Guest
Aaron Seng is the president of Tradivox and general editor of the Catholic Catechism Index, a twenty-volume collection of traditional Catholic catechisms published by Sophia Institute Press.
Links
- “A Catechism to Reclaim Catechisms” (article)
- Credo catechism
- Tradivox series
Transcript
Eric Sammons:
Since the beginning of Christianity, there have been catechisms to help the faithful understand church teaching. However, in recent decades, catechisms are often used in an attempt to change church teaching. A new catechism attempts to return to the original purpose of catechisms. That’s what we’re going to talk about today on Crisis Point.
Hello, I’m Eric Sammons, your host and editor in chief of Crisis Magazine. Before we get started, just want to encourage people to smash that like button, subscribe to the channel, let other people know about it, follow us on social media at Crisis Mag, subscribe to our e-mail newsletter, which you can do on our website, crisismagazine.com. And right now, we’re in our twice a year fundraising campaign, so I just encourage people, please go to crisismagazine.com. You’ll get a little popup. We don’t run the popup all year, just twice a year asking for funds. We’re getting close to our goal. We’re trying to raise $60,000. Last I checked, we were close to $50,000 or so. I’m not sure exactly what it’ll be when this airs, but we really would appreciate before the end of the year, if you would be able to donate. Of course, we appreciate you more than that, your prayers.
Okay. We’re going to talk about all things catechisms, so we’re bringing in the catechism guy. That is Aaron Seng. He is the president Tradivox, which is sitting right here behind me, and also the general editor of the Catholic Catechism index, a 20 volume collection of traditional Catholic Catechisms published by Sophia Institute Press. Welcome to program, Aaron.
Aaron Seng:
Thank you, Eric. Great to be with you.
Eric Sammons:
Is that your Tradivox there behind you?
Aaron Seng:
It is. It is, indeed. Yes. I keep it handy and reference it often.
Eric Sammons:
I’m not 100% sure if I have the latest. Let me look real quick. I am on, is that 12? I think I’m on 12. Have there been volumes published after 12 or is that what we’re on right now?
Aaron Seng:
Yours must be still en route. 13 is out and I believe 14 will be January. I believe 14 is going to be out in January.
Eric Sammons:
Very good. Very good. Okay. Obviously for listeners, we are going to explain what the heck we’re talking about with Tradivox. We’re going to be talking about catechisms and I think this is a very important topic. Obviously, catechisms are important part of church life. If you’re a parent, they’re very important for raising your kids. Heck, if you’re an adult, they’re very important for just knowing the faith.
Aaron, you can tell he’s been involved with catechisms. He knows about it. He’s written for Crisis Magazine. I’m going to link to some of his articles in the catechism for Crisis, in the show notes. But why don’t you first just explain, what got you interested in catechisms and the history of catechisms?
Aaron Seng:
Sure. In a nutshell, I discerned religious life, Benedictine, monastic life as a younger man. This is many years ago. One of the things that really stood out to me at that time was really their dedication, their devotion historically to the manuscript tradition of the church. This is something that, even secular stories, they’ll acknowledge one of the means whereby civilization really was preserved, especially third, fourth, fifth, even sixth centuries of the church, but also just all of Western civilization owes a great debt to the monastic tradition of just copious. They were able to retain and pass on a wealth of knowledge, of course theologically, but also even practically. Huge advances in even farming technology that owe themselves to the work of the monks.
So that was something that the Lord really, I think, called me to early on. I could tell there was something about my personal interests and my life ahead, he would have me in some kind of work of that nature. I’m also something of a words guy. Of course, my profession now is editing, so stock-in-trade is grammar, syntax, and so on. So that really combined with a long-standing personal interest in research in the whole catechetical legacy of the church. That is really where the Tradivox project itself, this is pushing 20 years ago that it began.
Largely myself, I started to network with other researchers, scholars in the field, several different countries. Now Tradivox as an entity, as a nonprofit is a collaborative of upwards of 50 researchers, editors, volunteers in various countries all really working on that task of pulling some of the most outstanding catechisms of the Catholic tradition. We’re doing this hardback set as a 20 volume set. It has over 30 catechisms in the set, and trying to put them, really, into conversation with each other. That’s really the vision behind the project. It’s to show, across the better part of the last millennium, 1,000 years roughly, of catechisms. Various times, places, cultures, language groups, and its remarkable continuity of doctrine across time and space.
That’s something that a catechism, which is really like a phone book. You can have, really, a suite of phone books that span that kind of a breadth of time and space, you really can demonstrate rapidly and quite beautifully, quite profoundly, just the teaching of the church and all these different contexts.
Eric Sammons:
I know this is a very basic question, but I think it’s important before we really get going on this is, what is the purpose of a catechism? What is, fundamentally, a catechism?
Aaron Seng:
Great question. On the whole, they are generally for lay persons. There certainly are exceptions, and very notable ones. For instance, the two universal catechisms that have ever been promulgated at the universal level, the one first issued in 1992 during the pontificate John Paul II, catechism of the Catholic Church, which I generally refer to as the CCC for short. The CCC was issued for bishops. This was expressly intended for bishops.
Then the 500 years prior, roughly, the catechism of Trent, 1566. This was immediately composed in session, during the council of Trent, promulgated subsequently and constantly revisited, and it was authored for priests, explicitly for priests, their formation, a reference text for them in their own homily preparation and their own teaching of the faithful.
So those are some outstanding ones not directly intended for laymen. But on the whole, most of them are. Most of them are intended for lay folk. They serve, really, as this function of a systematic presentation, the terms of the faith, what we already believe, how we are to live, and generally the nature of the sacraments, and the other means of grace. Which is why you usually see a three-fold, sometimes a four-fold structure on that. They typically follow The Apostle’s Creed, truths of the faith, truths to ascent to with the intellect, then a section that follows the commandments, the commandments of God, 10 Commandments, and then the commandments of the church and precepts of the church.
So this is typically the morals section, what we are to do, how we are to honor God with the will. Then often, the third section is sometimes broken into two subsequent sections, which is typically the means of grace, which comprises the life of prayer, the liturgy, the different sacraments, what they are, how they work, the grace they confer. That’s a rough sketch of the thrust of the genre.
I should mention also, I may have omitted this. It does come as news to some that there are thousands of catechisms.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah.
Aaron Seng:
Okay.
Eric Sammons:
It’s a good point, actually. Let’s bring that up because I want to talk about the history of catechisms. Because when I became Catholic in 1993, it was at the time that the catechism of the Catholic Church under JPII was released. I feel like the English wasn’t released until ’94, so I can’t remember the exact timing, but I know it was right around the time I was coming to church. I remember them making a big deal, there hasn’t been a catechism since Trent. People had mentioned that.
