Catechesis

Meat & Potatoes Catholicism

Author(s): 
Rev. Joseph F. Classen
Are you malnourished? Many Catholics feel that they don’t know the faith, they are spiritually malnourished. To satisfy your hunger for the faith, Fr. Classen wants to feed you the fundamentals of your faith in Meat & Potatoes Catholicism. Determined to write a book that makes sense to those who sit in the pews, Fr. Classen has set out to educate you in the essentials of the faith.

Questions and Answers

Author(s): 
Pope Benedict XVI
The cover of the book says it all. Fully attentive to the children before him, he is ready to assist them in the best way possible through his prayers, and in this case, his answers to their questions about life and faith. The person is Pope Benedict XVI and the book is Questions and Answers. If you could ask the Holy Father any question, what would you ask him?

The New Catholic Quiz: First Grade

Book cover: 'The New Catholic Quiz: First Grade'

This book provides 200 questions (50 each in four different categories based on the four sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church - Beliefs, Sacraments, Morality and Prayer) to help children reinforce basic points of Catholic doctrine. Each page has a question from each category with answers on the back of the page. The color-coding makes for easy reading and checking of answers. My children really enjoyed the sometimes humorous choices for the multiple-choice questions. I thought these made the Quiz more engaging and helped them be more memorable for children.

Catholic Bible Quiz: Elementary Level

Book cover: 'Catholic Bible Quiz: Elementary Level'
Author(s): 
Joe Rivera
David House
etc

This book provides 200 questions and answers - forty each in five different categories - the Law, the Prophets, Wisdom, the Gospel and the Epistles. The book is designed to be used as a quiz game - keeping score (based on the difficulty of the questions - each question is awarded a particular point value) to determine the winner. It could just as easily be used as an informal reinforcement of Bible Study. It is very similar in format to the New Catholic Quiz (also reviewed on this site).

Faith and Life Religion Series

Book cover: 'Faith and Life Religion Series, Book 1'
Author(s): 
Catholics United for the Faith

This is a very popular religion series for Catholic homeschoolers. There are probably many reasons for this: they're reasonably priced, they're filled with beautiful selections of fine religious art, and they're unquestionably orthodox. The series incorporates questions from The Baltimore Catechism for memorization. Some homeschoolers don't like the brief content (the text contains approximately one lesson per week - although there is also a work book, teacher's manual and extensive resource guide available for each grade).