Last night at CCD I was told by a student that he had learned from a Msgr. X (at a youth "retreat") that the creation story in Genesis was really a story the Israelites learned during the Babylon Captivity from their captors, and that they taught this story to their children with only one change: they inserted the name of their God in place of the Babylonian god.
How do I work against this? I would not doubt that it is possible the Babylonians had a similar creation account (after all we all descended from Adam and Eve and oral tradition was very much alive). In fact a similar creation account would tend to reinforce the veracity of the Genesis account .
As noted below somewhere, I have been in discussion in a couple places about creation and Genesis. (In fact I mean to get back to the discussion of old earth/new earth real soon, either at Hallowed Ground where it originated or here.)
But here is a situation where I am put in the position of having to contradict Msgr. X. This has got to be confusing and frustrating for the student. In the present case I tried to explain long-standing Church teaching and was able to cite passages from both Providentissimus Deus and Humani Generis (especially 38-39) (This is a great resource for papal documents.) Even so, I will have to go back to class next week with a handout explaining it all again with the quotes from the papal documents etc. to reinforce Church teaching.
These kids are very quick to pick up on disagreements and inconsistencies between teachers of the Faith.
4 comments:
CCD kids are doomed. I refuse to allow my kids to be exposed to any of that. Either they're taught by the Indult Chaplain (which is thankfully the case here), or I'll take them to the S.S.P.X for catechesis.
gfvonb: This is first time my kids have gone to CCD in many years and I have allowed it only because the texts are The Bible and the Baltimore Catechism, (and I know the teachers.) But this question did not come from one of my own children - the question came from one of my students as I am teaching high school CCD. But I have to try to undo the damage done by previous teachers and poor curriculum. Fortunately I am teaching students whose parents support the program and are practicing the Faith (this is first time that I have ever taught a CCD class where the students actually go to Mass every Sunday). So we are hoping to have some impact-thru God's grace....
Is that at an Indult parish? If not, I find it hard to believe. It is a far, far cry from the CCD classes that drove me out of the Church in my youth...
We are extremely fortunate. Fr. John O'Holohan SJ our paster (82 years old) came in 2 years ago and said he was going to teach Prayer, Scripture, and Baltimore Catechism. Any teacher who didn't want to teach his program was shown the door. (As it was he recruited all new teachers from the daily communicants.) We are lucky to have him. I don't know how much longer we will. He is getting a little older - but our diocese is desparate - we are mission country. No question most CCD programs today are useless. The either teach nothing or heresy.
But we are not an Indult parish. Father has indicated that he may be willing to say a Traditional Latin Mass occasionally - and I think he could get permission. We shall see....
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