So I was under the impression, since I didn’t grow up Catholic, I didn’t really know what the Baltimore catechism was at that point. I thought, “Okay, this is version two of the catechism from 500 years ago or something like that.” Then over time I start to find out, of course, you heard about the Baltimore catechism. If you read church history enough, you see the Didache might be considered almost the first catechism of the first century, something like that.
So give us a little timeline of catechisms, a history of them, and the different types of catechism, because you already mentioned universal catechisms, but then that means there’s some non-universal catechisms. So how does that all lay out?
Aaron Seng:
Yes. You’ve, of course, touched upon a sensitive issue amongst scholars, which is the genre itself, defining the confines of the catechetical genre. So some would say, like you mentioned, the Didache. Around 70 A.D., first century, some will say, Chapter 2, Acts of the Apostles is a nice, concise catechism. Peter stands up. There’s a crowd of thousands and he really gives the kerygma, the highly distilled call of faith in Christ, the necessity of entering the church. This is all really right there in this seed form.
Most scholars I would say, and I at least would agree with those that hold, the best bookend for the genre of catechisms, as we know it today at least, is really Lateran IV in 1215. You had at that council expressed decrees for, first the Easter Duty as it’s called, this need, this summons, this canon, disciplinary canon for the faithful to every year make a good confession if they need to, in order to receive our Lord in the Eucharist, at least annually.
And out of that, and connected to it in those decrees as well, is this need for catechetics, the reminder of the bishops, principally, and then also pastors of souls that are at their service really extending their ministry, the priests and other pastors at the local level, this need for them to give sound doctrinal instruction to the faithful so that they can make a good confession if they need to, so that they can assent with mind and will to the deposit of faith and receive our Lord for that reason in the blessed sacrament.
So that really, that’s a good bookend, because what happens textually at that point is, you get these little manuals. First, they’re widely called the confessional manuals because most of them have this express function of being for the priest to read so that he can examine his penitents. They come to make their confession and he’s got this little short tract that goes through some of the major virtues and vices, major sins and their remedies. In some cases, very detailed penances that he might bestow upon the penitent.
Then most of those, especially towards the end of the 13th century, they start to have this appendage of, “Oh, and here’s some rote instructions in the faith. If you need some extra homily help, here’s rote instructions on the faith.” That’s really, I think, the best place to draw the bookend, or the beginning of the genre as we know it today. A single volume, a single book, a single textual artifact that gives this systematic treatment of faith and morals. That’s a good place to start.
Eric Sammons:
Was Trent in the first universal catechism?
Aaron Seng:
That’s right. By the time we get to Trent, there’s, of course, the genre itself is exploding in the late 1400s already, but especially as the print technology increases. There’s some who think it was this magic wand that happened in the mid 1500s and then all the sudden, we had Gutenberg and then stuff was printed always, everywhere, all the time. There were advances in printing technology that well predated that. What you have is this curve of increase in that century of, stuff is getting easier to print. It’s getting faster to print.
Then, by the time you get to Trent, it’s really taking off and there’s this great problem, of course, of the Protestant revolt, which is mushrooming in all of these countries.
Eric Sammons:
Didn’t they have catechisms that they did as well?
Aaron Seng:
That’s right. Contrary to popular belief, maybe not among Catholics, but I’ve come across this in places, Luther was not the first to write a catechism. I’ve seen that asserted in places and it makes you scratch your head.
Eric Sammons:
No. It is also funny because Protestants don’t really do catechisms today. I never, as a Protestant, ever heard of it. We didn’t do catechisms.
Aaron Seng:
Are you just one of those low church Protestants?
Eric Sammons:
Right, exactly. In the old days, the good old days of the Protestant revolt, they were producing catechisms, weren’t they?
Aaron Seng:
They do and still today. You find a Westminster confession, these kind of things. There are texts like that and Luther’s texts are still available. He wrote a couple. But in reality, they were widely printed and disseminated, especially in the countries. They had the express intention of being directed to a generally lay readership. That was the target audience.
So you had this perceived need. How do we equip our priests to meet this challenge? Would that we had some very regular, systematic instruction in the truths of the faith that they could take home and put to work. That was the vision behind the first universally promulgated catechism, which was the catechism of Trent, AKA the Roman Catechism. You’ll hear that term at times, sometimes even just, “That golden book.” This is a catechism that, it’s composed on the council it’s called for, by the decrees of the council. It’s composed in session during the council by the most eminent theologians at the time, under the direction, oh, by the way, of Charles Borromeo, the great saint and patron of catechists and catechetics. So under his direction, at his guidance-
Eric Sammons:
Sorry to interrupt, but I don’t think I knew this. It was composed actually at the council itself?
Aaron Seng:
Yes. Again, the council sessions span many years. But yes, it was at the direction of council and during its convention.
So ultimately, it’s promulgated 1566, memory serves, ’55, ’56. It again, is intended for priests. It’s excellent. It’s a good read. When folks ask me, “Do I need to get the Roman Catechism?” I’d never discourage anybody from picking up a good catechism. However, it’s a little more difficult read, I think, for the typical lay person just because it’s, again, it’s 500 years old and intended for priests. Which is to say, it presumes upon a great deal of prior, especially philosophical formation within seminaries.
So it will use Thomistic categories, a lot of metaphysical principles that are lost on a lot of readers like you and me would pick up and say, “Okay, I’m going to have to have my concordance in the other hand to really sort this one out.” But that being said, it’s regarded for centuries as a normative text for forming priests. It’s required repeatedly by popes in seminary formation as well. As I say, it’s called the golden book for that reason. It is a lode star for many a century.
We get to the second of two universally promulgated catechisms in 1992, as you say. This is following the senate of bishops in ’85, which is among other things, calls for an updated treatment of doctrine, especially for the use of bishops. Whereas Trent has priests in mind, they want this tool in mind for us bishops. Again, this is coming out of the senate of the bishops, the universal senate in the mid ’80s. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a text that we could then use, both for teaching in our own spheres, in our own dioceses, but also for this baseline as we begin our own catechisms and launch them specific to the needs of the faithful in our regions, to just have an updated reference point. That’s really the vision behind what comes to be the CCC that’s issued in ’92.
Eric Sammons:
Now between those two universal catechisms, we have, is it correct to say hundreds or even thousands of catechisms that are created? I think that’s where most Catholics are ignorant or just are scratching their head. If we have a universal catechism that’s created by Trent, why do we need anything else? Likewise, once the CCC is promulgated in the ’90s, 1990s, why do we need anything else? Most people know about Baltimore catechism, but what are the purpose of all these catechisms that flourish between Trent and Vatican 2’s catechism’s?
