Archdiocesan priest wrote Baltimore Catechism in 10 days in Jersey City Parish
Many older Catholics remember attending CCD and memorizing questions and answers from their Catechism book in preparation for their first Communion and confirmation. That’s because they are products of the Baltimore Catechism and its teaching method, created in 1884 and used until the late-1960s. Most do not know, however, that the Baltimore Catechism was largely written in Jersey City in the basement of St. Michael’s Church by Msgr. Januarius Vincent de Concilio, an Italian-born priest who was ordained in the Diocese of Newark.
The Baltimore Catechism is no longer in official use, but the study of Catechism is nonetheless relevant. In fact, the podcast “The Catechism in a Year” hosted by Father Mike Schmitz recently hit No. 1 on Apple’s “Religion and Spirituality” chart.
To coincide with this surge in popularity – and acknowledge the Synod on Synodality’s report positing the idea that the faithful desire lifelong religious formation – Jersey Catholic dove into the archdiocese’s archives to research the history of the Catholic Church’s Catechism and interviewed theologians to get a look at what the future holds for it.
The beginning
As people migrated to America, the Provincial Church sought a school within every parish throughout the U.S. and a uniform Catechism to instruct those students, most of whom were immigrants. At the time, many Catechisms were being authored in many different languages and taught throughout the U.S. Early Americans also moved around quite a bit before finding a hometown to settle in, causing them to be taught differing Catechisms.
“Upon arriving in a new diocese, they nearly always had to change Catechisms,” wrote Msgr. David Malloy, S.T.D., author of “The America Hierarchy, the Propaganda Fide, and the Composition of the Baltimore Catechism.” “The studying of different Catholic formulations brought about a lack of unity of expression of the faith among Catholics of different dioceses or parts of the country or even the same town.”
The many Catechisms circulated in different languages and doctrines. In Philadelphia, for example, Catholic neighbors could be taught from two different Catechisms because a priest and a bishop each created their own books.
“In the young United States, but even within the same diocese differing Catechisms were competing with each other for the hearts and minds of the faithful,” Msgr. Malloy wrote.
Uniform Catechism for America
It was in 1827 when Ambrose Marechal, the Archbishop of Baltimore, made the first suggestion for a common catechism to be used in all dioceses of the U.S. At the First Provincial Council of Baltimore in 1829, it was decreed that a uniform Catechism be agreed upon and that its use be enforced throughout the U.S. to not only uniform the teaching and also to protect the faith.
It was suggested that the American bishops either use a translation of “the Catechism of the Council of Trent,” published in 1566, or that of St. Peter Canisius, who in 1622 composed his Catechism in Latin as an easy handbook for people “of a simpler sort.” If the bishops found these unsuitable, the bishops were asked to formulate their own catechism and to submit it to the Holy See for approval.
After creating editions in English and German, the First Plenary Council did not meet again on the issue until 1852, when a new effort was made to try to settle the question of a uniform Catechism. In 1866, the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore met only to agree that it was their “right as teachers to oversee the publication of Catechisms.”
The problem of a lack of a uniformed Catechism was also raised at the First Vatican Council in December 1869.
“As in the United States, those in favor of a single catechism argued that the multiplicity of catechisms and the phenomenon of migration were problems which required one standard text for instruction in the faith,” according to Msgr. Malloy. “Those arguing against such a catechism felt that the uniformity thus envisioned would restrict the ability to adapt at the local level the faith to culture and social differences.”
According to a decree by the Third Plenary Council in 1884, 18 years after the Vatican cited a problem in Americas, a committee was formed that would submit its work only to the archbishops, who would approve the final publication of the book. Approval by the Holy See was not included in the decree.
“The actual composition of the book took place in large measure after the closing of the Council,” Msgr. Malloy wrote. “Bishop John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria, Ill., and Msgr. Januarius de Concilio [of Newark] are the two persons generally credited with the actual composition. The final copy was given its imprimatur by Cardinal John McCloskey [of New York and America’s first cardinal] and was approved by Archbishop James Gibbons as Archbishop of Baltimore and Apostolic Delegate in April of 1885.”
Msgr. de Concilio, then-pastor of St. Michael’s parish and professor of theology at Seton Hall, wrote the catechism in just 10 days, according to Archdiocese of Newark records.
According to Msgr. Malloy, the end result became one of “the most practical and lasting contributions to the life of the Church in the U.S.” made by the Baltimore Councils of the last century.
“This book, in its various editions, can arguably be called the single most inaffluential [influential] contribution to the instruction of the faithful in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States,” Msgr. Malloy wrote.
