The Body of Christ: The Church

The Credo series explores the concepts outlined in the document of The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB): Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework for Young People of High School Age from a sound theological and pedagogical basis. The first student text and teacher resource in the series is God's Word Revealed in Sacred Scripture, which has been found to be in conformity with the USCCB Protocols for Assessing the Conformity of Catechetical Materials with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Credo series takes as its starting point the lived experience of the students and challenges them to make their lives a lived response to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The person and message of Jesus Christ is central to the Credo series. The students will be helped to come to know Jesus Christ more deeply and to understand his teachings more fully.

The Credo series also focuses on the formation of the students as people of faith. Each chapter facilitates their reflection on the meaning of what they are learning for their lives. Through prayer and meditative exercises they are helped to experience the presence of God in their lives. The Credo series has a strong social justice theme running throughout. The text moves ‘from life to faith to life’ in a repeated pattern or spiral, leading the students to ‘know, to love, to serve’, moving from information to formation to transformation. The Credo series uses the Shared Christian Praxis pedagogy which was developed by Tom Groome, and in the Credo series it is adapted for the first time for High School Catechesis. The Credo series speaks to the multicultural nature of the US High School population.