What would be the requirements for one of our inquirers to become a Catholic? Would she have to go through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA)? She was baptized, received first Communion, and was confirmed as a Lutheran. She is married to a Catholic, and she was married by a Catholic priest. She has been attending Mass for 20 years with her husband, and has raised their two sons in Catholic faith.

In her case, the requirements would be very minimal. She would not be a candidate for the RCIA. The National Statutes for the Catechumenate (an appendix to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) state:
 
 

Those who have already been baptized in another church or ecclesial community should not be treated as catechumens or so designated. Their doctrinal and spiritual preparation for reception into full Catholic communion should be determined according to the individual case, that is, it should depend on the extent to which the baptized person has led a Christian life within a community of faith and been appropriately catechized to deepen his or her inner adherence to the Church. (30)

…Those baptized persons who have lived as Christians and need only instruction in the Catholic tradition and a degree of probation within the Catholic community should not be asked to undergo a full program parallel to the catechumenate. (31)

If she has instructed her own children in the Catholic tradition, she probably needs little or no additional instruction herself. And participating in Sunday liturgy for 20 years would certainly qualify as “a degree of probation within the Catholic community.”

This is a wonderful book for working with baptized candidates.

One at the Table: The Reception of Baptized Christians


Ronald Oakham, et al
Price: $17.00

Click here for details

I would suggest you meet with her to determine if she has any areas of Catholic tradition that she is still unclear about. If not, then you might suggest that she spends a few weeks in spiritual preparation. Ask her to carve out some extra dedicated time for prayer each day and perhaps plan a day of quiet reflection for her. Suggest that if she is aware of any unresolved sin in her life or simply to benefit from the grace of the sacrament, she should celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation before being received.

The Rite of Reception of a Baptized Christian into Full Communion (RCIA 473) can be celebrated at any Sunday liturgy—usually in Ordinary Time. The rite is very simple. She, her sponsor, and her family would come forward after the homily. She would make a profession of faith, and the presider would confirm her. (Confirmation in the Lutheran Church is not recognized by Catholics as a sacrament.) And then she would celebrate Eucharist with the parish community and share in the Body and Blood of Christ during Communion.

• An alternative Rite of Welcome
• “Convert” Revisited
• Should we confirm Lutherans?

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This weekend, I’ll be leading an institute in the Los Angeles archdiocese that focuses on the cathechumenate period (sponsored by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate). One of my presentations is on the minor rites that might be celebrated during that time. Lately, I’ve been using an online service, Prezi.com, to create my presentations. It’s much more fun than PowerPoint. See what you think, and offer your comments!

 
The publishers of my book, The Way of Faith, interviewed me about it and posted it as a podcast. It lasts about nine minutes. See what you think!

120 members of RCIA teams from northern California have just wrapped up a two-day institute (sponsored by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate and the dioceses of San Jose and Monterey). The institute focused on how to adapt the RCIA for children.

Talking with some of the participants reminded me of something I wrote about in The Way of Faith. It seems to me that many RCIA teams worry far too much about the children and not nearly enough about the parents. What I wrote in my book is this:

I truly believe that when it comes to adapting the rite for children, the biggest adaptation we have to make is to pay more attention to the parents than the kids…. On the first encounter, we need to think of the family as inquirers. The decision about the readiness of children to enter the catechumenate will not be based on the child’s individual readiness. We are saying that if the adults, or at least one of the primary caretakers in the family, are not ready, the children are not ready. Just as with adult inquirers, we are not refusing to celebrate the sacraments with the children. We are inviting the family to spend some more time with us, reflecting more deeply on what they really want. We pray that in that process the Spirit will move them to the initial faith needed to celebrate the Rite of Acceptance. (135)

What is your experience? Do you treat the entire family as inquirers? Do you require parents to participate in a catechetical process along with their children? How do you determine readiness for the Rite of Acceptance or the Rite of Election? I’d love to hear your stories.

