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?

It’s good to see you again. If you enjoyed this post, please share with a friend or colleague. Thanks for visiting!

[UPDATE: The survey is now closed. To see a summary of the responses, click here.]

Please answer the following questions as best you can, because TeamRCIA.com is developing new resources for your team. (If you scroll back up after you click on “submit,” you will be able to see a summary of all the responses so far.)

Thanks for all your insights and contributions to initiation ministry.

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults includes a Rite of Welcoming the Candidates as an optional rite that “welcomes baptized but previously uncatechized adults” (411). However, there is no rite for welcoming baptized catechized adults. As a result, the catechized candidates are often folded into the welcoming rite for the uncatechized.

Who are the catechized candidates in our parishes? The first group that leaps to mind is active Christians from other traditions who are married to Catholics and perhaps even raising their children as Catholics. How often have you heard someone say about one of these folks: “I didn’t know Bob wasn’t Catholic!” Or sometimes there are Catholics among us who were not confirmed as teenagers. They too are active members, joining us in Eucharist every Sunday. And there are Catholics who celebrated first Communion as a child and then stopped going to church. Now, as adults, they are seeking to “complete” their initiation. These folks, too, can be considered at least minimally catechized because they had to have been prepared to celebrate first Communion. The RCIA makes no provision for these catechized candidates because their journey of faith does not closely parallel that of the catechumens.

To say these folks are “catechized,” however, is not to say they need no further catechesis. Some may need quite a bit of preparation (for example, those who left after first Communion and are now returning). Some may need very little preparation (for example, the active Catholics who are catching up on their confirmations). All of them need a welcome to this new phase of their faith journey that is distinct from the welcome of the uncatechized.

So how do we welcome them? One option is to adapt the “Order for the Welcoming of New Parishioners” from the Book of Blessings. To call this an “Order,” however, seems a bit overblown. The ritual is extremely simple. It consists of having the pastor present the candidates to the assembly after the opening greeting at a Sunday Mass. Then he invites the assembly to express their welcome by their applause.

Another option, with a bit more heft to it, is to adapt the ritual for “Welcoming Returning Members and Members Baptized in Other Traditions.” Don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of that before. It is an Episcopalian rite, found in the Book of Occasional Services. This adapted rite would take place on a Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Download a free copy of my alternative Rite of Welcome for baptized catechized candidates. Simply type in your email address in the form below. When you click “submit” you’ll be able to download the Word file of this rite for you to adapt and use in your parish.

When you click submit, a new window will open where you can save the Word file on your computer.

I’m writing a guidebook for catechumens and candidates. My hope is to give them some ideas about how to look at the world through Catholic eyes. The book is not intended to be a “catechism” that gives them an outline of the faith. I figure you’re already doing that in your catechetical sessions with them. It’s more of an attempt to describe Catholic culture and spirituality to them.

How you can help

If you’d be willing, I’d like to get your help with two things.

• First, I’m looking for stories about catechumens. If you have a story about a catechumen you’d like to share, please post it in the comments or e-mail it to me at nick@teamrcia.com.
• And I’d like know what you think of the first draft of my book outline. What looks good to you? What is missing? What suggestions would you make?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Scarcity and abundance
3. Consolation
4. Religious imagination
5. Catholic eyes
6. Seeing God everywhere
7. Word
8. Community
9. Worship
10. Service
11. What’s expected of you?
12. Preparing for baptism
13. Baptized Candidates
14. Reflecting on your baptism
15. Appendices

• Postures for prayer
• Catholic customs
• Annulments

I was in a parish outside my diocese recently, and I read a bulletin announcement similar to one that appears in thousands of parishes every Sunday. The announcement invited all those who had never been baptized, or who had been baptized in another tradition, or who had been baptized Catholic but not received the sacraments of confirmation and Eucharist, to “join the RCIA.”

The RCIA is a rite

Asking someone to join the RCIA is a little like asking someone to join the sacrament of penance or the sacrament of anointing. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is a rite. A sacrament. It isn’t a group or a program or even a process that can be “joined.” I understand the good intentions behind such announcements, and that’s exactly why they bother me. I fear that all the good energy behind such messages is missing the key audience they are intended for.

So who are these announcements intended for? Primarily, the people in need of initiation sacraments are unbaptized adults who have had an initial experience of God. For the most part, these people are not in our parishes on Sunday. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t invite them to come, but the parish bulletin is probably not the best medium.

Who sees RCIA announcements?

The next audience is baptized Protestants. In most parishes, these folks make up the vast majority of the participants in our catechumenate groups. On any given Sunday, there are probably a good number of baptized Protestants in Catholic pews. Why is that? Usually because they are married to a Catholic and a parent to one or more little Catholics. The bulletin can be an appropriate way to invite these folks into full communion, but the process for most of them is not the RCIA. They do not lack initiation and many of them do not lack catechesis. They lack full communion. The proper rite for them is Reception of Baptized Christians into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church, not the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

This book is very helpful in understanding the differences between the baptized and the unbaptized.