Aaron Seng:
Yes. First, it’s a point that can’t be belabored enough, perhaps, that yes, there are hundreds. There are thousands. There are thousands of catechisms in the Catholic tradition if we’re going to count language groups, derivative editions, and so on. There is a wealth of texts in that vein and still today. There are some who will say, “We haven’t had another catechism since the ’92,” to which you say, “Take a look at the closest Catholic books or catalog. You will be surprised to find there are scores.” I have a shelf of Tradivox. We are sent things from time to time as well. So there are dozens, scores, maybe hundreds of catechisms that have been composed since the ’92 catechism as well. So there’s no shortage of texts is the first point.
As to the question why, it’s answerable simply by the same virtue of letting bishops in any given era. We already know the faith. We already have the deposit. It was fixed at the death of the last apostle. Why continue to have any kind of textual artifact manuscript tradition, these continued councils, punctuation marks throughout time? Why? Why any of that? Because the answer is the same, in terms of the question, why any new catechisms. Because each one has a particular time, place in mind. Each one is engaging the contemporary context with the perennial truths of the faith and unchanging moral principles, and bringing those to bear on whatever area, for instance, geographically, it’s deployed, or wider, more regional, or with specific target audiences involved.
So for instance, you get catechisms constantly that are authored for, especially after, really, the turn of the 19th century, these hyper focused target audience catechisms. Catechisms for converts, catechisms for converts from Anglicanism, catechisms for converts who are under the age of 25. There are several catechisms for first communicants. We’re very familiar with that, a lot of us who have been in catechesis, rules of one form or another. Catechisms only for sacramental preparation.
So all of these texts have their own unique value and some of that now is purely historical for us. It’s fascinating. You pull a catechism. I could pull volume six here in the Tradivox series off of one of these shelves and say, “Now we’re going to learn about the Scot ale, and the grave moral problem of the Scot ale.” Who has ever heard of that? What is it? Does that have any bearing on me today? Well, maybe not. Maybe you don’t live in a parish where there’s mandatory drinking parties where you have to pay a tax to them locally. But those kind of things were happening in the 13th, 14th, 15th-
Eric Sammons:
In more civilized times.
Aaron Seng:
Yeah, right. So even these grave immoralities, just like someone eight centuries ago isn’t going to need to look in a catechism to ensure that, say, marriage is between one man and one woman only. These are things that aren’t addressed. They are clearly not issues ever anywhere that now we have to make very clear to our contemporaries. That’s really the long and short.
Eric Sammons:
So who is authorized to write a catechism? Could I just decide tomorrow, I’m going to write a catechism? Or does it have to be a bishop, a council of bishops, or it can be a priest? Who really is authorized to write these?
Aaron Seng:
That’s a great question. Anybody can write one, in terms if it’s beneficial to you. Especially in the last 50 years or so, there have been several that have been written by laymen, often at the direction of either a priest of bishop, or at their request. Really, the only question when it comes into authority, textual authority, that’s a question that really devolves among bishops.
For instances, the bishop, he sees a need, let’s say, in his diocese for a catechism that just has some aspect that the catechisms currently in use there doesn’t have. This is why the Baltimore came about, for those familiar with the Baltimore catechism. Sorry, an aside. The Baltimore catechism, for those not familiar, is the result of the three synods of Baltimore in the continental U.S., the late 1800s. This was a multi part, a multi-phase, multiple synods, all of them convened in Baltimore, the last of which promulgated this catechism for American Catholics, called the Baltimore catechism in brief. That’s how it’s typically known today.
The authoring of that catechism was in response to a huge proliferation of catechisms all across the U.S. So all these bishops see, these are great. Some of them are translations from the German, some from the French, some from the Spanish. Every one of them has value, but I need to get a redacted version because now we’ve got some more issues here that I need to focus in on, says our imaginary bishop.
So he can do any number of things. He can approach a priest at his direction and say, “We need to write one. Find the best ones that are out there. Put them together and I’m going to coach you on it.” He can sit down, pen to paper, compose one. He can, more commonly, take catechisms that already exist and then just insert some portions, tweak a little bit of the language here and there, maybe make it a bit more contemporary because some of these terms have changed in a living language. Ass no longer means what ass used to mean or these kind of things. That’s by and large the most common approach, especially among the French bishops for several hundred years. Bishops will come into their sea, they would perceive a need for good catechesis, and they would just write a catechism. This was old hat for centuries. That’s one of the reasons that we have so many.
Eric Sammons:
Now, you’ve written for Crisis about the catechism crisis and the modern catechism crisis. We have all these catechisms and in general, it sounds like they were all fine. Some better than others. Some are great, some are average, maybe not so great, maybe poorly written or whatever, but really until the 20th century, generally if a catechism was produced by a bishop or a council of bishops or approved by a bishop, it was okay.
But then there seems to be, problems start to arise. I think the most famous most of us may have heard of is, I think it’s the Dutch catechism. Tell us a little bit about what happened to catechisms that, all of a sudden, they became untrustworthy documents in many cases. I think this would be starting in the ’60s or ’70s.
Aaron Seng:
It’s a great question. It’s important to first point out, as a matter of historical record, that the catechism crisis, in which I maintain we are currently living, is itself predated by other catechism crises. So that was one of the things you probably recall. This was a while ago that I did for Crisis, which was just pointing out that there have been bad catechisms in the past and, in fact, texts that were used for deploying really heterodox ideas, especially during the Jansenist controversy, again, in France, where you had a proliferation of catechisms in France prior to that, and of course afterwords.
So just the fact of a text approval, should mention that on the authority point, that the point of any given catechism’s authority. Because this one, this is important. Catechisms, when they are raised to the level of being officially endorsed and approved by a local ordinary, that is to say a bishop with a territorial jurisdiction and authority over souls, what you have at that point is something that is essentially standing in place of a bishop there teaching the faith. That’s the idea with a catechism, is that a bishop is hereby declaring Catholic doctrine in matters of faith and morals.
That has long predated, for instance, the system of nihil obstat, imprimi potest, and imprimatur that many are familiar with today. But nonetheless, that system, the imprimatur system is designed to be really a print artifact of that dynamic where a bishop is saying, “This, in virtue of my apostolic office, I declare this to be in accord with the truths of the faith, matters of faith and morals.”
That’s why a lot of Catholics still will instinctively pop open any book on Catholic doctrine and check that front page, “Does that have an imprimatur on there?” And maybe they’re looking for the bishop. They’re doing a little further triage. Well, what bishop gave the imprimatur, because as you point out, and as I’ve written elsewhere on Crisis, we do have this reality of several decades now of catechisms with imprimaturs that do things like deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, that do things like deny His historical resurrection, that do things like deny His express establishment of a unique religious body, that is to say the Roman Catholic Church that do things like protest at the prohibitions of any illicit sex acts because after all, some of them surely could be permissible as long as they’re between two people who love each other.
