Catechism of the Catholic Church

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"The design of the logo is adapted from a Christian tombstone in the catacombs of Domitilla in Rome, which dates from the end of the third century a.d. This pastoral image, of pagan origin, was used by Christians to symbolize the rest and the happiness that the soul of the departed finds in eternal life. This image also suggests certain characteristic aspects of this Catechism: Christ, the Good Shepherd who leads and protects his faithful (the lamb) by his authority (the staff), draws them by the melodious symphony of the truth (the panpipes), and makes them lie down in the shade of the tree of life, his redeeming Cross which opens paradise."^[1]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, or CCC, is an official exposition of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, first published in French in 1992 by the authority of Pope John Paul II.^[2] The volume, which is a stout book of over 900 pages, has been translated into many other languages, including English. In 1997, a Latin text was issued which is now the official text of reference^[3] the contents of the first French text being amended at a few points.^[4]

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church was published in 2005, and the first edition in English in 2006. It is a more concise and dialogic version of the CCC. The text is available in twelve languages on the Vatican website, which gives the text of the Catechism itself in eight languages.

[edit] Contents

A catechism has been defined as "a summary of principles, often in question-and-answer format" [1]. Although handbooks of religious instruction have been written since the time of the Church Fathers, the term "catechism" was first applied to them in the sixteenth century, beginning with Martin Luther's 1529 publications. Mostly, they are meant for use in class or other formal instruction.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, for which the usual English-language abbreviation is CCC, is instead a source on which to base such catechisms and other expositions of Catholic doctrine. It was given, as stated in the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum, [2] with which its publication was ordered, "that it may be a sure and authentic reference text for teaching catholic doctrine and particularly for preparing local catechisms." The CCC is in fact not in question and answer format. What corresponds to most people's idea of a catechism is instead the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

CCC is arranged in four principal parts:

• The Profession of Faith (the Creed)
• The Celebration of the Christian Mystery (the Sacred Liturgy, especially the sacraments)
• Life in Christ (including the Ten Commandments)
• Christian Prayer (including The Lord's Prayer)

The contents are abundantly footnoted with references to sources of the teaching, in particular the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and the Ecumenical Councils [3] and other authoritative Catholic statements, principally those issued by recent Popes.

The section on Scripture in the CCC (nos. 101-141) recovers the Patristic tradition of "spiritual exegesis" as further developed through the scholastic doctrine of the "four senses." This return to spiritual exegesis is based on the Second Vatican Council's 1965 "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation", which taught that Scripture should be "read and interpreted in light of the same Spirit by whom it was written" (Dei Verbum 12). The CCC amplifies Dei Verbum by specifying that the necessary spiritual interpretation should be sought through the four senses of Scripture (nos. 111, 113, 115-119), which encompass the literal sense and the three spiritual senses (allegorical, moral, and anagogical).

The literal sense (no. 116) pertains to the meaning of the words themselves, including any figurative meanings. The spiritual senses (no. 117) pertain to the significance of the things (persons, places, objects or events) denoted by the words. Of the three spiritual senses, the allegorical sense is foundational. It relates persons, events, and institutions of earlier covenants to those of later covenants, and especially to the New Covenant. Building on the allegorical sense, the moral sense instructs in regard to action, and the anagogical sense points to man's final destiny. The teaching of the CCC on Scripture has encouraged the recent pursuit of covenantal theology, an approach that employs the four senses to structure salvation history via the biblical covenants.

[edit] Points of controversy

Some Traditionalist Catholics argue that statements made in CCC conflict with past Catholic teachings on many topics, and that it is infected with Gnosticism, promotes the theory of evolution, exonerates the Jewish people and presents them as still in a covenantal relationship with God,^[5] favours indifferentism (the heresy that religions are equal), false ecumenism (cooperation with non-Catholic Christians), secular collaboration and compromise, homosexuality and internationalism.^[6]

They maintain that, though theological opinion was not intended to be a part of CCC,^[7] it in fact "does not distinguish between matters of faith and theological opinion."^[8]

One such writer, quoting Pope Paul VI to the effect that the Catholic Church has made a conscious attempt to adopt "a more humble and fraternal attitude ... that of a search for the truth",^[9] claims that CCC displays a shift away from presenting dogma as fact and toward presenting the Catholic faith itself as a search for truth.

Referring also to the statement in the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum that "the contents are often presented in a new way in order to respond to the questions of our age", he claims that the "new catechesis ... attempts to produce existential reactions rather than intellectual conviction."^[9]

Some, desiring a simpler text instead of so diffuse and "ponderous" a book, object to what they consider to be an absence in CCC of the clarity they see in thirteenth-century work of St. Thomas Aquinas and in the 1885 Baltimore Catechism (a book that was meant as a class textbook in question-and-answer form, unlike CCC, which is intended as a source for use in composing such textbooks).

[edit] Conclusion

Pope John Paul II declared it authoritative, to be "a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion." ^[2] It is also a handy quotation reference work which provides an entry point to Scripture, as well as to other Church writings.

The interest in Church teachings that CCC has stirred even in circles outside the Catholic Church was noted by Pope Benedict XVI prior to his becoming Pope:

"It clearly show[s] that the problem of what we must do as human beings, of how we should live our lives so that we and the world may become just, is the essential problem of our day, and basically of all ages. After the fall of ideologies, the problem of man — the moral problem — is presented to today's context in a totally new way: What should we do? How does life become just? What can give us and the whole world a future which is worth living? Since the catechism treats these questions, it is a book which interests many people, far beyond purely theological or ecclesial circles."^[10]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Catechism of the Catholic Church - English translation (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000). ISBN 1-57455-110-8
• Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church - English translation (USCCB, 2006). ISBN 1-57455-720-3
• United States Catholic Catechism for Adults - English "...resource for preparation of catechumens in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and for ongoing catechesis of adults" (USCCB, 2006). ISBN 1-57455-450-6

[edit] Sites that carry the full CCC text

• Vatican Latin editio typica; English, French and Italian texts revised in accordance with the Latin editio typica; German and Spanish unrevised texts (based on the provisional French text)
• Fulltext Search Latin editio typica; English text revised in accordance with the Latin editio typica
• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops English - Second edition (revised in accordance with the Latin editio typica)
• St. Charles Borromeo English - Second edition (revised in accordance with the Latin editio typica), with full text search and list of changes between the First and Second editions

[edit] Sites that carry comments on the CCC

• US Catholic Bishops Conference: Office for the Catechism
• Catechism of the Catholic Church Simplified - A condensation of the text, not the text itself

[edit] Text of the Compendium of the CCC

• Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish