If you could change RCIA

sw85 · #1 Apr 19, '12, 11:19 am

If you could change anything about the way RCIA is done, what would you do?

This includes generally (i.e., the broad structure of RCIA nationwide, as a nine month or so period of instruction leading up to Easter Vigil reception of the sacraments) or the way it is done at your parish specifically.

masuwerte · #2 Apr 19, '12, 12:10 pm

I attended RCIA at my wife's parish several years ago, and it was terrible. I was taught several falsehoods about Catholicism, and many important things were glossed over or skipped entirely. There didn't appear to be much oversight. My sister had a similar experience at a neighboring parish a few years later. I guess the instructors could be better prepared.

anp1215 · #3 Apr 19, '12, 12:16 pm

Ensure that the instructors are sticking to approved Catholic teaching, and not arrogantly inserting their own opinions into the curriculum.

nickybr38 · #4 Apr 19, '12, 12:16 pm

1. Make it longer to accommodate a more indepth look at the teachings of the Catholic Church specifically as opposed to just covering the basics of Christianity as a whole. Myself and the other lady who attended RCIA with me were taught NOTHING about the Catholic Church's teaching on pre-marital sex, birth control, abortion, etc. etc. etc. The lady I attended with turned around and moved in with her boyfriend...

2. No More 'scripture gazing'. To explain this further, my parish RCIA group had a system where every week we would read a section of Scripture and then share how it made us FEEL and how we would apply it to our daily life. Instead of discussing how it makes us feel I would encourage a more indepth study of how the Catholic Church understands those verses.

3. More emphasis on moral teaching. My particular group talked very little about morality and a whole lot about who Jesus was and who God is. While those two topics are important I think discussing Christian morality is pretty darned important too!

4. More explanation of the Sacraments. These were glossed over very quickly by our group.

And that's about it.

anp1215 · #5 Apr 19, '12, 12:24 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by nickybr38

1. Make it longer to accommodate a more indepth look at the teachings of the Catholic Church specifically as opposed to just covering the basics of Christianity as a whole. Myself and the other lady who attended RCIA with me were taught NOTHING about the Catholic Church's teaching on pre-marital sex, birth control, abortion, etc. etc. etc. The lady I attended with turned around and moved in with her boyfriend...

2. No More 'scripture gazing'. To explain this further, my parish RCIA group had a system where every week we would read a section of Scripture and then share how it made us FEEL and how we would apply it to our daily life. Instead of discussing how it makes us feel I would encourage a more indepth study of how the Catholic Church understands those verses.

3. More emphasis on moral teaching. My particular group talked very little about morality and a whole lot about who Jesus was and who God is. While those two topics are important I think discussing Christian morality is pretty darned important too!

4. More explanation of the Sacraments. These were glossed over very quickly by our group.

And that's about it.

This x 10000

My parish did the same thing and it's so annoying.

So there's another thing: more "meaty" in depth teaching, not sappy touchy feely nonsense.

SMOM · #6 Apr 19, '12, 12:26 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by sw85

If you could change anything about the way RCIA is done, what would you do?

This includes generally (i.e., the broad structure of RCIA nationwide, as a nine month or so period of instruction leading up to Easter Vigil reception of the sacraments) or the way it is done at your parish specifically.

Not do it on a "one size fits all" basis. Some people who have already been baptized and are regularly attending Mass with for example their Catholic spouse, require a different level of catechism than someone with virtually no faith background. The courses need to cover the material but I would do it more by individual counselling in a question and answer format than by boring dry lectures by a catechist or two to a group of people who are usually in vastly differently places spiritually.

I say one priest or deacon for each and every candidate or catechumen. (yeah, that'll happen)

. But anything is possible with God.

Pray for vocations.

martininthefiel · #7 Apr 19, '12, 12:38 pm

On the whole, RCIA in my parish was very well done. The catechist was well-informed and his presentations were well organised and coherent. The same person has been leading it for many years. I've actually occasionally dropped-in on his classes this year, and found that I learned something new each time.

