Battle of the Catechisms (Guest: Aaron Seng)

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Since the beginning of Christianity, there have been catechisms to help the faithful understand church teaching. However, in recent decades, catechisms are often used in attempt to change church teaching. A new catechism attempts to return to the original purpose of catechisms. That's what we're going to talk about today on Cris Point. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, your host and in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, just want to encourage people to smash that like, button. Subscribe to the channel, let other people know about it. Follow us on social media at Crisis Mag. Subscribe to our email newsletter, which you can do on our website, crisismagazine.com. And right now, we're in our twice a year fundraising campaign. So I just encourage people. Please go to crisismagazine.com. You'll get a little pop up. We don't run the pop up all year, just twice a year asking for funds. So we're getting close to our goal. We're trying to raise $60,000. And last I checked, we are close to 50 or so. I'm not sure exactly it'll be when this airs, but we really would appreciate before the end of the year if you would be able to donate. And of course, we appreciate you more than that. Your prayers. Okay. We're going to talk about all things catechism. So we're bringing in the catechism guy. That is Aaron Singh. He is the president of Tradivox, which is sitting right here behind me, and also the general editor of the Catholic Catechism Index, a 20 volume collection of traditional catholic catechisms published by Sophia Institute Press. Welcome to the program, Aaron. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Thank you, Eric. Great to be with you. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Is that your chat box there behind you? I can't. [00:01:43] Speaker B: It is indeed, yes. I keep it handy, reference it often. [00:01:47] Speaker A: I'm not 100% sure if I have the latest. Let me look real quick. I am on. Is that twelve? I think I'm on twelve. Have there been volumes published after twelve, or is that what we're on right now? [00:01:58] Speaker B: Yes. Yours must be still en route. 13 is out, and I believe 14 will be January. I believe 14 is going to be out in January. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Very good. Okay. I mean, obviously, for listeners, we are going to explain what the heck we're talking about with stratified, but we're going to be talking about catechisms. And I think this is a very important topic. Obviously, catechisms are an important part of church life, of, if you're a parent, they're very important for raising your kids, heck, if you're an adult, they're very important for just knowing the faith. And Aaron, if you can tell he's been involved with catechisms, he knows about. He's written for Crisis magazine. I'm going to link to some of his articles on the catechism for crisis in the show notes. But why don't you first just explain what got you interested in catechisms and the history of catechisms? [00:02:51] Speaker B: Sure. Gali. In a nutshell, I discerned religious life, benedictine monastic life, as a younger man since many years ago. And one of the things that really stood out to me at that time was really their dedication, their devotion historically to the manuscript tradition of the church. This is something that even secular historians will acknowledge. One of the means whereby civilization really was preserved, especially 3rd, 4th, 5th, even 6th centuries of the church. But also just all of western civilization owes a great debt to the monastic tradition of just copyists, able to retain and pass on just a wealth of knowledge, of course, theologically, but also even practically huge advances in even farming technology that owe themselves to the work of the monks. So that was something that the Lord really, I think, called me to early on, and I could tell there was something about really my personal interests and just my life ahead. He would have me in some kind of work of that nature. So I'm also just something of a words guy. Of course, my profession now is editing, so stock and trade is grammar, syntax, and so on. So that really combined with a long standing personal interest in research, in the whole catechetical legacy of the church. And that is really where the tradobox project itself. This is pushing 20 years ago that it kind of began largely myself. I started to network with other researchers, scholars in the field, several different countries. Now, Tradeobox, as an entity, as a nonprofit, is a collaborative of upwards of 50 researchers, editors, volunteers in various countries, all really working on that task of pulling some of these really the most outstanding catechisms of the catholic tradition. We're doing this hardback set as a 20 volume set. It has over 30 catechisms in the set, and trying to put them really into conversation with each other. That's really the vision behind the project. It's to show across the better part of the last millennium, you have 1000 years, roughly, of catechisms, various times, places, cultures, language groups. And it's remarkable kind of continuity of doctrine across time and space. And so that's something that a catechism, which is really like a phone book, when you can have really a suite of phone books that span that kind of a breadth of time and space, you really can demonstrate rapidly and quite beautifully, quite profoundly, just the teaching of the church in all these different contexts. [00:05:42] Speaker A: I know this is a very basic question, but I think it's important before we really get going on, this is, what is the purpose of a catechism? Like, what is it fundamentally a catechism? [00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah, great question. On the whole, they are generally for laypersons. There certainly are exceptions, and very notable ones. For instance, the two universal catechisms that have ever been promulgated at the universal level, the one first issued in 1992 during the pontificate of John Paul II, catechism of the Catholic Church, which I generally refer to as the CCC, for short, the CCC was issued for bishops, was expressly intended for bishops, and then the 500 years prior, roughly, the catechism of Trent, 1566. This was immediately composed in session during the Council of Trent, promulgated subsequently and constantly revisited. And it was authored for priests, explicitly, four priests, their formation, a reference text for them in their own kind of homily preparation and their own teaching of the faithful. So those are some outstanding ones, not directly intended for laymen, but on the whole, most of them are. Most of them are intended for layfolk, and they serve really as this function of a systematic presentation. The truths of the faith, what we are to believe, how we are to live, and generally the nature of the sacraments and the other means of grace, which is why you usually see a threefold, sometimes a fourfold structure on them. They typically follow the apostles Creed, truths of the faith, truths to ascent to with the intellect. Then a section that follows the commandments, the commandments of God, ten commandments, and then the commandments of the church, or the precepts of the church. So this is typically the morals section, what we are to do, how we are to honor God with the will. And then often the third section, sometimes broken into two subsequent sections, which is typically the means of grace, which kind of comprises the life of prayer, the liturgy, the different sacraments, what they are, how they work, the grace they confer. So that's kind of a rough sketch of the thrust of the genre. I should mention also, if I didn't, may have omitted this. It does come as news to some that there are thousands of catechisms. [00:08:12] Speaker A: It's a good point, actually. Let's bring that up, because I want to talk about the history of catechisms, because when I became Catholic in 1993, it was at the time that the catechism of the Catholic Church under J. P. Two was released. I feel like the English wasn't released till 94. So I can't remember the exact timing, but I know it was right around the time I was coming to church. And I remember they're making a big deal. There hasn't been a catechism since Trent. People would mention that. So I was under the impression, because since I didn't grow up catholic, I didn't really know what the Baltimore catechism was at that point. I thought, okay, this is version two of the catechism from 500 years ago or something like that. And then over time, I start to find out, of course, you