This is the legacy of the last half century. We have texts like this. So I don’t go in for the idea that there’s this boogey man out there of a spirit. We have to really divine the intention behind any given text. Just as a student of language and texts, I don’t really have time for that. My focus is just the black and white. Show me the text. Show me in the text. The reality is, we have decades of texts that have appeared under official approbation at various levels, imprimatur being one of them, texts that have glaring departures from Catholic faith and morals.
They are noticeably increased in the latter part of the 20th century, following most especially the closing of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. There are a few that predate that, that were beginning to get a little odd in places, but certainly nothing like the watershed that was the council, in terms of how it impacted the manuscript tradition that followed.
Eric Sammons:
So just to give an example, is it the Dutch catechism that was the infamous one? Didn’t it come out in the late ’60s, early ’70s and it had all these types of problems?
Aaron Seng:
Yes. Yes, the Dutch catechism is probably the most well-known and infamous of those examples. Folks can go on and find digests of that. Interestingly enough, it ended up being, the book itself wasn’t censored. It was disseminated in print. It was composed by all of the bishops of the Netherlands, conjointly. They issued this text immediately after the closing of the council, within a year of the closing of the council. It was, A New Catechism was the title. It was in light of new directions, new emphases, new insights, fill in the blank, this language becomes very common in catechisms after the council.
You have this incredible range of, of course, ambiguity, but also just manifest error, things that can’t be squared, with a prima facie reading that cannot be squared with the traditions. So grave were they that it was, at that time, still met with a knee-jerk reaction. In many countries, protests were sent to the congregation of the doctrine of faith. This book needs to be censored, so on and so forth.
There is no discipline, no discipline for the bishops. They demand that the book be censored. The book is not censored. It remains in print under the imprimatur of the great Dutch cardinal Alfric. Alrfic, which sounds like a James Bond bad guy name. It remains under his imprimatur. There is a complete refusal. They summarily ignore the Vatican issue to censor the book or remove the imprimatur. All of those bishops go on to dissent in one way or another from Humanae Vitae, which comes out in just a few years after that catechism.
So this text is printed in the millions. It is translated in several different language groups. It heavily influences Catholic religious ed curricula in schools and seminaries for decades. So yes, that’s probably the most well-known baddie, bad apple of the bunch.
Eric Sammons:
So that gets us to, we’ve touched on it, but the authority, the teaching authority of a catechism. So here we have a catechism that has got an imprimatur. It’s issued by the bishops and the bishops are the authoritative teachers of their diocese and the faithful in them. So maybe not somebody in America, but people in the Netherlands. These are actually their authentic, authoritative teacher of the faith and they’re releasing this, giving imprimatur, saying, “This is the faith.” But yet, we know it’s actually contrary to it.
So what is a lay Catholic supposed to do? Then take that to a notch of, how about the universal catechism, the CCC. Is that one at a different authority level? Touch on, are any of these texts infallible and all those type of things.
Aaron Seng:
So you’re setting me up for a book length response here, Eric.
Eric Sammons:
Three hours later.
Aaron Seng:
I’ll try to condense this. Let’s see. To the first question, is it a real head scratcher for lay Catholics? It absolutely is. When, for instance, you read in the code of canon law, 750 somewhere, 752, 753 I think, and how it talks about the bishops are, even when not infallible, so even independent of the cares and infallibility that ordinary teachers of faith, and to them the faithful, you, me, Catholics in their territory. Oh, religious submission of intellect and will. That is to say, our default position is always to be, “Yes, bishop.” We receive with the mind the teaching that we’re given because these men are set up in succession from the apostles. They are the divinely endorsed teachers of the faith in our time, the charism of truth, by way of their episcopal office.
So yes, we find ourselves at what I call a grave catechism crisis. We’re at a crisis period in the church, not unlike times in Jansenist France, when you would have a bishop one diocese over, you drive across, of course, they didn’t drive. You ride the pony across the diocesan line to the neighboring diocese and here you have a bishop who’s a Jansenist or a crypto-Jansenist, and he’s issued a catechism that has these tenants that are unduly rigorous and maybe denying certain tenants about original sin and its effects on human nature after the fact. What’s a layman to do? What’s a lay person to do? So this is how Christ established the church, was that we could be the faithful sheep and follow the voice of the good shepherd, echoed by our shepherds, the bishops.
So that is a question. It is a real crisis of authority. In terms of what to do, the triage that needs to happen in a period like when the catechism of Montpellier or Puget had some of these French baddies 300 years ago. Just the same that we need now and the same that Vincent of Lerins points out in the fourth century of, we need some governing criteria that we can keep on, carry on with peace and with knowledge that we live in the truth.
In short, that’s why we’re Catholic. We have a tradition. We have a body of doctrine that is already fixed. So in cases where there appear to be these deviations from what has always been held, taught, believed always, everywhere, and by all, it’s the famous Vincentian Canon, it’s called. When we perceive deviations from this. That’s our time to check it out. We’re maybe withholding assent, especially in matters that seem very grave and immediately affecting, say, our moral conduct. We have to dig in. We have to know our faith. That’s the long and short.
Eric Sammons:
So how about, then, the universal catechism that came out in 1992. Does it have a different authority? Should lay Catholics treat it differently in its authority? Is it part of the extraordinary, ordinary magisterium? Does it have any infallibility touched upon it? How is it any different or is it any different for a universal catechism?
Aaron Seng:
Great. Several routes we could go with that. On the one hand, its level of authority is certainly not greater or substantially different from the catechism of Trent, insofar as both are texts that were issued at the universal level. If we’re just talking about the level of magisterium involved in the issuing of the texts, those are identical. Some would argue that Trent itself has a higher level of significance because of its having been summoned by a council, composed during the sessions of the council, which of course, the CCC was not. There was no mention during Vatican 2 of a new catechism, or the need for one, or any of that.
So there’s some who would maintain that Trent, in terms of every catechism ever composed, Trent still, the Roman catechism still retains the highest level of magisterial authority, that is to say, the highest teaching office involved in its promulgation, would have been Trent. To my mind, that’s neither here nor there. It really, depending on what you’re looking at a catechism for. If we say we’re after something that’s readable, let’s say, for me or for my kids, you don’t immediately approach it from, what is the highest level of magisterial authority of all. So I’m going to sit down with little Susie and the catechism of Trent and we’re going to go through it. We could, but she might benefit from a catechism with pictures. So really, it’s a question of, application is really the question.
In terms of the authority of the CCC, it is one of only two catechisms that have been promulgated at a universal level. That’s quite significant. Also, there are places in the text that are at least ambiguous and in places, so highly ambiguous as to be charged, even from the ’90s when it was first issued, with such proximity to error that they lend themselves more to an erroneous interpretation than to an orthodox interpretation. There are entire books that have been written on that.
