Here is my Amazon review of the new United States Catholic Catechism for Adults:
As other reviewers have noted, the bishops have produced a solid, reliable teaching tool with this new U.S. Adult Catechism. Were it to become the standard text in RCIA and parish-based faith formation programs, we might see a needed and much-desired renewal in catechesis.
There are a handful of drawbacks, however. The bishops chose to include profiles of both Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and labor leader Cesar Chavez. Cardinal Bernardin is a polarizing figure, given his role in promoting the now-discredited "seamless garment" approach to abortion and his questionable leadership in the Archdioceses of Cincinnati and Chicago. (Virtually all of Cincinnati's sexually-abusive priests were "Bernardin men.") And Chavez's "liberal" approach to labor relations is by no means a position Catholics are compelled to adopt.
The book has been embraced by the catechetical establishment in this country; that is not necessarily a good thing, since they are largely responsible for our current weak state of catechesis. The sections which encourage reflection and discussion could easily become excuses to conduct the sort of dorm-room bull sessions that have characterized all too many parish-based programs. That may not be the fault of the text, but it is nonetheless the context in which it finds itself. And at a hefty 664 pages, it's hardly much shorter than the supposedly too-long-to-read Catechism of the Catholic Church.
It's also unclear how this book ought to be squared with the new Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The USCCB claims that book is for younger readers, yet the Holy Father states that the Compendium is "for every Christian believer, regardless of age or nationality."
That said, the new U.S. Adult Catechism signals a welcome return of the bishops to sound catechesis. They — and we — have come a long way since the days of endless "pastoral letters" of dubious doctrinal value.