hear about the Baltimore Catechism, and if you read church history enough, you see, like, the diddicay might be considered almost the first catechism of the first century, something like that. So give us a little timeline of catechisms, a history of them and the different types of catechisms, because you've already mentioned universal catechisms. But then that means there's some non universal catechisms. So how does that all lay out? [00:09:20] Speaker B: Yes, well, you've, of course, touched upon a sensitive issue among scholars, which is the genre itself, defining the confines of the catechetical genre. So some would say, like you mentioned, the diddicate. So around 70 AD, first century, some will say, well, look, chapter two, acts of the apostles, is a nice, concise catechism. Peter stands up, there's a crowd of thousands, and he really gives the charigma, the highly distilled kind of call of faith in Christ, the necessity of entering the church. This is all really right there in this seed form a most scholars, I would say, and I'm at least would agree with those that hold the best, really bookend for the genre of catechisms as we know it today at least, is really latter and four, council of latter and 412 15. You have at that council express decrees for first the Easter duty, as it's called. So this need, this summons, this canon, disciplinary canon, for the faithful to every year make a good confession if they need to, in order to receive our Lord in the Eucharist, at least annually. And out of that and connected to it in those decrees as well, is this need for catechesis, the reminder of the bishops principally, and then also pastors of souls that are at their service, really extending their ministry, the priests and other pastors at the local level, this need for them to give sound doctrinal instruction to the faithful so that they can make a good confession if they need to. So that they can ascent with mind and will to the deposit of faith and receive our Lord for that reason in the blessed sacrament. That's a good bookend, because what happens textually at that point is you get these little manuals. They're widely called the confessional manuals because most of them have this express function of being for the priest to read so that he can kind of examine his penitence. They come to make their confession, and he's got this little short tract that goes through some of the major virtues and vices, major sins and their remedies, or in some cases, very detailed penances that he might bestow upon the penitent. And then most of those, especially towards the end of the 13th century, they start to have this appendage of, oh, and here's some wrote kind of instructions in the faith. If you need some extra homily help, here's rote instructions on the faith. So that's really, I think, the best place to kind of draw the book end to the beginning of the genre as we know it today. A single volume, a single book, a single textual artifact that gives this systematic treatment of faith and morals. That's a good place to start. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Was Trent then, the first universal catechism. [00:12:29] Speaker B: That's right. By the time we get to Trent, of course, the genre itself is exploding in the late 14 hundreds already. But especially as the print technology increases, there are some who think it was like this magic wand that happened in the mid 15 hundreds, and then all of a sudden we had Gutenberg, and then it was just. Stuff was just printed always, everywhere, all the time. There were advances in printing technology that, well, predated that. What you have is this curve of increase in that century of stuff is getting easier to print, it's getting faster to print, and then by the time you get to Trent, it's really taken off. And there's this great problem, of course, of the protestant revolt, which know mushrooming in all of these countries. [00:13:21] Speaker A: Didn't they have catechisms that they did as well? [00:13:24] Speaker B: That's right. So, contrary to popular belief, maybe not among Catholics, but I've come across this in know, Luther was not the first to write a catechism. I've seen that asserted in places, and it just makes you scratch your head. [00:13:38] Speaker A: No, it is also funny, because Protestants don't really do catechisms today. Like I never, as a Protestant, ever heard of. I mean, we didn't do catechisms, but. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Oh, you're just one of those low. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Church protestant fans that's right, exactly. In the old days, the good old days of the protestant revolt, they were producing catechisms, weren't they? [00:13:56] Speaker B: They do well, and still today, you find the Westminster confessional, these kind of things. There are texts like that, and Luther's texts are still in print. He wrote a couple, but in reality, they were widely printed and disseminated, especially in the Rhineland countries, and they had the express intention of being directed to a generally lay readership that was the target audience. So you had this perceived need. How do we equip our priests to kind of meet this challenge? Would that we had some just very regular, systematic instruction in the truths of the faith that they could take home and put to work. That was the vision behind the first universally promulgated catechism, which was the catechism of Trent, aka the roman catechism. You'll hear that term at times, sometimes even just that golden book. I mean, this is catechism that it's composed on the council. It's called for by the decrees of the council. It's composed in session during the council by the most eminent theologians at the time, under the direction, oh, by the way, of, you know, the great saint, the patron of catechists and catechesis. So under his direction, at his guidance. [00:15:26] Speaker A: Sorry to interrupt, but it was actually. I don't think I knew this. It was composed, actually at the council itself. [00:15:31] Speaker B: Yes, again, the council sessions, I know that spans many years, but yes, it was at the direction of the council and during its convention. So it's ultimately, it's promulgated 1566, memory serves, 65, 66. And it again, is intended for priests. And it's excellent. It's a good read. When folks ask me, oh, do I need to get the roman catechism? I've never discouraged anybody from picking up a good catechism. However, it's a little more difficult read, I think, for the typical layperson, just because, again, it's 500 years old and intended for priests, which is to say, it presumes upon a great deal of prior, especially philosophical, formation within the seminaries. And so it will use just thomistic categories, a lot of metaphysical principles that are kind of lost on. A lot of readers like you and me would pick up and say, okay, I'm going to have to have my concordance, in the other hand, to really sort this one out. But that being said, it's regarded for centuries as a normative text for forming priests. It's required repeatedly by popes in seminary formation as well. And as I say, it's called the Golden Book. For that reason, it is a lode star for many a century. We get to the second of two universally promulgated catechisms in 1992. As you say, this is following the synod of bishops in 85, which is, among other things, calls for an updated treatment of doctrine, especially for the use of bishops. So whereas Trent kind of has priests in mind. So we want this tool in mind for us bishops. Again, this is coming out of the synod of the bishops, the universal synod, in the mid 80s. Wouldn't it be great if we had a text that we could then use both for teaching in our own spheres, in our own dioceses, but also for kind of this baseline of, as we begin our own catechisms and launch them specific to the needs of the faithful in our regions and whatnot, to just have an updated reference point, that's really the vision behind what comes to be the CCC that is issued in 92. