The Father of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is undoubtedly among the great legacies of Pope Benedict xvi. With regards to this, I am grateful to be able to recall many memories, even very personal ones, of him. It is well known that, unlike the Council of Trent, Vatican Council ii did not decide to publish its own catechism of the Council. In a certain sense, the Council documents were themselves considered the great catechism of the Church. Twenty years after the Council, many saw things in a different way. Among the propositiones presented by the 1985 Synod of Bishops was one that insistently called on the Pope to provide for the development of a Catechism of Vatican Council ii. There was talk of a compendium. The word catechism was avoided. It was not well formulated. It was the widely felt disorientation of the post-Council period that ...