The parish is very centrally located on a major street in suburban Detroit, so several smaller parishes, rather than hold classes for one or two people, send their catechumens to our program, so the classes tend to be unusually large. (I'm talking 40 or so. We had roughly 15 adult Baptisms.)

Our chief text was the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, and some other supporting texts, so it would have been difficult to stray from orthodoxy.

I do think, however, that there should have been more emphasis on the receiving the Eucharist. I was an High Church Episcopalian, so this did not present a difficulty for me, personally, but some Protestants from other denominations, and the newly Baptised seemed somewhat confused at their first Communion as to how to reverently receive.

SuscipeMeDomine · #8 Apr 19, '12, 12:40 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by sw85

If you could change anything about the way RCIA is done, what would you do?

This includes generally (i.e., the broad structure of RCIA nationwide, as a nine month or so period of instruction leading up to Easter Vigil reception of the sacraments) or the way it is done at your parish specifically.

The first thing I would do is encourage people to read the rite and follow it.

For example, RCIA is not a national rite, it is part of the universal Church (though with adaptations for Americans such as RCIA for children and RCIA for baptized non-Catholics). Another example is that the rite is very specific that the catechumenate is to last AT LEAST a year. So a parish offering a 9-month catechumenate is not following what the rite requires.

Aelred Minor · #9 Apr 19, '12, 12:51 pm

The length of time for my RCIA was convenient because it was for college students and structured around the academic calendar, but if it's true that it ought to be at least a year then it was too short. Unless the rule applies only to unbaptized catechumens, in which case there was only one in the class starting out, and he completed the program somewhere else.

Also we did have a strong focus on the sacraments, so that was good.

However, like others have said I would have eliminated what someone called "Scripture gazing" and would have greatly cut down on the instructors (of which there were far too many) giving their own private opinions, which were not always orthodox. Worst of all were the two guest speakers that came in, a married woman to talk about marriage who supported contraception, and worst of all a bishop to talk about Holy Orders (not the bishop of the diocese given as my "Location", by the way) who suggested ordaining woman was a possibility for the future of the Church, though he thought there would be married priests first. I won't give a laundry list of all the other problematic statements I remember, but take my word for it that the list would be quite long.

The general answer of course is a return to orthodoxy for the Church in general. We can't expect the instruction to be orthodox if the instructors are not. Also perhaps a more central role for the priest in the RCIA program might be good, to avoid so many poorly informed opinions of laypeople being taught to those trying to enter the Church. Although for all I know my lay-centered RCIA may have been unusual.

faithtrekker · #10 Apr 19, '12, 12:59 pm

I think I'd like to see the program somehow better tailored to those of us already coming from a Christian background. Show me what I need to do to come into further alignment with what the Church teaches. That's what I'm here for!

We were discouraged from trying to read the Catechism because it would probably be “too hard for us to understand”. I was already halfway through it on my own by the 1st few classes of RCIA. Instead, we went through Liguori Press' Journey of Faith, a set of pamphlets on major topics (Bible, Prayer, Sacraments, etc.). I'm sure this material would be great for someone starting the journey from scratch, but having practically teethed on Evangelical pews, I found it too simplistic. I'd also been exploring Catholicism for some time prior, so it almost seemed like a waste of time to cover things I'd already learned. I felt fortunate to have the benefit of 1 on 1 meetings with the director as I was only able to attend about 25% of the time with the main group. I started pestering her for more materials & got all sorts of books & resources we discussed later.

On a positive note, none of us were allowed to “skip ahead” & we went through all the Rites together. Somehow we emerged as a family. Easter Vigil was more of a joyful homecoming than a sigh of relief for completing some program!

nickybr38 · #11 Apr 19, '12, 1:03 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by faithtrekker

We were discouraged from trying to read the Catechism because it would probably be “too hard for us to understand”.

Us too! Anytime I asked a question that was even vaguely theological in nature it was brushed off and dismissed because it was too 'deep'.

On that note, I think theology SHOULD be delved into as well as philosophy. Theology if the program includes Christians who are converting and philosophy for classes that include non-Christians who are converting.

