Kubitza How the Catholic Church Seduces the Youth

A Criticism of Youcat, the Catechism for Youth. Rational Answers to Catholic Questions
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-3-8288-7394-0
Verlag: Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Deutsch, 246 Seiten

A critical contrast to Youcat. Without a foreword by the pope.
In 2011, the German edition of the Catholic catechism for young people, Youcat, was published in question and answer form. Printed as an easily manageable volume with bright pictures and a foreword by Benedict XVI, Youcat has probably been the biggest publishing campaign of the Catholic Church in years. By now, the book has been translated into 72 languages, and more than 5 million copies have been sold.
The comprehensive attempt to obtain a firm foothold in the thinking and personality of children and adolescents, to attract them to a dubious set of dogmas with absurd teachings made Heinz-Werner Kubitza write his book. Its title alone may seem provocative. Must we really speak of seduction?
To each of the 165 questions of Youcat the author gives a reasonably rational answer, not in a humorless way, but in a quite ironic manner. From question to question he shows that many statements in Youcat are nothing but dubious, and that the Church that provides them shows many characteristics of a religious ideology unacceptable in a pluralistic and open society. Linked with the powerful propaganda machinery set in motion by the Catholic Church to spread its catechism for youth, this justifies the speaking not of promotion but of mental or spiritual seduction printed in large numbers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kubitza, Heinz-Werner

