A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Our lord looked up to heaven and said, father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son that your son may give glory to you in as much as you have given him authority over all mankind that he may bestow eternal life on those you gave him. Eternal life is this, to know you, the only true god, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.
Do you now, father, give me glory at your side, a glory I had with you before the world began? I have made your name known to those you gave me out of the world. These men that you gave me were yours. They have kept your word, and now they realize that all that you gave me comes from you. I entrusted to them the message that you entrusted to me, and they received it.
They have known that in truth, I came from you. They have believed it was you who sent me. For these I pray, not for the world, but for these that you have given me, for they are really yours. Just as all that belongs to me is yours, so all that belongs to you is mine. It is in them that I have been glorified.
I am in the world no more, but these are still in the world as I come now to you. The gospel, the good news of the lord. Full authority. This is our lord speaking just before his ascension, and this is the closing sentence, the closing verses of the the gospel according to Saint Matthew. Our lord then is speaking.
Full authority has been given to me. Go, make disciples of all nations. Teach them to carry out everything that I have commanded you, everything that I have commanded you. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
As I said, this is the conclusion of Saint Matthew's gospel, and, the scene is this. Our lord had told his the the 11. Judas is not present, of course. When they were down in Judea, that's down by Jerusalem, that they must go north up into Galilee, and he specified a mountain. It's a magnified hill, wherever it is around the Lake Of Galilee.
There are no big mountains around there. So he specified the mountain in up in near the lake country in Galilee that he was to meet them. And now there they have met. And these are the last words of Saint Matthew's gospel. And it's they are our lord's last words while his physical presence was on earth after his resurrection.
Going therefore, teach. But the first word there for teaching is to make disciples, and the Greek verb is a verb to disciple. We have nothing like it in English. And then he repeats it. Teach them everything that I have taught you, Not what you think, not what you want, not what is fulfilling to you, what not not what is pragmatically helpful, not what is contemporary, not what is satisfying to the people.
Let us have more abortions. Nothing like that. Teach them what I have taught you. And then he continues, and I am with you all days even to the end of the world. And let me tell you, we need to remember that because we are living in a a very, very dull, almost a despairing age, especially in The USA 1993.
We have problems and we have no principles as a nation to solve them on. And that if you've been reading any paper, anything in the last two or three weeks, you'll know how true that is. We are a principle less nation as a nation. Now I want to talk this morning. It's just going to be the first so we'd be prepared.
After all, we ought to go through a certain amount of misery in this life. I contribute, and my place will be higher in heaven for it. I cooperate. And that's this matter of Christian doctrine. Catholic Christian doctrine.
Now you hear this word catechesis. It's a kind of a fancy word, of course it comes from the Greek, and it has just about any meaning you want to give it. That's what it boils down to. But it really means to to pass on instruction verbally or orally. And as but as I say, it's given all kinds of meanings today.
But it's it means to instruct. It means to convey. Now you can't just instruct. You just can't convey. You have to have something to instruct.
You have to have something to convey. If you're going to give somebody something, there's got to be a something that is given. You just can't give without a something to give. It's a transitive verb. And this is a frightfully important thing to remember.
And what are we supposed to transmit? What is the church supposed to hand down? What are you as parents supposed to do? What are you godparents are supposed to do is to pass down what our lord said, what I have taught you. In another place, says, I I can't give you everything now, but when the holy spirit comes, he will give you everything.
Thou art Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. He who hears you, hears me. Christ established a church, and that church is to endure to the end of time. It's Christ's voice that we hear from Peter in Rome. Now most of you sitting in those pews this morning know more about catechesis than I do.
That's the last thing I had to bother about from about 1935 to 1968, and that's when I came here. But this this problem of Christian doctrine, this this matter of what do we teach our youth and how do we do it, religious doctrine, Catholic doctrine, that was already begun before the council in 1962. It was already well started. Some of the peace by father Gerald Snow, and he was a very good friend of mine. He was a he was a a pioneer in it, so was father Collins.
