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Didache Series Gives Teens Solid Religious Teaching

By Diane Levero

What sort of religious education is the average Catholic high school student getting nowadays?

Chances are good that it’s pretty bad.

Recently, a U.S. bishops’ committee reported that nearly two-thirds of the Catholic high school religion texts it had reviewed were so far off the mark, they couldn’t be amended, but needed to be completely rewritten (See “Archbishop gives religion texts an ‘F,’” Defend Life, Jan.-Feb. 2004).

A Defend Life survey of eight of the Baltimore Archdiocese’s 22 high schools found that nearly four-fifths of the religion texts in use were not on the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism’s list of texts found to be in conformity with The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Didache High School Textbook Series, approved by the  Ad Hoc Committee and currently in use at Mount de Sales High School in Baltimore, offers a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak horizon of catechetical mediocrity.

The series takes its name from the Didache (pronounced DID-uh-kay), the first known Christian catechesis, which was written in the first century, probably by the disciples of the Twelve Apostles.

The Didache Series, like its namesake, strives to conform to the authentic teaching of the Church.

“It is really beautiful in its presentation of the teachings of the Magisterium,” says Sr. Margaret Andrew, head of the Religion Department at Mount de Sales.

“It teaches the truth; it confronts the problem of moral relativism in the world today, and helps the students to think straight.”

The bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee criticized many religion texts for presenting doctrine with the formula, “Catholics believe this or that . . .”--in effect, saying  this is just one legitimate opinion among many others, rather than a matter of truth.

The Didache texts, in contrast, speak with authority:  They are rich with quotations from Scripture, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the teachings of the popes and of Vatican II.

The texts also, refreshingly, assume and respect the intelligence of their young readers; they do not condescend, talk down to, or pander.  The focus is on God, not, as in so many religion texts, on “me and my feelings.”

Sister Margaret, who uses the text, Our Moral Life in Christ, with the senior girls, admits, “It challenges them!  They think it’s hard--especially when you’re talking about morality, and speaking in terms of absolutes--that’s tough.”

Especially for high schoolers who have been nourished for so long on a religious diet of watered-down pabulum.

In Introduction to Catholicism, the ninth grade text, for example, students learn about transubstantiation, vincible and invincible ignorance, perfect and imperfect contrition, commutative justice and distributive justice.

At the end of each chapter, brief but stirring accounts of saints and other holy people, many of them modern-day, give adolescents role models worth emulating.

Our Moral Life in Christ examines subjects such as the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues, discusses the Principle of Double Effect in judging the morality of an action, delves into moral relativism and situation ethics, and briefly scrutinizes monism, pantheism, syncretism and gnosticism.

One can feel one’s mind stretching, reading  trenchant excerpts from writers as varied as Cicero, Aristotle and Tertullian, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and St. Josemaria Escriva.

The emphasis clearly is on the intellect, rather than “feelings,” which, emphasized in other religion texts, can produce an “If it feels good, do it” mentality.

While the bishops’ committee faulted many religion texts for their reluctance to name premarital or extramarital sex as sin, the Didache Series suffers no such deficiency.

Introduction to Catholicism, for example, states bluntly, “Every action knowingly willed against the prohibitions of the sixth and ninth commandments is mortally sinful.”

It goes on to list and define the “grave sins against chastity,” and to offer concrete guides for living a chaste life, including regular reception of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, choosing friends who share your desire to be chaste, and avoiding immodesty in dress, conduct and language.

Reinforcing the texts’ solid religious teaching are reverent and dignified illustrations.  Although there are ample photos of adolescents and other appropriate contemporary scenes, the emphasis is on inspiring religious art.

Notably absent are the tiresomely repetitious photos of teens capering ecstatically about, and the grinning clowns and white-faced mimes that inexplicably appear in other religion texts.

Mount de Sales began using Introduction to Catholicism and Our Moral Life in Christ, both of which were published in 2003, last fall.  The school plans to use the remaining two Didache Series volumes, Understanding the Scriptures and The History of the Church, in the coming school year, when they are expected to be available.