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Between those two universal catechisms, we have just, I mean, is it correct to say hundreds or even thousands of catechisms that are created? And I think that's where most Catholics are ignorant or just are scratching the. If we have a universal catechism that's created by Trent, why do we need anything else? And likewise, once the CCC is promulgated in the. Why do we need anything else? Because we know about. I mean, I think most people know about Baltimore catechism, but what are the purpose of all these catechisms that flourish between Trent and Vatican two's catechisms? [00:18:52] Speaker B: Great. Yes. First, it's a point that can't be belabored enough, perhaps, that, yes, there are hundreds. There are thousands. There are thousands of catechisms in the catholic tradition. If we're going to count language groups, derivative additions and so on, there is a wealth of texts in that vein. And still today, there are some who will say, well, yeah, and we haven't had another catechism since, let's say, the 92, to which you say, well, take a look at the closest catholic bookstore catalog by you. You will be surprised to find there are scores of cat. I have a shelf of trademarks. We are sent things from time to time as well. So there are dozens, scores, maybe hundreds of catechisms that have been recomposed since the 92 catechism as well. So there's no shortage of texts, is the first point. And as to the question why, it's answerable simply by the same virtue of having living bishops in any given era. We already know the faith, right? We already have the deposit it was fixed at the death of the last apostle. Why continue to have any kind of textual artifact, manuscript tradition, these continued councils, punctuation marks throughout time? Why any of that? Because the answer is the same in terms of the question. Why any new catechisms? Because each one has a particular time place in mind. Each one is engaging the contemporary context with the perennial truths of the faith and unchanging moral principles, and bringing those to bear on whatever area, for instance, geographically it's deployed, or wider, more regional, or with specific target audiences involved. So, for instance, you get catechisms constantly that are authored for, especially after really, the turn of the 19th century, these hyper focused, target audience catechisms. Catechisms for converts, catechisms for converts from Anglicanism, catechisms for converts who are under the age of 25. I mean, there are several that, catechisms for first, communicants. We're very familiar with that. A lot of us who have been in catechesis roles of one form or another. Catechism is only for sacramental preparation. So all of these texts have their own kind of unique value. And some of that now is purely historical for us. It's fascinating. You pull a catechism, I could pull volume six here in the Tradovox series off of one of these shelves and say, now we're going to learn about the Scott ale, the grave moral problem of the Scott Ale. And who has ever heard of that? What is that? Does that have any bearing on me today? Well, maybe not. Maybe you don't live in a parish where there's mandatory drinking parties, where you have to pay a tax to them locally, but those kind of things were happening in the 13th, 14th, 15th, more civilized times. Yeah, right. These grave immoralities, just like someone eight centuries ago, isn't going to need to look in a catechism to ensure that, say, marriage is between one man and one woman only. These are kind of things that aren't addressed in other categories. They are clearly not issues ever, anywhere that now we have to make very clear to our contemporaries. So that's really long and short. [00:22:46] Speaker A: So who is authorized to write a catechism? Could I just decide? Tomorrow I'm going to write a catechism? Or does it have to be a bishop, a council of bishops? Or it can be a priest who really is authorized to write these? [00:23:00] Speaker B: It's a great cac, I mean, great question. So anybody can write one in terms of if it's beneficial to you, especially in the last 50 years or so, these several that have been written by laymen, often at the direction of either a priest or bishop or at their request. Really, the only question when it comes into authority, textual authority, that's a question that really devolves upon bishops. For instance, bishop, he sees a need, let's say, in his diocese for a catechism that just has some aspect that the catechisms currently in use there doesn't have. This is why the Baltimore came about. For those familiar with the Baltimore catechism. Sorry. And aside the Baltimore catechism, those not familiar is the result of the three synods of Baltimore in the continental US, late 18 hundreds. This was a multi phase, multiple synods, all of them convened at Baltimore, the last of which promulgated this catechism for American Catholics called the Baltimore catechism. In brief, that's how it's typically known today. And the authoring of that catechism was in response to a huge proliferation of catechisms all across the US. So all these bishops see, well, these are great. Some of them are translations from the German, some from the French, some from the Spanish. Every one of them has value, but I need to get a kind of redacted version, because now we've got some more issues here that I need to focus in on, says our imaginary bishop. Right. And so he can do any number of things. He can approach a priest at his direction and say, we need to write one. Find the best ones that are out there, put them together, and I'm going to coach you on it. He can sit down, pen to paper, compose one ex neilo. He can more commonly take catechisms that already exist, and then just insert some portions, tweak a little bit of the language here and there, maybe make it a bit more contemporary, because some of these terms have changed in a living language. And ass no longer means what ass used to mean or these kind of things. That's by and large the most common approach, especially among the french bishops. For several hundred years, you would have a french bishop. I mean, bishops would come into their sea, they would perceive a need for good catechesis, and they would just write a catechism. I mean, this was old hat for centuries, and that's one of the reasons that we have so many. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Now. You've written for crisis, about the catechism crisis and the modern catechism crisis. So we have all these catechisms, and in general, it sounds like they were all fine, some better than others, some might not be, some are great, some are average, maybe not so great, maybe poorly written or whatever. But nothing. But really, until the 20th century, generally, if a catechism was produced by a bishop or a council of bishops, wherever, or approved by a bishop, it was okay. But then there seems to be problems start to arise. I think the most famous, most of us may have heard of is, I think it's the dutch catechism. But tell us a little bit about what happened to catechisms, that all of a sudden they became untrustworthy documents in many cases. I think this would be starting in the. [00:26:43] Speaker B: It's a great question. Well, it's important to first point out, as a matter of historical record, that the catechism crisis in which I've maintained we are currently living is itself predated by other catechism crises. So that was one of the pieces. You probably recall. This was a while ago that I did for crisis, which was just pointing out that there have been bad catechisms in the past, and, in fact, texts that were used for deploying, really heterodox ideas, especially during the janssenist controversy, again, in France, where you had just a proliferation of catechisms in France prior to that. And, of course, so just the fact of a text's approval should mention that on the authority point, the point of any given catechism's authority, because this is important, catechisms, when they are raised to the level of being officially endorsed and approved by a local ordinary, that is to say, a bishop with a territorial jurisdiction and authority over souls, what you have at that point is something that is essentially standing in place of a bishop there, teaching the faith. That's the idea with a catechism, is that a bishop is here by declaring catholic doctrine in matters of faith and morals that has long predated, for instance, the system of nihilo obstad, imprimi, protest, and imprimatur that many are familiar with today. But nonetheless, that system, the imprimatur system, is designed to be really a print artifact of that dynamic, where a bishop is saying this in virtue of my apostolic office, I declare this to be in accord with the truths of the faith, matters of faith and morals. Right. And that's why a lot of Catholics still will instinctively pop open any book on catholic doctrine and check that front page. Right. Does that have an imprimatur on there? And maybe they're looking for the bishop. They're doing a little further triage. Well, what bishop gave the imprimatur? Because, as you point out, and as I've written elsewhere on crisis, we do have this reality of several decades now. Of catechisms with imprimaturs, that do things like deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, that do things like