If you could change RCIA

[Apologista]

I think it should be very in-depth and absolutely orthodox. It should also take into account Catholic culture and devotional practices, and there should be something like an anonymous question box so that people could ask about things that they might be embarrassed to ask out loud.

Maybe there should be a checklist of common topics (like purgatory, birth control, confession, the papacy, indulgences, novenas) that Protestants think are weird or problematic, and time to address those so that they don’t become stumbling blocks later.

It might be good for catechists to know some basic psychology/spiritual direction principles as well - what things might cause a person to be indecisive, or rush into a decision. The thing that I would think we should try to minimize are conversions that ultimately don’t “take.” Which is not an easy task.

Oh, and one more thing, really address the person’s marriage and family situation - are they joining the Catholic Church more to please a spouse/family member/friend? Or are they being severly opposed by someone important in their life? Either one can have complicating consequences later on.

 

[LisaA]

I think it should be very in-depth and absolutely orthodox. It should also take into account Catholic culture and devotional practices, and there should be something like an anonymous question box so that people could ask about things that they might be embarrassed to ask out loud.

Maybe there should be a checklist of common topics (like purgatory, birth control, confession, the papacy, indulgences, novenas) that Protestants think are weird or problematic, and time to address those so that they don’t become stumbling blocks later.

It might be good for catechists to know some basic psychology/spiritual direction principles as well - what things might cause a person to be indecisive, or rush into a decision. The thing that I would think we should try to minimize are conversions that ultimately don’t “take.” Which is not an easy task.

Oh, and one more thing, really address the person’s marriage and family situation - are they joining the Catholic Church more to please a spouse/family member/friend? Or are they being severly opposed by someone important in their life? Either one can have complicating consequences later on.

This is great and really helpful. I’m on the RCIA Team and we’re always looking for ways to improve the process. Thank you
Lisa

 

[Apologista]

This is great and really helpful. I’m on the RCIA Team and we’re always looking for ways to improve the process. Thank you
Lisa

Lisa, I’m glad that sounded helpful to you. I hurt when someone leaves our family the Church. An ounce of prevention . . .

 

[LisaA]

Lisa, I’m glad that sounded helpful to you. I hurt when someone leaves our family the Church. An ounce of prevention . . .

Oh I know. I’ve been on the team for five years and we’ve had some of the most amazing people enter the Church. We were talking at the Easter Vigil and looking around at all the previous “Tiber Swim Classes” who were there. Something about choosing the Church, going through the RCIA process and really falling in love with our faith…it’s a beautiful thing! I think some of our most devoted parishioners are among the converts.

But I too have seen some candidates who were clearly there to please a spouse or potential spouse and sadly we don’t see much of them after the Vigil. But we all keep praying and being open to their return.

Take care and thank you again
Lisa

 

[c0ldb33r]

I would remove the requirement of a sponsor and remove classes entirely. Instead just implement recommended readings.

 

[LisaA]

I would remove the requirement of a sponsor and remove classes entirely. Instead just implement recommended readings.

Wow that’s quite an interesting answer. Why do you feel this way?

One of the things about the RCIA process is that not only are you learning about the faith but the interaction with your fellow travelers on this faith journey is one of the many blessings. You also have the opportunity to interact and learn from various teachers. Our RCIA group sessions are led by our Priest, Deacons, Oblates, College Professors, Lay Ministers and Religious. What an opportunity and what an investment made by both the Church and the RCIA member.

Frankly I’m stunned by your answer and curious where you got that attitude.

Lisa

 

[Ivanne]

Dear Sir,

Thank you for asking. Definate agreement on no oversight, and sticking to church teaching. Also, is it possible to have two classes? It sounds awful but we had two camps in our class.

1. We grew up in “culterally Catholic” (hispanic C&E) families, never went to church as young adults, and need to join now because we want our kids to be Catholic. Just the basics please, we are not interested in the original greek, yawn.
2. Oh boy! Isn’t this the most wonderful thing in the world? After years of agonizing and indepth Bible study we finally realize that this is the TRUTH. Holy Mother Church. We want to know everything, oh and about John Henry Cardinal Newman and the tractarians…
   Please, uh illustrate that point with 3 examples from the Catechism. Wait, wait, we can’t move on yet, surely we need to cover Thomas Aquinas, and what about canon law # xxx from the Vatican website?

