Thank Catholic Innovation for – Sunday School

Posted: 10/05/2021 | Innovation

The Protestant Reformation had just rocked the foundation of Europe. The largest diocese in Italy had lacked a resident bishop for 80 years. People were selling indulgences and ecclesial positions. Many religious did not even know how to properly administer sacraments. This is the mess that St. Charles Borromeo walked into when Pope Pius IV appointed him as Archbishop of Milan in the late 16th century. 

Italy was in need of a big shakeup! 

As St. Charles Borromeo was tasked with restoring the Church in Milan, he recognized that the education of children in the faith was paramount to a vibrant, thriving church. Because so many lay people had relaxed their observation of the Sabbath and were not committed to teaching the fullness of the faith, St. Charles was not content to allow the pulpit to be a child’s only access to Church teaching. 

In conjunction with a lay movement called the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD), St. Charles helped to establish what we now know as Sunday School. He worked to establish a solid catechetical structure for these Sunday schools as well as pastoral guidelines and juridical status.  

St. Charles understood the importance of consistent education across the diocese and wanted children to be formed in the fullness of truth and faith, so he was committed to forming the teachers and holding the laypeople to a higher standard than had been present in the archdiocese for many decades.  

Over time, the confraternity grew to include more than 740 schools, three thousand catechists, and forty thousand students in Sunday schools. Though the style of catechesis has changed throughout the centuries, the importance of educating children in the faith has remained vital in the life of the Church. The next time you hear word about CCD classes in your parish, you can pull out some knowledge on where it all began and offer a prayer of gratitude for St. Charles Borromeo, the man who started it all. 

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