We live in troubled times. We don't have a good pope.
Pope Francis frankly is doing a very bad job as pope. He has entertained pro-abortion politicians, like Nancy Pelosi, with no correction...etc... the list is long. He has recently changed the teaching on the death penalty in the Catechism. But a catechism is not an official use of Papal Infallibility. Catechisms are summaries of the Faith that also contain theological opinions of their times, and can be inaccurate.
As pointed out in the introduction of the classic catechism of the council of Trent:
Catechism of the Council of Trent- Fifteenth printing, TAN Books, Introduction XXXVI:
“Official documents have occasionally been issued by Popes to explain certain points of Catholic teaching to individuals, or to local Christian communities; whereas the Roman Catechism comprises practically the whole body of Christian doctrine, and is addressed to the whole Church. Its teaching is not infallible; but it holds a place between approved catechisms and what is de fide.”
Catechism can be corrected.
Sometimes the corrections are to clarify in support Sacred Tradition, but in the case of Pope Francis, he is seems to obfuscate the issues. In any case, he has changed the new Catechism to make the death penalty "inadmissible" . This has opened a can of worms.
Is he saying that the Old Testament's use of the death penalty was immoral? I don't think so. But we have yet to have a full clarification of what he exactly means, and its connotations to the history of the issue.
The Catechism is not some kind of Super Dogma. It is to be taken as a whole, as a sure norm, but there may be some room for improvement.
In his book Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Ratzinger ( later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote on the authority of the Catechism :
"This brings us to the question already mentioned before, regarding the authority of the Catechism. In order to find the answer, let us first consider a bit more closely its juridical character. We could express it in this way: analogously to the new Code of Canon Law, the Catechism is de facto a collegial work; canonically, it falls under the special jurisdiction of the Pope, inasmuch as it was authorized for the whole Christian world by the Holy Father in virtue of the supreme teaching authority invested in him. . . .
This does not mean that the catechism is a sort of super-dogma, as its opponents would like to insinuate in order to cast suspicion on its as a danger to the liberty of theology. What significance the Catechism really holds for the common exercise of teaching in the Church may be learned by reading the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum, with which the Pope promulgated it on October 11, 1992--exactly thirty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council: "I acknowledge it [the Catechism] as a valid and legitimate tool in the service of ecclesiastical communion, as a sure norm for instruction in the faith."
So, the Catechism contains teachings of the Church without elevating them to a doctrinal status nor above what they already have. So, other authoritative sources are needed to establish the doctrinal weight of any particular teaching in the Catechism.The individual doctrine which the Catechism presents receive no other weight than that which they already possess. The weight of the Catechism itself lies in the whole. Since it transmits what the Church teaches, whoever rejects it as a whole separates himself beyond question from the faith and teaching of the Church" [pp. 25-27].
This brings us to Fr. Schmitz' new project. I think this podcast can do a lot of good. I don't mean to denigrate in my above comments the new Catechism, but we must put it in its truthful place. While important and extremely useful, it is not infallible nor Holy Scripture.
Fr. Mike Schmitz is famous for his "Bible in a Year" podcast. It was number one podcast in the world last year.
I'm looking forward to is a new podcast called "Catechism in a Year." It will start in January 2023.
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