Robert Sungenis on YouCat

Source: The Vatican’s “YouCat” Catechism: Weak on Homosexuality, Contraception, Euthanasia, Evolution, and Scripture

"A youth catechism, known popularly as “YouCat,” which is claimed to be modeled from the official 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, contains dubious, suggestive and sometimes scandalous teachings on issues such as homosexuality, contraception, euthanasia, evolution, philosophy, and last but not least, biblical inerrancy."

"YouCat was released by the Vatican on April 4, 2011 and was translated in more than a dozen languages. Under direction from Pope Benedict, YouCat will make its big splash on World Youth Day in Madrid on August 16-21, 2011."

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"As dubious as YouCat’s teaching is in certain places, it makes Scripture’s teaching in certain places even more dubious. For example, Question 15 states: “How can Sacred Scripture be ‘truth’ if not everything in it is right?” Directly against the numerous official and infallible Catholic teachings on the total inerrancy of Scripture, YouCat implies that Scripture simply cannot be trusted. A whole generation of young people will now view the Bible as an assortment of historical mistakes and ignorant concepts, despite the fact that the Holy Spirit was supposed to have inspired it all."

"It is particularly egregious for YouCat to say that the biblical authors were “dominated by the errors” of the culture around them. If that were the case, why weren’t they dominated by the same “errors of the culture” when they were writing about the “way of salvation”? For example, maybe Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead. Maybe it was just the “error of the culture” to believe that he did. Maybe Jesus really wasn’t God. It was just the “error of the culture” which was steeped in wishing for a divine Messiah that made the people think that way. If the biblical writers can make errors in science and history why can’t they make errors in salvation? Where does the Bible or the Church say that the biblical writers are only protected from error when they speak about salvation? For that matter, where does either the Bible or the Church say that only certain parts of the Bible are for the purpose of salvation? The answer to both questions is: nowhere. It has all been made up out of thin air by modern biblical scholarship which is bent on promoting its unproven scientific theories as fact."