A Parent's Catechism: Passing on the Catholic Faith

By Dana Paul Robinson

“God is. There is no statement more profound or simpler than this. Nothing exists apart from God. God is Being – the eternal, unchanging, infinitely powerful, infinitely knowing, and infinitely loving Being. God is life. He is creator and sustainer of all life and has created us in his own image to know, serve, and love him and to share eternal life with him. History is the story of our response to God’s unceasing invitation to be known, served, and loved.”

And so begins one of our generation’s most necessary and rationally deduced theological texts on Catholicism. A Parent’s Catechism: Passing on the Catholic Faith is an accessible, highly readable, and objective explanation of the Catholic faith. With a measured hand and strong sense of hope, Dana Paul Robinson thoughtfully and eloquently examines all that is relevant and necessary as he explores the basics of the Catholic faith, a faith when effectively followed, leads to knowledge of God, commitment to God, and surrender to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035824939

Dana Paul Robinson

Retired from a 45-year banking career, Dana has witnessed a general decline in those personal standards which in the past have marked civilised society. This book is his appeal for their recovery, so that his grandchildren’s generation will experience more pleasant and engaging lives.

Book preview

A Parent’s Catechism

Passing on the Catholic Faith

Dana Paul Robinson

Austin Macauley Publishers

A Parent’s Catechism

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgments

References

Foreword

Foreword

Prologue

Introduction

Part One

Foundations of Beliefs

Knowledge of God

The Sex of God

Scripture

Creation

Implications of Creation

Free Will

Evil

Original Sin

Understanding the Old Testament

The Pentateuch

The Historical Books

Prominent People

The Division of the Kingdom and the Royal Line

Exile and Restorations

Hellenism

The Maccabean Revolt

The Wisdom Books

The Book of Job

The Book of Psalms

The Book of Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

The Song of Songs

The Book of Wisdom

The Book of Sirach

The Prophetic Books

Prophetic Compenetrating

Major Prophets

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations and Baruch

Ezekiel

Daniel

Minor Prophets

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Micah

Habakkuk

Zephaniah

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

A Messianic Hope

The New Testament The Structure of the New Testament

The Annunciation

The Incarnation

The Nativity

The Ministry, Passion, the Resurrection of Jesus and the Founding of the Church

The Ascension

Pentecost

The New Covenant

Redemption

Resurrection

Implications of the Resurrection

The Four Last Things

The Blessed Trinity

Mary

The Second Coming

Reasons for Hope

The Church

Images of the Church

Authority of the Church

Divine Assurance

The Four Marks of the Church

The History of the Church

Sources

Jewish Roots

The Early Church

The Patristic Period

The Medieval Period

East-West Schism

The Renaissance Church

The Reformation

The Catholic Reformation to the Present

The Papacy

Heresy

Councils

Martyrdom

The Modern Church

Hierarchical and Collegial

Universal and Local

Institutional and Charismatic

Religious Orders

Part Two

Commitment to God

The Ten Commandments

First Commandment

Second Commandment

Third Commandment

Fourth Commandment

Fifth Commandment

Sixth Commandment

Seventh Commandment

Eighth Commandment

Ninth and Tenth Commandments

The Two Great Commandments

The Eight Beatitudes

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Blessed Are the Meek

Blessed Are They Who Mourn

Blessed Are They Who Hunger and Thirst for Justice

Blessed Are the Merciful

Blessed Are the Pure of Heart

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Blessed Are They Who Suffer Persecution for Justice’s Sake

Virtue

Cardinal Virtues

Theological Virtues

Works of Mercy

Service

Seven Deadly Sins

Pride

Lust

Gluttony

Greed

Envy

Anger

Sloth

Part Three

Sanctification

Trust in God

Grace

Prayer

Petition

Thanksgiving

Penitence

Praise

Worship

Intercessory Prayer

Contemplation

The Lord’s Prayer

Suffering

Fasting

The Sacraments

Understanding the Sacraments

Other Attributes of the Sacraments

Baptism

Eucharist

Confirmation

Reconciliation

Anointing the Sick

Matrimony

Holy Orders

The Mass

What Is the Mass?