deny his historical resurrection, that do things like deny his express establishment of a unique religious body, that is to say, the Roman Catholic Church, that do things like protest at the prohibitions of any illicit sex acts, because, after all, some of them surely could be permissible as long as they're between people who love each other. This is the legacy of the last half century. We have texts like this. So I don't go in for the idea that there's this kind of boogeyman out there of like a spirit. We have to really divine kind of the intention behind any given text. As a student of language and texts, I don't really have time for that. My focus is just the black and white. Show me the text. Show me in the text. And the reality is we have decades of texts that have appeared under official approbation at various levels, imprimatur being one of them, texts that have glaring departures from catholic faith and morals. They are noticeably increased in the latter part of the 20th century, following most especially the closing of the Second Vatican Council, 1965. There are a few that predate that, that were beginning to get a little od in places, but certainly nothing like the watershed that was the council in terms of how it impacted the manuscript tradition that followed. [00:31:08] Speaker A: So just to give an example, was I right? Is it the dutch catechism that was like, kind of the infamous one that didn't that come out in the late 60s, early seventy s? And it had all these types of problems? [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yes. The dutch catechism is probably the most well known and infamous of those examples. Yes, and people have. Folks can go on and find digests of that, because interestingly enough, it ended up being. The book itself wasn't censored, it was disseminated in print. It was composed by all of the bishops of the Netherlands. Conjointly, they issued this text immediately after the closing of the council, within a year of the closing of the council. And it was a new catechism. What's the title? [00:31:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:56] Speaker B: And it was in light of new directions, new emphasis, new insights. Fill in the blank. This language becomes very common in catechisms after the council. You have this incredible range, of course, ambiguity, but also just manifest error, things that can't be squared with a prima facie reading that cannot be squared with the tradition. So grave were they that it was at that time still met with a knee jerk reaction in many countries. Protests were sent to congregation of the doctrine of faith, this book needs to be censored, so on and so forth. There is no discipline, no discipline for the bishops. They demand that the book be censored. The book is not censored. It remains in print under the imprimatur of the great dutch cardinal Alfran. Alfran, which sounds like a James Bond bad guy name, so it remains under his imprimatur. There is a complete refusal. They summarily ignore the Vatican issue to censor the book or remove the imprimatur. And all of those bishops go on to dissent in one way or another from humane vitae, which comes out just a few years after that, catechism. So this text is printed in the millions. It is translated into several different language groups. It heavily influences catholic religious ed curricula in schools and seminaries for decades. So yes, that's probably the most well known baddie, bad apple of the bunch. [00:33:30] Speaker A: So that gets us to, we've kind of touched on it, but the teaching authority of a catechism. So here we have a catechism that is God and permader. It's issued by the bishops, and the bishops are the authoritative teachers of their mean and the faithful in them. So maybe not somebody in America, but people in the Netherlands. These are actually their authentic, authoritative teachers of the faith, and they're releasing this, giving information, saying, this is the faith, but yet we know it's actually contrary to it. And so what is a lay Catholic supposed to do? And then take that to a notch of, okay, how about the universal catechism, the CCC? Is that one at a different authority level? And touch on, are any of these texts infallible? And all those type of things. [00:34:26] Speaker B: So you're setting me up for a book length response here, Eric, 3 hours later, I'll try to condense this. Let's see. So, to the first question, is it a real head scratcher for lay Catholics? It absolutely is. For instance, you read in the code of canon law 750 somewhere, I think, and how it talks about the bishops are even when not infallible. So even independent of the charisma, infallibility, they're the ordinary teachers of faith, and to them, the faithful, you, me, Catholics in their territory owe religious submission of intellect and will. That is to say, our default position is always to be, yes, bishop, we receive with the mind the teaching that we're given, because these men are set up in succession from the apostles. They are the divinely endorsed teachers of the faith in our time. They carry the charism of truth by way of just their episcopal office. And so, yes, we find ourselves at what I call a grave catechism crisis. We're at a crisis period in the church, not unlike times in Jansenist France, when you would have a bishop one diocese over, you drive across the. Of course, they didn't drive. You ride the pony across the diocesan line to the neighboring diocese. And here you have a bishop who's a Jansenist or a crypto janssenist, and he's issued a catechism that has these tenets that are unduly rigorous and maybe denying certain tenets about original sin and its effects on human nature after the fact. But what's a layman to do? What's a layperson to we? This is how Christ established the church was that we could be the faithful sheep and follow the voice of the good shepherd echoed by our shepherds. The. That is, that is a question. It is a real crisis of authority in terms of what to do, the triage that needs to happen in a period like when the catechism of Montpelier or puge. You have some of these french baddies 300 years ago, just the same, that, again, we need now, and the same that Vincent of Larins points out in the fourth century of. We need some governing criteria that we can keep on, carry on with peace and with knowledge that we live in the truth and that just generally. In short, that's why we're catholic. We have a tradition, we have a body of doctrine that is already fixed. And so in cases where there appear to be these deviations from what has always been held, taught, believed, always, everywhere. And by all, it's the famous vincentian canon that's called when we perceive deviations from this, that's our time to just check it out. We're maybe withholding assent, especially in matters that seem very grave and immediately affecting, say, our moral conduct. And we have to dig in. We have to know our faith. I mean, that's the long and short. [00:37:52] Speaker A: So how about then, the universal catechism that came out in 1992? Does it have a different authority? Should lay Catholics kind of treat it differently in its authority? Is it part of the extraordinary, ordinary magisterium? Does it have any infallibility, touch, dump on it? How is it any different, or is it any different for a universal catechism? [00:38:19] Speaker B: Great. Several routes we could go with that. On the one hand, its level of authority certainly is not greater or substantially different from the catechism of Trent, insofar as both are texts that were issued at the universal level. So if we're just talking about the level of magisterium involved in the issuing of the text, those are identical. Some would argue that Trent itself has a higher level of significance because of its having been summoned by a council composed during the sessions of the council, which, of course, the CCC was not. There was no mention during Vatican II of a new catechism or the need for one or any of that. So there's some who would that Trent, in terms of every catechism ever composed, Trent still, the roman catechism still retains kind of the highest level of magisterial authority, that is to say, the highest teaching office involved in its promulgation, would have been mean. To my mind. That's kind of neither here nor there, really, depending on what you're looking at a catechism for. Right? So if we say, well, if we're after something that's readable, let's say, for me or for my kids, well, you don't immediately approach it from, well, what is the highest level of magisterial authority about? So I'm going to sit down with little Susie and the catechism of Trent, and we're going to go through, I