The American bishops have approved a revision of the Rite for Christian Initiation of Adults which changes its name to Order for the Christian Initiation of Adults. Evidently a lot of the material that is in the book is specific to the USA because many of the people involved have been baptized in other Christian Churches, and some are Catholics who have never been confirmed. I think the revision has been approved by the bishops and is now in Rome for review. This Jesuit priest thinks there should be more flexibility in how it is used and presents one option which seemed to have worked for his parish.
Is OCIA the only template that one can use to join the Catholic Church?
"Since the publication of the RCIA manual in 1974, its methodology and use has shifted in practice from a book of guidelines open to "adaptations by the minister of baptism" to an almost mandated manual. This evolution has limited alternate approaches and became a single authorized pathway for all parish conversions".
"The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults manual and program is seven to eight months long with weekly meetings. It entails four periods, three steps, three public events called "Scrutiny Sundays," an exorcism, an enrollment document, public dismissal from the congregation prior to the sacrifice of the Mass, final acceptance and sacraments on Holy Saturday and the fourth period called Mystagogy. Today the manual does not appear to some as "noble simplicity" and it is lengthy."
"Recently, I administered a parish for nine years and tried an experiment. My background is a Ph.D. in science; experimentation is my nature and upbringing. I tried a directed reading course for those who wanted to explore the Catholic Church. Our text was Our Catholic Faith by Michael Pennock. Twice a year the parish presented this three-month directed course and generally received eight to ten persons each time. We met four times with three-week intervals for a total of three months."
"The parish was medium size, approximately 600 families with a parochial grade school. I called the program "Immigration Toward the Catholic Faith." Eight or ten would join the church each course and thank me because they better understood their children or their spouse. The attendance in the parish church increased and the parochial school grew."
"Those years that I was the administrator, the school grew from 104 to 223 students. Meanwhile, 13 other grade schools in the diocese closed in that same period. The converts were tracked by their participation in weekly Mass. The parish numbers at weekend Masses grew. This conversion strategy had unanticipated results."
"Our parish had found an improved tool and the outcomes were two to three times better than in previous years. Our focus was on results. However, the Youngstown Diocese was concerned because we were not following the RCIA manual and guidelines."
I know Acker from his days as president of Wheeling Jesuit University. This is a very practical Jesuit. He did a lot of things that the faculty disagreed with but made the University work.
ReplyDeleteHe got some wealthy donors to build a chapel for the campus. He restored restricted dormitory hours for students; men and women could no longer stay overnight in each other's dormitory. He restored ROTC to the campus and in the process became a close friend of Senator Byrd. Byrd established a NASA educational center and a NASA technology transfer center on the campus.
In general Acker put a struggling University into better enrollment and financial shape. At one time I was going to give my estate to them. When my father died, I established a scholarship there in memory of my parents.
Acker was moved out, largely because the faculty complained to the accrediting people that they did not have enough say in the university. Unfortunately, the University has declined since then and the Jesuits have pulled out, their name is gone. Technically it is still a Catholic university under the control of the local bishop, but it is quickly becoming just a local vocational college.
I am sure that Tom created a parish model that worked. It probably attracted many people who wanted to become Catholic and send their kids to the school, but they didn't want to go through the lengthy RCIA program. Wonder how many of our Catholic schools might have stayed open if we had been more flexible?
Acker's bishop in Youngtown was a Jesuit who died a few years ago. I suspect as soon as he was gone, the new bishop probably told Acker he had to go back to the RCIA.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCatholics can't seem to get away from making RCIA like school, with assigned readings from textbooks, and required meetings.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if those doing RCIA would make an effort to get to know the individuals in RCIA and their faith backgrounds rather than trying to get through a set amount of info in a certain timeframe.
Raber used to invite the men candidates out for a beer at one point in the RCIA process. Most were planning on "turning Catholic" because their wives were and one of the kids was going thru First Communion. They all felt a certain amount of ambivalence about the whole thing. Too much triumphalism from the in-laws, and too much disappointment from their own families.
I'm not a scientist, of course, but Acker seems to be quick to find cause-and-effect results that might be just correlation.
Maybe I'm missing something.
Jean, Every person I have known personally who “turned Catholic” did so for family reasons, as you have mentioned. I don’t know a single convert personally who became Catholic because they were convinced that the RCC is the sole source of “truth”. I know there are some like that, but I haven’t met them. I believe that you and Raber did actually convert on your own initiative.
