Catechisms and Controversies: Religious Education in the Postconciliar Years

Wrenn, an expert in the field of religious education, provides an overview of the difficulties in the field of religious education since the Second Vatican Council. This work reveals a number of the selective interpretations of religious education documents issued by the Holy See or the Bishops of the United States, and gives a critique and analysis of the Woodstock Symposium on the Catechism for the Universal Church held at Georgetown University. Wrenn exposes all the elements that have gone into the suborning of the religious education enterprise in the last 25 years, including the major role that the catechetical establishment played as they emphasized experience over content and explained away important documents from the Bishops and the Holy See. As its very title indicates, this work is controversial since, for the first time, a case history of efforts to undermine an authentic catechesis, or handing on of the faith in the United States and elsewhere is set forth, so that the extreme necessity for a Catechism for the Universal Church will be made evident. Finally, strategies for the proper implementation of the Catechism for the Universal Church are set forth in light of the demonstrated efforts by special interest groups to set aside the importance of documents such as the General Catechetical Directory, To Teach as Jesus Did, and Catechesi Tradendae.

"I have been occupied with questions of religious education for a major portion of my priestly life; yet much of what is brought out in these pages was a surprise even to me. Once I decided to delve more deeply into what has been going on in religious education in the years since the council, it became very clear that a Catechism for the Universal Church is necessary, indeed imperative." -- Msgr. Michael Wrenn