If you could change RCIA

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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.
 
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.
 
Ensure that the instructors are sticking to approved Catholic teaching, and not arrogantly inserting their own opinions into the curriculum.
 
  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.
 
nickybr38 said:
  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.
  1. 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!
  2. More explanation of the Sacraments. These were glossed over very quickly by our group.
And that’s about it.
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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.
 
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.
 
sw85 said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
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!
 
faithtrekker said:
We were discouraged from trying to read the Catechism because it would probably be “too hard for us to understand”.
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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.
 
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):eek:
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.
 
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.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
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.
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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.
 
sw85 said:
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.
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  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?
 
fabricdragon said:
  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. 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.
  4. 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?
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Wow… well obviously the womenpriest thing is apalling. I mean… beyond a discussion of how to improve RCIA. Do you remmeber who this visiting priest was? I myself have never heard a priest openly dissent from a Church teaching. I’ve just seen a lot of priests not talk about the truth. But… in this case he should be reported to the Bishop. The Bishop needs to know who the bad priests are.

Anyways, my own RCIA experience was wonderful. The Deacon that leads it is a very faithful Catholic. The classes were structured to follow chapters of a Catechism which he handed out to everyone. Him and his wife also gave everyone a Rosary, and a booklet on how to pray the Rosary.

I think every RCIA class needs to have boxes of cheap plastic Rosaries that they can hand out, as well as booklets of how to pray it.
 
Balian said:
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.
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But the problem is that you can’t separate who knows the most about Catholicism/Christianity based on who is baptized and who isn’t. I’m currently sponsoring a woman who is already a baptized Catholic, but she received zero catechesis. Zero. She is someone who needs to learn the basics. On the other hand, there are people who are unbaptized but married to a Catholic spouse and have been attending Mass for decades. So it’s not very clear cut as to who needs which classes based on Baptism.
 
nickybr38 said:
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.
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While I am sure that you were disappointed, the truth is that most people in RCIA would not understand theology much less philosophy. Most that I have dealt with in the 15 years I have been doing RCIA have the slightest knowledge of who God is. Theological concepts go right over their head. Believe me I started out that way. You have to start with basics, and many times you can’t get much past that.
 
Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut, everyone. For myself, I am lucky that my class never overtly taught heresy (though there were times I felt some teachings were relayed in a manner that gave an impression of them that was technically incorrect). Like many of you, my general impression was that there was no serious effort to equip us with the things we needed to know to be good Catholics.

There are a lot of things I could point to but the two worst were the Eucharist and Confession. We were never told the conditions under which we could licitly receive communion. We were never told what to expect in confession or how to say it (despite having a class on it, which, like most of our classes, wound up in gaseous pontificating about the state of modern culture). We were never told what needed to be confessed, i.e., what constitutes mortal sin. We were never told the relevant expectations under canon law (i.e., confession at least once a year and communion at least once during the Easter season). These are probably the two most important sacraments in the Church, the ones of which we would avail ourselves most frequently, and yet we were told next to nothing important about them. The impression I got was that we were being fed watered-down stuff because the class was thought to be too stupid to fully apprehend theology and philosophy, an impression confirmed by a later conversation with the deacon who headed the class.

So these two are the major things I’d change. I agree with others about “Scripture gazing.” It should be much more structured than it is, in order to avoid giving the impression that we’re fundamentalist Protestants who are free to interpret the Bible however we like.
 
Joannm said:
While I am sure that you were disappointed, the truth is that most people in RCIA would not understand theology much less philosophy. Most that I have dealt with in the 15 years I have been doing RCIA have the slightest knowledge of who God is. Theological concepts go right over their head. Believe me I started out that way. You have to start with basics, and many times you can’t get much past that.
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Ah, I wouldn’t know. The group I was in were all pretty firm on Christian basics and honestly a little theology would have done them some good. I really felt like our particular instructor was looking down on us and treating us like idiots who couldn’t POSSIBLY wrap our heads around real theology… it was very insulting at times.

Basic philosophy isn’t really that difficult to understand? I’d say for someone who has no experience with Christianity and is seeking God a basic breakdown of philosophical reasons TO believe in God might be helpful.
 
nickybr38 said:
Ah, I wouldn’t know. The group I was in were all pretty firm on Christian basics and honestly a little theology would have done them some good. I really felt like our particular instructor was looking down on us and treating us like idiots who couldn’t POSSIBLY wrap our heads around real theology… it was very insulting at times.

Basic philosophy isn’t really that difficult to understand? I’d say for someone who has no experience with Christianity and is seeking God a basic breakdown of philosophical reasons TO believe in God might be helpful.
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I would say an easy way to avoid showering classes with unnecessary philosophy is to adduce it only when they ask why the Church teaches this or that.

In other words, teach them the conclusions of moral theological investigation (you must not use contraception or lie or have an abortion), and if they have questions why those conclusions are what they are, then go briefly into the natural-law rationale.
 
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