The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is now out (FINALLY!) and I got a copy of it (FINALLY!). So here are some thoughts after an initial leafing through of it:
1) This is good. Really good. It’ll really help make the teaching of the faith accessible to people in a way that the Catechism doesn’t. Why do I say that? Well . . . .
2) The Catechism is a big, huge, honking book. It’s too much for the average person to absorb (given how intimidated many are by big, huge, honking books). The Compendium is much more absorbable for the ordinary person, and this will help more folks absorb the faith.
3) The Compendium is also much easier to read than the Catechism. It’s written in a Q & A format that is very friendly and digestible, whereas the Catechism is written in prose that is at times very dense and flowery.
4) The Compendium focuses more on the essentials of the faith than the Catechism does. In order to get the material down to size, they had to leave out a bunch of the less important, more debatable stuff, which has the effect of concentrating the reader’s mind more (not perfectly, but more) on the essentials of the faith. By covering the essentials alongside secondary material, the Catechism had a tendency to flatten Catholic doctrine so that people couldn’t always tell what is infallible and essential versus what is merely the common opinion and non-essential.
5) The Compendium also gives straightforward explanations in a way that the Catechism doesn’t. One of the problems with the way that the Catechism was written is that it often tried to get really flowery and inspiring and it also tried to quote so much from Vatican II and other church documents and various Christian writers and this often impeded its ability to state doctrine in a straightforward manner.
Let me illustrate. . . .
Here is what the Catechism says about original sin:
Original
sin – an essential truth of the faith388
With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated.
Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to
understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the
fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story’s ultimate meaning,
which is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus
Christ. We must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know
Adam as the source of sin. The Spirit-Paraclete, sent by the risen Christ, came
to "convict the world concerning sin", by revealing him
who is its Redeemer.389
The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the "reverse side" of
the Good News that Jesus is the Saviour of all men, that all need salvation and
that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind
of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation
of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.
That’s it. That’s the whole section.
Now–other than saying "It’s an essential truth of the faith, just look at the section head"–can anybody tell me what original sin actually is based on this passage?
Didn’t think so.
Now here’s what the Compendium says:
76. What is original sin?
Original sin, in which all human beings are born, is the state of deprivation of original holiness and justice. It is a sin "contracted" by us not "committed"; it is a state of birth and not a personal act. Because of the original unity of all human beings, it is transmitted to the descendants of Adam "not by imitation, but by propagation." This transmission remains a mystery which we cannot fully understand.
77. What other consequences derive from original sin?
In consequence of original sin human nature, without being totally corrupted, is wounded in its natural powers. It is subject to ignorance, suffering, and to the domination of death and is inclined toward sin. This inclination is called concupiscence.
Now, the Compendium’s treatment of original sin is not that much shorter than the Catechism’s, but it’s worlds better in terms of telling you what original sin actually is. The reason is that the discipline of giving concise answers to questions people would have about a doctrine–rather than simply discoursing on theological themes–forced the authors of the Compendium to write with much greater clarity than the writers of the Catechism did.
That’s a big, BIG plus in my mind.
The Compendium thus stands to serve as a catechetical tool that will be far more practical in normal settings than the Catechism ever was.
Having said how great I think the Compendium is, though, let me add something else about the Catechism: I’m glad it came first.
At the time the Catechism was released, I was disappointed that it wasn’t more like the Compendium, but having seen what happened in the intervening years and having seen the Compendium, I think it’s a good thing that we had over a decade to get familiar with the Catechism before this one came out.
The reason is that the Catechism had an enormous stabilizing effect on the teaching of the Catholic faith. After Vatican II, everything was topsy turvy. Vatican II took such a different tack in articulating the faith compared to previous councils and magisterial statements that it was very hard for many individuals to harmonize the different articulations of the faith. The content of the faith was the same, but the language being used to express it was vastly different. Because of this, it made it easy for dissidents to simply harp on Vatican II and dismiss everything from before the Council, which was not at all the Council’s intent.
Further, the Vatican II documents themselves were nothing like an attempt to articulate the whole of the Catholic faith. They addressed it in a here-and-there manner, not a systematic manner. There is virtually no treatment of the subject of justification in Vatican II, for example. ("Why should there be?" the Council Fathers might say. "That subject was already treated by Trent. Go look up what Trent said.")
The fact that Vatican II used such different language, coupled with the fact that it was not a systematic presentation of the faith, meant that enormous amounts of chaos were created once the "That’s pre-Vatican II, so don’t pay attention to it" meme kicked in.
What we needed (BADLY!) in the years after the Council was a summary of the faith that was (a) authoritative (not just some author’s opinion), (b) comprehensive, (c) systematically organized, and (d) integrating both pre-Conciliar, Conciliar, and post-Conciliar statements of the faith.
In other words, we needed the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We needed a big, huge, honking book that did all that stuff.
(Incidentally, we also have Bernard Law to thank for the Catechism. Whatever his sins as archbishop of Boston, he was the one that first proposed writing the Catechism at the 1985 Synod of Bishops.)
If the Compendium had been released in 1992 instead of the Catechism, it wouldn’t have had as much of a stabilizing effect on the teaching of the faith as the Catechism did.
So I’m glad that the Catechism came out when it did, and now I’m glad that we have the Compendium, too.
