Objection #6:

 YOUCAT can give the impression that modern Catholic and non-Catholic authors are more important for young people to read than the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

While not as serious as previous objections, it is nevertheless observed that in its choice of sources, YOUCAT cannot be compared to any other catechism in the history of the Catholic Church. Many non-Catholic and some anti-Catholic authors are quoted, sometimes giving the impression that they are on par with the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, or are somehow more in tune with the Catholic youth than the great Saints and Doctors of the past. Yet the quotations from modern authors are often vague.

YOUCAT’s seemingly indiscriminate preference for modern authors jars most when the statements of quoted authors are confusing. For example, on page 151, Michel Quoist is quoted as saying that “someone who loves a neighbor allows him to be as he is, as he was, and as he will be.” On reflection, this statement is completely unacceptable from a Catholic point of view. If my neighbor is a long-time drug dealer or a human trafficker, I do not love him by allowing him to be “as he is, as he was, and as he will be.” No doubt the author had some profound meaning in mind, but the quotation does not give any clue as to what that profound meaning — compatible with Catholic teaching — might be. In another place, on page 252, YOUCAT reflects on the quality of “shame,” and the authors quote the anti-Christian philosopher Nietzche’s statement: “Shame exists wherever there is a mystery.” Like Quoist’s statement quoted above, the statement has an alluring air of incomprehensibility, but it does nothing to reinforce or clarify Catholic doctrine on modesty and shame. As a third example, on page 111, the Protestant theologian Kierkegaard is quoted as having written: “Either we are contemporaries of Jesus, or we can have nothing at all to do with it.” This leaves one with only a vague notion of what Kierkegaard was trying to say, but Catholic youth are not well-served through imprecise or vague writings that are put on par with quotations from Church Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Saints.

Like so many things in YOUCAT, the selected quotations give the impression that the document was created to produce a certain off-beat touch to make the Catechism “cool” for young people. But this is ultimately insulting to the many Catholic young people who want to know and understand the Truth and who resent being offered gimmicks in place of solid teaching.