The Order of the Mass

Epilogue

About the Author

Catechised before Vatican II, Dana Paul Robinson has been Catholic all his life. Now, as a grandfather and retired banker, he has written the A Parent’s Catechism for the benefit of his children and grandchildren and their generations.

Dedication

To our children and grandchildren

Copyright Information ©

Dana Paul Robinson 2023

The right of Dana Paul Robinson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035824922 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035824939 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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20231227

Acknowledgments

This book was completed just after the end of Pope Saint John Paul II’s pontificate and has no reference to events since then. I wrote it as a kind of vade mecum for parents interested in passing the faith on to the next generations. While the best teacher is example itself, an intellectual understanding of the facts and beliefs of the faith is also important. In this regard, I hope this book is useful.

Now that the book is being published, I would like to acknowledge some of the numerous individuals who assisted me in the completion of the original manuscript, some of whom are no longer with us in this world.

I am especially grateful for the Forewords by Archbishop Harry Flynn and to Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, who were then, respectively, the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. I am a layman and, while I had not been aware of any theological or ecclesiological error in the manuscript, I was greatly relieved that none was detected by these two highly regarded authorities. It was Artie Pingolt, Jr., President of the Oblate Missionary Partnership in Charleston, South Carolina, who helped me obtain these Forewords and who urged me on with his unflagging support and enthusiasm. Others who provided critical review and genuine encouragement were Professor John Hayes of Mary Immaculate College at the University of Limerick in Ireland and Daniel Medinger, then the editor of the Catholic Review of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. John kindly arranged for a very helpful review of the text by some Dominican scholars in Dublin, and Dan offered some exceptionally thoughtful and useful suggestions on promoting the book. For all these gentlemen I have a deep sense of gratitude. Plowing through a protracted explanation of what one already knows — as these individuals incontestably do — is surely a tedious task. I continue to be honoured by their kindness to me.

Heather Szott, then the President of Hawkeye Editing, Inc. in Broomfield, Colorado, was the person most responsible for the completion of the book. For two years, she participated extensively and productively in several ways. Her editorial recommendations on style and content were a great help, as were her perceptive — and always gentle — comments about the need for focus and brevity.

References

(CCC) Catechism of the Catholic Church

English Translation

Liguori Publications, 1994

The Catholic Encyclopaedia

Robert Appleton Company, 2005

Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and

Post-Conciliar Documents: Vol 1

Costello Publishing Company, 1996:

(LG) Lumen Gentium

(GS) Gaudium et Spes

(DV) Dei Verbum

(DE) Decree on Ecumenism

(NA) Nostra Aetate

The New American Bible

St. Joseph Ed.

Catholic Publishing Co., 1970

The Jerusalem Bible

Doubleday & Company 1966

Foreword

By Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI

The word seminary has an interesting root. It comes from the Latin word seminarium and essentially means a greenhouse, a place to nurture young, seedling plants.

Perhaps many Catholics today are seminarians in that root sense, namely, many Catholics today in terms of their faith and church lives, are young, tender and vulnerable and can easily be harmed by elements that aren’t friendly to their faith. Like a young, tender plant, they are easily trampled under, scorched by the sun, withered by a frost. They need the nurturing care and protection of a seminarium.

Why is this so? Among other reasons, because we live in a time and a culture that is over-rich in its pluralism. We are bombarded from every side with different ideas, different ideologies different views on religion, different ecclesiology, different spiritualities, different interpretations of scripture, and different notions of what is essential and what is not, what is dogma and what is mere opinion, inside of church teachings. Hence one detects a growing longing, especially among young people, for essentials, fundamentals, basics, for something that can anchor us inside of all the flux and pluralism.

