NC News Service, April 25, 1984
Paulist Press has halted circulation of its popular adult catechism, “Christ Among Us,” at the request of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, the publishing company announced April 16.
The action was taken, Paulist said, because the Vatican congregation had found the book “not suitable as a catechetical text.” A Paulist Press statement said the book would not be revised and reissued because the doctrinal congregation had determined that even with “substantial corrections” it would ‘ still not be suitable.
The book, first published in 1967 and revised three times since, most recently in 1981, has been used widely in classes for people inquiring about Catholic faith and practices.
Some 1.6 million copies have been sold, including 166,000 in 1983, Paulist Press said.
The book was written by Anthony T. Wilhelm, a Paulist who left the priesthood in 1975.
In its statement Paulist said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had asked in a Feb. 28 letter that the book be withdrawn from circulation. The letter went to Archbishop Peter L. Gerety of Newark, N.J., whose imprimatur appears in the book’s most recent edition. Paulist Press is headquartered in Ramsey, N.J., in the Newark Archdiocese.
The imprimatur is an official declaration that a book is free of doctrinal or moral error but does not imply that the person giving the imprimatur agrees with the contents, opinions or statements in the book.
Archbishop Gerety said in a brief statement he was immediately removing his imprimatur from “Christ Among Us” and had informed Paulist Press of his action. In its statement Paulist Press said it had informed Cardinal Ratzinger of the withdrawal of the book from circulation “and is requesting clarifications of the congregation’s decision.”
The Paulist statement said Cardinal Ratzinger told Archbishop Gerety to “ask the Paulist Press not to consider any reprint of the work in the future.”
Archbishop Gerety forwarded a copy of Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter to Paulist Press’ publisher, Paulist Father Kevin A. Lynch, the full text of the letter was not made public.
A source at the doctrinal congregation told NC News in Rome that the removal of the imprimatur from “Christ Among Us” was not an accusation of heresy against the book but a statement of the book’s unsuitability in the critical and sensitive area of catechetics.
The source noted that current church legislation requires an imprimatur only for books that are used for catechetics and religious education programs and that such texts must conform to a high standard of excellence in presenting Catholic doctrine clearly.
Father Lynch in a telephone interview told NC News that the doctrinal congregation “had criticisms” of the book in the past and that two years ago, “changes were made at the request of the Holy Office.” The Holy Office is the former name of the doctrinal congregation.
Several corrections were made in the 1981 revised edition of the book, Father Lynch said. The corrections deat with sections of the book on “conscience, sexual ethics and original sin,” he said,
According to the Paulist Press statement, the book was revised each time “to bring its contents up to date with new post-Vatican II official church statements and the writings of respected theologians.”
“The revisions also reflected new questions which teachers and inquirers were asking about Scripture, theolog|| church discipline and practices,” Paulist said.
Father Lynch said that over the 17-year! lifespan of the book Paulist Press had received few criticisms! from people in the United States.
But he also noted that Catholics United for the Faith, a group of doctrinally conservative Catholics, has been vocal in its criticism of the book. He said a supplement against the book written by CUF was published in autumn of 1982 in The Wanderer, a national lay-edited newspaper published in St. Paul, Minn.
The source at the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation aid the length of time which the congregation took to rule on the book after it first was published in 1967 was an indication of the congregation’s thoroughness. The source also said complaints about the book had come from a broad spectrum of people over a number of years.
James Likoudis, vice president of CUF, said April 16 that the Vatican congregation’s decision was a “marvelous vindication of the sense of the faith the laity has had.”
He said that CUF, as a lay organization, led the protest against the book and had informed the Vatican of its concerns. The book is “the leading, number modernist catechetical text in the United States,” he said.
CUF specifically objected to sections of the book dealing with contraception, conscience, Mary, angels, original sin and Christology, Likoudis said. The book “is simply filled with distortions on Catholic doctrine.”
Before the book was withdrawn Father John Dietzen, a columnist and author of “The New Question 18i,” had recommended it to his readers.
“Christ Among Us,” Father Dietzen said in a column which was later republished in his book, “treats all the major areas of Catholic liturgy, belief and practice concisely yet with enough explanation and background to satisfy any adult Catholic wanting to review the fundamentals of his faith.”
Father Dietzen, a pastor in Bloomington, Il., also said in the column, “We use it in our parish as a basis for inquiry classes, and find it continues to be a real treasure for new Catholics long after they have entered the church.
Sales of 1.6 million copies of “Christ Among Us” has made it one of the best-selling catechetical works for adults since Vatican II.
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“A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults” more commonly called the Dutch Catechism, sold “just over a million” copies in its English version since it was published in 1967, said Eugene Gallegly, spokesman for Crossroad Publishing Co., which now owns the original publisher, Herder and Herder.
Note: “A New Catechism: The Catholic Faith for Adults,” also known as the Dutch Catechism, is probably one of the single most destructive documents of the 20th century. And chances are, you’ve already crossed paths.
The Dutch Catechism, published in 1966, was the brainchild of a Dominican priest named Edward Schillebeeckx. Schillebeeckx was a radical, whose writings were investigated by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith three times.
The Dutch Catechism was an attempt to compile all the Church’s teachings into a single volume. Unfortunately, it was missing vast amounts of core Catholic truths while portraying itself as a complete resource.
A Vatican commission examined the work and found major deficiencies, and set forth a list of doctrines that were required to be included in the Dutch Catechism:
- We have all inherited original sin
- Human souls are created directly by God
- Angels actually exist
- Jesus was conceived virginally
- Our Lady was conceived immaculately
- Our Blessed Lord is in fact Savior by way of His satisfaction to the Father on our behalf
- The Sacrifice on the Cross is perpetuated in the Sacrifice of the Mass
- Jesus is really, truly and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament
- There is an essential difference between the priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood
Instead of being woven into their proper place in the Catechism, these points of doctrine were simply added as an appendix to the back of the book.
The Dutch Catechism was a mega-hit, selling millions of copies in multiple languages. It became the basis for numerous religious textbooks around the world, infecting catechesis everywhere.
The Dutch Catechism’s hold was near absolute for 30 years. Until the 1990s, it was the only real compendium of its size for Catholic teaching until the rise of the more faithful Catechism of the Catholic Church. Despite a growth in solid catechetical programs (such as the Marian Catechists), the Dutch Catechism’s teachings remain at the heart of much of religious education taking place in parishes around the globe.
With only a few exceptions, if you’ve been catechized in the last 50 years, you’ve probably encountered the corrupted teachings of the Dutch Catechism.