mean, we could, but she might benefit from a catechism with really, it's a question of application, is really the question. So in terms of the authority of the CCC, it is one of only two catechisms that have been promulgated at a universal level. That's quite significant. And also, there are places in the text that are at least ambiguous, and in places so highly ambiguous as to be charged, even from the 90s, when it was first issued with just such proximity to error, that they lend themselves more to an erroneous interpretation than to an orthodox interpretation. And there are entire books that have been written on that. And the point of ambiguity, this would take us far afield. So as a grammar, syntax guy, ambiguity to me, is not a very hard and fast category. It just means lexical range. You say things in print, there is no tone, there is no what's implied by when things are formed in sequences of words. There is a limited semantic range to any number of those terms based on its context. That's what's important in any catechism is what can this not mean? That's really the question with some of these formulations. And that's why throughout the centuries, you have some texts that are just better than others. They have better formulations of the constant teaching of the church. And it must be said, the 92 or the catechism formerly known as the 92. It's gone through all these updates right since then. But the CCC has formulations that are incredibly beautiful. I mean, strikingly, they're moving. They approach the poetic, I'm thinking, especially in the fourth section, section on prayer. On the other hand, there are also a few passages in there that just a prima facie reading of them cannot be squared with the traditional doctrine. You have to work very hard to square them. Those things have been taken up by priests, bishops, theologians, since it was first issued, was either doing the work of hey, teacher, here's how you square this with the teaching that came before, or I would say a perhaps more disingenuous reading of it. Actually, the doctrine has really changed on that point, and here's what we now teach here is the new teaching, which somehow has achieved a 180 degree reversal from what was taught prior on this or that point. But that's development, man, that's development just developing. [00:43:03] Speaker A: Another thing about too is it's not just whether or not a line is orthodox or not. It's what is decide to put in what is not. I made this example in my book, deadly indifference, and I'm going to forget the exact specifics, but in the Council of Trent Catechism, the section on baptism insists in multiple paragraphs on the necessity of baptism for salvation. And it just basically states that very clearly over and over again, over multiple paragraphs in the section on baptism. In the catechism of the Catholic Church, the 1992 catechism, I think there's like maybe ten or twelve paragraphs on baptism. One of them makes a statement about the necessity of baptism for salvation, and the rest of them are basically talking about the exceptions, how there's baptism of desire, there's baptism blood. We can hope that somebody who hasn't been baptized can be saved all these things. And I think that also is something that we shouldn't discount the importance of that, of what it's kind of emphasizing, because obviously Trent was emphasizing the necessity of baptism salvation. The CCC is emphasizing that there's lots of ways you could be saved potentially other than baptism, and I think that teaches us by what was chosen to be in you. Does that make sense? [00:44:28] Speaker B: Yes, maybe I'd have two comments on that, the first being, especially for the long dead authors of catechism that say, leave these guys alone, Eric, leave these guys mean because on the one hand, like a historian, everybody wants to shoot historians because the poor guys, there is no such thing as an unbiased history. There's no such thing as an unbiased catechism, which is just to say that every author has to make selection and emphasis, selection and emphasis. So really trying to go at a, well, this is the tone, this is the implication. You need more than the text itself. That would be my major point on that is what, again, the grammarian has to say is, does this proposition lexically exclude this meaning? Is it mutually exclusive from what's been taught? Let's say dogmatically on that point, like the necessity of baptism for salvation, are they mutually exclusive? And if they're not, there's room to play. I mean, that's a fact. However, my second takeaway would be, and this is what I've tried to point out, a crisis in places. I'm doing so elsewhere. It may be a book at some point, I don't know. But the other point to make for our time now is that what has happened in plain black and white is grave departures from the traditional doctrine on any number of points by way of citing things from the CCC or from the text of Vatican II, or from magisterial documents, since the fact. And so when you have that, we're no longer in the kind of fantasy land of like this person may have been implying this, or, or there were secret actors involved, and because they're Freemasons or communists or whatever, we're no longer in that realm of guesswork. We're just looking at textual artifacts and saying, what came from this was this, and this thing cannot be reconciled with the prior teaching of the church. And so that would seem to point right back to, if not a manifest error or departure in the original text, let's say the CCC, at least something that's problematic enough to require addressing, to require some kind of clarification. And of course, since the 90s, that has been done by many in book form, in preaching form, just saying, look, when we say this, this is really what we mean, because somehow the horse seems to have left the stable years ago, and Catholics have very strange ideas now about different things that their forebears just two generations ago would have balked at. [00:47:27] Speaker A: Now all this is somewhat, this is very important. We've talked about the history and the catechism, what it is, because there is a new catechism, possibly the latest catechism. [00:47:39] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:47:39] Speaker A: I haven't heard of another one since then that was just published. We've talked about it here on crisis. That's credo, I think it's called sometimes like a compendium of the catholic faith, or something like that by Bishop Athanasius Schneider. And I know when it originally was announced, I know there was a lumber of Catholics who might even be sympathetic, might be a fan of Bishop Snyder. Thought this seems a little odd, a bishop writing a catechism. Don't we have a catechism? But hopefully they've just listened to the first 45 minutes of this podcast and they'll understand. It's not weird for a bishop to release a catechism. However, I do think there are some unique things, I shouldn't say unique, but unique in modern times, unique in the last 50 years about this catechism. Can you kind of articulate the importance of credo and how it is something somewhat new in the modern world, at least modern meaning the last 50, 60 years, compared to what we've seen that's been promulgated since Vatican two? [00:48:42] Speaker B: Sure. I could give it a stab. I've been a careful student of that text, the credo that you mentioned, for the reasons you mentioned, it is the first time in about a half century here that you have a bishop issuing a summary, again, a compendium of catholic faith and life in this form, canonically approved under her. It's the first time that's happened since the council, to my knowledge. There have been a few. Let's see. I'm thinking of bishop. There was a bishop in Ohio that in the think he did a little short, like a pocket one. And there was another one. Oh, boy. In maybe even the early 2000s, there was co author, there was a bishop and several other co authors that did a larger one. But this is the first time in 50 years that you have a bishop writing a catechism of his own and then issued under imprimatter. At this length of treatment, the body text is like 350 pages. It's a q and a form. It's very concise. Clearly, the propositions have been labored over. I did some work with that, at least in the english edition, and it absolutely is. It's unique in that regard. In terms of the content. It's beautifully arranged. I would say it very much takes from, especially the catechism of Peter Knitius, the great saint and patron of catechists. Great german patron. My people, most German Catholics today, would not be catholic were it not for the great Peter Kinesius. So he writes multiple