While we itch for what is new, we also itch for what is old. A few years ago, while teaching at a state university, I was struck by a young man who whenever he came into my office would look through my books and say to me: Father, give me something old! I’ve seen most everything that’s new, and I need something else! A good catechism is something old, something that, perhaps while new in its expression, carries timeless, old truths, truths that can provide an anchor for us in a time that badly needs stability.

A good catechism is a vital element inside a seminarium, a greenhouse for those who are still young and tender in the faith.

Nearly ten years ago, Eric Major, who was then one of the religious editors at Doubleday, approached me to write a book on spirituality. Here is what he asked for: Father, I want you to write a book in spirituality, but not one that simply lays out the various schools of thought in spirituality. We have lots of books like that already. What’s needed is this: Write a book that I can give to my adult children that will explain to them why I still believe and why I still go to church… and that I can read myself on days when I’m no longer sure why I believe and why I go to church. Lay out the fundamentals, the essentials, the non-negotiables in the faith. Make this a book on fundamental Christian discipleship.

His hunch was right. The book has been very, very popular precisely because people are indeed searching for something to show them what is essential and what is not.

This book by Dana Robinson, A Parent’s Catechism: Passing on the Catholic Faith, tries to do the same thing. It attempts to lay out the essentials for a Christian and a Catholic discipleship.

It is solid, trustworthy and a safe reference. It will not provide you with answers for everything, but it will give you a solid grounding in the essentials, the fundamentals, inside the Catholic faith. It can also serve as a handy reference for a quick overview of Catholic teaching.

This is a needed book—and it is a solid book. You can trust its teaching. One will remain on my shelf and the next time an idealistic young student comes into my office and says: Father, show me something old! I will hand him or her Dana Robinson’s A Parent’s Catechism, written precisely for just such a person.

Foreword

By Archbishop Harry Flynn

I applaud Dana Robinson and his contribution to the life of the Church, which his book, A Parent’s Catechism, represents.

Like Fr Rolheiser, I view Dana’s work as ‘solid, trustworthy and a safe reference for Catholic parents. I would also add one more word to that list: ’pastoral’.

Common to our Church from its first Pentecost is the important role that all of us have in encouraging each other in a life of faith. In this regard this A Parent’s Catechism is both valuable and generous—one parent’s invitation to others, Catholic and otherwise, to understand more fully and to explore more deeply our ancient, Catholic faith.

Given my own work as a pastor these many years, I know that we will all benefit from having a work like this available.

Most Rev. Harry Flynn, D.D.

Archbishop of St Paul and Minneapolis.

Prologue

When I grow up, I won’t be Catholic!

Each of our three children has made this protest several times when, around the ages of seven or eight, they discovered that some of their friends could sleep in on Sunday mornings. More recently, in their sometimes tender, sometimes turbulent, years of adolescence, similar exclamations—though now cushioned by growing sophistication—occasionally escape their lips as they try to reconcile the ways of our family with the ways of the world. While exasperating, these proclamations are healthy, because they reflect discerning minds. It is for these minds that I write this book.

Like most parents our age, my wife and I had learned the basics of our beliefs by our teens. Although the term domestic church had not yet been coined as a description of one’s family, there can be no doubt that our own parents saw to it that the two of us were well grounded in the tenets and practices of the Roman Catholic faith. What we learned as a result of their care and concern I have attempted to convey here. In a sense, the passages that follow are a domestic catechism.

I wrote this book for several reasons. First, much of what I have explored with our children in our discussions over the years has understandably not been absorbed by their otherwise occupied minds, and so it is represented here. This information is important, because the world the younger generations inherit will be marked by a sharp dichotomy between those who ignore and those who recognise God. As such there will be a sense of solidarity among the latter group—regardless of religious persuasion—and I feel it necessary that young members have the ability to share what they believe.

Second, I hope that later in life, these young people may enjoy retrieving some of these thoughts to plumb their depths in the light of some fresh and mature perspective. Such an effort never fails to reward, because truth always bears fruit when cultivated by an honest mind.

