The Catholic Church Failed by the Tenth Century

While I was involved in a conversation on the internet, I finally realized that Designed to Fail is incomplete because it doesn't explicitly lay out the problem. Remember, the pastor's primary mission (bishop or priest) is to form parents/adults in the Faith. That's what the Magisterium says. Adults, not children. 

Arguably, the existence of Catholic schools for children merely demonstrates that the Church began to fail in its mission of forming adults roughly one thousand years ago, The Church did not begin to establish schools for children until the ninth or tenth centuries. Prior to that, parents taught their own children the Faith. The fact that schools for children became necessary meant the Church was no longer properly teaching adults/parents. 

Now, you might argue that in the Middle Ages, there were many more orphans who may have lost parents and godparents. These orphans had no one in the world to care for them except the monastics. And, just as a child's natural parents are lay people, so most monastics are lay people. Most monastics are not under Holy Orders. A man can be a monk or brother without being a priest, and most were not ordained priests. So, we still had well-formed lay people teaching children the faith, so where's the harm? 

The harm lies in the fact that monastics began to supplant even surviving parents. Since lay monastic religious instruction was seen as superior to lay parental instruction, everyone - parents, monks, nuns, priests, bishops, popes - everyone lost sight of the proper ordering of society. When the Church began to take over the role of children's catechetical instruction, parental formation was neglected as superfluous. By allowing parish schools and monasteries to be viewed as necessary to children's instruction, the Church tacitly admitted it had failed to properly catechize the parents.

The parish came into existence at roughly the same time parish schools did. By creating the monastic school, the cathedral school, the parish school, the pastors proclaimed that none of the parents or other responsible non-monastic lay adults in the parish were properly catechized. The Church had failed in her primary mission of catechizing and making holy adults. It had lost control of adult culture, which meant it had lost control of its mission to make every culture holy.

So, the problem isn't Vatican II or Vatican I or the Council of Trent. It goes back to at least the time of the First Lateran Council (1123) and possibly the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869). It goes back to the first parish and monastic schools. For a thousand years, the Church has taught that parents are the primary educators in the Faith of their own children, while it has functionally denied parents that role and failed to form them for that role. 

For the first thousand years, the Church fought a new heresy every century. It fought by calling councils, puzzling out doctrine, laying down new norms and more nuanced teaching. It fought back by catechizing and teaching adults. Adults contested with and taught each other the Faith. There were always new groups of adult pagans to catechize. But, once every adult was baptized and there were no more adult catechumens... that was the end of adult catechesis.

And, with the rise of monastic, cathedral and parish schools for children, the Church thereby admitted it no longer had the skills to instill the Faith in the average lay adult. More and more, it switched to teaching primarily children. The first crusade to free Jerusalem took place in 1095, the first crusade against the Albigensians in 1209, but by 1212 we already see the Children's Crusade, in which children are expected to do the work of the adults in converting the Muslim invaders to the Catholic Faith. 

Today, you will often hear Catholic school teachers, priests, even bishops proclaim that they teach Catholic children who then go home and proclaim the Gospel to their parents. Think on that. The children do the work of the priests and bishops (catechizing adults), the priests and bishop do the work of the parents (catechizing children), and the parents become children, with no responsibilities to anyone. This is a complete perversion of society, and this was clearly in place and going like gangbusters by 1212 AD. 

Another example of the failure to properly catechize adults can be found in the high number of decrees of nullity regarding marriage. And to understand what level of importance the Church assigns to marriage preparation, consider this: while canon law requires a novice to be 21 to declare religious vows, and 26 to be ordained, it also stipulates a person need only be 16 (if male) or 14 (if female) to be married. Up until 1981, the ages were 12 for women, 14 for men). In canon law, for the purposes of sacramental reception, one is considered an adult at age seven (the age of reason, CIC 11). 

So, the Church assumes that adults between the ages of seven and twelve (fourteen for males) can be prepared for sacramental reception of the life-long vows of marriage. If you want to enter a convent or religious orders, that is, if you want to work directly for the Church, then you must get more formation and you have to be older, but for marriage, yeah, twelve or fourteen is good enough. 

Pope Francis has called for a one-year preparation for reception of marriage. Meanwhile, canon law requires someone to prepare for at least three years prior to taking religious vows (CIC 658), to be a deacon requires five years of preparation (CIC 1032) and ordination cannot happen prior to age 23 (CIC 1031 ff), if he is married, he has to wait until he is 35 (CIC 1031.2), while a priest must be at least 25  and have at least six months to a year of preparation beyond that of the diaconate (CIC 1031.1). 

Those rules are enshrined in canon law. That pretty much sums up where preparation for the Sacrament of the Order of Marriage rates in comparison to Holy Orders or even the mere discipline of monastic vows. Suffice it to say that adult formation has not been at the forefront of Catholic praxis for at least a millennium. 

For these reasons, and for others I lay out in my book on Catholic schools, Designed to Fail, I can only say Catholic schools for children delenda est.