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Thanks.  Am I understanding correctly that, in danger of death, the catechesis can be omitted?

If I recall the quote from the Holy Office, the question was whether someone, in danger of death, could be baptized if they had only belief in a God who rewards and punishes.  Holy Office answered that this did not suffice but that the person at the minimum had to understand and believe in the Holy Trinity & Incarnation.

This is from the Baptism of Desire threads.  In the early 1600s some Jesuit theologians began to speculate that belief in a God who rewards the good and punishes the wicked suffices for supernatural faith and therefore for salvation.  This went against the teaching & belief of the previous 1600 years that it was also necessary to have faith in the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation.  This is a discussion that has consumed many 100-page threads.  I don't want to digress here.  St. Thomas, for instance, taught the four-truth requirement for faith and salvation ... as did EVERYONE before the year 1600 or so.

But the Holy Office ruled that even in the danger of death, the FOUR truths (and not just the two) must be accepted and believed before the subject could be baptized.  Proponents of the Jesuit two-belief theory try to explain that this was just a practical/pastoral directive and did not constitute an official endorsement of FOUR-truth belief by the Church.  I disagree ... but will not digress here.  

I'll try to dig up the relevant quotation.  It has major practical implications for Baptism.  If two-truth theory sufficed, in a danger of death, I could emergency baptize pretty much anyone who believes in God.

I was recently told by a bishop that theology, doctrine and dogma are for priests and bishops, not the laity.

He said for the laity to keep the Faith simple and we can't go wrong: what the Lord loves, I love. What the Lord hates, I hate.  We should follow Faith, hope and charity, not theology, doctrine and dogma.

Nah, not really.  Every Catholic should know doctrine and dogma .. and strive to be able to understand and explain it.  No, the faithful are not REQUIRED to study theology in depth (like you would at a seminary) but neither are they prevented from doing so.  Now, laymen should not be teaching in public or trying to represent the Church's teaching in any quasi-official way.  So, for instance, in the Vatican II sect, it's common for lay people to have TV and radio talk shows in which they are expounding upon Church doctrine.  Negatory.  There are plenty of well-educated and well-trained priests who should be doing those kinds of things.  Lay people could, with their bishop's permission, engage in such activity ... but it was not often given.