Vatican City, Jun 27, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The dense Catechism of the Catholic Church, groundbreaking when it debuted in 1992, will now be even more accessible to those seeking to learn and teach the Catholic faith.
The new Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church was presented earlier today at the Vatican by a special commission of Cardinals led by former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who, prior to becoming Pope Benedict XVI in April, headed the Church‘s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
According to the Vatican, the decision to create the new Compendium was born in 2002 at the International Catechetical Congress, at which, it was suggested to Pope John Paul II that a more concise version of the Catechism be written to focus on essentials of the faith.
One year later, John Paul established a commission to work on the compendium which received a positive response in its first draft by cardinals and presidents of Episcopal conferences worldwide.The final version, presented today, consists of 205 pages containing 598 questions and answers, 15 images, an appendix (of the main Christian prayers and certain formulae of Catholic doctrine) and an alphabetical index.