Integrated Catechesis: The Redaction History of Cann. 773 and 779 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law

Current universal law affirms the central role of catechesis in integrating one’s Catholic Christian faith and daily life. Its core objective is formulated as ut fidelium fides [...] viva fiat explicita atque operosa (can. 773), i.e., a living, explicit and active faith, one that is more fully steeped in Catholic teaching and put into practice (can. 779). In order to achieve its goal, the law proposes a single but two-pronged means of catechetical formation: per doctrinae institutionem et vitae christianae experientiam (can. 773), a holistic formation in the foundations of doctrine and in the experience of Christian life. This essay studies the catechetical canons’ redaction histories from their origin, if any, in CIC/17, and as they evolved in the Schema of 1977, 1980 and 1982, and finally as CIC/83 canons. Indispensable in this research are the Code revision proceedings of the Pontificia Commissio Codici Iuris Canonici Recognoscendo which were published in Communicationes from 1969-1997. In tracing the catechetical canons’ redaction history, this essay hopes to show that by proposing the object and means of the Church’s catechesis in cann. 773 and 779, the supreme legislator wants to steer the universal Church into a kind of catechetical formation in which the doctrinal, moral and liturgical teachings of the Church have a bearing and influence on, and not detached or split from, the daily secular life of the Christian.