Click here to read the 2009 Faith Formation Religion Curriculum Framework.
Bishop of Orlando
February 23, 2009
Dear Friends in Christ,
I am pleased to present to you the Faith Formation [Religion] Curriculum Framework for Pre-Kindergarten through eighth grade for the Diocese of Orlando. The Curriculum Framework is for use in both Catholic Schools and Parish Religious Education Programs thus creating a spirit of harmony and unity in handing on the faith to the children throughout our diocese.
As the chief catechist of the diocese, I, as your bishop, have the responsibility to ensure that the richness of the content of the Catholic faith is handed on in such a way that all are motivated to celebrate, live, and proclaim it coherently in their daily lives.
The General Directory for Catechesis [GDC] explains that “comprehensive formation includes more than instruction: it is an apprenticeship of the entire Christian life” [GDC, 67]. Thus, those who teach in our Catholic Schools and Parish Religious Education Programs must be committed to ongoing formation in their own lives so that they are able “to transmit not only a teaching but also an integral Christian formation, by developing tasks of initiation, of education, and of teaching. [They] must be able to be, at one and the same time, teachers, educators and witnesses of the faith” [GDC, 237].
This Curriculum Framework is a joint effort of the diocesan offices of Catholic Schools and Religious Education. I am grateful to them and all those who generously served on their committee for their thoughtful work. They have given the diocese a productive instrument to help us move forward with a systematic curriculum drawn from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
I ask that you begin to integrate this document into your local faith formation programs for Pre-Kindergarten through Eighth Grade beginning with the 2009 – 2010 school year.
Thank you for handing on the Faith with our young people.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Thomas G. Wenski
Bishop of Orlando
