An Advanced Catechism of Catholic Faith and Practice

THE chief purpose of compiling this Advanced Catechism is to supply a need felt in the higher grades of our Catholic schools. The study of the Third Plenary Council Catechism is usually completed in the fifth or sixth school year. It is thought that a supplementary text for use in the remaining grades will prove more serviceable to teachers and pupils, if it follows the order of the authorized Catechism, utilizes the text with which the pupils are already familiar, and carries them forward by a reasonably limited development of the doctrines and practices of the Church. Moreover, the explanations and illustrations of the authorized text will make the Advanced Catechism useful to teachers who use the Baltimore Catechism, and suggestive to priests who are directing their converts in the study of the same. The questions and answers of the Baltimore Catechism are numbered and form the basis of the present work, in which the additional questions and answers are intended to be either explanatory or supplementary, within the limits of school study. Illustrations are drawn from Holy Scripture, Church History. and the Lives of the Saints; and applications are made to the more important and approved practices of Catholic piety. Scriptural texts and references are given; the feast days of many saints are indicated; the devotions of the Church are recalled when the doctrines on which they rest are the subject-matter of the text; and in the Appendix will be found a collection of approved prayers and a brief statement of subjects intimately related to the text of the catechism and referred to therein. In a word, the aim of the Advanced Catechism is to show that the feasts, devotions, and practices of the Church, together with the duties of the Christian life, are the logical outgrowth of the revealed truths of Faith and Morals. In this way, it is hoped, the advanced pupils will be able to see clearly the intimate relations between Catholic Faith and Practice, and will grow in admiration and love of the living and practical truths taught and enforced by the Church. In compiling this Advanced Catechism, as an aid in the all-important work of Religious Instruction in our schools, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, Spirago-Clarke's " The Catechism Explained", Howe's "The Catechist" and Kinkead's "Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism" are chief among the catechetical works that afforded many useful suggestions. Reference to their Indexes will direct the teachers, who use this book, to that fuller doctrinal treatment and practical illustration, which exceed the limits of this little work.