Catechetical Language and Religious Education

Abstract

“An education that deserves to be characterized as religious would have to include two quite distinct things: (1) an understanding of religion, starting but not ending with one's own religion; and (2) access to the free and intelligent practice of a particular form of religious life. … Christian doctrine is no less and no more than thinking about Christian life as it has been experienced in liturgical and moral life. … What we need is a religious education that is sufficiently long, deep, and wide so that people will have a chance to appreciate the complexity and profundity of Christian doctrine.”