During the spring session of Vatican III an elderly American bishop got the idea that a nuclear cataclysm had occurred in Baltimore, Maryland having (somewhat humorously) misinterpreted the discussion of the Baltimore Catechism [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 93].
The Baltimore Catechism ("oral teaching") was a book of questions and answers designed to teach the essence of the Catholic Church to schoolchildren whose origins can be traced to the Council of Trent. In the late 1800s, the bishops of the United States gathered in Baltimore with the intention to publish an English version for use by American schoolchildren.
Bowen continues the explanation: "Catholics use the term Revelation to refer all the teachings communicated by God to humankind. For most Protestants, the only authentic source for these teachings is Scripture (i.e., the Bible), but the Catholic Church adds Tradition (the interpretation of Scripture developed through the ages as guided by the Church's teaching authority). Traditionally, this is one of the major doctrinal differences between the Catholic and the Reformed churches. I believe Scripture and Tradition are the two established sources implied by his mention of a possible third."
The first Baltimore Catechism, published in 1891, contained 100 questions, and later editions pushed the number of questions up to well over one thousand. After Vatican II the old catechism fell out of favor, replaced in 1994 by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Bowen adds he and John grew up with the old version and, "his reference to this cut-and-dried document as a possible equal to the Bible was, of course, heavily ironic. It was first published in the 19th century under the auspices of the Bishop of Baltimore, but I believe it had the support of the whole American hierarchy of that time. Although I didn't go to a Catholic elementary school, I had to attend catechism classes one afternoon a week after school and memorize questions and answers from this book."
Both Myers and Bowen recall some of the simple questions and answers they - and John and every Catholic schoolkid of the last century - committed to memory: "Why did God make me? God made me to Know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him in the next."
