Sunday, August 3, 2014

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is not on the Conformity List - WHY!?

Continuing from my first post on Catechesis of the Good Shepherd - Conformity and Red Flags


The main "issue" comes down to this:

The USCCB set out to assure that published faith formation (religious education) texts are aligned with the doctrine of the Church.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd provides hands-on materials and experiences for the children that make real to them the Catechism of the Catholic Church (contains our doctrine), the Sacred Scripture (the Word of God), and the Roman Missal and the books on the Rites (our Liturgy - the practice of our faith through our worship). Thus, our textbooks ARE in conformity, because the textbooks we use are those published by the Catholic Church herself.

We could stop there; but most people don't.


The secondary issue comes down to the fact that the experience of the child in ANY faith formation program is only as good as the catechist who allows the Holy Spirit to be in control and not bring in one's own agenda. One could be using a perfectly sound published textbook and the children will NOT get the proper teaching from it, if the catechist has a different agenda or is poorly formed in his/her own faith.

On the other hand, one could be using a perfectly rotten textbook and the catechist has the know-how to bring in appropriate teaching and appropriate experiences so that the children actually learn and grow (this catechist is being led by the Holy Spirit).


Catechesis of the Good Shepherd provides both the sound doctrine (by using the Bible, the Roman Missal and the CCC) and the proper catechist formation in one package: via 90+ hour formation courses for each level (working with 3-6 year olds, 6-9 year olds and 9-12+ year olds).


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