Sometimes that square wheel runs as well as our three-cornered Ukrainian one.
I don't necessarily disagree with your comments on Kucharek, Stuart, but there was a time, not so long ago, when Kucharek and Raya were about all that was available from Greek Catholic sources that was not blatanly Latin. I have found "Our Faith" to be another tool in the toolbox and have used it for some time as a reference book rather than a stand-alone catechetical work. One thing about Kucharek's book, it is full of scriptural references. His "Sacramental Mysteries: A Byzantine Approach" is more Eastern in approach, and a better book, but strictly related to the sacraments whereas Our Faith is more general in nature.
Really, for 1960s material, for Kucharek to use terms like paraklitos, akhrantos, panhagia, theosis and to make the statement he does in the section on Holy Orders, "Married clergy have been successful in the Eastern Catholic Churches" is pretty amazing. I don't think he is really any farther out on the scholastic limb (actually much less so) than St. Peter Moghila was in his Orthodox Cathechism of the 17th century.
While in hindsight we can certainly find it too scholastic (in the Thomistic sense) for want of a more purely Eastern approach, for the time it was considered progressive and a big first step in "weaning off" the purely Latin scholastic approach. In fact I know both Ukrainian and Ruthenian older priests who would not let anyone use Kucharek or Raya because they believed them to be too "liberal" or "Orthodox". We've come a long way, but we still have a ways to go.
In the days before Light and Life we had to do something. There was also a time when pastors were not open at all to using Orthdox sources for material. I have even in the past photocopied sections of my old 1898 English translation of Moghila's Catechism for my kids, it looked enough like a Baltimore to the pastor that he let it go. Anyone who has ever done any kind of education knows it is constantly a process of trial and error on the balance, level and type of material that is being presented relative to where the class is at intellectually.
I have found the three-part Light and Life to be much superior, better written and more organized than the old five-part series, which I understand it is to replace. That's already getting pretty heavy for early high-school age kids. Once you get them through Light and Life for later high-school age you can use Raya. Another that can work well for later high-school age or early college age is Alexander Schmemann's "For the Life of the World".
In the Ukrainian Catholic Church since 2000 we now have this gem called the "Catechetical Directory of the Ukrainian Catholic Church". There is also now Directives for the Youth Apostolate issued by the Synod that is a great document. Fortunately, the members of the Patriarchal Catechetical Commission are some of the most Eastern of our bishops and priests.
"The youth of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church are the Church of today, not tomorrow...The presence of youth in our Church is a presence of Christ in His Church" (From the Directives for the Youth Apostolate, 1999).
"Thus, catechism leads to a spiritual maturity in Christ, to deification (theosis)". From the Catechetical Directory of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, 2000.
I'd better shut this off, it keeps getting longer. There are many good books out there, mostly Orthodox, that would take far too long for me to discuss than this post. Maybe we should start a catechetical forum sometime and share ideas? There are many things I have tried with various levels of success as well as new things I would like to try and am always interested in hearing what others are doing.