Third, to be Catholic is to be Christian and to share in the Jewish heritage, a noble identity that requires us always to seek and to work for a better world. It is good to be reminded of this responsibility in a world of such seductive complacency.

Finally, I wrote because the beliefs set forth here have been an inexhaustible source of enrichment for me. There is a natural desire to share them. I remind the reader, though, that while truth is immutable, its discovery is ongoing. The wisdom I pass on to our children, they will need to refine as they begin their own searches and journeys and pass this knowledge on to others.

So, in case I never told them, this book is my effort to pass on to our children and their generation those truths taught to me in childhood and tested by me in adulthood. I can offer no greater heritage than this humble profession of faith.

Introduction

God is.

There is no statement more profound or simpler than this. Nothing exists apart from God. God is Being—the eternal, unchanging, infinitely powerful, infinitely knowing, and infinitely loving Being. God is life. He is creator and sustainer of all life and has created us in his own image to know, serve, and love him and to share eternal life with him. History is the story of our response to God’s unceasing invitation to be known, served and loved.

Religion is our conscious relationship with God. Though it involves the heart, it is more than emotion; though it engages the mind, it is more than philosophy; and though it informs and challenges the conscience, it is more than morality. It is the response of our entire being to the one Eternal Being, a response that is borne of our innate yearning for perfect goodness, undying beauty, and uncompromised truth.

Some see religion as merely another dimension of our multidimensional lives, of comparable significance to our choice of career or our selection of a political party. Popular psychology fosters this misconception by suggesting that religion has its place in our lives and its place is tantamount to other areas of importance, such as proper diet or physical fitness This is unfortunate, as nothing can be as momentous as our relationship with God.

Others make religion an end in itself. For these people, the ultimate goal of religion is nothing more than the observance of certain rituals or ethnic traditions or the adherence to certain moral codes. As aesthetic or honourable as these practices may be, they are not religious per se if they are performed without some sense of relationship with the Supreme Being.

Still others find religion restrictive, a system of divine Do’s and Don’ts that prevents us from experiencing life to the fullest. Rather than being constrained by prohibitions, a life led in conscious relationship to God is an endlessly unfolding summons to freedom and growth. One of the more amusing ironies of our human condition is our tendency to think that doing things our way is liberating, while doing things God’s way is limiting. The truth is that for any individual joy is found in self-fulfilment, and self-fulfilment is found in the awareness and acceptance of God’s will. God has created each of us for a purpose. People who come to understand what their purpose in life is and who attempt to carry it out are inevitably serene.

Everyone at some point considers God. Many attempts to disprove his existence; others simply ignore any thoughts that may surface about him. But all of us sense some inchoate urge towards a Being greater than ourselves, towards life free of suffering and death.

A life led in conscious relationship to God is a journey, a journey that begins in hope and, if successful, ends in joy. Just as a plant reaches to the sun for its sustenance and growth, so we turn to God for our strength and development. Just as a plant deprived of light falls victim to decay, the hearts of those of us who shun God succumb to cynicism. As it is, cynicism lurks in the shadows of our hearts, waiting for dark moments when it can pounce on those tender shoots of hope that arise from our humanity to lift us to joy. When cynicism succeeds in squelching hope, our enthusiastic yearning for growth yields to our jaded acceptance of decline. It is no coincidence that the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek theos for ‘God’ and suggests, literally, to be filled with the divine spirit.

Organised religion endeavours to encourage and direct our urges towards God by providing an environment in which these impulses can be disciplined and trained. All religions that genuinely seek greater awareness of God are beneficial and provide a vibrant and healthy milieu. However, when something or someone other than God becomes the object of organised religion, this disciplined environment becomes unhealthy and those exposed to it will either reject it or be misguided by it. The world remembers the violent and tragic end of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993 when, duped by a self-proclaimed messiah, dozens of gullible truth-seekers met with a violent death.