Most initiation ministers don’t think of the greeters for Sunday liturgy as being on the RCIA team. Perhaps we should. Let me tell you about my experience as an “inquirer” this summer. Because of my travel schedule, I was in a different parish almost every Sunday in July and August. No one said hello to me, with one exception.

The exception was a parish that had greeters at the door. I walked up to a greeter and greeted her! She returned my “hello.” Otherwise, the score was zero greetings.

Even “hospitable” parishes aren’t very

This is common in Catholic churches. I experience it a lot, and I complain about it a lot. A while back, a friend (who was probably tired of my rants) told me such a cold, non-welcome would never happen in her parish. Her parish, she told me, was known for its hospitality. So I went to her parish one Sunday, unannounced. No greeting. No hospitality.

Often when I meet with RCIA teams, they complain that their parish is losing Catholics—sometimes neophytes!—to evangelical churches. They sometimes suggest possible reasons for this. Evangelical churches perhaps have a simpler, black-and-white theology that may be attractive. Or they may have more dynamic preaching. Or their Sunday services may be more entertaining.

The reason evangelical churches grow

I’ve talked to a few ex-Catholics who joined some of these churches, and they give none of those reasons for switching. Their reasons? Child-care and over-the-top hospitality.

I talked with one woman who had gone through the RCIA and left her parish for a nearby nondenominational megachurch during her neophyte year. The Catholic parish she left was also a megachurch. The liturgies were wonderful, she said, and the preaching was usually better than she heard in the nondenominational church. But after she was initiated and no longer a part of her small RCIA group, she was lost in her huge Catholic parish. She had no friends there and no one talked to her at Mass.

At the nondenominational church, several people greeted her the first time she showed up. They remembered her name when she came back the next week. They invited her to church events. They invited her to a retreat. One person invited her to meet for coffee during the week. And she could bring her toddler to church and know there was a safe place for him to play during the service.

The challenge

I wish I knew what the solution was to this. There seems to be something baked into Catholic DNA that prevents us from being hospitable at Mass. What I do know is, we can’t change other people. We can’t turn our Catholic parishes into welcoming communities, no matter how hard we try. We can only become more welcoming ourselves.

So here is a challenge for all of us. For the next six Sundays, let’s commit to “finding the seeker.” You can set your own goal, but here is a suggestion. Over the next six Sundays, try to find at least three seekers at Mass. That’s one every other Sunday. A seeker is someone who is new to your parish and doesn’t know anyone in the community. Maybe they are active Catholics, or maybe they are not Christian at all. If they don’t know you or your parish, and you introduce yourself, they count as one of your three.

That leaves me with two questions. Do you want to accept the challenge? And, if so, how will you follow up with the seekers you meet?

Be sure to share your stories in the comments section.

In the past month, the Office of Communications of the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) published a document on social media guidelines. The publication of the guidelines coincided with a recent conversation among the team members of TeamRCIA—Diana, Nick, Rita, Miriam, and Rita—during which we discussed our desire to grow our Web site with more interaction, creative discussion, and peer support among all who visit our site. We want to become a virtual community of initiation ministers who minister to one another. What if TeamRCIA could become a dynamic, cross-cultural, international, community of support, encouragement, education, and resourcing for the work of faithfully implementing the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults!

Evangelization and catechesis

The guidelines document recognizes that “the world of digital communication [has] almost limitless expressive capacity” that can enhance the work of evangelization, catechesis, and apostolic action (note the echoes of Paragraph #75 here!) in ways that we have yet to imagine. “The Church can use social media,” the document reads, “to encourage respect, dialogue, and honest relationships—in other words, ‘true friendship.’” We know that TeamRCIA is already a community of over 8,000 friends and colleagues with a wealth of knowledge and experience. Moving forward, we hope to both build and experience our community in new and exciting ways.

Recognizing that social media offer both opportunities and challenges, the guidelines document calls out three in particular: visibility, community, and accountability. Indeed, we at TeamRCIA are striving to become more visible as a consistent, user-friendly, online resource for those who strive to be faithful to the vision of the Rite and its effective implementation in a variety of settings. Our hope for community building through future webinars, real-time interaction, and online discussion and consultation inspires us to seek new offerings in the near future. Accountable to one another and to the call of Vatican II for the restoration of the Catechumenate, we will continue to grapple with the cultural, social, economic, and individual issues that call for our pastoral response.

