Tea at Trianon: The Crisis of Catholic Catechesis

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 17, 2018

The Crisis of Catholic Catechesis

From TFP:

Catholics have long agonized over the causes of poor catechesis. Anyone reading this lament could list the usual suspects. There are too many homilies that are long on vague assertions that we should love each other, but woefully short on doctrine and warnings against sin. There is the doctrinal confusion that came with “the spirit of Vatican II.” All too many modern catechists are poorly formed in the faith themselves. Daily religion lessons in Catholic schools of the past have been largely replaced by 45-minute weekly sessions for public school children called CCD. And the list goes on. Perhaps another cause might be the pernicious effect of the educational theories of John Dewey. (Read more.)