A society may allow its natural inclination to know God to be sublimated or distorted. In most cultures, there is some recognised religion by which genuine communication with God is attempted. (It is significant that the root word for ‘culture’ is ‘cult’, a word with inescapable religious connotations.) There have been societies, however, where atheism is the purported norm and believers in God are forced to renounce their faith or to be persecuted for it. Recent history has shown that a society based on mandatory atheism will not survive. Consider the fate of the communist Soviet Union, which collapsed after seven decades of religious suppression.

A more harmful form of social godlessness is the voluntary neglect of God by a society whose members are distracted by other pursuits and who neglect whatever promptings they may feel towards the Divine. Regrettably, we may be witnessing in our world today evidence that such a society—based on atheism by neglect—will not survive either. As secularism spreads, for instance, in Europe or in the United States the regard for the sanctity of human life is diminished. A society that does not respect the lives of all of its members or aspire to produce future generations cannot long survive.

Or, a society can distort religion by removing God as the ultimate end and replacing him with the state, an ideology, or the preservation of a certain culture. Adolph Hitler attempted this. Furthermore, religion may be abused by society and exploited as a justification for aggressive violence, for social injustice, or for the aggrandisement of one group over the deprivation of another. A society that espouses religion as a means to these ends jeopardises its own foundation. First of all, a religion that promotes violence and injustice would be a false religion and therefore provides a false foundation to any society. Secondly, no society—especially in this modern world—can survive over a long period in the face of extreme and protracted injustice.

Knowing about God and knowing God are very different. One may be accomplished through the power of our intellect. The other must be accomplished through the power of our will. To know of God is to be a student; to know God is to be a believer. To have an idea of God is a function of the mind; to recognise God is a function of the heart.

Reason guides us to the idea of God. It is a gift that reflects our divine heritage. If something contradicts reason it is, by definition, not true. This does not mean that if something cannot be explained by reason it is necessarily false. In fact, reason tells us that it is not irrational to accept the inexplicable, because our knowledge is limited (though, presumably, always expanding) and reason is a function of knowledge. Put another way it is unreasonable for limited humanity to reject what it does not understand simply because it cannot explain it.

When taken to the extreme the pursuit of reason leads to rationalism, wherein reason itself is seen to be the supreme authority. That is, reason is deified. Besides being fallacious, this perception is dangerous. In such a world view, mystery is dismissed as unreality, awe gives way to cynicism and truth is whatever we declare it to be. Those bright people who are able to master the intricacies of reason can easily be tempted to manipulate it and use its power and authority for their own purposes. This can lead to an elitist control over others. Cynicism and elitism—what a chilling combination! Think of political handlers and so-called spin-masters who with masterly manipulation of our mind persuade us to see things differently than they really are.

Religion does not diminish the importance of reason. Indeed, it insists on its fullest use. By the light of reason, we are pointed in the direction of truth. It can be argued that the intellectually honest, even if they may not know God, can arrive at the certainty of, or at least the probability of, God’s existence through intellectual deduction. But the encounter with God requires a journey that leads us into a realm beyond the certainty or reason, a realm where our search for God depends principally on our will and our willingness to respond to his call and surrender to his care.

Here we are unaided by reason’s signposts, not so much because they are absent, but because we do not often see them until we advance past them. How often is it that things make sense to us only in retrospect? What prompts us to continue our search is not the compelling force of reason but a driving thirst for truth. The journey is primarily a matter of choosing to go into the uncharted and unknown even though we are uncertain and unconvinced. We are more susceptible to the desires and doubts that can so readily side-track us. The desires tempt us to pursue other ends, and, if successful, they can transform our pilgrimage from a fruitful search for God into a barren pursuit of aimless pleasure. Our doubts become impediments to our advance, like huge boulders blocking our path, deterring and persuading us to suspend our search or to retreat to the unchallenging familiar, to the comfortably secure, to the reasonably certain.

