Flawed Expectations: The Reception of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Rating:
Summary: The bitter fruits of dissent
Review: The authors Wrenn and Whitehead must be commended for their work in producing this important volume. The laity of the Church (especially here in the States) have not been well served in recent years by an elitist body of dissident theologians and their "parrots" in the catechetical organizations of the Church and local parishes. The bishops (perhaps because they also were not pleased by the quality of catechesis in the Church) moved to have a new and updated Univeral Cathechism produced for the whole Church. Many years of work and input from bishops from all over the world (not to mention working committees and the Holy Father himself) resulted in a one-volume book the intent of which was to, in as simple language as possible, 1)provide a reliable reference guide for the bishops themselves, and 2)serve as the basis and starting-point for catechetical programs produced subsequent to it. Unfortunately, in many cases it didn't work out that way. This book clearly reveals why. It names names and does not protect the guilty. What Wrenn and Whitehead have done is give us a Rosetta Stone of sorts, deciphering the "newspeak" (to borrow from Orwell) the critics of the Catechism employ when "critiquing" the text of the Cathechism. If the reader of this review has read the Catechism but wonders why their parish Adult Formation coordinator never refers to it (but is famous for distributing "hand-outs" which purport to "explain" a doctrine of the Church, but which conveniently omit any mention of what the Catechism says) this book will go far to provide a possible explanation. Wrenn and Whitehead are to be commended for this unique and timely volume.