This is nothing new, to us, or to the bishops, who have authored two documents (or statements as they call them) about the importance of adult formation in the faith, and the lack of it in the American Catholic Church. (See Our Hearts Are Burning Within Us and Summary of the National Directory for Catechesis, available from the USCCB's Website store.)
When I speak of this concern to some bishops or priests, I get blank stares and sometimes a rebuttal. Pardon my shorthand, but I think there is an attitude in American Catholic culture that Mass is Enough. Sorry, but, Mass is Not Enough. As Fr. John Riccardo says in the DVD Common Ground, faith for some Catholics can be like a book on the bookshelf, but for Evangelicals their faith is the whole bookshelf. There is a lot we Catholics can learn from Evangelicals in terms of how to make our faith vigorously, and intimately part of our life.
In the meantime, there is much we ALL can learn about our Catholic Faith. As many of us believe, there is about 2,000 years of stuff to catch-up on. Multiple lifetimes will not be enough. But thankfully, there are priests (and bishops) like Fr. John Riccardo that continually challenged us with top-flight instruction and catechesis.Today, I discovered his Podcast site. Wow! Is it loaded. And it appears to be all free. There are his homilies, talks about others like theologian Dr. Robert Fastiggi who has approved some of Nineveh's Crossing's products, and it looks like Fr. John's entire RCIA program. This is a goldmine folks. Check it out. Here's the link: frjohnriccardo.libsyn.com
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