Share your thoughts

Your suggestions for helping us achieve our goals, and your response to this post would be most welcome!

(THE SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED)

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey about the needs of inquirers, catechumens, and candidates in your RCIA processes. Over 200 people completed the survey, and you can see a summary of the results here.

We have prepared a second survey that goes a little deeper into the kind of information your catechumens and candidates might need about sacraments. Based on the responses to the follow-up survey, TeamRCIA will begin to develop resources to assist you in forming their catechumens and candidates in Catholic sacramental life.

Even if you were not able to participate in the first survey, we hope you will fill this one out because your responses will help guide future resources for your team.

I am struggling with finding a new source for children’s catechumenate. Can you help?
 
 
 
 
I understand your frustration. There is not much available. Here is what I’ve used in various situations over the years. As you well know, you have to pick and choose what fits your children and their families. So, it’s not too “user friendly.” A few ideas:

Journey of Faith is a set of pamphlets for the various periods from Ligouri Press. The caution is you can’t just use them week to week and then when you get through a series, you’re done — onto the next period. For example, you have to choose a “catechumenate pamphlet” that fits with the Liturgy of the Word for that day.

God is Calling is a box set of materials from St. Anthony Messenger Press. It’s intergenerational and great for family sessions. Has some “minimal adaptation” for children’s catechumenate.

Living the Good News is a lectionary-based catechesis resources, but it is only published three seasons of the church year.

Perhaps some other folks will chime in with ideas.

We’ve heard about the fullness of the sign, the font as symbol of the community, the death to resurrection symbolism in Romans, and the endorsement by the National Statutes (17).

Here is another argument for baptism by immersion.

In my opinion, this one is irrefutable. See for yourself.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey about the needs of inquirers, catechumens, and candidates in your RCIA processes. Over 200 people completed the survey, and you can see a summary of the results here.

Sacraments

The highest need, by far, is a need for more information about sacraments. 129 of you gave that a 5-rank (highest need out of 5 possible points). And 45 more of you ranked this need at 4.

Liturgical practices

The next highest need, which is related, is more information about liturgical practices. 103 of you ranked that need as a 5, and 69 ranked it as a 4.

Church structure

The lowest needs identified are more information about church governance and more information about Rome, the Vatican, and the pope. For those, only 28 of you and 37 of you, respectively, gave those needs a 5.

The results were a little surprising to me. I wouldn’t have guessed before the survey that sacraments and liturgy would have ranked so highly. I might have guessed that church governance would rank low, but I thought non-Catholics might be looking for more information about the Vatican and the pope than was indicated in the results.

Discussion vs. apprenticeship models

One result that confirmed my hunch was the question about how your inquirers, catechumens, and candidates learn best. 187 of you gave either a 4 or a 5 to the “discussion” option. That squares with my experience and my sense of how most teams are catechizing. However, one of the lowest scores was for “apprenticeship.” That worries me a little. Discussion is an effective method of catechesis, but learning to live as Christians is primarily a “follow the leader” activity. I wonder if teams are really not doing much apprenticing or if they just don’t identify many of their modeling behaviors as apprenticeship. That will be an interesting topic for us to explore on the Web site in the future.

Resources for sacramental formation

However, for the immediate future, we plan to focus on “sacraments.” We are preparing a second survey that goes a little deeper into the kind of information your catechumens and candidates might need about sacraments. Based on the responses to the follow-up survey, TeamRCIA will begin to develop resources to assist you in forming their catechumens and candidates in Catholic sacramental life.

This is my very non-scientific look at the results. The only useful thing I remember from my college statistics course is that it’s possible to tilt the prism and get different conclusions from the same data. So please don’t be shy about sharing how you see the results. Your take is just as valid as mine. I’d love to hear what you think and what you learned from the survey.

And stay tuned for the survey on sacramental formation!