Franciscan at Home

The joy and youthfulness of the Catholic priesthood never fade. The passing years only increase a sense of wonder at the grace and power of the priesthood, not least in the daily offering of the Mass and in a life dedicated to the service of countless souls in the light of the Eucharist. A priest needs look no further for the source of his life and joy. On the 40th anniversary of my ordination, I traveled as a pilgrim to Lourdes on February 11th which  celebrates a moment when “the Mother of Christ made her presence felt and her voice heard.”[1]

I came to Lourdes to give thanks to God for Our Lady’s accompaniment throughout my priestly life. The pilgrimage led me to recognize anew the place of her Rosary in this life and mission. I saw how the Rosary formed an unbroken chain through every scene of my life, linking every moment with Gospel contemplation, intercession, reparation, praise, and thanksgiving to the Holy Trinity. As Pope St. John Paul II once reflected, “The Rosary has accompanied me in moments of joy and moments of difficulty. To it I have entrusted any number of concerns; in it I have always found comfort” (RVM, no. 2).

In the Latin language there is a saying that could also be applied to our work as catechists: nomen est omen. This means that the name also reflects the inner essence of a person or a thing. In other words, the name speaks for itself. The name of St.

When I served as director of André House, a ministry of hospitality to the poor and homeless in downtown Phoenix, we often spoke about “the two feet of service”: direct service to those in need and working for justice and a long-term solution. Both are important, and each one informs and strengthens the other. Inspired by Dorothy Day and under the patronage of St. André Bessette, André House leaned heavily on the foot of service. We labored all day to bring comfort, food, water, safety, and hospitality to the hundreds of people who came to us daily.

Shortly after his election as pope, His Holiness Pope Francis wrote the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), which is the programmatic document for his pontificate.[1] It follows the lines of thought of the Aparecida Document, which was written in response to the difficulties the Church in Latin America was having in transmitting the faith from one generation to another.

Catechetical Committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1992–2012

This series of articles seeks to explore an extraordinary fifty-year period in the history of the Church’s catechetical mission. We have already looked briefly at the outcomes of the International Catechetical Study Weeks, the General Catechetical Directory (1971), Evangelii Nuntiandi (1974) and Catechesi Tradendae (1979), Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory of Catholics in the United States (1979), The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (1987), and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993). In this article, we will turn our attention to the remarkable developments within the structure of the U.S. Bishops Conference that accompanied the Church’s publication of these documents, as well as the historic renewal of her catechetical ministry.

Just as the composition of the Informative Dossier for the Catechism of the Catholic Church was being completed by the staff of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1992, the bishops of the United States voted to form an Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Implementation of the Catechism in the United States. The chair of the Committee was Bishop Edward Hughes of Metuchen. “The mandate of the ad hoc committee was twofold: to prepare for the reception of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) in the United States and to assist the bishops of the United States in planning its implementation in their (arch)dioceses.”[i]

The Catechism itself was still more than a year away from the Holy Father’s approval, but both the Holy See and the U.S. bishops were preparing for its publication—the Vatican by preparing the Informative Dossier and the American bishops by establishing a committee to provide for its oversight. These two decisions would prove to be instrumental in paving the way for the favorable reception of the Catechism worldwide and, in a special way, in the United States.

There was no small amount of resistance at the time to the publication of a “universal catechism.” Especially among the ranks of some established national, diocesan, and parish catechetical leaders in the United States, the concept of a single catechism that would be pastorally applicable to all Catholics throughout the world was not possible, let alone desirable. The significant advances that had been made in the necessary inculturation of the Christian message in such documents as Evangelii Nuntiandi, Catechesi Tradendae, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, and several of Pope John Paul II’s encyclicals seemed to argue against a “universal” catechism.

At the same time, in the minds of many in the United States, the use of the word “catechism” conjured images of outmoded and ineffective catechetical methodologies. It reminded many of the Baltimore Catechism, which taught in a question-and-answer format and was intended to be committed to memory. The Baltimore Catechism and other similar instruments had been replaced in favor of materials that were age-appropriate and suitably adapted to the conditions of the person being catechized.

