Preface to “The Church”

”...the person who becomes a disciple of Christ has the right to receive ’the word of faith’ not in mutilated, falsified or diminished form, but whole and entire, in all its rigor and vigor.”

John Paul II

This is volume III in our twelve-volume series and, as we continue in this effort, it is important that we keep before us the question:

”Why are we doing this?”

Much has been said, written and debated about the changes which have taken place in the Catholic Church over the past 40 years - changes which affect the liturgy, the role of the laity, the decline in religious vocations, the quality and content of religious education (even in the seminaries), the role of our religious, and the loss of belief in even basic Catholic doctrines.

American society has always been much influenced by Catholic teaching and the firm adherence of Catholics to their Church’s teachings. Consequently, the effects of the rejection of some Catholic teaching - or the lack of Catholic teaching itself in some areas - may well have contributed to the staggering decline in morality and the breakdown of the family in America. Divorce, abandonment of responsibility, destruction of the family to a major degree and the ever escalating increase in illegitimate births, all move in concert with apostasy and loss of faith both within the Catholic population and outside it.

In his encyclical, Redemptoris Missio, Pope John Paul II reflected his recognition and concern over what has happened in recent years, not to the Church’s teachings, which are unchanging, but to the misrepresentation of those teachings:

”As a result of the changes which have taken place in modern times and the spread of new theological ideas,” he said, “some people wonder: Is missionary work among non-Christians relevant?”

Then the Pope asks these questions:

”Has it not been replaced by inter-religious dialogue? Is not human development an adequate goal of the Church’s mission? Does not respect for conscience and for freedom exclude allefforts at conversion? Is it not possible to attain salvation in any religion?”

He then puts his finger on the core of the problem in today’s society:

”The temptation today is to reduce Christianity to merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being. In our heavily secularized world, ’a gradual secularization of salvation’ has taken place so that people strive for the good of man, but man is truncated, reduced to his merely horizontal dimension.”

We echo the Pope’s question: “Is missionary work among non-Christians relevant?” We answer that, not only is missionary work among non-Christians relevant, but even among our own Catholic family a form of missionary work is both relevant and very needed. However, missionary work requires a thorough and complete knowledge of the official teaching of the Catholic Church.

CCSP believes that, if we are to have clergy and other religious, and teachers and a laity who can - and are willing to - defend and teach their faith, they must, in the words of Cardinal Hickey, know that faith “deeply and accurately.”

That is why we publish our Précis of Official Catholic Teaching and we urge you to join with us in the widest possible use and dissemination of these volumes.

If the purpose of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, i.e., to bring the greatest number of souls to eternal life with the Father, is to be served with maximum effect, then those who have been blessed with the gift of faith, and those who have been privileged with religious vocations, are obliged to do all in their power to preserve and share that faith with others.

CCSP seeks, with its Précis, to aid in that effort.

G. P. Morse