catechisms, which can be found in volume nine of the tradeobox series for those who are interested. But his really becomes a lode star in the 16th century, and he is one of, if not the first to use this threefold kind of structure within catholic catechisms. So credo borrows from that. It takes that same kind of basic structure, following the truths of the creed, morals, and then prayer, grace, liturgy, worship, the catholic life of worship. I very much value it in that regard. Also, it has the unique distinction of being the only catechism in history to talk about things like gender ideology, or any number of these contemporary moral issues that, again, we face today that never even existed prior. Much like I could pull a catechism from the time of St. Therese, one of the great catechisms that she would have read, that her parents would have read to her and taught her from. And you'll find a whole section on this grave moral issue of animal. And to us, we're just a complete non starter. Right. But it was a pressing moral issue in the rural France of that area. Right. So it does. Krato has a unique distinction in that way, being from a living office holder of the church, engaging contemporary issues all in their proper place. He takes them all in kind of the flow of the subjects. So things like, I mean, mentioned gender, ideology, find those kind of things in the section on the creation of man. What is man? What is christian anthropology? And right in that flow, you engage these contemporary issues. So, yes, it's excellent in that regard. [00:52:31] Speaker A: Now, a little bit of confusion, I think, or controversy. Of course, no good deed goes unquestioned in these times. And there has been criticism of Credo and a couple of questions I want to ask about that. One is the dutch catechism was written by the bishops of the Netherlands. For the people of the Netherlands, you have Baltimore. Catechism was released basically as an american catechism. Universal catechism is for everybody. But here you have an auxiliary bishop in Eastern Europe who writes a catechism. And the language it's first published in is English. I believe that's the only language it's in thus far, is in English. And so who is the audience and what kind of authority? So here I am living in Ohio, on the other side of the, of what role does this catechism? Should it play in my life, since he's not my ordinary and he's not even part of the conference of bishops in my country, but yet it seems, obviously, it's been marketed to America more than anywhere else. So kind of who's the audience, and how does that all fit into kind of the authority of bishops in the church? [00:53:46] Speaker B: Great. Well, to the question of authority, first, a catechism only becomes what some call now an official catechism that only occurs. We kind of mentioned this earlier, when you have a text that's imposed on a territory. So that would be different from, say, the granting of an imprimatur. So bishop granting an imprimatur to any text is a bishop saying, I adopt this teaching as a reliable expression of catholic faith and morals. I don't necessarily agree with any. In fact, I've seen this in some texts in the last, like, ten years. You're starting to get imprimatur, followed by something that reads like a disclaimer. It says things like, this is not an expression that the bishop granting the impromadder necessarily agrees with all the contents you presented. But by way of the imprimatur affirms that it's free of error in faith and morals, which to me is like a head scratcher. I don't know. But anyways, so that is an imprimatur. However, the imposition of a text on a territory would be an expression of a local ordinary's teaching magisterium, requiring the ascent of the faithful within his jurisdiction. So that's kind of to the authority point that this. [00:55:15] Speaker A: We don't really have a catechism like that in America, right? There's no catechism that's been imposed, because I know that the conference of USCCB did release a catechism for adults at some point. I can't remember how long ago it. Like, are any catechisms that you know of imposed upon us right now? [00:55:33] Speaker B: I do not know of any. I do not know of any. Any of them could be at any time. Any bishop could say, at any point, I decree this text, for instance. This was common when the Baltimore was first issued. There were several bishops who said, look, we need to. I'm overwhelmed in my diocese. There's a hundred different catechisms being used in here. And it makes me dizzy, because I go in to guests, teach at sister so and so's school, and they've all learned the answers in a little different order, because they're using such and such catechism. Flanders, let's say, or Abigail, or any of these others. Just outstanding texts at the time. So now I'm imposing the Baltimore catechism henceforth will be the only catechism used in the diocese. That's an imposition. I don't know of any. There may have happened, but I don't know of any at any time. [00:56:36] Speaker A: So we have freedom, those Catholics, for example, if we want to teach our kids the faith using credo, there's nothing really stopping us from doing that, because it's got the know it's a catechism been released to the world, so to speak. Is that correct way of looking at it? [00:56:56] Speaker B: Well, I would say that's correct of any. [00:56:59] Speaker A: Right, right, yes. Not just. [00:57:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And that was one point I remember that the late Pope Benedict XVI brought up. Someone was asking him, it was right during the promulgation of the compendium of the CCC. The compendium of the compendium, when that was first being just about to be published, I want to say, 2006, memory serves. And an interviewer had asked him about the catechism of Pope St. Pius X, which remains one of the most beloved kind of short catechisms, very much like the Baltimore. And they'd asked him, well, what do we do with the catechism Pius attempt? Is compendiums going to come out? What do we do with that one? He said, well, the faith as such is always the same, and there are some who will value the way that it's articulated in the Pius X catechism, and it may have friends in the future. He was just saying, look, if it's talking about these texts that stand as approved articulations of faith and morals of the church, then, yes, why not? Some will benefit from this one, some will benefit from that one, and so on. [00:58:08] Speaker A: So what would you say to an argument that then Credo being released now undermines, in some fashion, the catechism of the Catholic Church? And by that, not just because it's a catechism that's been released after the CCC, because hopefully most people realize we're still going to have catechisms being produced, just like after Trent, there were still other catechisms, but more that it challenges certain things that are taught in the CCC, and it directly challenges, in a lot of ways, certain statements from Vatican II. And so do you see this as a competition, I mean, almost as setting itself up as one? Because as a lay Catholic, I'm looking at Credo, which is saying things a lot different, particularly, let's say, in how our relations with other religions, the truth and claims of Judaism or Islam or something like that, versus how Vatican II and the CCC present it. So what would you say about these battle of the catechisms we have going on? [00:59:12] Speaker B: Yes, I'm not sure what to say on that. I mean, the first kind of basic point would be, like you already intimate, the CCC itself called for the creation of new catechisms. Folks will be happy to know that the USCCB website even has a whole section asking that exact question. Does this mean there can be no other catechism talking about the CCC? And of course it says, well, no, of course we need additional articulations of the faith. They need to be contemporized at any age to meet the challenges of any given time, doctrinal, moral or otherwise. So it's basic standing. I mean, the idea that it somehow undermines the CCC from that standpoint is just silly in the extreme to me. I mean, that would be like know, well, we can't have Shakespeare, right? Because we already had just undermined Dante. Yeah, far from it. To the point that it, Krato, that is, addresses points in the CCC that are themselves subject to ambiguity and even erroneous interpretation, which it does do. There are several points in credo where it makes passing mention of those things. They, of course, aren't the bulk of the text, but they're addressed midstream. Yes, it absolutely challenges what has been articulated, not because of who articulated it or