It is necessary nowadays for Christians to re-think all manner of things that were formerly taken for granted. ’Our world is a world in a continuous state of becoming, a state in which everything is questioned’, writes Cardinal Suenens in a book bulging with new insights and ideas. ‘We no longer live in an age where daily lives were solidly framed in tradition, and institutions were there to safeguard values that were never called in question’.

In attempting to understand what has happened and what the happenings mean for us, one historical fact takes on importance for all concerned with Christian education. In the disintegration of traditional ideas the way people lived Christian ideas and the forms in which these ideas were expressed fell apart.