Catechetical Content

The schema below is not exhaustive but gives a birds-eye view of the Course. It seeks to cover most of the themes and topics as presented in the Catechism, but in a different way that draws out the underlying philosophical and theological themes which are the essential fundamental principles of our Catholic Faith. This serves two important purposes: to offer the student an experience of the method of theology and philosophy, from a Catholic perspective; and also to emphasise the essential tenets of our Catholic and Apostolic Faith. Where appropriate, the Course refers to the life of the Church in England and Wales. Particular emphasis is therefore given to the major documents presented by the Conference of Bishops of England and Wales, such as Cherishing Life, The Gift of Scripture, etc.

TERM ONE

TOPIC

CONTENT

Fidei Depositum

 

Methodology

A) What is methodology?
B) Practical Aspects to a Methodology?
C) Carrying out research.
D) Quotes and Footnotes.

Creation

A) How to approach Genesis 1-2?
B) How was the Earth formed?
C) How was Man created?
D) The ‘date’ of the texts.
E) Evolution?

Heaven/Hell: Angels/Demons

A) In the Beginning.
B) The Creed: He created Heaven and Earth.
C) The Angels.

Image and Likeness of God:
Paradise lost

A) Genesis 3.
B) The Tree of the ‘Knowledge of Good and Evil’.
C) Paradise Lost.
D) Original Sin.
E) The Tree of Life.
F) God’s Curse - death?
G) The Protoevangelium.

Nature: Faith and other Religions

A) Man’s capacity for God. Man as a religious being.
B) Ways of coming to certain knowledge of God.
C) Faith.
D) Faith and Understanding.
E) Other Faiths and Religions.

Revelation

A) Vatican Council II: leading up to Dei verbum.
B) Background Premises to understanding Revelation.
C) Dei verbum’s Content.
D) Aim of Revelation: to reveal the face of Jesus the Christ.
E) The Kingdom of God.
F) The Messiah.
G) The Trinity: God’s ultimate self-Revelation.

Mary

A) Mary as presented the Catechism (the Creed of the Church):
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And was born of the Virgin Mary.
B) Mother of the Church.
C) All generations will call me blessed.

Truth

A) Concepts of ‘Truth’.
B) The ‘Deposit of Faith’ entrusted to the Apostles.
C) Our Bishops, as genuine successors of the Apostles.
D) The Petrine office.
E) Peter and the College of Apostles - the Pope and the College of Bishops.
F) The exercise of Infallibility (Lumen gentium 25): always at the service of Truth and ecclesial unity and charity.
G) The Sensus Fidelium.

Christology

Part I:God made Man.
A)Why did the Word become flesh? To save; to reconcile, to make us Sons of God.
B)The Incarnation: assumes our human nature.
C)A man like us in all things, but sin.

Part II: The six ‘Christological Councils’.
A)Philosophical Background.
B)The 6 councils in detail.

Part III: Résumé of how the Son of God is fully Man.
A) ‘because his human nature was assumed, not absorbed’.
B) Christ’s soul and His human knowledge.
C) Christ’s human will.
D) Christ’s true Body.
E) The Heart of the Incarnate Word.

Morality

A) Christ gives meaning to our human existence.
B) Man’s freedom is not eclipsed/ limited/ destroyed by Christ.
C) Human Freedom in the Economy of Salvation.
D) The Morality of Human Acts.
E) Good and evil acts.
F) Moral conscience.
G) Choosing in accordance with conscience: right judgement.
H) Erroneous judgement.

TERM TWO

TOPIC

CONTENT

The Decalogue and Virtues

Part I: You shall love the Lord your God.
1. I am the Lord your God you shall not have other gods:
A) The 3 Theological virtues.
B) The Virtue of Religion.
C) Absolute respect for Him.

2. The Name of God is Holy.

3. Honouring the Sabbath Day.

Part II: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
4. Honour your Father and Mother.

5. You shall not kill.

6. You shall not commit adultery:
A) Male and Female He created them.
B) Vocation to chastity.
7. You shall not steal: Justice; the Common Good; the social teaching of the Church.

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

9. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife: against carnal concupiscence.

10. You shall not covet your neighbours goods.

Part III: The Virtues.

The Dignity of the Human Person

A) Created in the Image & Likeness of God.
B) Created as Sexual Beings.
C) The Sacrament of Marriage.

Call to Growth

A) The glory of God is man alive!.
B) What is prayer?
C) Jesus prayed: the Our Father.
D) Mary’s prayer: model of the Church.
E) Types of prayer.
F) The Eucharist contains and expresses all forms of prayer.

Call to Holiness

A) ‘Grace builds on nature’: the merciful work of the Holy Spirit in conversion, justifying and sanctifying.
B) What is Grace?
C) Merit.
D) Christian Holiness.

TERM THREE

TOPIC

CONTENT

The Church

A) the Nicean Creed: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.
B) The Church in God’s Plan: ‘born in the Father’s heart’.
C) The Church’s foundation and mission.
D) Instituted by Christ, revealed by the Holy Spirit, perfected in glory.
E) The Mystery of the Church.
F) The Church as ‘Mystical Body of Christ’.
G) The Church as ‘Temple of the Holy Spirit’.
H) The Church is hierarchical.

The Sacraments

A) Salvific actions of Christ.
B) 7 Sacraments.
C) Form & Matter.
D) The Eucharist as the Sacrament of sacraments.

The Eucharist

A) Only understood in terms of Christ’s salvific acts: His life, death and resurrection.
B) His abiding Presence as Sacrament.
C) It constitutes the Church as the ‘People of God’.
D) Its sign and significance; transubstantiation.
E) The consequences of this lived and living reality.
F) Its effects in the individual believer.
G) Do this, in memory of Me.

 

 

TERM ONE

TOPIC

 

Fidei Depositum

 

Methodology

 

Creation

 

Heaven, Hell, Angels and Demons

 

Image and Likeness of God:
Paradise lost

 

Nature, Faith and other Religions

 

Revelation

 

Mary

 

Truth

 

Christology

 

Morality

 

TERM TWO

TOPIC

 

The Decalogue and Virtues

 

The Dignity of the Human Person

 

Call to Growth

 

Call to Holiness

 

TERM THREE

TOPIC

 

The Church

 

The Sacraments

 

The Eucharist

 

 



Short courses (such as Introduction to Scriptures, Introduction to Theology, A Church History Taster and A Canon Law Taster, etc.) given by our resident or peripatetic staff, aim to build a wider understanding or a fuller appreciation of the Church’s teaching. These are organized during the Year, according to staff availability and as the term diary allows.

Regular lessons are time-tabled. Individual tutorials or group-work are arranged in consultation with the students and reflecting the particular needs of the given Year group. Although the emphasis in this Year is not an ‘academic’ one, nevertheless it is essential that students are given opportunities to build up their confidence (especially when they have not had formal higher education) and skills in this area, and as a thorough preparation for the next phase of their formation. Through short or occasionally more lengthy essays and other assignments, the students are encouraged to develop academically in their reading, research, written, analytical, skills. Personal or group tuition, as requested by the students, endeavour to help resolve whatever difficulties are encountered in this area.

Ultimately, this Course aims to bring the person to a deeper appreciation of what a vocational encounter with Christ really means, in the Truth that He is, and in the context of the Church in which the person feels called to serve. For this reason, the Course although clearly never a substitute for personal spiritual and human formation, it encourages and gives ‘content’ to the process: It strives to encourage openness to God, as manifested in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Such openness will hopefully inform the person as to what Christ teaches, and so, conform the person more to the mind of Christ, in Spirit and in Truth.