what was originally meant. It's simply pointing out this proposition could be subject to an erroneous interpretation, for which reason it needs to be made eminently clear what the teaching of the church is on this point. And that's, of course, why the author, Bishop Athanasia Schneider, spends so much time doing the citation work of a lot of the sources. And so. [01:01:17] Speaker A: Mean. It sounds like you're saying I'm play a little devil's advocate here, because it sounds like you're saying that Credo is trying to clarify ambiguities found in Vatican II, found in CCC. But I think a lot of critics would say, no, it's actually correcting Vatican II, and it's going against it, particularly when it talks about the idea of other religions, like Islam, that we both worship. I can't remember the exact wording of Vatican II, but it's something to the effect that suggests that we have the same God, clearly in Credo. Schneider rejects that idea and the same thing with Judaism. He makes it very clear there is no continuing covenant with Judaism. The only covenant is the one through Jesus Christ in Christianity. And so there was an article recently, just this week, in fact, in catholic report by Larry Chap, where he brings up these points and says that basically it's like Vatican II took the church in this direction, and then Bishop Snyder saying, nope, I'm going in this direction. I'm going in the direction I think it should have gone. And in a sense, that is, contradicting the magisterium of the church. Contradicting the magisterium of Vatican II. Contradicting the magisterium of St. John Paul II. So how would you respond, at least I know you're not Bishop Schneider, so you can't speak for him, but how would you respond to that criticism that this is essentially a trad catechism that is rejecting legitimate teachings of Vatican II or the. [01:03:05] Speaker B: I am. I'm no theologian, and I may be mistaken, but I believe that the rejection of the express teaching of catholic bishops, maintained under imprimatur, as Credo is, would be called just. I don't mean to be so. Maybe put it more clearly. If, say, the texts of Vatican II and the CCC and Credo have all been officially approved as free from error in faith or morals, it seems to me that any apparent contradiction must be a mistake of perception. No? [01:03:55] Speaker A: Didn't the dutch catechism get at the. It actually had. [01:04:01] Speaker B: Right. So by what criteria? Eric? That's the next question. Because unless, of course, one is theologically and juridically competent to declare the essential irreconcilability of certain propositions. And of course, I'm not. But I did read. You mentioned the article of Chap. I read that one just not long before this call, just because I was curious. I'm not very familiar with Dr. Chap's work, but I recall seeing an article of his not long ago that I benefited from. So I was interested to see his take as a. I hate to say it, but it's a long exercise in leading the witness. He does no kind of textual work in terms of, here is this proposition, and it's fundamentally irreconcilable with the teaching of the church. He does a lot of intimation, like you have just done, Eric, which is things were going in this way, and now this is not going in that way. Well, please demonstrate. Please demonstrate that you kind of suggest. [01:05:16] Speaker A: It'S anti semitic, too. Yes. [01:05:19] Speaker B: I mean, things like that are juvenile in the extreme. The notion that any catechism, much less credo, is advocating for. I can't remember, he put something in there about that, or I think he was engaging in the old rhetorical flourish of epiphasis. [01:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah, he says to say to. He talks about what Schneider. A few things about Schneider says about Judaism in the text. He says to say such statements are tone deaf to the sensitivity surrounding the history of christian anti Semitism is a gross understatement by several orders of magnitude. I mean, when you say like that. It almost sounds like he's calling. He's making the point that Snyder's an anti semite, basically. [01:06:02] Speaker B: Well, I don't know that he is, and I wouldn't accuse him of such, and I have no quarrel with him. But the main, I think, work to be done, and what needs to be demonstrated again, theologically and juridically, is that chap, or anyone else knows better that they are, in fact, theologically and juridically more competent than the bishop who authored this text, than the bishop who granted the imprimatur, officially endorsing it as free from error of any of his eminence, Cardinal Sarah, or the other bishops that have endorsed it, as, hailed it as this great and much needed resource for our time. So that would be my first question. What chops would you present for that, being a layman and a retired professor, but that for any other author, it really has to be a propositional examination. And so I don't know if we have time for that here or not. But the point on, let's say, Judaism in the text, there is nothing about jews per se, individuals who are themselves practicing Talmudic Jews. He makes an excellent distinction about the status of Judaism in the time of Christ as opposed to in our time. And all that can be found in credo. It's very insightful. And then makes the completely orthodox and normative claim that there is no salvation in the old covenant, as though it were somehow freestanding. That's St. Paul, that's Peter, that's the first century. That's every century since salvation is in Christ alone, or the New Testament is bunko. And why are we even having the conversation? Right. So the idea that a religious system is false is going to be. I think you use the word new or surprising to some. I think that will. I think that will be surprising to some. The notion that, wait. The church has always addressed non catholic religions as false religions, hitherto, and that is a category that's reclaimed, of course, in Crato, and know very simply, it is not a text of apologetics per se, or interreligious dialogue to inform it or any of that nature. It's only concerned with what is the objective status of non catholic religions, and thus are they means of grace. Fill in the blank. That's the kind of doctrinal work being done in a catechism, not the subtle art, let's say, of dialogue or pastoral experimentation. That's just not the place for it in a catechism. [01:08:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that leads me to the point. I kind of feel like when I read Credo is that it feels to me like it's a modern catechism written in the style of an old catechism. And by style, I mean a little bit more than just grammatical style. What I mean by that is, if you look at the old catechisms, a Baltimore catechism, catechism, St. Pius X, something like the roman catechism, it's very propositional. It just states, this is what the church teaches, period. There's no attempt to try to explain it to non Catholics in some way that might make them feel better or make them understand. It's more just like this is to Catholics. Here's what we believe, period. Now, if you want to know more details about that, you might have to go somewhere else, because all I'm stating is the truth of it. And if you look at modern catechisms, including the CCC, there seems to be a lot more like you even said it. They're beautiful, almost poetic sections. But that's not what catechisms, how they were written in the past. Am I saying one's better, one's worse? I'm just stating that as kind of objectively, and Credo seems to be in that old style of, I'm just going to give the facts, state them, without trying to worry about, oh, if a modern jewish person reads this or modern pagan reads this, he might be offended, or something like that. I'm just going to state what the church teaches. But then, of course, it's not just like an old catechism, because it also then addresses brand new topics like gender confusion and things of that nature. Is that a fair assessment? I'm not saying that's all the differences, but that seems to be something that stood out to me in reading credo. [01:10:38] Speaker B: Yes, I think that's absolutely fair. And it would stand out to someone reading really any. Again, vast majority of these texts are by Catholics. For Catholics, they are texts to help confirm the brethren in the faith, to borrow from our Lord's words to Peter, for which reason they are constantly referenced as demonstrations of the ordinary magisterium. So you get in these old theological manuals, for instance, ot or the van Nort, or any of these, where when they talk about the universal, ordinary magisterium, how do we access the world