The point of ambiguity, this would take us far afield. As a grammar/syntax guy, ambiguity to me is not, it’s a very hard and fast category. It just means lexical range. You say things in print. There is no tone. There is no what’s implied by. When things are formed in the sequences of words, there is a limited semantic range to any number of those terms based on its context. That’s what’s important in any catechism is, what can this not mean? That’s really the question with some of these formulations.
That’s why, throughout the centuries, you have some texts that are just better than others. They have better formulations of the constant teaching of the church. It must be said, the ’92 catechism, or the catechism formerly known as the ’92, it’s gone through all these updates since then, but the CCC has formulations that are incredibly beautiful. I mean strikingly. They’re moving. They approach the poetic. I’m thinking especially the section on, in the fourth section, section of prayer.
On the other hand, there are also a few passages in there that just a prima faci reading of them cannot be squared with the traditional doctrine. You have to work very hard to square them. So those things have been taken up by priests, bishops, theologians since it was first issued, was either doing the work of, “Hey, teacher, here’s how you square this with the teaching that came before,” or, I would say perhaps a disingenuous reading of it. Actually, the doctrine has really changed on that point and here’s what we know, teach. Here is the new teaching, which somehow has achieved a 180 degree reversal from what was taught prior on this or that point. But that’s development. That’s just development.
Eric Sammons:
Just development. Another thing about, too is, it’s not just whether or not a line is orthodox or not. It’s what is decided to put in, what is not. I made this example in my book, Deadly Indifference, and I’m going to forget the exact specifics. But in the Council of Trent catechism, the section on baptism insists in multiple paragraphs on the necessity of baptism for salvation. It just basically states that very clearly, over and over again, over multiple paragraphs.
In the section on baptism in the catechism of the Catholic Church in the 1992 catechism, I think there’s maybe 10 or 12 paragraphs on baptism. One of them makes a statement about the necessity of baptism for salvation and the rest of them are basically talking about the exceptions, how there’s baptism of desire, there’s baptism of blood. We can hope that somebody who hasn’t been baptized can be saved, all these things. I think that also is something that we shouldn’t discount the importance of that, of what it’s emphasizing, because obviously, Trent was emphasizing the necessity of baptism for salvation. The CCC is emphasizing that there’s lots of ways you could be saved, potentially other than baptism. I think that teaches us by what is chosen to be in there. Does that make sense?
Aaron Seng:
Yes. Maybe I’d have two comments on that, the first being, especially for the long dead authors of catechism to say, “Leave these guys alone, Eric. Leave these guys alone.” Because on the one hand, like a historian, everybody wants to shoot historians because the poor guys, there’s no such thing as an unbiased history. There’s no such thing as an unbiased catechism, which is just to say that every author has to make selection and emphasis, selection and emphasis.
So really trying to go at, this is the tone, this is the implication, you need more than the text itself. That would be my major point on that. What the grammarian has to say is, this proposition lexically exclude this meaning? Is it mutually exclusive from what’s been taught, let’s say dogmatically on that point, like the necessity of baptism for salvation? Are they mutually exclusive? If they’re not, there’s room to play. That’s a fact.
However, my takeaway would be, and this is what I’ve tried to point out at Crisis in places. I’m doing so elsewhere. It may be a book at some point. I don’t know. The other point to make for our time now is that what has happened in plain black and white is grave departures from the traditional doctrine on any number of points, by way of citing things from the CCC, or from the texts of Vatican 2, or from magisterial documents.
So when you have that, we’re no longer in the fantasy land of, this person may have been implying this or there were secrets involved because they’re Freemasons or Communists. We’re no longer in that realm of guesswork. We’re just looking at textual artifacts and saying, “What came from this was this and this thing cannot be reconciled with the prior teaching of the church.”
So that would seem to point right back to, if not a manifest error or departure in the original text, let’s say the CCC, at least something that’s problematic enough to require addressing, to require some kind of clarification. Of course, since the ’90s that has been done by many in book form, in breeching form, just saying, “Look, when we say this, this is really what we mean,” because somehow, the horse seems to have left the stable years ago and Catholics have very strange ideas now about different things that their fore bearers just two generations ago would have balked at.
Eric Sammons:
Now, all this is somewhat, this is very important, what we’ve talked about, the history of catechism and what it is because there’s a new catechism, possibly the latest catechism, I don’t know. I haven’t heard of another one since then, that was just published. We’ve talked about it here on Crisis. That’s Credo. I think the subtitle is a compendium of the Catholic faith or something like that, by Bishop Athanasius Schneider. I know when it originally was announced, I know there was a number of Catholics who might even be sympathetic, might be a fan of Bishop Schneider, thought, “This seems odd, a bishop writing a catechism. Don’t we have a catechism?” But hopefully, they’ve just listened to the first 45 minutes of this podcast and they’ll understand it’s not weird for a bishop to release a catechism.
However, I do think there’s some unique things. I shouldn’t say unique, but unique in modern times. Unique in the last 50 years, about this catechism. Can you articulate the importance of Credo and how it is something somewhat new in the modern world? At least modern being the last 50, 60 years compared to what we’ve seen that’s been promulgated since Vatican 2?
Aaron Seng:
Sure, I could give it a stab. I’ve been a careful student of that text, the Credo that you mention, for the reasons you mentioned. It is the first time in about a half century here, that you have a bishop issuing a summary, again a compendium, of Catholic faith and life in this form, canonically improved under imprimatur. It’s the first time that’s happened since the council, to my knowledge. There have been a few, let’s see. I’m thinking of, there was a bishop in Ohio that, in the ’90s, I think he did a little short, a pocket one. There was another one, oh boy, maybe even in the early 2000s, there was a bishop and several other co-authors that did a larger one.
But this is the first time in 50 years that you have a bishop writing a catechism of his own and then issued under imprimatur at this length of treatment. The body text is 350 pages. It’s Q&A form. It’s very concise. Clearly, the propositions have been labored over. I did some work with that, at least, in the English edition. It absolutely is, it’s unique in that regard.
In terms of the content, it’s beautifully arranged, I would say. It very much takes from, especially the catechism of Peter Canisius, the great saint and patron of catechists, the great German patron, my people. Most German Catholics today would not be Catholic were it not for the great Peter Canisius. So he writes multiple catechisms, which can be found in volume nine of the Tradivox series, for those who are interested. But his really becomes a lode star in the 16th century and he is one of, if not the first, to use this three-fold structure within Catholic catechisms. So Credo borrows from that. It takes that same basic structure, following the truths of the creed, morals, and then prayer, grace, liturgy, worship, the Catholic life of worship. I very much value it in that regard.
