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Editor’s Notes: Catechesis and Dialogue

As a teaching method in catechesis, dialogue is often given a prominent place: it is seen as a ‘democratic’ mode of teaching, enabling a range of views to be heard and considered within a relationship of mutual give and take; it seems to be respectful of the learner, speaking ‘with’ rather than ‘to’ the person, allowing the other into the teaching which is taking place; and it can develop the learner’s potential, encouraging the development of critical and intellectual skills through a mutual and shared engagement with questions.

Many go further, arguing that catechesis should privilege dialogue as the preferred means of communication of the Faith.

The Church documents speak of God’s ‘dialogue of salvation’[i] being at the heart of catechesis, so that ‘The wonderful dialogue that God undertakes with every person becomes its inspiration and norm’.[ii] God speaks his word and seeks the response of his creatures. God reveals to man the plan he is to accomplish and calls for a response in faith to that Revelation. At the beginning of the first part of the Catechism this fundamental orientation of catechesis towards dialogue is implied: ‘The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being’.[iii] Cavalletti rightly emphasises that in catechesis there is a call to ‘be attentive to the dialogue that is concretized in the covenant’.[iv]

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Dr. Petroc Willey BD, STL PhD, PhD (Lateran) studied theology at King's College, London and Maynooth in Ireland and philosophy at Liverpool University in England and the Lateran University in Rome. From 1985-1992, he was Lecturer in Christian Ethics at Plater College, Oxford. From 1992 until October 2013 he worked at Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, where he was Dean of Graduate Research overseeing a doctoral program in Catholic Studies at the Maryvale Institute, offered in collaboration with Liverpool Hope University. He was appointed by Benedict XVI as a Consultor for the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization and is currently a Consultor for the Dicastery for Evangelization. He is a professor at Franciscan University for the Office of Catechetics. His publications include Become What You Are: The Call and Gift of Marriage (with Katherine Willey), and The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Craft of Catechesis (co-authored with Professor Barbara Morgan and Fr. Pierre de Cointet, and with an introduction by Cardinal Schonborn), and has articles in collections of essays and in journals such as The International Journal for Catechesis and Evangelization, New Blackfriars, Faith, The Nazareth Journal, The Catholic Canadian Review. He was the Host of the EWTN series Handing on the Faith (2007).

This article is from The Sower and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of Maryvale Institute. Contact [email protected]

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