Episode 1191: Baltimore Catechism - Part 4

A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Prepared and Enjoined by Order of the Third Council of Baltimore, or simply the Baltimore Catechism, was the national Catholic catechism for children in the United States, based on Robert Bellarmine's 1614 Small Catechism. The first such catechism written for Catholics in North America, it was the standard Catholic school text in the country from 1885 to the late 1960s. From its publication, however, there were calls to revise it, and many other catechisms were used during this period.[2] It was officially replaced by the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults in 2004, based on the revised universal Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In response to a personal copyright taken out by Bishop John Lancaster Spalding, various editions include annotations or other modifications. While the approved text had to remain the same in the catechisms, by adding maps, glossaries or definitions publishers could copyright and sell their own version of the catechism. The Baltimore Catechism was widely used in many Catholic schools until many moved away from catechism-based education, though it is still used in some.

In the nineteenth century, repeated efforts had been made in the United States towards an arrangement by which a uniform textbook of Christian doctrine might be used by all Catholics.[4] As early as 1829, the bishops assembled in the First Provincial Council of Baltimore decreed: "A catechism shall be written which is better adapted to the circumstances of this Province; it shall give the Christian Doctrine as explained in Cardinal Bellarmine's Catechism (1597), and when approved by the Holy See, it shall be published for the common use of Catholics" (Decr. xxxiii). The clause recommending Bellarmine's catechism as a model was added at the special request of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Bellarmine's Small Catechism, Italian text with English translation, was published in Boston in 1853.

The wish of the bishops was not carried out and the First and Second Plenary Councils of Baltimore (1852 and 1866) repeated the decree of 1829. In the Third Plenary Council (1884) many bishops were in favor of a "revised" edition of a 1775 catechism by Archbishop Butler from Ireland, but finally the matter was given into the hands of a committee of six bishops. At last, in 1885, was issued A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Prepared and Enjoined by Order of the Third Council of Baltimore. The council had desired a catechism "perfect in every respect" (Acta et Decr., p. 219). Nearly every U.S. bishop gave the new national catechism his official approbation and many schools adopted it, but it also received considerable criticism. In 1895, only ten years after publication, the American archbishops began a process of revision, but this was abandoned due to a lack of consensus. Between 1885 and 1941 over 100 other Catholic catechetical manuals were published in America with official imprimaturs, although none was as widely used as the "Baltimore Catechism".