Also, it has the unique distinction of being the only catechism in history to talk about things like gender ideology or any number of these contemporary moral issues that, again, we face today that never even existed prior, much like, I could pull a catechism from the time of St. Therese, one of the great catechisms that she would have read, that her parents would have read to her and taught her from, and you’ll find a whole section on this grave moral issue of animal magnetism. That’s a complete non-starter, but it was a pressing moral issue in rural France of that area.
So it does, Credo has unique distinction in that way, being from a living office holder of the church, engaging contemporary issues, all in their proper place. He takes them all in the flow of the subjects. So things like, I mentioned gender ideology. Find those kind of things in the section on the creation of man. What is man? What is Christian anthropology? Right in that flow, you engage these contemporary issues. Yes, it’s excellent in that regard.
Eric Sammons:
Now, a little bit of confusion, I think, or controversy. Of course, no good deed goes unquestioned in these times. There has been criticism of Credo. A couple questions I want to ask about that. One is, the Dutch catechism was written by the bishops of the Netherlands for the people of the Netherlands. You have, the Baltimore catechism was released basically as an American catechism. The universal catechism is for everybody.
But here you have an auxiliary bishop in Eastern Europe who writes a catechism and the language it’s first published in is English. I believe that’s the only language it’s in thus far, is in English. So who is the audience and what kind of authority? Here I am living in Ohio, on the other side of the world. What role does this catechism, should it play in my life, since he’s not my ordinary and he’s not even part of the conference of bishops in my country. But yet, it seems obviously, it’s been marketed to America more than anywhere else. So who is the audience and how does that all fit into the authority of bishops and in the church?
Aaron Seng:
Great. To the question of authority first, a catechism only becomes what some call now an official catechism, that only occurs, we mentioned this earlier, when you have a text that’s imposed on a territory. That would be different from, say, the granting of an imprimatur. The bishop granting an imprimatur to any text is a bishop saying, “I adopt this teaching as a reliable expression of Catholic faith and morals. I don’t necessarily agree with any of these,” in fact, I’ve seen this in some texts the last 10 years. You’re starting to get imprimatur followed by something that reads like a disclaimer. It says things like, “This is not an expression that the bishop granting the imprimatur necessarily agrees with all the contents here presented, but by way of the imprimatur, affirms that it’s free of error in faith and morals.” Which to me is a head scratcher. I don’t know.
But anyway, that is an imprimatur. However, the imposition of a text on a territory would be an expression of a local ordinary’s teaching magisterium requiring the assent of the faithful within his jurisdiction. So that’s to the authority point.
Eric Sammons:
We don’t really have a catechism like that in America, right? There’s no catechism that’s been imposed. I know the conference of USCCB did release a catechism for adults at some point. I can’t remember how long ago it was. Are any catechisms that you know of imposed upon us right now?
Aaron Seng:
I do not know of any. I do not know of any. Any of them could be at any time. Any bishop could say at any point, “I decree this text to be,” for instance, this was common when the Baltimore was first issued was, there were several bishops who said, “I’m overwhelmed in my diocese. There’s 100 different catechisms being used and it makes me dizzy because I go in to guest teach at Sister So-and-so’s school and they’ve all learned the answers a little different order because they’re using such and such catechism. Flanders, let’s say, or any of these others, just outstanding texts of the time. So now I’m imposing. The Baltimore catechism henceforth will be the only catechism used in the diocese.” That’s an imposition. I don’t know of any. There may be. That may have happened, but I don’t know of any.
Eric Sammons:
So we have freedom, those Catholics, for example, if we wanted to teach our kids the faith using Credo. There’s nothing really stopping us from doing that because it’s got the imprimatur. It’s a catechism that’s been released to the world, so to speak. Is that correct, a way of looking at it?
Aaron Seng:
I would say that’s correct of any catechism.
Eric Sammons:
Right. Right, yes. Not just Credo, but any catechism.
Aaron Seng:
That was one point I remember that the late Pope Benedict XVI brought up. Someone was asking him, it was right during the promulgation of the compendium of the CCC, the compendium of the compendium, when that was just about to be published, I want to say 2006, memory serves. An interviewer had asked him about the catechism of Pope St. Pious X, which remains one of the most beloved short catechisms, very much like the Baltimore. They’d asked him, “What do we do with the catechism of Pious X. His compendium’s going to come out. What do we do with that one?” He said, “Well, the faith, as such, is always the same. There are some who will value the way that it’s articulated in the Pious X catechism and it may have friends in the future.” He was just saying, “If it’s drawing out these texts that stand as approved articulations of faith and morals of church, then yes, why not. Some will benefit from this one, some will benefit from that one, and so on.”
Eric Sammons:
So what would you say to the argument that then Credo being released now, undermines in some fashion, the catechism of the Catholic Church. By that, not just because it’s a catechism that’s been released after CCC, because hopefully, most people realize we’re still going to have catechisms being produced. Just like after Trent, there were still other catechisms. But more that it challenges certain things that are taught in the CCC and it directly challenges, in a lot of ways, certain statements from Vatican 2.
So do you see this as a competition? Almost it’s setting itself up as one because, as a lay Catholic, I’m looking at Credo, which is saying things a lot different. Particularly, let’s say in how it, our relations to other religions, the truth and claims of Judaism, or Islam, or something like that versus how Vatican 2 and the CCC present it. What do we say about these battle of the catechisms?
Aaron Seng:
I’m not sure what to say on that. The first basic point would be, like you already intimate, the CCC itself called for the creation of new catechisms. Folks will be happy to know that the USCCB website has a whole section asking that exact question. Does this mean there can be no other catechisms, talking about the CCC. Of course, it says, “No. Of course, we need additional articulations of the faith. They need to be contemporized at any age to meet the challenges of any given time; doctrinal, moral, or otherwise.” So it’s basic standing, the idea that it somehow undermines the CCC from that standpoint is just silly and extreme to me. That would be like saying, “We can’t have Shakespeare because we already had Dante and he’ll just undermine Dante.” Yeah, far from it.
To the point that it, Credo that is, addresses points in the CCC that are themselves subject to ambiguity and even erroneous interpretation, which it does do. There are several points in Credo where it makes passing mention of those things. They, of course, aren’t the bulk of the text, but they’re addressed mid-stream. Yes. Yes, it absolutely challenges what has been articulated, not because of who articulated it or what was originally meant. It’s simply pointing out, this proposition could be subject to an erroneous interpretation. For which reason, it needs to be made eminently clear what the teaching of the church is on this point, and that’s of course, why the author, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, spent so much time doing the citation work of a lot of the sources and so on.
