While there is much to recommend in these pages, including an attractive design, fairly solid doctrinal content, and accessible but non-condescending language, the chapters on the liturgy are problematic. Much like the authors' The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, this book presents a discontinuous view of the liturgy and a false, externally oriented sense of participation. Pope Benedict reminds us that participation in the liturgy is primarily an internal event: "It should be made clear that the word 'participation' does not refer to mere external activity during the celebration. In fact, the active participation called for by the Council must be understood in more substantial terms, on the basis of a greater awareness of the mystery being celebrated and its relationship to daily life" [Sacramentum Caritatis, 52.] Yet in this book's pages, middle schoolers are told that "Getting involved in liturgical ministries, like being a lector, can help you appreciate the richness of the Mass." Likewise, they are asked, "Have you ever been asked to bring up the gifts at Mass? It is an honor to represent the faith community in this way." No, it is an honor -- a privilege -- to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Lord at Mass. Children should not be told that bringing up the gifts adds to that experience. Moreover, priests are frequently shown celebrating Mass with sacred vessels made of clay, an abuse of the liturgy specifically proscribed by the Holy See (see Redemptionis Sacramentum, 117), and wearing vestments that appear to have been borrowed from a production of Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar. There is also a text box explaining the similarities between "The Dinner Table and the Altar Table." At a time when the Holy See is trying to remind Catholics of the majesty, dignity, and transcendence of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass after decades of bad liturgical practice and catechesis, this sort of comparison is a step in the wrong direction. As a parent I may use this book with my middle school children, but it will be with reservations and corrective comments once we reach the chapters on the liturgy.
The hits keep coming. Page 421 includes a lengthy text box on Cardinal Bernardin's "seamless garment," a polarizing, non-magisterial concept that for decades was used to throw a proverbial blanket over politicians sympathetic to abortion rights. What a shame. We desperately need solid material to fill the gap in catechesis for middle schoolers. This is not the book to do it. I may knock off an additional star from my review. Avoid this one, folks.
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6 comments:
RE: Seamless Garment
Card. Bernardin stated that issues of taken life were equivalent as the end result was the same, and that they took greater priority than those issues promoting human dignity. His words have been twisted into a moral equivalency which he himself did not make.
You are correct that this is not magisterial. Still, it guides many Catholics who do seek to make the pro-life movement from just against taking life in the womb and add ending war, euthanasia, and the death penalty to the cause.
Bro. AJK,
The "seamless garment" is a lightning rod, and its inclusion here was gratuitous. Whatever Cardinal Bernardin's intentions, critics then and since recognized that it would be abused. And given his controversial legacy -- he destroyed the seminary here and left us with dozens of malcontents in the priesthood -- there was no need to lionize him in a work of catechesis targeting middle schoolers.
issues of taken life were equivalent as the end result was the same
I disagree with that(and I don't think I'm alone).
Abortion is a more serious sin because it denies a person a chance at baptism. People can debate all day long about what happens to a soul of a child killed before birth, but we do know definitely what baptism does.
The END result may not be the same.
I am getting sick of hearing about how "before Vatican II" people just sat and watched the mass, etc., etc., etc. I like the new mass and there are lots of great things about it -- all the readings, for one thing, and the additional Eucharistic prayers. But it's just absurd to say that for hundreds of years no one "knew what was going on" in the mass, and what Rich posts about this book seems to be more of the same.
To say that in this country alone, the people who built all the Catholic hospitals, schools, orphanages, and a host of other institutions -- as well as huge cathedrals and thousands of churches -- had no idea what was going on at the MAJOR PART OF CATHOLIC WORSHIP is ridiculous. This complete disregard for millions of people borders on insulting. There is no need to make everyone who lived before us look like idiots.
Gail,
I think you meant to post this in the "Our participation in the Mass" thread.
At a church north of Cincinnati I was at the other day, there is a group of statues around the circular church with the altar in the middle and no tabernacle in site. There, amoung the saints, is one of Cardinal Bernardin as if he is somehow a saint. This place is like a legacy shrine to the man that gave us much of the mess we have here with priests and nuns who no loger are Catholic and the sexual abuse issue much of it that was planted under his and our current bishops watch. He also left a lot of the same legacy in Chicago that Cardinal George is still trying to straighten out.
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