The shorthand designation of “universal catechism,” however, can be misleading. In fact, the mandate given by Pope John Paul II was for a catechism for the universal Church, not a universal catechism. This distinction is important. It is true that there can be only one catechism for the Church throughout the world because the Church holds and teaches the same truth in every place. But a catechism for the universal Church must be the point of reference for the development of national or regional catechisms and other types of catechetical materials. Such catechisms and catechetical materials must be prepared in light of both the catechism of the universal Church and the particularities of the individual cultures in which they will be used. They have to adapt their teaching to the capacity of those who receive it but, at the same time, must transmit the fullness of the truth that God intends to communicate in his self-revelation. In his remarks to the Catechism Commission in 1986, Pope John Paul II addressed this issue:

The catechism which you are called to plan is situated within the church’s great tradition, not as a substitute for diocesan or national catechisms, but as a “point of reference” for them. It is not meant to be, therefore, an instrument of flat “uniformity,” but an important aid to guarantee the “unity in the faith” that is an essential dimension of that unity of the church which “springs from the unity of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”[ii]

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is currently undertaking a Eucharistic revival.

We continue this series from the last issue of the Catechetical Review here in the "From the Shepherds" department because of its reflections on the writings of the bishops of the universal Church.

The five decades between the Second Vatican Council and the publication of the third general catechetical directory in 2020 have been an extraordinarily important period in the history of modern catechetics.  During this time the Church’s catechetical ministry has been afforded unprecedented support in documents of the universal Church as well as those of the bishops of the United States. This series of articles is an exploration of those documents.  Prior to the Council, however, six pivotal international catechetical study weeks were convened that previewed some of the major concerns raised in the deliberations of the Council fathers.  In the first article of this series, the basic themes of the first three international catechetical study weeks held between 1959 and 1964 were explored. In this article, we will examine the issues engaged by the last three international catechetical study weeks held between 1964 and 1968.

"Y le anunciaron la Palabra del Señor a él y a todos los de su casa" Hechos 16,32.

En la primera parte establecimos la razón fundamental por la cual el sabio proceso del RICA debe de tomar la delantera de nuestros esfuerzos por evangelizer y catequizar a familias enteras. Guiándonos del Directorio para la catequesis, nuestro enfoque es “una catequesis de inspiración catecumenal para aquellos que han recibido los Sacramentos de Iniciación Cristiana, pero que aún no están suficientemente evangelizados o catequizados, o para aquellos que desean reanudar el camino de la fe”[1]. Este artículo explora los elementos involucrados en el desarrollo de un proceso que incorpora la evangelización y catequesis pos bautismal para padres de familia, inspirado en el modelo del RICA.

Primero lo primero

Es esencial agendar una cordial bienvenida que prevé tiempo para conversar con los padres de familia al comenzar nuestra relación con ellos. Otramente dicho, el modelo más conocido de “apuntar” o “inscribir” al niño para su preparación a los sacramentos no funciona en esta situación. En este momento, lo que más nos interesa es conocer a los padres de familia y establecer con ellos una relación.

Ya que se haya establecido con los papás una relación con cierto grado de confianza y entendimiento, es esencial determinar por qué los padres de familia creen que es importante llevar a sus hijos de edad catequética a bautizarse ahora y dónde están ellos en su itinerario de Fe. Es crítico que se empiece a sondear cuál ha sido la experiencia de “iglesia” que han vivido para determinar cuál (si es que la hay) relación tienen con la Persona de Cristo. A menudo, encontramos un puente de confianza con la Iglesia misma por medio de la recepción de los sacramentos como niños, o por los familiares, etc., pero no con Jesucristo. De alguna forma, perciben la llamada de Dios, pero frecuentemente son incapaces de articularla. Nuestra misión es llevarlos desde el punto dónde están, colocarles en los brazos misericordiosos de Jesús, y formarles para ser Sus discípulos para que ellos, a su vez, puedan formar a sus hijos.

On June 25, 2020, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, headed by its president, His Excellency Archbishop Rino Fisichella, presented for the Universal Church a new Directory for Catechesis.