What the Catechism Is
Where the Catechism of the Catholic Church came from, what authority it has, how its four parts are arranged, and its shorter companions.
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If you want to know what the Catholic Church teaches on almost anything, from the Trinity to the Sunday obligation, there is one book that sets it out in order: the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is long, but it was written to be read, not only consulted. This article explains where it came from, what kind of authority it has, and how it is built, so that you can open it with confidence.
What a catechism is
A catechism is a summary of the faith written for teaching. The word comes from the Greek for "to sound in the ear" or "to instruct by word of mouth", and catechesis is the Church's name for passing on the faith so that people may come to know Christ and live by him (CCC 4–5). Catechisms have been written for centuries, often in question-and-answer form, for children, converts and teachers. Some are local, written for one country or one age group. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is different: it is written for the whole Church.
How it came to be written
In 1985, twenty years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, an extraordinary Synod of Bishops met in Rome to look back on the Council. The bishops asked for a single reference text, a catechism or compendium of all Catholic doctrine on faith and morals (CCC 10). St John Paul II took up the request and set up a commission of cardinals and bishops to prepare it, chaired by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. Bishops around the world were consulted on the drafts.
On 11 October 1992, the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Council, St John Paul II promulgated it with the apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum, "the deposit of faith". The definitive Latin text, the typical edition against which every translation is checked, followed in 1997, and the translations were revised to match it.
What authority it has
In Fidei Depositum, St John Paul II called the Catechism "a sure norm for teaching the faith". That is its authority: it is a reliable, official statement of what the Church believes, approved by the pope for the whole Church.
It helps to be clear about what that does and does not mean. The Catechism does not create new doctrine. It gathers what the Church already teaches, drawing on Scripture, the early Church Fathers, the liturgy and the teaching of popes and councils (CCC 11). Each teaching it contains keeps the weight it already had: a solemnly defined dogma remains a dogma, and a prudential judgment remains a prudential judgment.
Nor does it stand above Scripture. The Church's teaching office is not above the word of God but serves it (CCC 86), and the Catechism is a tool of that service. Its pages are full of Scripture references, and it constantly sends the reader back to the Bible itself (CCC 19).
The four parts
The Catechism is built on four pillars (CCC 13–17):
- The profession of faith: the Creed, what we believe.
- The celebration of the Christian mystery: the liturgy and the seven sacraments, how we worship.
- Life in Christ: the moral life, the Beatitudes and the Ten Commandments, how we live.
- Christian prayer: prayer in general, and the Our Father in particular, how we pray.
This plan is not new. It follows the shape of the Roman Catechism of 1566, issued under St Pius V after the Council of Trent, which was also arranged around the Creed, the sacraments, the commandments and the Lord's Prayer. Behind both stands the oldest pattern of Christian teaching: what the Church gave to those preparing for Baptism was the Creed to believe, the sacraments to receive, a way of life to follow and a prayer to pray.
Shorter companions
The full Catechism runs to 2,865 paragraphs. Two shorter books help.
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church was approved by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. It condenses the whole Catechism into a little under six hundred questions and answers, follows the same four parts, and gives references back to the full text.
YOUCAT, a youth catechism published in 2011 with a foreword by Pope Benedict XVI, presents the same teaching in a lively question-and-answer form for young people, again with references to the Catechism.
Both are faithful guides, but when there is a question of exact wording, the full Catechism is the reference.
A living text: the revision of paragraph 2267
The Catechism can be revised. Its paragraph on the death penalty, CCC 2267, is the clearest example. It was already rewritten for the 1997 Latin edition, to reflect St John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1995). In 2018 Pope Francis approved a new text, which says that the death penalty is "inadmissible" because it attacks the inviolability and dignity of the human person, and commits the Church to work for its abolition worldwide.
Revisions like this are rare, and they are made by the pope's authority, not by editors. They show that the Catechism is a living instrument of the Church's teaching, which grows in understanding over time (CCC 94).
Going deeper
- How to read the Catechism, a practical guide to using it.
- What a creed is, the start of the Catechism's first part.
- Scripture and Tradition, on the sources the Catechism draws on.
- Read next: the Prologue, CCC 1–25, which explains the Catechism's purpose and plan in its own words.