Eric Sammons:
It sounds like you’re saying, I’m going to play a little Devil’s Advocate here because it sounds like you’re saying Credo is trying to clarify ambiguities found in Vatican 2, found in CCC. But I think a lot of critics would say, “No, it’s actually correcting Vatican 2 and it’s going against it, particularly when it talks about the idea of other religions like Islam, that we both worship,” I can’t remember the exact wording of Vatican 2, but it’s something to the effect that suggests that we have the same God. Clearly, in Credo, Schneider rejects that idea. The same thing with Judaism. He makes it very clear, there is no continuing covenant with Judaism. The only covenant is the one through Jesus Christ in Christianity.
There was an article recently, just this week in fact, in Catholic World Report by Larry Chapp, where he brings up these points and says that basically, it’s like Vatican 2 took the church in this direction and then Bishop Schneider’s saying, “Nope, I’m going in this direction. I’m going in the direction I think it should have gone.” In a sense, that is contradicting the magisterium of the church, contradicting the magisterium of Vatican 2, contradicting the magisterium of St. John Paul II.
So how would you respond at least? I know you’re not Bishop Schneider, so you can’t speak for him. But how would you respond to that criticism, that this is essentially a triad catechism that is rejecting legitimate teachings of Vatican 2 or the CCC?
Aaron Seng:
Wow. I’m no theologian and I may be mistaken, but I believe that the rejection of the express teaching of Catholic bishops maintained under imprimatur, as Credo is, would be called dissent. I don’t mean to be facetious, so maybe put it more clearly. If, say, the texts of Vatican 2, and the CCC, and Credo have all been officially approved as free from error in faith or morals, it seems to me that any apparent contradiction must be a mistake of perception.
Eric Sammons:
Didn’t the Dutch catechism get the imprimatur, though? It actually had errors.
Aaron Seng:
Right. By what criteria, Eric? That’s the next question. Because unless, of course, one is theologically and juridically competent to declare the essential irreconcilability of certain propositions. Of course, I’m not, but I did read, you mentioned that article by Chapp. I read that one, just not long before this call because I was curious. I’m not very familiar with Dr. Chapp’s work, but I recall seeing an article of his not long ago that I benefited from, so I was interested to see his take, as well.
I hate to say it, but it’s a long exercise in leading the witness. He does no textual work in terms of, here is this proposition and it’s fundamentally irreconcilable with the teaching of the church. He does a lot of intimation, like you have just done, Eric, which is, things were going in this way and now this is not going in that way. Please demonstrate. Please demonstrate that.
Eric Sammons:
We kind of suggest it’s anti-Semitic, too.
Aaron Seng:
Yes. Things like that are juvenile in the extreme. The notion that any catechism, much less Credo, is advocating for, I can’t remember. He put something in there about that. Or I think he was engaging in the old rhetorical flourish.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. He talks about a few things about Schneider says about Judaism in the texts. He says, “To say such statements are tone deaf to the sensitivities surrounding the history of Christian anti-Semitism is a gross understatement by several order of magnitude.” When you say it like that, it almost sounds like he’s calling Schneider Hitler. He’s making the point that Schneider’s an anti-Semite, basically.
Aaron Seng:
I don’t know that he is and I wouldn’t accuse him of such and I have no quarrel with him. The main, I think, work to be done and what needs to be demonstrated, again, theologically and juridically, is that Chapp or anyone else knows better, that they are in fact theologically and juridically more competent than the bishop who authored this text, than the bishop who granted the imprimatur, officially endorsing it as free from error, of any of his eminence Cardinal Sarah or the other bishops that have endorsed it, hailed it as this great and much needed resource for our time.
So that would be my first question. What chops would he present for that, being a layman and a retired professor? For any other author, it really has to be a propositional examination. I don’t know if we have time for that here or not, but the point on, let’s say Judaism, in the text, there is nothing about Jews, per se, individuals who are themselves practicing Talmudic Jews. He makes an excellent distinction about the status of Judaism in the time of Christ as opposed to in our time. All that can be found in Credo. It’s very insightful, and then makes the completely orthodox and normative claim that there is no salvation in the old covenant as though it were somehow freestanding. That’s St. Paul. That’s Peter. That’s the first century. That’s every century since. Salvation is in Christ alone. Or the New Testament is bunko and why are we even having the conversation.
So the idea that a religious system is false is going to be, I think you used the word new or surprising to some. I think that will. I think that will be surprising to some, the notion that, wait, the church has always addressed non-Catholic religions as false religions hitherto. And that is the category that’s proclaimed, of course, in Credo, and done very simply. It is not a text of apologetics, per se, or interreligious dialogue to inform it, or any of that nature. It’s only concerned with, what is the objective status of non-Catholic religions? Thus, are they means of grace? Fill in the blank. That’s the kind of doctrinal work being done in a catechism. Not the subtle art of dialogue or pastoral experimentation. That’s just not the place for it, in a catechism.
Eric Sammons:
That leads me to a point I kind of feel like when I read Credo is that it feels to me like it’s a modern catechism written in the style of an old catechism. By style, I mean a little bit more than just grammatical style. What I mean by that is, if you look at the old catechism, Baltimore catechism, catechism of St. Pious X, the Roman catechism, it’s very propositional. It just states, “This is what the church teaches, period.” There’s no attempt to try to explain it to non-Catholics in some way that might make them feel better or make them understand. It’s like, “This is to Catholics. Here’s what we believe, period. Now, if you want to know more details about that, you might have to go somewhere else because all I’m stating is the truth of it.”
If you look at modern catechisms, including the CCC, there seems to be a lot more, you even said it, they’re beautiful, almost poetic sections, but that’s not how catechisms were written in the past. I’ve seen ones better, ones worse. I’m just stating that objectively. Credo seems to be in that old style of, I’m just going to give the facts, state them without trying to worry about if a modern Jewish person reads this or modern pagan reads this, he might be offended or something like that. I’m just going to state what the church teaches.
But then, of course, it’s not just like an old catechism because it also then addresses brand new topics like gender confusion and things of that nature. Is that a fair assessment? I’m not saying that’s all the differences, but that seems to be something that stood out to me in reading Credo.
Aaron Seng:
Yes. I think that’s absolutely fair. It would stand out to someone reading, really, any catechism ever that the, again, vast majority of these texts are by Catholics, for Catholics. They are texts to help confirm the brethren and the faith, to borrow from our Lord’s words to Peter, for which reason they are constantly referenced as demonstrations of the ordinary magisterium.
So you get in these old theological manuals, for instance, any of these where when they talk about the universal ordinary magisterium, how do we access the world round, and time, and space, ordinary exercise of the teaching office of the church? We do it through the bishops. How do we do that? What’s an example of accessing that teaching? Every one of them, the first example they give is the catechisms issued by them. Because again, you have a textual artifact that endures after their demise.
