Archbishop Christoph Schönborn of Vienna stressed the youth catechism, which has been adapted for young children, is a "faith book not Facebook."

It will be an important resource for children and their parents as "a book to be read and discussed together," he said at the launch.

Describing children as "great theologians," he said "out of the mouth of children you can get the deepest answers to the greatest questions."

Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick and Michaela Freifrau von Heeremann, who is one of the ‘Youcat' authors, spoke about the importance of establishing faith within the family.

Leahy suggested Youcat could be read by older age groups and that it might "help people who feel disaffected by the faith to look again to see what are we about."

"Very often people don't realise that the church has a vision about life and about the meaningfulness of life that isn't just limited to a few issues like sexual morality - it is a much broader vision about life."

Leahy said one of Youcat's underpinning themes is care for the earth.

This ties in with Laudato Si', Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical on the environment, he noted.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: East Tennessee Catholic

The "DoCat" comes from the creators of 2011's "You Cat" youth catechism.

The former will attempt to present the Church's social teaching in a creative style more attractive and comprehensible to youth.

The new book will be launched during World Youth Day in Krakow.

It will be given to young pilgrims in the form of an app.

Continue reading

Over 15,000 copies have been sold since March 2011.

In the U.S, it is now the number one Catholic book and all this is contributing to a total of 1.7 million copies sold across the globe. Continue reading

The catechism, a project of the Austrian, German and Swiss bishops' conferences were to be given to participants at World Youth Day Madrid in August this year.

The errors are so significant that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is setting up a high level working group to compile the errors and fix them.

The first error, allowing for married couples to limit their family by using "contraceptive methods" was corrected for the launch by crossing out the incorrect phrase and including an insert with the correct translation.

A second error concerned the distinction between "active euthanasia" and "passive euthanasia." The book explained that "active euthanasia" isn't condoned by the church because it violates the 5th commandment, not to kill. YouCat goes on to say, "In so-called passive euthanasia someone helps another person in the dying process and thereby obeys the commandment 'Love your neighbor'".

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna who spearheaded the book effort, said the original German book did not use the term "euthanasia," but rather the less loaded word "Sterbehilfe," which can either refer to medically assisted suicide or hospice-type care for someone on their deathbed.

While the original German version had been studied and approved by the doctrinal congregation before its publication, the other language editions did not pass through the doctrinal office after they were translated by different publishing houses.

"For each translation we had an agreement with the publisher and we, the Austrian bishops' conference, asked that a bishop who had theological and catechetical expertise act as guarantor of the translation in his language," Cardinal Schonborn said.

Schoenborn said that Venice patriarch Cartinal Agnelo Scola was responsible for the Italian translation.

"As you can see, the German language isn't so easy for everyone," Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi conceded at the end of the press conference.

Lombardi referred to the "misunderstandings" saying "let's go ahead with the understanding that the new editions will, shall we say, be improved, and that it's important that they arrive in time for World Youth Day."

YouCat is first published in 17 languages and a further 13 are planned.

Pope Benedict wrote the preface to the book exhorting people to study the catechism. "This is my heartfelt desire", he said.

Sources

• Herald Online
• Catholic News Service
• The Telegraph