40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A basic guidebook concerning all things Catholic, December 5, 2004
The Catholic Faith Handbook For Youth is a basic guidebook concerning all things Catholic. Intended for young adults, yet accessible to anyone who may be fuzzy on the details of Catholicism, The Catholic Faith Handbook For Youth covers creed, sacraments, morality, and prayer, along with articles concerning information on current events from a Catholic point of view, advice for prayer, profiles of thirty-seven Catholic saints, notes on the history of the Catholic Church, and more. Full-color illustrations pepper this highly readible introduction to a spiritual way of life. Especially recommended reading to share with one's preteen and teenage children in order to teach them more about Catholicism and what it means to live one's life by Catholic religious principles.
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32 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed, July 30, 2007
This review is from: The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth (Paperback)
While I applaud the authors' attempt to produce a comprehensive, single-volume guide to the faith for teens, this book is problematic. Far too often the authors make false distinctions between a supposed "old" Church that existed before Vatican II and a "new and improved" Church that exists now. For instance, they describe worshippers before the council as "not participants as much as watchers, separated by distance, architecture, and language." Nowhere in the documents of Vatican II or in authoritative pronouncements from the Magisterium will you find such a sweeping, negative assessment.
The authors also claim that Vatican II removed Latin from the liturgy, when in reality the Council fathers instructed that "[t]he use of the Latin language is to be preserved ..." (albeit with an allowance that some of the vernacular may be incorporated.) Likewise, Vatican II had nothing to do with communion in the hand, an innovation introduced in the United States and other Western countries years later; the authors list it as an achievement of the Council. A frequent theme of this book on liturgical matters is disruption instead of continuity.
In the chapter on the Bible, the authors operate from the presumption readers believe the Gospels were written soon after Jesus' death and Resurrection. To the extent teens have thought about this question at all, it's more likely that they believe the more pervasive false notion that the Gospels were written hundreds of years later. (See Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code.")
Perhaps one day someone will take the recently-released
United States Catholic Catechism for Adults and adapt it for teens. In the meantime, this book is a flawed substitute. Excellent resources currently available are
Father McBride's Teen Catechism, the multi-volume
Didache series produced by the Midwest Theological Forum, and the
Prove It! series written by Amy Welborn.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must have for teens and adults, August 15, 2006
This review is from: The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth (Paperback)
Working in a religious education office, we review many books. This one definitely stood out as an exception. It's a user friendly set-up and references the Bible and the CCC. There is a lot of information under this cover. This handbook is not just for teens, but also for adults. I've given them as gifts and they are well received from those distanced from their faith and those close to it. St. Mary's Press is an excellent publisher.
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