The parish my family was a member of from when I was in fifth grade up to when I graduated from high school was pretty run of the mill. Our first pastor, Father Remes, was pretty cool.
Religious education was not very challenging, however. In fifth and sixth grades, we had good teachers and the subject matter still revolved around the sacraments and other related topics. In sixth grade, we prayed the rosary every class first thing.
High school and especially confirmation were less about catechesis and more about social justice and the like. We had a lot of stuff talking about Jesus and so on, but we had very little actual religious education. The most interesting part was our time with Mr. Stevens, but he was just interesting because he actually talked to us about current issues in the Church and elicited our thoughts and comments. Otherwise, it was all rather bland. After I was confirmed, I lost interest.
What should religious education contain? I think one of the principal topics of any kind of Catholic religious education should be the history of the Church. We never heard about it in CCD. Everything I learned about the Church, the Papacy, the Great Schism, the Reformation I learned on my own. These are seminal events in the history of Western Civilization and our faith and they too often are not even mentioned.
Part of the problem from my perspective on why a lot of young people are apathetic. They are not engaged perhaps? They view it all as busy work?
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