In his 1905 Encyclical Acerbo Nimis, on the teaching of Christian doctrine, Pope St. Pius X lamented the “decline in religion” — that is, the “indifference” to Catholic faith and morals — he saw spreading in his day. He said that, although “we should not overlook other considerations, We are forced to agree with those who hold that the chief cause of the present indifference and, as it were, infirmity of soul, and the serious evils that result from it, is to be found above all in ignorance of things divine. This,” he said, “is fully in accord with what God Himself declared through the Prophet Osee: ‘And there is no knowledge of God in the land. Cursing and lying and killing and theft and adultery have overflowed: and blood hath touched blood. Thereafter shall the land mourn, and everyone that dwelleth in it shall languish.’” In order to remedy this “ignorance of divine things,” St. Pius X reminded “all parish priests and in general all those having the care of souls” of their solemn duty to instruct both children and adults “on those things they must believe and do in order to attain salvation.” While St. Pius X rightly observes that parish priests are responsible for the religious instruction of their parishioners, he does not neglect to mention the importance of lay catechists, who are needed “especially in places where there is a scarcity of priests....”
Religious education is not an obligation for children alone. It is our responsibility as adults to continue learning our Faith in order to live it out and spread it. Our Lord Himself observed the Jewish law to the letter and affirmed that He had come to perfect, not abolish, the law (cf. Mt. v. 17). And the law of charity imposes on us who have been given the grace to be Catholic the responsibility to spread the Faith, to admonish sinners, to instruct the ignorant, to raise children in the Catholic Faith, and to be a role model to others. As King David exclaimed in the Psalms: 'O how have I loved Thy law, O Lord! it is my meditation all the day' (Ps. cxviii. 97). But, do we really love the Lord’s law? Do we love it enough to set down the television remote, the football, and our other comforts in order to pick up a copy of the Roman Catechism or the Lives of the Saints?
In fact, the Blessed Mother’s apparition to Adele Brise in Champion, Wisconsin in 1859 further affirmed the need to teach the Catechism. Under the title of Our Lady of Good Help, the Blessed Virgin said to Adele, “Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation. Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the Sign of the Cross, and how to approach the Sacraments; that is what I wish you to do. Go and fear nothing. I will help you." Even the Blessed Virgin Mary has called upon the faithful to learn the catechism.
It is vitally important to know the Catechism (i.e., the Church's teachings) because we can only be saved if we are baptized Catholics who die in the state of grace. To remain a Catholic in the state of grace, we must believe all of the dogmas which Christ teaches through His established Church. And we can only believe them if we know them.
The Baltimore Catechism states, "God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven. To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world." And we can not know God if we do not study the Faith as expressed in the catechism. To this end, catechism classes exist so anyone may learn the Faith and the truths of God. Our salvation depends on this. Catechism Classes teach the complete Faith revealed by Christ using the Holy Bible and the Church's official declarations based on divine revelation.
We are being called to live authentic Catholic lives grounded in the eternal truths of the Faith. The idea that Catholic dogma can change and that what was once true is no longer true is entirely and unequivocally false. As stated in the Holy Bible: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb 13:8). If the Church believed in the unity of the Trinity, the sinlessness of Mary, the necessity of Baptism, the evil of divorce, and more in times past, those truths remain valid today. While certain disciplines can change like the exact date of feast days or the color of vestments, dogmas of faith and morals cannot change by definition. And knowing them is necessary for salvation!
Study both! Sacred Tradition & Sacred Scripture are the two means of divine revelation. As the Council of Trent teaches: “Tradition is the unwritten word of God – that body of truth revealed by God to the apostles, and not committed by them to writing but handed down by word of mouth. These truths, which were later committed to writing, particularly by the Fathers of the Church, have been preserved and handed down to the present day.” Both Sacred Scripture (i.e. the Bible) and Sacred Tradition (such as expressed in the Catechism) together show us what God has taught. We can not rely on the Bible alone since Christ did not write the Bible directly. It was not until the 300s AD when the Bible was officially codified by the Church and assembled into Latin by St. Jerome.
Unbeknown to many, the new catechism published in 1992 is far from the only approved Catholic catechism. St. Peter Canisius, who was instrumental in fighting Protestantism in Germany, wrote the first catechism in 1555 known as the "Catechism of St. Peter Canisius." Shortly afterward in 1566, the Roman Catechism was commissioned by the Council of Trent, overseen by St. Charles Borromeo, and issued by His Holiness Pope St. Pius V. It remains the most authoritative catechism in print. Known as the “Roman Catechism,” the “Catechism of St. Pius V,” or also as the “Catechism of the Council of Trent,” this book has unfortunately fallen into extreme disuse.
The decades after the Council of Trent saw Fr. Laurence Vaux "Catechism of Christian Doctrine" published in 1567 and St. Robert Bellarmine's Catechism published in 1597. Fr. Henry Tuberville followed with the Douay Catechism in 1649, which was modeled on the Catechism of the Council of Trent and written to help combat English Protestantism. It remains one of the clearest English catechisms ever written as it contains a simple-to-understand question and answer format.
Fast forward to 1781 and Bishop George Hay published the extensive and heavily Scripturally based "Hay's Catechism" with a longer question and answer format. Fr. Stephen Keenan in 1846 published his catechism with the purpose of countering heresies of the time especially in regard to papal infallibility. And one year later in 1847, master catechism Fr. Joseph Deharbe wrote the most accomplished German catechism ever written called "A complete catechism of the Catholic religion."
Throughout the mid-1800s additional catechisms by Fr. Francis Jamison, St. John Neumann, Fr. Patrick Power, Fr. Michael Muller, and Cardinal Gibbons were also published. Then in 1885, the Bishops of the United States enjoined by order of the Third Council of Baltimore the Baltimore Catechism, which was the most widely used catechism in the United States for over a century up until Vatican II.
We recommend using a variety of catechisms to get a true understanding of a topic and that is why the CatechismClass.com Programs incorporate several different catechisms in our self-study lessons.