round and time and space, ordinary exercise of the teaching office of the church? We do it through the bishops, he says. And how do we do that? What's an example of accessing that teaching? Every one of them, the first example they give is the catechisms issued by them, because, again, you have a textual artifact that endures after their demise. So, yes, I think that is a fair assessment of credo and any catechism. In fact, just because you brought up the Judaism example, I am made to think of the great Scuttlebutt some years ago, when the USCCB issued their kind of distillation of the CCC and the first kind of wave, the first printing of that text, they had a manifest error, it must be said, with regards to Judaism, and it said directly that the first covenant made by God with the jewish people remains perpetually valid for them, which has tremendous problems with it. Okay, right? So there's this biggest problem being that it's false. That it's false. But then what was even more ironic, right, is that in subsequent editions, the US bishops came back and, you know, they fixed it just to say they corrected that portion, and then there was even more blowback, right? Because what are you anti semitic? I mean, it's just terrible. But this is why you have this immediate. We live in a constant echo chamber of emotivist reasoning, which is to say non reasoning apophosis, leading the witness. As soon as we get beyond that kind of smokescreen and just dig into some propositions, that's when we find ourselves in the wide, rich fields of catechisms that are there. They're available to us. And some of them we're going to benefit from. Somebody down the road is going to benefit more from this one. The idea is, how do we best articulate that one deposit of faith that we ascend. [01:13:43] Speaker A: Right? Because I think the thing with Credo is we're using the example of what he speaks about Judaism. But there's other examples. This one's just kind of the easiest one. And he just, like, for example, it states in the credo, it says that modern Judaism as a whole exists as a rejection of God's calling. And this sounds to modern ears like anti semitic, like you're firing up the gas chambers. But that's, of course, ridiculous. He's just simply making a doctrinal statement that is true, a statement that obviously anything, because God's calling is Catholicism. Today, it was Judaism in the first, maybe 1000 BC or something like that. But now it's Catholicism. So it is a rejection of God's calling. But if you talk to Bishop Schneider about how he interacts, for example, with jewish people, I am sure I know this, that it is one of compassion, desire for the salvation of their souls. It's always with a certain level of love. And he talks in other places about tolerance of people in the sense that you're not going to be like, arresting people because. Or persecuting them or something like that. And so it's an interesting point, though, that I feel like we need to recognize, again, the catechism is stating just simply truths of the faith, which, like you said, is as an imprimatur from another bishop. And so therefore, it's not intended to be a guidebook on every single aspect of how we're supposed to live. It's not like a guidebook of, okay, how are we supposed to interact with other people or something like that. It's simply stating catholic truths. And I think that would go a long way for people to see that. The reason credo comes across to us so jarring to a lot of people today is because most texts today have all the qualifications so they don't get attacked as being anti semitic politically, know, whatever the case may be, racist, whatever. But by doing that, it gives us by bishops and I are refusing to kind of do that. What I think it's doing is it makes it very clear exactly what the church teaches, what is true. And I think that kind of beauty of Credo is you kind of get through a lot of that language that's unnecessary to get to the core of the matter. [01:16:16] Speaker B: I think you're right. And I only think that because that's exactly what the author says in the preface. That is his intention. [01:16:26] Speaker A: I didn't read the preface. I'm glad I'm on board with. [01:16:29] Speaker B: Yes, his intention with the text is just to present again. His target audience is who he calls the little ones. It's really quite precious. I would encourage people that have it to read the preface. It reads almost like a letter to Catholics, and I find it quite beautiful. But that's one of the things he says is my intended audience has been God's little ones, the faithful, that is to say, Catholics longing for just a simple, clear presentation of the faith. And that has informed all of his decisions about the text, clearly. I mean, the format for one Q and a. What's the format? That most of us are accessing information now it's q and a. It's by way of Google Search bar or your Siri or your whatever. Look up the. So you have here, you have the re emergence of the Q A form. It's incredibly concise, credibly direct. It has all those advantages. And he chose that approach especially with this target audience in mind. [01:17:29] Speaker A: Right. Okay, we're going long here. So I'm going to wrap it up. But a couple last things is first of all, I'm going to make sure I have a link to get Krato. Also the Tradeovox subscription. They're both available from Sofia Institute Press. And in fact, this is interesting if you go to, I just found it like about a half hour before we got on here. I went to Sophia Institute's website and I just clicked on the best seller link. Number one is credo. Number two is the Travox subscription. And I just thought that was interesting, that there's clearly a need, a desire for catechism, catechesis. And so obviously I've already recommended this podcast for Get Krato. It's selling like crazy. I know that for a fact. It's really selling well. And if you really want to go deep into catechisms and kind of see things in the context, then I would recommend Tradobox. Like Aaron said, it's a 20 volume series. We're about to get number 14 out. I'm a little bit behind, but we're about to get number 14 out. I think that's a way that you can really have a library there. I think that for the person who really wants to dig into it. But if nothing else, get Krato. Anything else you want to say on catechisms in general or Krato specifically or chatterbox? [01:18:50] Speaker B: Yeah, golly, yes. I would say that the chatterbox series, if it shows anything, it shows a remarkable continuity of doctrine across time and space. And at least on my read, krato is like the next volume in the mean. If we were to extract ourselves several centuries hence, it could be in the same series. It seems to me on my reading it reflects that same kind of continuity of doctrine as well as application of these moral principles that are consistent even when the issues are vastly different. Animal magnetism in the 18 hundreds to gender ideology in the early 21st century. And yet the moral principles are timeless within the church, and they can be regularly logically applied to all these scenarios. And so to me, it is, it's of a piece. It is very much krato to my mind, stands as a kind of just continued, like passing the baton. It's just the next watch fire lit in the night in this sequence through time. So I do. I would also encourage folks to pick one up. [01:20:12] Speaker A: So here first, one day it will be volume 21 in the Travox series special edition. That's right. One thing I just remembered, and our friend Timothy Flanders, who is the inner chief of one peer five. He is actually teaching an online homeschooling course through the Avala Institute. I think I got that right. And they're using Krato. It's a high school catechism course, and they're using credo as their text. So I'm going to find that. I'm going to put a link to that also in the show notes because I believe it's starting up next semester. So spring semester 2024. So if you have high school students that they need their catechism class, something like that, I highly recommend this because this can be Kratos going to be the base text. Tim Flanders, who we all know and love and trust, is going to be teaching it. So that's one last thing I just thought of just now. So, like I said, I'll put in the show notes, and that's another way to really catechize the next generation in a proper way. Okay. Well, thank you, Aaron, very much. I appreciate this. I appreciate you staying with me this long. I kind of get geeked up about certain subjects, and we could have gone even longer. But we'll cut it here next time. Exactly. [01:21:22] Speaker B: Okay, everybody, until next time. God, love.