But I was never involved. Now what has happened since the count council of the Vatican two council? The best thing on that subject is a a book by Monsignor, Michael Wren, w r e n n, and he calls it catechisms and controversies, religious education in the post conciliar years. Now I'm not urging you to read it, but it's the best thing that's been written is written by a man of long experience who's been involved in this and who is com who documents what he says, giving you names and numbers, and I guess your their telephone numbers if you want it. It's a solid, solid book.
Believe me. And the picture he draws of what has happened to what we call I don't care whether you call it teaching Christian doctrine, confraternity, religious education, whatever name you want, what what we have been doing since about 1968, he says, is a disaster. A disaster. A disaster. And I say amen to that.
What I have seen is completely validated. Now I wanna I boiled down about four or five pages. What has happened since '19 you'll see why that's 1968. That's the date of a declaration from an international meeting of catechists down in Medellin in Colombia, 1968. But here is my summary of about three or four pages of Renn.
By 1968, catechesis, that is teaching the doctrine of Jesus Christ, supposedly the doctrine of Jesus Christ, whatever it is, had shifted from god to man, from faith and the supernatural to more purely human concerns, to more purely human concerns. From proclaiming salvation in Christ to what is secular, meaning worldly, to what is politically correct, to escape oppression, liberation theology stuff, and injustice, to use religious instruction to promote programs for world betterment. Betterment. Now you can give names to what I've just read. This is of my own personal experience, but they are mostly the words of my senior men.
That's summarized. If you wanted a little bit more in the abstract, it since 1968, our so called religious instruction has been anti conceptual anti conceptual. It's been experiential, going you'll see that a little later. Doctrinally subjective. What pleases me?
What fulfills me? What makes me happy? What makes me eager to read the book to go to CCD? As if learning was fun. And, of course, it's egocentric.
Me. Me. Me. I. I.
I. And all you have to do is to read the read the books. Of course, they're beautifully illustrated with all kinds of pictures of the ocean crashing the rocks. Course, the one who wrote it never was in a boat in the surf crashing rocks. But you're that's supposed to do something for you.
Beautiful sunsets, snow in the mountains, streams. You you saw all this stuff as if that was doctrine. Eat me the world. Now if you ask me, which of course you haven't done, what was what is one of the most characteristic, basic concepts of this attitude towards teaching so called religion as they teach it. The progressives, liberties.
And what is being taught now? Remember, this is what has been in the saddle. This is what's being done right now. Look look up up in the Diocese of Buffalo. And that's this concept, now get me straight, of these progressive liberals that there's a second kind of revelation.
This is terribly basic. We all well, we all know what we mean when the church talks about revelation. We're not talking about a personal revelation of god to an individual. That can happen. Whether it happens, I don't know.
But that it can happen fine. The church isn't talking about that. The church is talking about the public revelation of god in what we now have as the bible. And then that that revelation of god to man public, to God, to human beings, that that was closed with the last book of the bible. Now that doesn't mean you can't have a development from that, just like the embryo becomes the baby.
But the point is the church says that God has revealed his truth and that that revelation is finito. What do these what does the the these later day saints have to say? These great brains, these people now who are in the saddle running the show, they tell us there's a second kind of revelation, and this is not conceptual. This isn't something you teach. This is something you experience.
You see those beautiful pictures? You feel something. You see a sunset, you feel something. God knows what you feel. I don't know.
But the point is, it's experiential. It's individual. It's incarnational. It is god communicating individually to his people, to the people of god. Let me just well, we'll come to it.
But the thing is, get that straight. That's what they now the church says no to this. Definitely no. But by the time these writers and speakers turn what the church says around, you don't know where you're standing. Black becomes white, purple, green, or any color you wanna make it by the sleight of hand of of being very articulate.
And the they are smart. They're insincere. They're intense. They're well educated, and they are in authority. And the publishers publish what will sell, of course.
They're in it to make money. There's nothing wrong with that either. Now I'm not at all saying that since since 1968, there hasn't that there have been advances in learning processes, that there are new ways of imparting truth. Of course, there are. And what started, you see, what started is this new movement before the council, but certainly after the council, after 1965.
What what started then as a very good movement got derailed. It got shunted off. It separated from self from orthodox Catholic truth. It gave up on truth and talked about experience. Remember, experience isn't a truth.