I think theology is IMPORTANT for Christian converts and philosophy is important for non-Christian converts. Philosophical ideas could really help some people understand God.

Denimguy · #12 Apr 19, '12, 1:06 pm

Make sure that the facts being taught are in harmony with Church teaching. I was a sponsor this year & learned much but some of the "facts" we in reality the opinion of the instructor (the parochial vicar of our parish)

Some of the opinions were not very orthodox. I prayed for our priest that was the instructor a whole lot during the process & continue to until the end of this year's formal training time.
I don't believe that the candidates and catechumens got the message that there are "truths" that are non-negotiable very well.

Balian · #13 Apr 19, '12, 1:23 pm

I think this may be done in other places so my comment applies mostly to my own parish and my own experience with RCIA. I think that catechumens and candidates should be in separate classes.

Like someone else commented, much of time in my RCIA classes was devoted to basic Christian teachings. I was already a baptized Christian, a student of scripture and scripture commentary. In other words I was well-grounded in Christian faith and the basic teachings were just a review of what I already knew. What I needed was to become grounded in Catholic beliefs and that got very short shrift. It was pretty much just crowded into the last few classes before Easter Vigil. It should be obvious that those of us converting to Catholicism needed that most of all as we did not have the benefit of growing up in a Catholic home or attending parochial school or religious school.

Out of my entire class which was quite large, only one of us was unbaptized and new to the faith. In the first few weeks of RCIA it occurred to me that if I relied only on those classes I would simply become a poorly catechized Catholic convert so I began accumulating authoritative books on Catholicism and studied those on my own along with the Catechism itself. I got much more benefit from that then I did the classes. I am not very confident that everyone else in my class did as I did and so I think overall RCIA was ineffective. It should have been more oriented towards teaching the specifics of the Catholic faith. Personally, I plan to volunteer to help teach RCIA once I feel more grounded myself in the hopes of making it a more productive experience.

SuscipeMeDomine · #14 Apr 19, '12, 1:26 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aelred Minor

The length of time for my RCIA was convenient because it was for college students and structured around the academic calendar, but if it's true that it ought to be at least a year then it was too short. Unless the rule applies only to unbaptized catechumens, in which case there was only one in the class starting out, and he completed the program somewhere else.

Yes, catechumens need at least a year. Those who are already baptized need only as much time as they need. I don't have the text in front of me, but I believe it says something about not placing undue burdens on people.

fabricdragon · #15 Apr 19, '12, 2:22 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by sw85

If you could change anything about the way RCIA is done, what would you do?

This includes generally (i.e., the broad structure of RCIA nationwide, as a nine month or so period of instruction leading up to Easter Vigil reception of the sacraments) or the way it is done at your parish specifically.

1. ensure that they stick to ACTUAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE! my RCIA we had the visiting priest try to talk about how "inevitable" it was that we would have womenpriests.

2. Pray the Rosary. its INSTRUCTIONAL its meant to be.. it contains all the teachings!!!!! i understand maybe introducing it a few weeks in, after you get soe of the very basics in there.. but in my RCIA i asked if i could give out Rosaries and was told "we dont want to "confuse" people" (we never did pray the Rosary in RCIA, ever)

3. if you have a mixed class of people who are candidates, or more educated about Christianity in general and new to the faith folks..... it may make sense to separate them out a bit for some more fast paced or in depth lessons, either half way through or something.. so we start together but while the "baby steps" crowd is learning "who is Jesus" can the rest of us PLEASE go talk about "how do Catholics see Him differently than maybe you heard about in YOUR church" or something?
(honestly i only made it through RCIA by gritting my teeth and saying Hail Mary's)

4. stop being afraid to mention anything that Catholics are "different" about. we had NO mention of Birth Control, or abortion teachings..(and two young about to be married girls in my class). we barely mentioned the REAL PRESENCE and as i said the visiting Priest tried to talk up women as priests.

5. seriously... if one person in the class is 14 and the rest of us are over 20.. handing out those old 60's or 70's sunday school "fact sheets" is...just...wrong.

have i mentioned introducing the Rosary?
please?