By Mary DeTurris Poust

Getting back on target

Some Catholics who came to faith in the era of bell bottoms and The Beatles have fallen into the chasm of poor catechesis and culture and need a hand up

If you look back over the history of faith formation in the United States, you can find an obvious gap. It is the space between the Baltimore Catechism of old and the current Catechism of the Catholic Church. From the 1960s, when religious education was undergoing monumental changes in both method and content in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, to well into the 1980s, when Pope John Paul II appointed the commission that would write the new catechism, faith formation often floundered, leaving behind a "lost generation" of Catholics who understand God on a personal level but do not understand Church teaching on a basic theological level.

Talk to experts in the catechism field and they readily admit that some Catholics got the short end of the stick when it came to religious education in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Although contemporary catechesis has rectified many of the problems of the past, the question remains: How does the Church reach the lost generation, a group that is searching for a spiritual dimension in their lives but often looks outside the Church of their birth because they simply do not understand what Catholics believe?

"There is a huge need to catechize young parents, folks who are starting their families, from their mid-20s to mid-40s," said James Cavanagh, director of the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis for the Archdiocese of Denver. "The gratifying thing is that there is also a big desire. Now we have to just connect it."

Educating parents

One solution to reaching this group of disconnected Catholics is to design a religious education program that will educate the parents while educating the children at the same time, Cavanagh told Our Sunday Visitor.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the National Directory of Catechesis have filled the faith formation void during the last 15 years, spawning -- at the urging of the U.S. bishops -- revised catechetical texts that accurately convey the core teachings of the faith, but for many adult Catholics, those changes are too little too late.

Cavanagh recently finished a six-part introductory pilot program to the Catechism at his parish, Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Boulder. What he found was that the people who showed up were "veteran Catholics," and even among that group, many came up to him after the class and said they had never heard the information before.

"Faithful Catholics have not really heard much about the catechism," said Cavanagh, a former Episcopal priest who became a Catholic in 2005.

He said that although the full Catechism can be intimidating because of its size (almost 1,000 pages) and content, once people have the tools to use it, they realize that it's not that difficult. The next step is to help people apply the catechism to their own lives, something he said must happen not only through religious education programs but also through Sunday homilies.

"My contention is that incorporating doctrinal teachings from the Catechism into the homilies is actually going to make the homilies way more interesting," he said. "But the real critical thing is that the vast majority of Catholics, for whatever reasons, will not or cannot take the time to go to a class on Monday night. The only time they are going to be catechized is in that 15 minutes on Sunday morning."

Across generations

The challenge of the "lost generation" has spawned many new programs, all with an eye to closing the gap.

One example is Generations of Faith, a Connecticut-based program that has trained more than 1,500 parishes, and which uses an intergenerational approach to reach children, adults, seniors and families simultaneously. It attempts to replace or supplement traditional faith formation programs by drawing in large numbers of parishioners with monthly, bi-monthly, even quarterly programs that focus on the Gospel message and Catholic tradition through six major content areas: Church year (feasts and seasons), sacraments, justice and service, morality, prayer and spirituality, and creed.

"The unique feature of this approach to faith formation is that it is event-centered, that is, it prepares people to participate in the life and faith of the Catholic community. All of the learning is rooted in what we do and believe," said Mariette Martineau, a project coordinator for Generations of Faith.

Each Generation of Faith event begins with prayer, breaks outs into groups that explore Church teaching on age-appropriate levels, and shifts to a reflection period. Typically an event will also include a communal meal and will provide participants with a take-home kit with instructions on how to continue to reflect on and live out the teachings they just studied.

For too many children, their lives are not "permeated with Catholic values and the practice of the faith" because their only connection to Church is a one-hour class each week, Martineau said in an e-mail interview.

"I don't know if there is an under-catechized group, but there is a lack of connection between life, faith and practice," she said. "We're not surrounded by Christian values like we were when many of us grew up. The world is more pluralistic, making it harder to make Christian choices and such without some faith base. I just don't think it's as simple as poor catechesis."

Fullness of faith

Unlike some previous generations, today's young people are getting a strong grounding in Church teaching; so strong, in fact, that they are "on fire" with the faith, Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley of the Archdiocese of Denver, who entered the Catholic Church in the 1970s, told OSV. It's something he says can cause tension between the younger generation and their older counterparts, who wonder why they did not receive the same faith experience.

"There is a little friction between the two generations," he said, adding that the good news is that adult Catholics are open to the faith. "But they are a little angry and frustrated because they feel cheated."

Michelle Daul, in her early 40s, from Selkirk, N.Y., is one of them.

"I didn't receive a good education in faith," she said "In fact, it was horrible. I'm still resentful to this day. I was left with the impression that according to Catholics, God was kind and loving to good people and vengeful to the rest of us who slipped up every once in awhile."

Daul said the nuns at her childhood church would tell the children that if they turned around during Mass, they would burn in hell, something that stays with her to this day.

"For an 8-year-old it was pretty horrifying. I remember thinking, 'What kind of God would do something like that?' Looking back, clearly they were trying to keep us in line but, I never recall learning anything about what having faith truly means," she said.

But Daul has recently been reading an introduction to the Catechism, and says it has opened her eyes.

"I'm feeling much better about the Church these days. I love the spiritual aspects, the core beliefs of the Church. I found myself saying, I never knew that," she said.

Out in the trenches

Father Thomas Kalita, pastor of St. Peter's Church in Olney, Md., knows that every year, when many of his youngest parishioners are preparing for first Communion, he has a rare opportunity to connect with a captive audience of parents. Not one to let a moment like that slip away, Father Kalita manages to pass on particulars of the faith at a time when many other parishes focus only on the logistics of the celebration.

"The greatest part of those meetings is meant to catechize parents about what is this sacrament their children are about to receive, because even active practicing Catholics often forget just how precious the sacraments are," he said. "Pastors should never pass up an opportunity for catechesis."

In addition, at St. Peter's, first Reconciliation is not strictly a 7-year-old affair. After each child goes to confession, the children walk their parents to confession.

"We have many more first confessions that day, not in the strict sense, but of parents who have not been to confession for a very long time -- 5, 10, 15 years. So we have first confession on two different levels, and it's a beautiful experience," said Father Kalita, who also invites non-Catholics attending first Communion to learn more about the faith by attending an inquiry class.

"You cannot serve someone you don't love, and you cannot love someone you don't know," he told OSV. "For me, part of being a pastor is always inviting people to know more about God so that they can love him more and serve him more wholeheartedly."

Mary DeTurris-Poust is a contributing editor to Our Sunday Visitor.