Catechism will help Ukrainian Catholics recover identity, bishop says

Published: 2005-07-19

PERTH, Australia (CNS) -- The writers of the first comprehensive catechism for Ukrainian-rite Catholics hope it helps diminish the effects of the "Latinization" of the Byzantine church, said the bishop in charge of the project. Australian Bishop Peter Stasiuk of the Ukrainian Catholic Diocese of Sts. Peter and Paul of Melbourne said Ukrainian Catholics worldwide "have become instilled" with teachings of the Latin rite. "We attend Roman Catholic schools, we read their religious literature and we have become more or less immersed in Roman Catholic theology and tradition. No wonder our church is deeply Latinized -- to the extent that we have become so comfortable that we do not even see a need to change or to rediscover our own roots and traditions," said the bishop, who also chairs the Synodal Catechetical Commission of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. At a July 9 dinner in Perth to raise funds for Ukrainian Catholic publishing efforts, Bishop Stasiuk outlined the basic structure of the draft catechism and said it was developed at the recommendation of Pope John Paul II so Ukrainian Catholics could move closer to their original identity.

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