When Other Christians Become Catholic
Paul Turner
Price: $23.95

Click here for details

There are exceptions. Some baptized Protestants have never been catechized, and a catechumenate-style process is exactly what they need. However, like the unbaptized, these folks are usually not in the pews on Sunday. And if they are, they have little understanding of terms like “RCIA,” “sacrament,” “confirmation,” and “Eucharist.”

The third audience is baptized Catholics who have not celebrated either confirmation or Eucharist or both. The majority of these folks are adults who missed confirmation when they were teens. They are usually going to church regularly, and they are sharing in Communion when they are at Mass. These folks are not candidates for the RCIA. The proper rite for them is the Rite of Confirmation.

Baptized Catholics and the RCIA

There is also an exception here. Like some baptized Protestants, there are some baptized Catholics who never celebrated first Communion and who have never been catechized. These folks are candidates for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. There are probably not a lot of them at Mass on Sunday, but on any given week, someone may be trying to find his or her way back home. An announcement in the bulletin is appropriate, but it needs to be tailored more to their own situation. We need to use words like “welcome” and “return” and “home.” They are not likely to know what “RCIA” means, and they may be put off by being asked to “join” something they are already a part of through baptism.

So where are we? If the Sunday bulletin is the medium we are using, the largest audience is faith-filled Protestants who are already in relationship with us. We need to find other media to attract other audiences. Given that, here is a sample announcement to try in your Sunday bulletin next week:

Why do Catholics do that?
Are you interested in learning more about the Catholic Church? Perhaps you’ve been thinking of becoming a member of [PARISH NAME], or perhaps you are just curious about what Catholics believe. Please join us for coffee and dessert on [DATE, TIME] for a 30-minute question-and-answer session. We’ll meet at [PLACE], and all are welcome. If you’d like more information, e-mail [NAME] at [E-MAIL ADDRESS].

What do you think? Do you have other examples of announcements you’ve used that have been effective? Click on the comments link and share your ideas.

• Welcoming baptized candidates
• Orthodox Christians and RCIA?
• Should we confirm Lutherans?

People often ask me who they need to have on their RCIA teams. By that, they generally mean, what job descriptions do they need to fill. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins makes the point that getting the right kind of people is more important than filling the right job descriptions. If you look for talented, gifted, faith-filled Catholics to serve on your team, the jobs will take care of themselves.

Here’s a helpful resource for putting the talents of the entire parish to work.

Dreams and Visions: Pastoral Planning for Lifelong Faith Formation
Bill Huebsch
Price: $14.95
Click here for details

The Lutheran Church has a comprehensive list of spiritual gifts on their Web site. Are most of these gifts represented on your team? Two that caught my attention and that I could do a better job recruiting for are “mercy” and “artistry” Take a look at the list and then click on the comment link. Let us know which gifts your team is strong in and which you need to develop.

And if you want to discern what your own spiritual gifts are, the Lutherans have a tool for that too. Click here to take your own assessment.

• Who’s on your team?
• Call your mother: Human experience as a locus for catechesis
• Is a complete catechumenate possible with a small team?

We have a new pastor, and he told us that we are not supposed to be confirming adult Catholics at the Easter Vigil. If confirmation is an initiation sacrament, what’s wrong with celebrating it at the Vigil?

Your question raises a larger issue of who should be celebrating sacraments at the Easter Vigil. I’ve seen group weddings celebrated at the Vigil because the couples were being “initiated” into married life. Simply attaching the word “initiation” to a sacrament does not automatically mean is needs to be celebrated at the Vigil.

Primary purpose of the Easter Vigil

The Easter Vigil is primarily for the initiation of unbaptized adults. If you turn to RCIA 23, you’ll read, “The celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation should take place at the Easter Vigil itself.” There are exceptions, but initiating unbaptized adults at the Vigil is the norm.

Children of catechetical age are considered “adults” for the purpose of the rite, but the Easter Vigil norm is a bit more flexible if they are under 14 years of age. Turn to paragraph 304 in the section on adaptations for children: “[C]elebration of the sacraments of initiation should preferably take place at the Easter Vigil or on a Sunday…” (emphasis added).

That’s really about it for the norm—the usual situation envisioned by the RCIA. Every other situation is some kind of an exception. Unfortunately, in some places, the exceptions are starting to become the norm. Let’s look at some of them.

Read the rest of this entry »

The news outlets are filled with speculation and commentary about Barack Obama’s transition team and his choice of cabinet members and White House staff. Yesterday the stock market rose 500 points simply because Obama announced who his Secretary of the Treasury would be. There are a lot of reasons that knowing who Obama plans to surround himself with are important, and I want to focus on one in particular. In both the primary and the general election campaigns, Obama was criticized for his lack of experience. Now the markets, the American people, and the world are watching to see if he chooses to place himself in the midst of a community of “elders”—people who have the experience he lacks.