So yes, I think that is a fair assessment of Credo and any catechism. In fact, just because you brought up the Judaism example, I am made to think of the great scuttlebutt some years ago when the USCCB issued their distillation of the CCC and the first wave, the first printing of that text, they had a manifest error, it must be said, with regard to Judaism. It said directly that the covenant, the first covenant made by God with the Jewish people remains perpetually valid for them, which has tremendous problems with it.
So there’s this-
Eric Sammons:
The biggest problem being that it’s false.
Aaron Seng:
That it’s false. But then, what was even more ironic is that, in subsequent editions, the U.S. bishops came back and said, “Sorry. Sorry.” They fixed it, which is to say they corrected that portion, and then there was even more blow back because what, are you anti-Semitic? It’s just terrible, but this is why you have this immediate, we live in a constant echo chamber of emotivist reasoning, which is to say non-reasoning, leading the witness. As soon as we get beyond that kind of smoke screen and just dig into some propositions, that’s when we find ourselves in the wide, rich fields of catechisms that are there. They’re available to us and some of them, we’re going to benefit from. Somebody down the road’s going to benefit more from this one. The idea is, how do we best articulate that one deposit of faith that we essentially become.
Eric Sammons:
Right. I think the thing with Credo is, we’re using the example of, we talk about Judaism, but there’s other examples. This one’s just the easiest one. For example, it states in the Credo it says that modern Judaism as a whole exists as a rejection of God’s calling. This sounds, to modern ears, anti-Semitic, like you’re firing up the gas chambers. But that’s, of course, ridiculous. He’s simply making a doctrinal statement that is true, a statement that obviously, anything, because God’s calling is Catholicism today. It was Judaism in the first maybe 1000B.C. or something like that, but now it’s Catholicism, so it is a rejection of God’s calling.
But if you talk to Bishop Schneider about how he interacts, for example, with Jewish people, I am sure, I know this, that it is one of compassion, desire for the salvation of their souls. It’s always with a certain level of love. He talks in other places about tolerance of people in the sense that you’re not going to be arresting people or persecuting them or something like that.
So it’s an interesting point, though. I feel like we need to recognize, again, the catechism is stating just simply truths of the faith, which like you said, this has an imprimatur from another bishop. Therefore, it’s not intended to be a guidebook on every single aspect of how we’re supposed to live. It’s not a guidebook of, how are we supposed to interact with other people, or something like that. It’s simply stating Catholic truths. I think that would go a long way for people to see that the reason Credo comes across to us so jarring to a lot of people today is because most texts today have all the qualifications so they don’t get attacked as being anti-Semitic, politically incorrect, whatever the case may be, racist, whatever.
But by doing that, by Bishop Schneider refusing to do that, what I think it’s doing is, it makes it very clear exactly what the church teaches, what is true. I think the beauty of Credo is, you get through a lot of that language that’s unnecessary to get to the core of the matter.
Aaron Seng:
I think you’re right. I only think that because that’s exactly what the author says. That is his intention with it.
Eric Sammons:
I didn’t read the preface. I’m glad I’m on board with it.
Aaron Seng:
Well, yes. His intention with the text is just to present, again, his target audience is who he calls the little ones. It’s really quite precious. I would encourage people that haven’t to read the preface. It reads almost like a letter to Catholics and I find it quite beautiful. That’s one of the things he says is, “My intended audience has been God’s little ones, the faithful,” that is to say Catholics, “longing for a simple, clear presentation of the faith.” That has informed all of his decisions about the text, clearly. The format, for one. Q&A. What’s the format that most of us are accessing information now? It’s Q&A. It’s by way of Google search bar, or your Siri, or whatever. Here you have the re-emergence of the Q&A form. It’s incredibly concise, incredibly direct. It has all those advantages and he chose that approach especially with this target audience in mind.
Eric Sammons:
Right. We’re going long here, so I’m going to wrap it up. A couple last things. First of all, I’m going to make sure I have a link to get Credo, also the Tradivox subscription. They’re both available from Sophia Institute Press. In fact, this is interesting. I just found it about a half hour before we got on here. I went to Sophia Institute’s website and I just clicked on the bestseller link. Number one is Credo. Number two is the Tradivox subscription. I just thought that was interesting that there’s clearly a need, a desire for catechism, catechesis.
So obviously, I’ve already recommended this podcast for get Credo. It’s selling like crazy. I know that for a fact. It’s really selling well. If you really want to go deep in the catechisms and see things in the context, then I would recommend Tradivox. Like Aaron said, it’s a 20 volume series. We’re about to get number 14 out. I’m a little bit behind, but we’re about to get number 14 out. So I think that’s a way that you can really have a library there. I think for the person who really wants to dig into it, but if nothing else, get Credo.
Anything else you want to say on catechisms in general or Credo specifically or Tradivox?
Aaron Seng:
Golly. Yes. I would say that the Tradivox series, if it shows anything, it shows a remarkable continuity of doctrine across time and space. At least on my read, Credo is like the next volume in the series. If we were to extract ourselves several centuries hence, it could be in the same series, it seems to me on my reading. It reflects that same kind of continuity of doctrine as well as application of these moral principles that are consistent, even when the issues are vastly difficult; animal magnetism in the 1800s to gender ideology in the early 21st century.
And yet, the moral principles are timeless within the church and they can be regularly, logically applied to all these scenarios. So to me, it is. It’s of a peace. Credo, to my mind, stands as a continued, like passing the baton. It’s just the next watch fire lit in the night in this sequence through time. I would also encourage folks pick one up.
Eric Sammons:
So you heard it here first. One day it will be volume 21 in the Tradivox series.
Aaron Seng:
Special edition.
Eric Sammons:
That’s right. One thing I just remembered, and our friend, Timothy Flanders, who is the editor in chief of OnePeterFive, he’s actually teaching an online homeschooling course through the Avila Institute. I think I got that right. They’re using Credo. It’s a high school catechism course and they’re using Credo as their text. I’m going to find that. I’m going to put a link to that also in the show notes because I believe it’s starting up next semester, so spring semester 2024. So if you have high school students that, they need their catechism class, something like that, I highly recommend this because Credo’s going to be the base text. Tim Flanders, who we all know, and love, and trust is going to be teaching it. So that’s one last thing I just thought of just now. So like I said, I’ll put it in the show notes and that’s another way to really catechize the next generation in a proper way.
Well, thank you, Aaron, very much. I appreciate this. I appreciate you staying with me this long. I get geeked up about certain subjects and we could have gone even longer, but we’ll cut it here.
Aaron Seng:
Next time.
Eric Sammons:
Exactly. Okay, everybody, until next time, God love you.