What forms do catechesis and religious education take in the Eastern Catholic Churches in the United States?
Eastern Catholics in the United States do catechesis and religious education most properly on their own terms, i.e., according to their unique Traditions, yet also ways similar to the American approach that the US Roman Catholic Church also employs. If you look at the ways in which the Faith is traditionally passed on in the East, you find that the things that are emphasized in Eastern Catholic catechesis and religious education are different from the West. Western Catholicism has had a long-standing emphasis on the rational and systematic ordering of Church beliefs. Since the Middle Ages the approach to theology has been described as faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum). Using certain categories such as The Trinity, Grace, The Sacraments, et al., has helped define these areas of belief rather strictly. The Eastern Churches, however, have not usually been so similarly systematic. For us, all the truths of our Catholic heritage have been embodied and celebrated in a
