This is a story you should pay attention to, because even though many haven’t noticed it yet, it’s going to make a BIG splash when it finally comes out.
The Church is preparing a new major catechetical document, tentatively called the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (that would be the CCCC, I guess). It’s meant to be a shorter version of the CCC, correcting one of the biggest problems that the CCC has: It’s too dang long!
A decision was made early in the editorial stage of the 3-C to have it present the faith in a non-technical, organic, at times almost poetic way that knits together Scripture, writings of the Church Fathers and major saints, and the documents of the Magisterium. This had some advantages, including forcing the reader to absorb the faith as an organic whole, without being able to as easily dismiss things that he doesn’t like (e.g., a liberal wanting to dismiss the relevance of Scripture or the Church Fathers to the faith).
The approach also has some disadvantages. One is that it made the 3-C so long that it was hard to get the thing as carefully written and edited as one might desire. Some things were not phrased in the best the way (in fact, some things still aren’t), and so they had to go back and to a bug release than toned up things like the etiology of homosexuality, for example.
The length also resulted in casting the net so broadly that it includes not only major, fixed points of Catholic doctrine that are infallibly defined but much material that, though official, is not nearly on the same level. By presenting the material as it does, the Catechism presents the faith in a “flattened” manner that puts each teaching on an equal level of authority, which isn’t the case. (E.g., some of the material in the social doctrine section is not on the same level as, say, the Trinity and transubstantiation are).
The biggest problem caused by the 3-C’s length is that it is simply too long for most folks to read. (The organic, semi-poetic writing style also makes it a rather difficult read if you aren’t used to wrapping your brain around Magisterial documents.)
The 3-C is still and ENORMOUS gift to the Church, and I am delighted that it was released in my lifetime. It has and will continue to do a tremendous amount of good for Christ’s Church.
Almost as soon as the 3-C was released, people began to wonder if it would be good for the Church to release a shorter version of the same thing. I wondered why some publisher didn’t, for example, skim out the “In Brief” sections of the Catechism and publish them as a book (assuming the proper rights could be obtained).
Well, apparently JPII was convined by the arguments for having a shorter version of the Catechism, and thus the 4-C is now in production. The mandate for its composition is as follows:
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church should contain, in a concise form, the essential and fundamental contents of the faith of the Church, respecting its completeness and doctrinal integrity, in such as a way as to develop a sort of ‘vademecum’ [handbook, compendium] that allows people, believers and non-believers, to embrace, in a single, overall glance the entire panorama of the Catholic faith. It will have as its source, model and constant reference point the current Catechism of the Catholic Church which, in keeping intact its authoritativeness and importance, will be able to find, in such a synthesis, a stimulus to be better studied and, more in general, a further instrument of education to the faith [Letter from JPII to Card. Ratzinger].
The story linked above indicates that the consultation process for the 4-C is now finished. It ended April 30th, and so hopefully we’ll be seeing the 4-C get released sometime soon (by which I mean, a year from now).
The new work will be about a seventh of the length of the current work (meaning it’s 70-100 pages long, depending on formatting), will have an appendix with major creeds and prayers, and–best of all–will be in a Q & A format suitable for traditional catechetical use and making it much easier to read.
Yee-haw!
This will be nice. I hope it’s available in a cheap paperback, too, so I can give them out.
LOL How many people would greet the news of the distant relase of the “Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church” with “Yee-haw!”?
Probably all of the Catholics at the rodeo I’m going to weekend after next. 😉
This is good news. The “flatness” aspect of the CCC has bothered me, though I’ve had difficulty defining why. Now, however, I can articulate the problem: because the CCC doesn’t do justice to the Church’s hierarchy of truths.
I wonder if this flatness is one source of the persistent tendency of many Catholics to put the prudential judgments of the social teaching on a par with the irreformable moral teachings? Of course, that presumes that said Catholics are actually reading the CCC.
I just hope they can find a more user-friendly way of taking away the CCC’s ‘flatness’ than Ott’s ‘Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma’ (which is great for theologians, but nearly unintelligible for general laity (as I learned by loaning my copy out)).
No no no no.
I want my catechism loooooooong thank you. Short catechism give less explanation.
My prediction: It is going to be another DOA project by our beloved Curia. I think they really just don’t get it.
Those impatient for the short Q&A version of the CCC should try Fr. John Hardon’s “The Faith” (270 standard pages) or Fr. David Konstant’s “The Faith of the Catholic Church” (170 index-card sized pages)
Regarding “flatness” in the 4-C and the 3-C, I doubt that the 4-C will have anything like the doctrinal notes used in Ott and other older theology manuals. Those are really only unintelligible because they are (a) abbreviated and (b) in Latin. If you translate them and don’t abbreviate them then they are much more intelligible.
I think the 4-C is likely to simply leave out a lot of the less certain, less important stuff, which doesn’t address “flatness” head on, but does so in an indirect manner.