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iloveangels
Guest
Sounds like an excuse to me.
And yes, as you say, there are many people “outside the system.”
And yes, as you say, there are many people “outside the system.”
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jmcrae
Guest
What sounds like an excuse?
Every time someone misses a class, I put in an extra two hours with them to get them caught up. If six people miss the class, I teach the class, and then I teach it again six more times, for a total of 12 more hours of teaching that week, in addition to my regular work. I don’t think I’m making any excuses.
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iloveangels
Guest
You must work for the parish, eh? I mean, that must be your regular job.What sounds like an excuse?
Every time someone misses a class, I put in an extra two hours with them to get them caught up. If six people miss the class, I teach the class, and then I teach it again six more times, for a total of 12 more hours of teaching that week, in addition to my regular work. I don’t think I’m making any excuses.
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KFRaymond
Guest
I’m not sure what your RCIA process is at your parish but as the Director of RCIA at mine, we see a wonderful cross section of society that visit us and want to inquire as well as continue further. Some of them are “PTA”-like members that you suggest but we also have visitors from low income housing that take the bus to visit us … or even better, we go and pick them up and bring them to us!
This IS a journey and there is a LOT to it … sad that the original poster encountered a cranky Catholic (according to the description, not an uncharitable accusation), but questions help us as people who will assist them on this Sacramental journey to better serve them, team them with a sponsor, know if they have marriage issues that we need to assist them with, etc. It’s a very necessary part of the process.
And none of our sessions are like PTA meetings. Of course we have to supply them with information through a lecture type situation, but we break into small group discussion so that everyone gets a chance to discuss and relate the topic matter to their own life stories and journeys.
In the 5 years I’ve been involved with this process, I still see a majority of the folks that have come though the process attending our parish and being involved in plenty of things!
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Annabelle_Marie
Guest
An excuse? Seriously? All the unpaid hours put in is an excuse? Then maybe you ought to put up and volunteer for the RCIA program. I can’t believe that you would be so disrespectful to people trying to do their best. So put your money where your mouth is!
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Phemie
Guest
You say these people are not on our radar. I assume that means they haven’t made that first step of inquiry. That a preconceived idea of what the process is going to be keeps them from making the first move.
There are many ways to offer the knowledge they must have to make an informed decision to be baptized/received into full communion. There are those parishes which only get a rare person seeking conversion/reception. These people are dealt with one on one. They still have to go through the Rite of Christian Initiation – which properly refers to the rituals they have to undergo, not the method of instruction. They still have to be followed by a sponsor, etc. A person could easily do all the ‘learning’ by reading and meeting with the priest or a catechist once a month or once a week until they are ready – the priest, the sponsor and the catechist are ones who decide if they are ready. Sometimes the community does too.
I’m familiar with one parish where the Pastor and the community felt that one person seeking baptism was not ready until the day she, an immigrant from Bosnia, was able to offer the sign of peace to a fellow congregation member, a Croat. It took 3 years and the day she was able to make that gesture her comment was “Now I get it. I know what you all meant.”
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jmcrae
Guest
I work in the office doing other things - the RCIA work that I do is volunteer; it’s not part of my paid hours. I also did RCIA as a volunteer before I was hired by the parish, and I was still putting in lots of volunteer hours for the people who couldn’t make it to the regular meetings, while also holding down a full time job elsewhere, and running my household.
Nobody who works in RCIA is sitting around eating bon-bons and looking for ways to inconvenience people.
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iloveangels
Guest
Ah, that’s what I thought. You work for a parish.
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Phemie
Guest
Why should that make any difference?
You really haven’t explained by people not even being on our radar. If they ask how are we supposed to know they exist? It’s not like we go out and round up people to convert them.
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Annabelle_Marie
Guest
Well I will be helping teach RCIA this fall and I don’t work for a parish…but have a full time job…so now what?
And the other person who is here that does work for a parish has a full time job in that parish that is not RCIA!
What exactly is your point other than to put people down who step up and volunteer?
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jmcrae
Guest
It’s on my profile. I have no idea how working for a parish automatically makes me a bad person who is out to ignore and thwart people who want to go to RCIA.
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iloveangels
Guest
Interesting. Just out of curiousity, do you have any job experience teaching anything else other than RCIA? [My guess is no. Am I right?]
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aloe
Guest
That does not sound normal at all, sorry that happened to you.
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Phemie
Guest
This is in response to what post?
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jmcrae
Guest
Your guess is incorrect - I have taught a variety of subjects at the University level, and at the High School level (Fine Arts and Computer Graphics, mostly), as well as various weekend programs for children and teenagers.
I have no idea how this is relevant. RCIA is not a “course” as such.
I do know how to write a syllabus, though, and how to design an instructional module.
I have two questions for you:
What is the purpose of this Inquisition?
What are your qualifications for facilitating RCIA?
And a third question: if you know so much more than everyone else, why aren’t you volunteering with RCIA and fixing whatever you think the problem is?
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iloveangels
Guest
You probably won’t like my answers, but since this is a conversation, of sorts, I’ll answer.Your guess is incorrect - I have taught a variety of subjects at the University level, and at the High School level (Fine Arts and Computer Graphics, mostly), as well as various weekend programs for children and teenagers.
I have no idea how this is relevant. RCIA is not a “course” as such.
I do know how to write a syllabus, though, and how to design an instructional module.
I have two questions for you:
What is the purpose of this Inquisition?
What are your qualifications for facilitating RCIA?
And a third question: if you know so much more than everyone else, why aren’t you volunteering with RCIA and fixing whatever you think the problem is?
- Curiousity. This is a forum and I’m just visiting and trying to learn something about how other people view things, in this case RCIA.
- I used to be a high school science/math teacher and have a lot of teaching experience. I’ve also taught, tutored and mentored adults in college and business settings.
- As a convert, I’ve been through RCIA myself, and I’ve volunteered a couple of times. I’m not at all fond of the program the way it is, and think it generally does a pretty poor job of getting people ready to be Catholic.
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Phemie
Guest
Are you deliberately trying to be offensive?
According to you should the Church only recruit trained teachers as volunteer to teach RCIA, marriage preparation, baptismal preparation & children’s catechesis? If so we might as well cancel most of those things.
You have a bee in your bonnet and so far you’ve managed to insult volunteers & those who work for parishes.
You’ve also never explained “The people who cannot sit in those tidy meetings never cross the Church’s radar. It’s like they’re invisible to the system. Those who operate the system prefer not to think about this. They really only want to attract a certain kind of convert.”
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jmcrae
Guest
Okay, fair enough.
That’s good.
Are you assuming that every RCIA is like yours? I attended a very good RCIA, and I think the one we have here is also quite good. The one I attended was very focused on Church history. Ours here is very focused on the Sacraments. The focus depends on the Pastor and what he wants to have taught during the Period of Catechesis.
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iloveangels
Guest
Did I say exactly that or did you infer it?
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jmcrae
Guest
Why does it matter? You seem to be inferring a lot about the rest of us - it’s only fair to be be done by as ye did, is it not?
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