DeleteBut those I have known became Catholic to please a spouse and be able to go to Communion rather than draw negative attention to themselves and questions from their kids by staying in the pews. Several told me that they don’t accept many Catholic teachings, but they kept their mouths shut. Controversial questions or discussions were clearly not welcome during RCIA and they knew that accepting the teachings was expected.
Yes, we dragged ourselves in, like stray cats off the street, when it looked like there would be schism in the Anglican communion over gay clergy.
DeleteWe didn't expect to be gung-ho converts or to understand everything at once. But we did see the RCC as an unbroken vessel of the faith. I did hope there would be better formation for The Boy, who enjoyed religious instruction at his Catholic school (though the school itself was not up to dealing with his learning disability). And we thought there would be more opportunities to live out our faith in a larger community of believers.
Didn't happen for me, for which I largely blame my own impossible expectations of other people, lack of simpatico with the local parish, and unregenerate bossiness.
Raber has a different temperament, and he continues to be faithful. It used to be a point of contention between us, but as we got older that has largely died away.
However, we both agree the RCIA process as we experienced was lousy and agree in our criticisms of why it is inadequate.
I don't think it's true that RCIA is the *only* way to enter the church, unless that is a new mandate. I have known several people who met with the priest privately for instructions, for one reason or another. I assume this could also happen with another qualified person facilitating instructions.
ReplyDeleteMy mom joined via private instructions back in the '50s. I don't think they had structured group classes back then. My husband went through RCIA when he joined in 1982. He liked that format because he met others who were going through the same process. He said the others sometimes asked questions that he didn't think to ask, and he probably asked things that they also learned from.
One old guy in a nursing home who had come faithfully to Mass with his wife was received when he was in a nursing home. He died about a week after his first communion. Raber offered to be his sponsor. He said to Father, "Now I'm legit!" Father said, "You were legit years ago. I just sealed the deal." Not sure why, but I love those last-chance stories.
DeleteThe process of conversion has been extensively studied by sociologists largely because of the interest many decades ago in cults and charges of brain washing by them.
ReplyDeleteIn general changes in relationship occur before changes in beliefs. People who are befriended by cults develop relationships first, only after those relationships become strong do people begin to accept and articulate beliefs of the cult.
In interfaith marriage, conversion can be predicted by the number of relationships and the intensity of people's faith. In general, the person with less religious faith will change to the faith of the person with a stronger religious faith. If one partner in an interfaith marriage has fewer relationship with people of their own faith, they are likely to change to that of a partner who has many more relationships to their faith.
However, when people are asked why they changed religions they will most likely give a rational justification rather than say that they changed for their partner or their children. This is largely because we live in a culture that expects to have such a move be justified by beliefs.
So, one might see the RCIA as giving the person who is being received a belief structure to explain a choice that is largely motivated by relationships.
In the study of small faith sharing groups, such as bible study, religious professionals overemphasize the importance of the content of such groups, whereas the participants see developing relationships as the most important aspect of small groups.
ReplyDeleteIn the research on congregations, the leadership of congregations generally see their job as transmission of religious culture, i.e., beliefs and values, whereas the people are more interested in relationships.
In all our religious formation programs for youth, we provide them with relationships that are all likely to disappear once the programs are over so that in high school and then college youth develop relationships with people that are unlikely to share their values and beliefs.
A lot of religious education assumes that people, especially youth, are just sponges who will soak up whatever they are given, but the reality is religious ideas, values, beliefs and emotions are formed by very active personal cognitive and emotional processes.
Yes, I would say that's very on-target and something RCIA leaders might want to think about.
DeleteJack, that is what I’ve observed also, both in regards to conversions of spouses and to the appeal of small groups.
DeleteMy husband and I were married in the Catholic parish in the neighborhood we were moving to after our wedding. We still live in the house we moved into the day after we got home from our honeymoon. It will be 50 years next December.
The parish was fairly new and the church was only completed a couple of years before our wedding. They had met in a local high school gym for several years previously. The pastor met with us once for a couple of hours, and he celebrated the nuptial mass for our wedding. He also invited my Protestant husband to go to communion at mass and never pressured him to become Catholic in all the years that he was there, giving my husband communion. My husband did usually go to mass with the family, was a volunteer CYO coach for years, and also went to communion with us. Our pastor eventually moved to another parish where he stayed even after he retired. He was an incredible priest, a true pastor. The parish he went to is one of the two “ power” parishes in the archdiocese with a lot of well known Catholic politicians and journalists from both the liberal and conservative camps. Brett Kavanaugh is a member of that parish. So is E.J. Dionne, who wrote a wonderful column in the WaPo about our former pastor when he retired. I saved the column for our sons to illustrate that not all priests are rigid. legalistic authoritarians, worried more about how many angels can dance on the head of the pin than about people. I also explained that he was the reason their Protestant dad was invited to the communion table - the priest was more concerned about emulating Jesus than worrying about canon law. Although my husband never became Catholic, eventually both of us decided to change to the EC - new to both of us. My husband grew up in the:UCC, but was baptized in the Presbyterian church. Protestants have a much easier switching denominations than Catholics do - in general..
