That was my take - as someone who went to Catholic school in the 50s & 60s. My mother went in the 30s and she says the Bible was rarely taught either. It was Baltimore Catechism all the way. (Oy! Memorizing all that stuff!)
Back in the early 90's, I was at a meeting about the new Catechism before it came out. The speaker, Fr. Alfred McBride, was one of the editors of the new resource. This group consisted of people from their 30's up to their 60's. He started the meeting by saying, "If I asked you "Why did God make me"?, what would you say? EVERY SINGLE PERSON answered at the same time, in the same words, "God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him in the next." When we finished, we all looked at each other and laughed out loud because that's EXACTLY what the Baltimore Catechism said. It had probably been at least 20 years since any of us had been in Catechism class, so it was evidence of the importance of memorization. We KNEW what the answer was, and we understood it completely.