What strikes me about this global anxiousness about who the neophyte president will associate himself with is that we might apply that same type of concern to the catechumens. Of the four markers of catechesis—word, community, worship, and service—I wonder if we pay enough attention to apprenticing the catechumens in what it means to live in community. What often happens is community is assumed. The catechumens are coming to church, they know the catechists, they have sponsors, and some of the parishioners are praying for them. From our point of view, they are already members of the community.

But if we think that through a little bit, they haven’t yet learned what it means to be among a band of disciples. Their fellow catechumens are not disciples—at least not experienced disciples, who, like Saint Paul, have run the good race and been tested over time. When the catechumens’ ship of faith is swamped by trials and temptations, who will they turn to for advice and support? Have they been sufficiently acquainted with the parish community so that they can identify a “transition team”? Do they have a “cabinet”—a core group of fellow believers, most more experienced than themselves, who they trust and who will give them honest feedback? Do they have a community that will challenge them to grow in faith and discipleship and hold them accountable to that growth? I think that if they do not yet have such a deep commitment to and understanding of Christian community, they may need more time to learn how to do this before they are initiated.

What do you think? How do you discern a catechumen’s readiness in the area of community? Click on the comment link below and share your thoughts.

I was inspired to write about this through Liz Strauss’ blog, Successful and Outstanding Bloggers. Earlier this month, she posted “6 Ways to Build Your Own Personal Developmental Network.” Another prominent blogger, Juliann Grant, commented on the post: “It is very helpful to have a core group of people to trust and get continual feedback on our personal and professional development.” I read that after having listened to the morning news dominated by speculation and commentary on the president-elect’s cabinet and staff choices and wondering why that would be more newsworthy than, say, the seizure of two more banks, which also happened yesterday.

• 5 questions for every RCIA team
• Add 5,000 families to your RCIA team
• The parish is the RCIA catechetical plan

This past weekend, I was helping to lead a Concerning the Baptized institute, which was cosponsored by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate and the Diocese of Monterey. As described on the Forum Web site, the institute explores the “suitable paths to Eucharist for both baptized-catechized adults and baptized-uncatechized adults.”

While I was there, I took the opportunity to ask some of the participants what they think it means to be catechized. Some of the folks on the video are brand new to initiation ministry, and some are long-time veterans. All of them are good-hearted folks who are making a big contribution of time and effort to minister in their parishes. After looking at the video (about a minute and a half long), hit the comment link and add your own definition of “catechized.”

“What does it mean to be catechized?”

I often help lead the Concerning the Baptized institute. The institute, which is sponsored by the diocese and the North American Forum on the Catechumenate, is all about how to catechize and ritually receive baptized candidates into full communion.

Well, not just that. It’s also about how to help baptized candidates complete their initiation. Those are two different theologies and perhaps two different catechetical experiences. These are some of the folks we’re talking about:

1. Catholics who were baptized as infants, but never raised in the faith. They are clearly completing their initiation.
2. Catholics who were baptized and celebrated first communion, but then stopped going to church. Because these folks have not celebrated confirmation, an initiation sacrament, we talk about them completing their initiation. But speaking of confirmation as an initiation sacrament gets confusing if it is celebrated after first communion. If Eucharist is the climax of the initiation process, how can confirmation complete initiation? Nevertheless, these folks are usually in need of an extensive catechetical process.
3. Catholics who were baptized and celebrated first communion and have remained active in their faith. They’re going to church and participating in the parish. These folks do not belong in an RCIA process in any form. They are not completing their initiation; they’re catching up on their sacraments.
4. Non-Catholics who were baptized as infants, raised in the Christian faith, and have been active in their tradition. These folks are not completing their initiation. They have been fully initiated, and their initiation is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. What they don’t yet have is full communion with us, and they are being received into that full communion.
5. Non-Catholics who were baptized as infants and were never raised in the faith. This is the most difficult group to categorize. At least for me. Are they completing their initiation? In some non-Catholic traditions, water baptism is full initiation. But if they never lived out their faith, aren’t they in some sense still being initiated? On the other hand, initiation is initiation. Baptism is baptism. It’s God who acts, not us. So wouldn’t it be more appropriate to think of these folks being received into full communion?

Figuring out who’s who matters because knowing their status helps determine their ritual and catechetical path.

What kinds of folks do you wind up dealing with? What liturgies do you celebrate with them? Do they journey along side by side with the catechumens, or do you have separate processes? There is a short poll below, and you can also click the comments button to offer some thoughts.

Concerning the baptized
Who do you celebrate the Rite of Welcoming with?	All baptized candidates Only uncatechized baptized candidates Only uncatechized, baptized, Catholic candidates We do not celebrate the Rite of Welcome
	Current Results