http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=13009

‘Nothing is more central to the church’s mission than how it educates in faith.’

Thomas Groome


I generally agree with the proposal that Michael Lawler and Todd Salzman make for a more effective working relationship between theologians and bishops. Using Frank  A. Sullivan’s helpful schema of the two-way theological mediation needed “between the magisterium and the faithful,” they argue convincingly that both mediations are much needed, are not being done well and they make helpful suggestions for improvement. I find it regrettable, however, that they caricature and diminish the role of catechesis in order to make their argument. And they did not need to do so.

By way of caricature, they add after their first reference to catechesis “(as in catechism).” This misrepresents catechesis as a one-direction imparting of doctrinal confessions from some magisterium-approved source; the association, at best, might be to the Catechism of the Catholic Church but more likely with the Q&A format of the Baltimore Catechism.  Contemporary catechesis has long ago rejected this self-understanding and practice.

Indeed a constitutive aspect of the catechetical task is to inform people in the scriptures and traditions of Catholic faith, but catechesis goes far beyond information to formation in Christian identity and transformation as life-long conversion in Christian discipleship. Rather than a depositing of information in passive receptacles (what Paulo Freire called “banking education”), a now standard catechetical pedagogy is to enable people to bring their lives to faith and faith to their lives (see the General Directory for Catechesis).

By way of diminishing catechesis, the authors explicitly state that “this narrow understanding (theology as simply defending the magisterial teachings of the church) appears to reduce the theological task of the theologian to catechesis”  (emphasis added). But why reduce? They could surely make their point without this hierarchical ordering between theology and catechesis. Why not “confuse with” or “fails to distinguish,” etc. We could take it that reduce was simply an unfortunate choice of word here if the authors had not gone on to state that “Theology may include catechesis, but it is also more than that.” Why “more than”?

If there should be a hierarchical ordering between theology and catechesis (which I do not favor), it would be more accurate to say that theology is “less than” catechesis, or “stops short of” catechesis, at least as its primary intent. Nothing is more central to the church’s mission or more vital to its well-being or more significant for “the life of the world” (Jn 6: 51) than how it educates in faith.  I will resist the temptation, however, of inverting the relationship that Lawler and Salzman propose between theology and catechesis. Instead, I simply say that both are essential partners in the church’s life of faith and teaching ministry.

The theologian’s job is to mediate an in-depth and scholarly representation from the faith life of the people to the magisterium, and from the magisterium to the faith life of the people. The intended outcome is to develop and lend access to in-depth scholarship in the spiritual wisdom of Christian faith for our time. Catechists, then, follow a similar dynamic, enabling ordinary people to mediate from life to faith to life. While catechetical education informs people through good theological scholarship and the teachings of the official magisterium, its primary intent is to enable people to integrate Christian faith into their daily lives as lived faith. We might say that catechesis intentionally reaches beyond “faith seeking understanding,” to encourage judgment and decision as well (a la Lonergan’s dynamics of cognition). In this it forms as well as informs people to live as disciples of Jesus. This is no secondary function!
 

Thomas Groome is Professor of Theology and Religious Education at Boston College and Chair of the Department of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry in Boston College's School of Theology and Ministry.   :surprised: His most recent book is Will There Be Faith (Harper, 2011).