Creating Catholics: Catechism and Primary Education in Early Modern France

Chapter 2: The Catechetical Method

C H A P T E R T W O The Catechetical Method Theory and Practice i By the end of the seventeenth century, efforts to reform the Catholic Church were well under way in most French dioceses. Bishops were more committed to residing in their dioceses and overseeing both administrative and spiritual affairs. Accordingly, many bishops dedicated themselves to creating smoothly running administrative systems in their dioceses, and through their pastoral visits they made sure that their churches, chapels, and monasteries were in working order. They also preached, instructed, and admonished as they tried to bring about a higher level of spirituality in the souls under their care. The French bishops made a concerted effort to establish educated and dedicated 58 priests in their parishes, and, with the institution of seminaries and regular synods, managed to ensure that curés conformed to fairly rigorous ecclesiastical standards. They also tried to make certain that their curés were willing and able to provide instruction and guidance for the uneducated members of their flock—primarily the children and young adults. Because the diocesan catechism was the most effective tool that bishops had for ensuring this instruction took place, the reforming clergy maintained a strong commitment to their catechetical science of salvation and continued to publish and endorse catechisms for their dioceses throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bishops did not limit themselves to publishing and distributing these catechisms to curés and the laity, however; they also prescribed a specific pedagogical method for teaching the catechism. Bishops believed that the curés, schoolteachers, and parents who taught catechism needed a sound and exact method for their instruction that was appropriate to the needs of their pupils. Even instruction in perfectly orthodox doctrines, if presented in a confusing manner, could lead to misunderstandings or heresy—a bishop’s greatest fear. Consequently, bishops were extremely careful to provide curés and other catechists with a particular method for instruction, which was just as significant as the catechisms themselves. The bishops’ catechetical method essentially had three components . First, bishops and educational theorists believed that education for both boys and girls had to begin when they were young, with minds and spirits free from corrupting influences. At the same time, because of the tender age of the students, the material to be learned had to be broken down into small parts that could easily be engraved onto children ’s impressionable minds. The second part of the bishops’ method was their insistence that children learn through memorization, which required no critical thinking and inspired little independent thought. Although the recitation of page after page of questions and answers might seem tedious and even useless to those of us in the twenty-first century who have been taught that education should develop powers of reason and imagination rather than rote memory, early modern bishops believed the training and exercise of the memory was the fundamental principle of all education. Once the laity had this solid, orthodox foundation, they would be able to build upon it throughout their The Catechetical Method 59 lives as they listened to sermons, participated in the sacraments, and read pious books on their own. The third part of the bishops’ catechetical method involved the regulation of children’s behavior. Catechism classes were meant to teach much more than just the actual questions and answers of the catechism itself. Learning proper religious and moral behavior while receiving instruction was just as important as memorizing the doctrines. Children learned how to sit still in church, listen to religious authorities, and bow their heads during prayer, among other things. Over and over again, bishops told their curés in pastoral letters and elsewhere to reward children who behaved with modesty and restraint, even if they had failed to memorize their catechism lesson for the day. Similarly, students who may have learned the text of their lesson perfectly but who were caught carousing with their classmates were to be admonished and made to kneel at the front of the class in penance. Thus, just as the content and organization of catechisms emphasized behavior over doctrine , the method of instruction advocated by bishops also highlighted the catechist’s priority as teaching proper behavior, often at the expense of children reaching a true understanding of the doctrines of the catechism. If placed in the context of early modern educational theory...