for our sinfulness. By our doing something good for our
neighbor, our efforts are depicted
as equal to Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself. Again and again, we are treated
to the real message of these books. We are not to focus our entire being
on becoming more like Jesus in an all out effort to know, love, and serve
Him. Rather our main interest is to fulfill our need to belong to a
community of believers (who do not even know what they believe). This
textbook series presents the
Catholic faith in New Age, Modernist dress and totally destroys any
sense of a real community of believers. Although it is acknowledged that
“there is a time and place for individual acts of worship in the
Catholic Church”, it is maintained that “at the heart of our worship,
however, is the community of faith, and that no matter who we are, rich or
poor, young or old, our presence is important in that gathering”. The
authors’ continued emphasis on community conjures up the feeling that
their message is fundamentally more an advertisement for a 1960’s
commune than anything else. This is quite at odds with the message our
Lord taught and exemplified while He walked on earth. In this connection, Dr.
Robert Peszynski, a Catholic educator, has recently (July 2004) reviewed
the Second and Fifth Grade Religion Texts published by Harcourt. His
findings are damning. His litany of problem statements in these
textbooks include:
Against this background, our Diocese still
refuses to permit the use of the Vatican approved religious education
textbook series published by IGNATIUS PRESS. Science Cannot Disprove the Supernatural All these textbooks try to explain Faith
primarily by naturalistic phenomena alone, which results in their skewed focus on community and neighbor rather than on God. Their
authors suffer from a narrow tunnel vision that believes only the
experienced laws of nature are reasonable, and thus denies the realm of
the supernatural, including the continuing activity of God in the world.
Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (Faith
and Reason) in 1998, specifically criticized this point of view, with
eminent logic, when he essentially said: “Reason
cannot be reasonable unless it admits of the possibility of the continuing
intervention in this world by God, its Creator.” The Pope’s
viewpoint was recently confirmed by Dr. Richard McNally, a scientist at
Harvard University (New York Times, October 10, 2004), who admitted,
“supernatural intervention is by definition beyond the reach of
science”. Therefore, science can never be used to disprove the existence
of the supernatural realm of Faith. Rather, as Avery Cardinal Dulles has
said: “The historical evidence for Christ and the Catholic Faith is more
than adequate.” The
discovery of the empty tomb on the first Easter Sunday coupled with
Christ’s subsequent appearances to 500 persons during the 40 days prior
to His Ascension testify to the truth of His physical Resurrection by
supernatural means beyond any reasonable doubt. The Apostles were not
fools. Unlike pseudo-theologians in their ivory towers who are easily
duped, the Apostles were
street-wise fishermen and tax collectors, who were so convinced of
Christ’s physical Resurrection that they were willing to be martyred
for their witness to this truth.
Thus when the authors of these discredited textbooks try to develop
a relationship with God through merely natural means without reference to
the supernatural, they are acting like a boxer trying to win a fight with
one hand tied behind his back. It is the biggest error of Modernism. Moreover, in repudiating or redefining our
orthodox Catholic Faith that has been consistently taught since the time
of Christ, these authors are essentially claiming that they have had an “epiphany of wisdom” experienced solely by them. The
intellectual arrogance and ignorance exhibited by that claim is
mind-boggling. Consider that
for their claim to be valid, it must be recognized that God would have
permitted mankind to be deceived as to His teachings for almost 2,000
years. Such a gross deception is logically
inconceivable for God, Who is All Just and All Love, and said:
“Remember I am with you all
days, even to the end of time.”
Supplemental Religious Education
Although
formal schooling, as discussed above, is the principal means of educating
people in the Faith, such education is supplemented (1) by instruction
provided in priests’ homilies at Sunday Mass, and (2) direct statements
by Bishops on specific matters of Faith. Unfortunately, priests in our Diocese
of Orlando, with few exceptions, mouth only sugary homilies
preaching love of neighbor and avoiding any confrontation with sin. Even
more negligent has been the failure of bishops to speak out on specific
matters of Faith. Just consider three flagrant examples:
Our
Pope has continually instructed the bishops to teach.
Yet, as cited above, there are many “successors to the Apostles”
who are unwilling to do so, thereby showing contempt for the Church they
would have us believe that they love and serve. In view of our bishops’
almost total abdication of Catholic
education, it is no wonder that the two generations since 1960,
uneducated in the Catholic Faith, are no more than cultural Catholics, who
have no serious knowledge of the Faith. If they did, they would realize
that they are Catholics in name only. Such persons are ready prey for
unprincipled politicians who concentrate on offering them all the benefits
of the secular world. It should surprise no one that Senator Kerry received such a substantial
vote of support from such Catholics.
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