The Baltimore Catechism, the beginning of a standardized Catechism in America, was finally released on April 6, 1885. It had taken the U.S. bishops 58 years to create a book “that would be pleasing to all.”
For a century, the Baltimore Catechism served as young Americans’ official introduction to the Catholic faith’s doctrines and mysteries.
Most of the faithful who remember being able to reel off the basics on Mass obligation, confession, Communion, the commandments, saints, sin and grace, and much more at a young age studied “The New Saint Joseph Edition (It was dedicated to St. Joseph) of Baltimore Catechism” published in 1964. The book contained black and white — with splashes of red — illustrations. There were four versions: for elementary students, middle schoolers, high school students, and advanced book for adults.
“The Baltimore Catechism” was edited throughout the years, especially after Vatican II, when the Church underwent some changes in its practices.
‘New Catechism’
In 1985, Pope John Paul II summoned an extraordinary session of the International Synod of Bishops to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, which concluded in 1965. During that extraordinary assembly of the International Synod of bishops, a proposal was made to issue a universal catechism, a compendium of the Catholic Faith.
On June 22, 1994, “The New Catechism of the Catholic Church” was published. Five days later, the New York Daily News reported the “Catholic Church has a monster literary success on its hand,” with sales topping 550,000 copies.
“The ‘New Catechism’ expounded on Church teaching in a deeper and more expansive way than had the Baltimore Catechism,” said Patrick Manning, Ph.D., a professor at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University.
The text of the Catechism itself says: “This Catechism stresses the presentation of doctrine. Its aim is to aid in deepening the knowledge of the Faith. By doing so, it is meant to increase the maturity of the Faith, to root Faith in life, and to make it evident through personal witness.”
In 2020, the Church, in its mission of teaching the Christian faith, released the new “Directory for Catechesis,” which lays out the how-to guidelines for catechesis and presents universal norms to guide pastors and catechists in the work of evangelization. The publication seeks to highlight the close link between evangelization and catechesis. It also underlines that every baptized person is a missionary called to find new ways of communicating the faith with commitment and responsibility, according to the Vatican at the time of its release.
“Capturing the desire of Pope Francis for the world to embrace the Gospel with joy, [the Directory] invites us to pastoral conversion in the ministry of catechesis and moves us towards teaching the faith in a way that also transforms hearts and inspires missionary disciples,” Patty Rodriguez, director of the Catechetical Office in the Archdiocese of Newark, said.
Beyond Catechism for Msgr. de Concilio
So, who was the archdiocesan priest partially responsible for influencing the faith of generations of Americans?
According to his obituary, after serving at Our Lady of Grace Parish in Hoboken and St. Mary’s Parish in Jersey City, Msgr. de Concilio is credited for building up the parish of St. Micheal to include a school, rectory, and convent. He also constructed a nearby orphanage and academy under the direction of the first bishop of Newark, Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, D.D.
According to records, the monsignor was a brilliant theologian who studied under the famous philosopher San Severino before coming to America in 1850s. He was a professor of philosophy and theology at Seton Hall College and Seminary. Additionally, he wrote pamphlets deploring the religious condition of Italians in America as well as frequent articles for the Freeman’s Journal. Among De Concilio’s works were “Catholicity and Pantheism,” “The Elements of Intellectual Philosophy,” and “The Knowledge of Mary,” which The Catholic Advocate credited as one of the deepest and most extensive theological books on the Virgin Mary in a 2000 article.
What’s next for our Catechism?
There has been a movement to use the Baltimore Catechism method again by some Catholics. And some parishes still do according to the subreddit “Let’s bring back the Baltimore Catechism.”
According to the Catechetical Office of the Archdiocese of Newark’s annual report on what materials parishes throughout the Archdiocese use, no one reported the Baltimore Catechism as its primary text, resource, or method. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has approved a large list of other books and resources that can be used to teach catechism.
In November 2022, Church leaders announced that Catholic faith formation would be expanding beyond the textbook “in the near future.”
Responding to the Synod on Synodality and adapting to the modern world, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Catechism launched the “Institute on the Catechism” to pass on the faith using digital tools and reach a more diverse church.
“The proposed model reimagines catechesis in a way that recognizes that society is different today and the methods of engaging young people have also changed,” Bishop Elias R. Lorenzo O.S.B., Auxiliary Bishop of Newark, who serves on the subcommittee, told Jersey Catholic at the time.
Bishop Lorenzo also pointed to a changing religious landscape, with fewer people identifying with any religion.
Manning, the Immaculate Conception professor, agreed: “Culture has changed dramatically from the time of the Baltimore Catechism. Even many within the Catholic Church operate out of a worldview that is essentially secular. We can’t assume they have been evangelized. They now have to be evangelized through catechesis.”
