Reflections 2006
Ready to give an account

The new Compendium to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

NO LESS THAN THE PRIESTS and bishops of the Church, the lay faithful are essential to the Church’s evangelising mission in the world. Priests and bishops spend most of their time with those who are already within the fold of the Catholic Church, but lay men and women live out their Christian vocation on the threshold where the Church meets the unbelieving world.

It is in the workplace, in the home, in the schoolyard and in the university tutorial, that you who are known to be Christians will be asked to explain the reason for your faith. Such opportunities must be regarded as moments of grace, moments of opportunity, where the Spirit has opened up a doorway for the Word of God to enter in. But so often it happens that, just as the opportunity arises to explain our faith, we find ourselves ill-prepared for the task:

“They told me that religion was all man-made, just stories, and I didn’t know what to say, even though I knew they were wrong;”

“He wanted to know why I believed all that stuff the Church tells us, but I didn’t know how to answer him;”

“She asked me what Easter was really all about, and I couldn’t find the right words.”

Right back at the time of the Apostles, St Peter warned the members of the Church to “always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15)

In the past 40 years – roughly since the time of the Second Vatican Council – we have witnessed a period of uncertainty within the Church and, if we are honest, a time of disunity. The Council itself never envisaged such a possibility. The Council fathers had hoped to achieve exactly what St Peter had urged. They believed that by “returning to the sources” and by “opening up to the modern world,” the Church would be better prepared to give a credible answer to the questions of the human race in the last decades of the second millennium.

They could not have foreseen the abrupt and radical shift in thinking that took place in the Western world only a few years later. The twenty years or so that followed ‘Vatican II’ were a true test of the Church’s fidelity to the Word of God.

In response to this time of crisis, the 1985 extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Rome petitioned the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, to prepare “a catechism or compendium of all Catholic doctrine regarding both faith and morals” which could be “a point of reference” for the unity in faith of the entire Church. Just under ten years later, the mammoth work was completed, and what might yet come to be regarded as John Paul’s greatest gift to the Church was published in English: The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Upon its publication, the Pope declared it to be “a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion.”

Many expected it to be reference work that would be used only by the bishops. The big surprise was how eagerly the new volume (almost 800 pages in length) was embraced by the lay faithful.

What explanation can there be for this? I believe that it was largely due to the desire that lay people had to be able to “have an answer ready” when they were challenged about their faith. In the Catechism they could find the answers they were seeking. Pope Benedict, who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, worked very closely on the compilation of the Catechism, said last year that “the great value and beauty of this gift [was] confirmed above all by the extensive and positive reception of the Catechism among bishops, to whom it was primarily addressed as a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine... But it was also confirmed by its vast favourable reception in all segments of the People of God, who have come to know and appreciate it in more than fifty translations which to date have been published.”

Nevertheless, the sheer comprehensiveness of the Catechism meant that it was always going to be a daunting package for many. In 2002, the International Catechetical Congress petitioned the Pope to prepare a compendium of the official Catechism – something shorter and simpler, but no less comprehensive – that the lay faithful as well as the trained theologian or bishop could understand. Now we rejoice in the publication of this Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in English here in Australia.

At just on 200 pages, the Compendium is more manageable than the full Catechism. It is in question and answer format, like the Catechisms we were used to ‘in the olden days.’ Fourteen pictures are contained in the volume as integral parts of the Catechism, reminding us that our faith is visual and incarnational. Short, applicable quotations from the Church fathers are highlighted in blue for easy memorisation. Two appendices containing common prayers and hymns of the Church (in both English and Latin) and the Formulas of Catholic Doctrine (including the precepts of the Church and the list of virtues etc) are also included.

I strongly commend this newly published Compendium to all the faithful in the Church in Melbourne. I encourage all parish priests and catechists to make this volume available to parishioners and especially to those who are undergoing or have completed the RCIA program. The process of initiation into the Church must always be accompanied by sound instruction in the doctrines of our faith. This is where the Compendium may have its greatest effect.

From the newest Christian baptised this Easter all the way up to the Pope in Rome, there can only ever be one faith because there is only one baptism into which we have all been initiated and only one Lord whom we worship. (Eph 4:5) Equipped with the clear, sound and unified faith expressed in both the Catechism and its Compendium, the People of God will be well equipped to evangelise the world.

In giving the Compendium to the Church, Pope Benedict has said:

“I entrust this Compendium above all to the entire Church and, in particular, to every Christian, in order that it may awaken in the Church of the third millennium renewed zeal for evangelisation and eduction in the faith, which ought to characterise every community in the Church and every Christian believer, regardless of age or nationality.”

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.