Experience is a fact, not a truth. It comes from the verb. It's a perfect past participle. Something which has been done. Fact.
Now you can't argue with an experience. Now I've had personal contact since I've been in Holy Cross with this business of experience. Now I'm not giving any names beyond saying it's experience. Now you know what I mean by experience. It comes under the senses, the five basic senses.
That's utterly different from what the church understands by revelation is the word of god. This thing is totally subjective. Who interprets it? Now gee whiz. I've gotta read this because I wanna get to the cardinal's letter.
This is I'm quoting Monsignor Wren now. This will give you the a good view of the whole thing. He says, Christocentrism, that is centered on Christ, being being involved with Christ, being wound up with Christ, having Christ come through in your daily work, in your prayers, in your thinking, your decision. Christocentrism, says Bren, was virtually lost lost in the shuffle. What became dominant was the struggle to make man autonomous.
Autonomous. Self rule. Free to fight exploitation and injustice. There's nothing wrong in fighting those, but that is not doctrine of Jesus Christ you're talking about. And then you don't even be an atheist and do that.
Here is how the sixth International Catechetical Conference, which was in Medellin in 1968, phrased it. I'm quoting that national meeting of all the catechists of the world. See, this is a world movement. This isn't just USA. The International Catechetical Conference of sixty eight said, catechetics teaching catechesis, teaching the doctrine or something today in accordance with a more adequate theology of revelation.
See, that's second kind of revelation, experiential, realizes that the first place to look when seeking god's design for a area of history and authentically human aspirations. Not Jesus' word, not the scriptures, not the church, not the magisterium, authentically certain, clear human aspirations. What? Who's gonna be a judge whether they're authentic? Well, in 1985, this disaster couldn't be denied anymore.
And at long last, the holy father said we need a we need a new catechism. The first one was Trent, 1566. Now I'm really got a shot shoot to the end. In February well, the cardinal gives to his priests, the diocese, and deacons every year at Christmas, he gives us a book. And this year he sent us a card because he said, I intended to give you the new catechism of the Catholic church, but it won't be out until the beginning of ninety three.
So in February '93, the colonel wrote a letter in closing a pastoral. Now he says, this is the date of this is 02/04/1993, and think I it was written in anticipation of the English version of the Catholic the the catechism of the Catholic church. Now it came out in French in November ninety two, and we were supposed to get ours in English in the January '93. It still isn't out. And you know why?
Because Rome would not approve the inclusive language. That's why it it was sent over to Rome, fully translated in nonsexist language. And you know what that means, taken over by the extreme feminists. So it has to be retranslated. I don't know when we're gonna get it.
They're talking about August. So I think that this letter of February 4 that the cardinal wrote anticipated very soon seeing the English version of the of the catechism of the Catholic church. Now this is his covering letter. Just a word. Be patient.
Dear friends in Christ, notice he's talking to all of us, all of the Catholics of his diocese. I'm happy to send you a copy of my newly issued pastoral letter proclaiming the gospel with joy, evangelization in the schools. I am sharing this letter with all parish priests, deacons, Catholic school principals. In the very near future, I will make it available to all teachers in our Catholic schools and to the parents of students who attend our schools. Now my purpose in writing this letter is to focus on the most basic mission of the Catholic school.
What is the mission of the Catholic school? Just to be another, but maybe a better than the public school? Listen. Its mission is to proclaim Christ. That's its first mission.
Second, to give young people an authentic knowledge of what the church believes and teaches. That's what our schools are for, and believe me, have they lived up to it? You answered. Now I'm quoting from page three of that pastoral letter. Pastors, principals, and religious teachers must ensure that views on faith and morals at odds with the church's teaching never be taught in our schools.
Could anything be clear? This is in the cardinal archbishop of Washington, February. Nothing should be taught in our schools that is not authentically approved by the church's magisterium. He continues, erroneous teaching and theories not authenticated by the church's magisterium undermine evangelization, and such teaching hinders young people first from knowing the lord Jesus and experience the power of his love in their lives. In other words, they're being shortchanged.
In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the spirit. Amen.