If we choose to proceed, we are assisted by another gift God provides, a gift that enables us to survive the engagement of misdirected desire and surmount the impediments of doubt, a gift that leads us to a higher understanding and a clearer, brighter vision. This is the gift of faith. Freely offered, but only with difficulty accepted, faith is a consciousness of God that calls us to obedience to his will. Faith is knowledge of, commitment to, and trust in God.

To reflect this tripartite makeup of our faith, this book is written in three parts. The first section concerns what we know about God. The second reviews the moral conduct prompted in us in light of this knowledge. Finally, the third addresses the spiritual pursuit, the search for holiness, that sanctified state we enter when, trusting in God completely, we surrender ourselves to him entirely.

Far surpassing something we possess, contemplate, or embrace, faith is something we live. If we genuinely and persistently live our faith, we make two discoveries. One, we find ourselves drawn irresistibly to the promotion of human dignity because of its reflection of the divine image. Two, as addressed in the Epilogue of this book, we find ourselves convinced and compelled by hope.

Part One

Foundations of Beliefs

Knowledge, commitment and trust: each of these three stages of faith requires extensive review. The first, however, will require the most because it concerns facts, the facts of our beliefs as they emerge from scripture and tradition, and the facts of the Church as it has evolved over the past two thousand years.

This first section of the book will therefore be the longest. Beginning with an understanding of God, it will review the facts of our faith, provide a general summary of the salient aspects of scripture and offer a brief description and history of the Church.

Knowledge of God

The foundation of our belief is God. How do we know about him? And, why do we say ‘him’?

All of us possess an inherent sense of being part of something greater than ourselves, something that, no matter how improbably, involves the possibility of a better life. This faculty, so essential to human nature, has prompted individuals and societies to wonder about supernatural beings since the dawn of time. As a result, humanity has imagined an extraordinary array of deities in its long unfolding history. That many of these peoples may have been mistaken in the object of their religious inclinations does not discredit, but rather confirms, that humans are religious by nature.

Civilisations throughout history have attempted to understand and propitiate gods as they have come to perceive them. What is remarkable is the commonality among the disparate perceptions of the divine. This should come as no surprise to those who believe that each of us, since our first ancestors, is created in the image of one God. It is this very identity we share that prompts us both to attempt to communicate with the transcendent God and to ascertain, however vaguely, the truths surrounding him. This likeness to our Creator awakens in us a fundamental yearning to know him and a limited ability to discover him, and it engenders in us an innate, limited awareness of his nature.

Beyond this natural tendency and ability to fathom the divine, we have another source of information, a gratuitous one where God freely tells us about himself: revelation. God reveals himself to us. From Adam, through Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and ultimately through Jesus, God has imparted knowledge of elements of his divinity, which, except through the gift of revelation—would be beyond our intellectual grasp.

The knowledge then that supports our Judeo-Christian religions arises from these two sources: human intuition and divine revelation. Those who share the gifts of God’s revelation are blessed indeed. However, it is through no merit of our own that some of us are bestowed with this bounty. What is more, to be enlightened by these gifts may make one more fortunate but certainly not superior to those who have not been so blessed. For, certainly, a primitive tribesman who fervently worships the sun is closer to God that a high-ranking prelate whose theology is advanced but whose faith is cold.

The Sex of God

As already demonstrated, writing about God is somewhat difficult because of the traditional use of the masculine pronoun in reference to God. This brings up the issue of the sex of God.

Many people, understandably, have difficulty with the patriarchal depiction of God suggested by Christian theology. However, this portrayal of God results more from language that from our understanding of God’s sexual identity. For example, references to God in the Old Testament are primarily masculine. In the New Testament, through the incarnation, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity takes on humanity as a male, and Jesus refers to the one who sent him as Father. Indeed, he taught us to pray to Our Father. In addition, western culture has historically promoted male dominance, which has also encouraged the perception of God as male. But God