Why I Hate the YouCat

A little while ago, I mentioned that I had a certain very strong dislike for the YouCat. Here, I’m going to go into why.

The Council of Trent, ending in 1563, put out a catechism for the general Church in order to counter the growing power of the Protestant Reformation. This Catechism was then put into the world through a number of translations. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, also known as the Roman Catechism, was put into print in 1565 by Pope St. Pius V. The Bishops of the United States met at a synod in Baltimore in 1884. The next year, the Baltimore Catechism was put into print. From 1885 to the 1960s, this Catechism was the basis of Catholic education for all students of various grades. Generally, though, it was mostly for students through First Communion and on up to about the fifth grade. The question and answer based format was used mostly to teach students the answers by rote memorization. To this day, it is possible to tell if someone was educated with the Baltimore Catechism by asking them one of the first four questions.

In 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council. Between 1563 and 1962, only one other council had been convened. Thus, the world was shaken when the news came out. After the council ended in 1965, most Catholic schools started to phase out the Baltimore Catechism. In 1992, to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of the opening of the council, Pope John Paul II approved and published the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This was the first new catechism to come out in 400 years. However, this Catechism can be described as rather dense and theological. The main author was none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI.

At this point, the YouCat starts to come into play. The problem with the YouCat starts from its very inception. In 2005, a simplified compilation of the Catechism was presented in Vienna. In a press conference, a woman raised a point that apparently made enough waves to inspire the project. She pointed out that young people needed a “cool” catechism. From the very beginning, then, the premise was to make the Church “relevant” to young people.

This premise in the first place I have a problem with.  The very idea of trying to make the Church relevant implies a certain unsuitability inherent in the Church. The YouCat itself, though, is problematic.

When it was written, the four main authors included two priests and two lay theologians. However, the committee behind the YouCat included zero Church officials. There were 52 people age 15 to 25 on this committee. Protestants and Catholics together, discussing various questions they had with the faith.

The fact that there were absolutely no prominent theologians or Church officials on the committee, and the fact that it was primarily written as a committee work to answer questions of young people imply a certain problem. The fact of the matter is that instead of being a work concerned chiefly with theology, it was a work concerned chiefly with 50 poorly catechized teens. Because of the poor catechesis of the teens involved in the project, the questions coming out of the project were questions that the Baltimore Catechism had answered when students were in approximately the fifth grade.

The YouCat now holds the place the Baltimore Catechism once held. However, instead of coming out of a synod of bishops chiefly concerned with catechizing children before their First Communion, 50 teens met and asked four theologians some questions. Basically, the Baltimore Catechism has been dumbed down, shortened, and handed to people three times the intended age. It’s an insult to the Church and an insult to the intelligence of the youth.