Leseproben

Foreword “How the Catholic Church Seduces the Youth” – reading that title, many will possibly think first of all of the cases of abuse that have convulsed the Catholic Church in recent years. But whoever thinks this book deals with that dark chapter of the Catholic Church, whoever is expecting salacious details, has got it wrong. In this book we are dealing with a mental or spiritual seduction printed in large numbers, for which responsibility is claimed not by individual priests but the Catholic Church as a whole institution. In March 2011 there appeared in the German book market the German edition of the Catholic catechism for young people, Youcat. Printed as an easy-to-manage volume with bright pictures and a foreword by Benedict XVI, that book enjoyed an unusually big success. After three months more than 100,000 copies had been sold. The Catholic Church has big ambitions with this catechism for youth. It has been translated into 72 languages, and more than 5 million copies have already been sold. 750,000 (!) free copies are said to have been handed out at the World Day of Youth in Madrid alone. Next to the two books on Jesus by Pope Ratzinger, that catechism for the young, Youcat, is probably the biggest publishing campaign of the Catholic Church in years. The comprehensive attempt to obtain a firm foothold in the thinking and personality of children and adolescents, to attract them to a dubious set of dogmas with absurd teachings and dogmas, gave rise to this book. Instead of stimulating and appealing to belief in an allegedly modern fashion, the book will stimulate and appeal to reason in an allegedly old-fashioned way. The title may seem provocative. Must we really speak of seduction? Does not the Church also have a right to present itself in the market of possibilities and to find followers? But that the expression is justified is just what this book sets out to prove. It again asks the 165 questions of Youcat that deal with the basis of the Catholic faith and gives for every question its own critical answer. It will be shown from question to question that many statements in Youcat are, first of all, simply flippant, and secondly that the Church that makes them shows many characteristics of an ideology, in this case a religious ideology unacceptable in a pluralistic and open society. Both characteristics, flippancy and the stain of ideology, linked with the powerful propaganda machinery set in motion by the Catholic Church to spread its catechism for youth, justify us in speaking not of promotion but of seduction. In anticipation of the critical answers to the Catholic questions, that is the first justification. The Catholic Church is flippant with the catechism it has published for the following reasons: • Youcat consistently conceals from its readers results of research on the historical Jesus. It gives no indication that the picture of Jesus in the Church is vastly different from a scholarly view of Jesus, and that the Church presents an artificial and scientifically indefensible picture of Jesus. Such a procedure is flippant. • Youcat conceals that the majority of New Testament scholars active today is of the opinion that the stories of the birth are later legends, the reports of miracles are mostly unhistorical, or that happenings from the environment have been assigned to Jesus, that the historical Jesus of Nazareth presumably did not see himself as a Messiah, and that he proclaimed God, yes, but not himself. • Youcat conceals from its readers that New Testament research assumes that the teachings on Jesus (christology) were more and more escalated after his death. The human was slowly changed into a God. • Youcat conceals from its readers the knowledge of modern historical scholarship on the early history of the Church. Remarks on that topic are introduced only when they can support the dogmatic system of the Church. But critical facts are not mentioned. • Youcat conceals from its readers that scholarly research has long since proved that many parts of the gospels do not contain historical material, but are inventions of the Christian community. That is expressly true also for many statements of Jesus, especially in John’s gospel, which is regarded by researchers as almost completely an invention of the evangelist and his community. • Youcat argues in an unhistorical manner with quotations from Jesus even though those are, with a probability bordering on certainty, later inventions. Adolescents have to get the impression that the Bible is homogeneous and trustworthy. But researchers have been able to show beyond doubt that that view is indeed pious but clearly false. • Youcat suggests to its readers that the origins of the office of priest, the office of bishop, and of the Catholic hierarchy are derived from Jesus himself. However, serious scholarship places those origins in a much later time. Those facts too Youcat does not at all mention. • Youcat mostly promotes or demands a literal interpretation of the Bible, even when it deals with obviously literary texts, for example in the story of creation or of the deluge. From literary texts it draws historical conclusions. • The Catholic Church is in many places in Youcat, as in its other catechisms, guilty of false labeling, e.g., when it is suggested that in central concepts of his proclamation (the kingdom of God, the Spirit of God, hell, gentiles, end-time visions, the Son of Man) Jesus already thought in the dogmas that was fixed much later in councils. The Spirit of God Jesus understood in a totally different way from the later dogma of the Church. The adolescents learn nothing about that. Youcat is interested less in an historical picture of Jesus than in the dogmatic decisions on him made by the Church. • The Catholic Church also attempts in Youcat to create the impression that later dogmatic developments, such as the teaching on the Trinity and the two natures, are implicitly contained in the New Testament texts. New Testament research sees that differently. • Youcat makes out that it is modern, but in its contents it makes no concessions to a modern understanding of Catholicism. It clings to the old dogmatic positions of the Catholic Church. A discussion of that with adolescents is presented pro forma, but is actually not desired. • Youcat is promoted with the claim that adolescents participated in its composition. But in fact is seems that their influence was limited to the choice of photos. And presumably those adolescents were almost totally youngsters who already believed and even because of their age could scarcely have been able to formulate positions contrary to the usual dogmatic teachings of Catholicism. • Hence the adolescents were only means to an end; the conversations with them were in the last analysis feigned dialogs with the aim of selling and advertising the Youth Catechism better. Actually questions that are of particular impact for adolescents (sexuality, other religions, hell, infallibility, equal rights for women) are all answered in line with the official magisterium, and nowhere do they leave the well-worn path of Catholic dogma. A dialog looks different. All of that is flippant. Ostensibly Youcat favors openness towards science, but mentions it nowhere where it contradicts the dogmatic positions of the Church. But a merely verbal acceptance of science is unscientific. That flippancy is comprehensible from the Catholic Church’s being tainted with ideology. Catholicism is a major representative of religious ideology. That can be recognized in the following points: • The Catholic Church makes for itself a special claim to truth. It cannot err in questions of faith, and so cannot be criticized either. Such a view is ideological. • It invokes holy writings that are supposed to prove that truth, but were made holy writings by the Church itself. • A magisterial politburo watches over the correct interpretation of those holy writings and bans interpretations that differ. • Like a radical political party, it claims to have understood the law of history, enthuses over a proto-community, and expects a kingdom of peace that will come about when all enemies have been disposed of by divine judgment. • The Catholic Church detests democratic structures in its own organization and is hierarchically built up. The upper echelons are co-opted, not elected. That hierarchy is derived and justified in a religious way. • The leaders of that hierarchy enjoy quasi-religious reverence. As with a May Day procession, the leaders are the center of a ritualism aiming at pomp and circumstance. • The religious foot soldiers on the other hand have almost no possibility of influencing the hierarchy. They are to be led by the Church. • Like other ideologies the Catholic Church too has big problems with elementary basic rights, such as freedom of opinion, freedom of religion, or the equality of women. And the disenfranchisement of women is justified on religious grounds. • The Catholic Church adheres to a...

Über Autor(innen)

Dr. theol. Heinz-Werner Kubitza war Gründer und 25 Jahre Inhaber des Tectum Wissenschaftsverlags. Der promovierte Theologe ist aus der Kirche ausgetreten und heute mit seinen Büchern ein profilierter und kundiger Kritiker des Christentums.