Blame dull catechism classes

by Letters Editor · January 12, 2012

From Name withheld, Durban

In the cover article “Priest calls SA youth to action” (December 7), Fr Sammy Mabusela is quoted as saying the religious are partly to blame for the lack of contribution from the youth. As a youth, I disagree. There is only so much priests and nuns can do. The problem lies (a) with the parents, and (b) with the system of catechism.

The reason for the lack of action and contribution from the youth is because they do not feel passionate about Jesus and the work of the Church. They have not had a personal encounter with the Lord; he remains an abstract concept to them.

Parents are primarily to blame for this, because most parents have apathy towards the Church themselves. I have seen it in my years of catechism: the kids whose parents bring them to Mass every Sunday without fail are the kids who end up loving the Church, and some of them will thus get involved in reading, altar serving or the choir.

But if you look at the spectrum of those attending catechism classes for the sacraments of Holy Communion or confirmation, these kids usually make up only about half of those attending. The other half are Christmas-and-Easter Catholics who don’t have faithful parents, and therefore never had their own faith grown. Faith really does begin at home; it’s not just a cliche. I wonder how many of those in the religious life had faithful Catholic parents. I would guess about 90%.

The second problem lies in the system of catechism classes. I am a teenager who has just finished her first year of confirmation classes. I love God with a passion, but this passion was not fostered by catechism at all! In fact, I have a strong dislike for the classes. They are boring and dry, taught by old (but well meaning) teachers who we find hard to relate to. It often feels we are being force-fed a set of facts. Everyone watches the time, eager to get home. Relationships and openness are not fostered between us students because of the sit-down-and-be-quiet classroom environment.

My analogy for catechism is that instead of nurturing those with weak faith, which I believe it should be doing, it is like passing through a fire. Those who last after 18 months of boring classes and continue coming back to Mass in adulthood really want to be Catholics. The rest will be burnt up and become Christmas-and-Easter Catholics too.

I don’t know what my faith would be like if I only had catechism to nurture it. My faith was strengthened by the vibrancy and passion of the faiths of Protestant and evangelical youth in the Students’ Christian Association (SCA) at my school.

I fellowship, pray and worship with them and that has made me who I am today. The SCA is student-led. We get outside speakers in, and things are facilitated by a teacher, but ultimately we learn and grow because of each other. We need to look at how to change our system of catechism to make it more current. I don’t mean debasing it with cheap tricks.

We just need to change our approach to be more nurturing, instead of passing through fire. Focusing on Catholic parenting and catechism will ultimately be the most effective means of improving vocations and general involvement of the youth.