Is a Catechist Catholic?

For a Catholic reader of the Post, it was a pretty stunning story to see so prominently on the July 12 front page. With the print headline “Parishioners question need for fidelity oaths,” one is made to wonder whether some parish priest somewhere is exacting supine obedience from the hapless folks in the pews. To Catholics who accept the teachings of the church (should that really be redundant?), the oath, it turns out, is a welcome return to orthodoxy.

The story concerned a small number—just five, it seems—of the 5,000 Sunday school teachers in the half-million-strong Catholic diocese of Arlington, who decided to hand in their resignations rather than take an oath, promulgated by Bishop Paul Loverde in May, that they affirm their own personal belief in the religious teachings they were responsible for passing on to their young charges.