I agree with Katherine that RCIA is not the only option. We do private instruction at our parish for children who are too old for infant baptism but thought not to be old enough, for one reason or another, for RCIA.
ReplyDeleteRCIA is a great example of how things sort of run by inertia sometimes in Catholic parishes. First of all, dioceses have invested a lot in RCIA: training courses for leaders, and so on. Then, once it is up and running in a parish, there are various reasons to keep it going: it basically "works" (at least for people who stick it out through the lengthy process). It also constitutes a ministry which keeps a group of people engaged in parish work, and many of them seem to be pretty devoted to the pastoral work - it would be a disappointment for them not to be able to do it. Also, RCIA often is led by a member of the parish staff, so RCIA is sort of "baked in" to the parish's operations: it's someone's job to run it. Finally, a new pastor is going to look around in his deanery and vicariate and see that every other parish in the area is doing RCIA, so there will be both express and implied pressure for him to conform.
My only involvement in RCIA has been to be one of the visiting presenters. At different times I've talked about Mary and about baptism with candidates and their sponsors. I enjoy that kind of thing, and the candidates usually are reasonably fun, interesting people who are curious and are grateful to have question answered.
RCIA is somewhat complicated: it is a liturgical rite (or order); it has an instructional component; hopefully it has a dimension of spiritual formation; and as some candidates may also be going through an annulment process to get a previous marriage irregularity addressed, there can be a legal aspect to it, too.
My own opinion is that it takes too long; if people are motivated, we should find a way to get through the process more quickly. By comparison, we baptize an infant in 45 minutes or less, with the parents attending a prep course for an hour or two (and when we were young parents ourselves, that was only required for the first child's baptism). It also involves "graduating" the elect from a structured, small-group faith sharing dynamic into a large parish congregation which is pretty unstructured and anonymous and less the person is willing to per her/himself forward to get involved in the parish somehow. I'm sure that can be intimidating. Then, too, many people who go through it are young adults with a wedding looming; after the wedding, they may move somewhere else and face the challenge of finding a different parish to be comfortable in.
I agree that RCIA is too long for people who have already made up their mind to join. But sometimes the slow walk is better for people who have some doubts and misgivings. It shouldn't be a situation where people can't discuss difficult questions or things that trouble them (but I realize that it sometimes is). Most priests are quite willing to have a private conversation with a person who doesn't want to air their question in a group setting.
Delete"It also constitutes a ministry which keeps a group of people engaged in parish work, and many of them seem to be pretty devoted to the pastoral work - it would be a disappointment for them not to be able to do it."
DeleteIf the point of RCIA is to serve the parishioners who run it, it's a great program. Gives them a forum where they can jack their jaws about getting their Polish sausage and eggs blessed in a little Easter basket, how Sister used to smack them when they acted up at Mass, and how much you should put in the box for a votive in front of the BVM.
If the point is to accompany and help outsiders discern where they belong ... let's say people might get thru the process in spite of RCIA rather than because of it.
Re length: Don't forget that the process is also lengthened by six weeks of Inquirers meetings that happen before RCIA proper.
I am so glad Jean invoked the word "accompany". I really think Francis's spirituality of accompaniment should be the spiritual foundation of Christian initiation. It's the standard by which we should measure the efficacy of RCIA/OCIA - or any alternative.
ReplyDeleteRaber read somewhere about a candidate whose annulment process was complicated, and he was unable to be received at the Easter Vigil. An informal group of parishioners who had taken an interest in him continued to welcome him at Mass and pray for his situation.
DeleteRaber's suggestion has always been to try to bring candidates into the life of the parish before their reception in informal ways. There was an effort for awhile to invite candidates to participate in the Men's Club activities, to attend parish dinners, to decorate the Church, help with the food drive, etc.
RCIA is now done exclusively at our sister parish by a nun sent by the diocese, so we don't really know how it works any more.