The instructor’s head would rotate back and forth like spectators at a tennis match between the two groups. By the end it had become tense.

Being in the #2 group I caused frustration among group #1, *“Will you just give it a rest?” *And felt cheated most evenings when I left.

thank you.

 

[c0ldb33r]

Frankly I’m stunned by your answer and curious where you got that attitude.

Just personal preference really. I can learn massive amounts of information if you leave me alone with a bunch of books/materials. I do not learn well sitting around being talked at. Our local RCIA is mostly taught by non-priests as we have a critical lack of priests. This leads to problems as their technical nowledge isnt great. Also they dont have teaching experience. Unfortunately it creates the perfect storm for mediocrity.

I guess another solution could be upgrading technical skills and mandatory teaching experience. The problem is thats asking a lot for volunteers.

As for the requirement of a sponsor, it just seems unnecessary.

 

[c0ldb33r]

I’ll add another thought - a lot of people are shy and don’t like the idea of sitting around with a group of people every week discussing things. I understand that a group structure is supposed to make the experience easier or inviting, but it may actually act as a disincentive to some people.

The system should be structured so that you need to have a base level of knowledge and the RCIA criteria would be satisfied regardless of how you get there.

Also, some of the issues noted above I think are unfortunately very common - e.g. talking about how you interpret scripture or how it makes you feel - that’s completely irrelevant

 

[paperwight66]

QUOTE=sw85;9206124. 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). QUOTE

Actually, this isn’t correct, so it’s just as well you were not taught it.

According to Canon Law 989, it is only MORTAL sins which must be confessed.

Venial sins do not have to be confessed ever, but the practice is highly recommended.

If the penitent is not aware of having committed a mortal sin, they do not have to go to confession. It is not a blanket ‘one size fits all’ requirement.

 

[paperwight66]

I attended RCIA at my wife’s parish several years ago, and it was terrible. I was taught several falsehoods about Catholicism, .

Can you remember what these falsehoods were, by any chance? It would be interesting to know.

 

[paperwight66]

.

1. 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)

have i mentioned introducing the Rosary?
please?

You do know that sayng the Rosary, while a long-established custom and meanigful to many people, is purely a private devotion and nobody is obliged to say it?

 

[waterbrook]

Mmm…as I read I see glimmers of arrogance, no one has a right to judge where spiritually another is, similarly, being received into the church is not about huge amounts of knowledge. Surely RCIA is about learning to walk the walk rather than talking the talk and everyone can improve on that. Those being called to baptism have something to teach and encourage the local church through their often simple and enthusiastic response to Christ.

 

[nickybr38]

Mmm…as I read I see glimmers of arrogance, no one has a right to judge where spiritually another is, similarly, being received into the church is not about huge amounts of knowledge. Surely RCIA is about learning to walk the walk rather than talking the talk and everyone can improve on that. Those being called to baptism have something to teach and encourage the local church through their often simple and enthusiastic response to Christ.

I just wanted to respond to this quickly by saying that how can one make a profession to believe in the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church if they don’t even know what that one Holy Apostolic Church teaches???

And not in response to you but I wanted to say that the one thing I WOULDN’T change about RCIA is the class structure. Meeting those people every week and getting to know them provided a kind of… safety net. I have a permanent family in those people because I got to know them so well. It would have been much harder to integrate into the parish if not for my RCIA classmates.

I attended RCIA with my very, VERY socially shy cousin. She HATES speaking in groups and all that. Throughout class she would sit quietly and just listen. She only interacted with everyone AFTER or BEFORE class. If there had been no class, she wouldn’t have made ANY friends at all!!!

Now, after RCIA is over, she barely attends Mass and isn’t involved in the parish at all but because she went to RCIA there is that core group of people whom she is still connected to. How can that be a bad thing?

 

[cominghomeCC]

I can’t speak for the adult RCIA program, but the RCIA adapted for children.

I know it’s a numbers issue, likely not feasible. But to have ages 7 to 14 is making it difficult to teach. We had a lovely instructor. She was infinitely patient with the kids, AND we had 2 seminarians assist. We are blessed to have a seminary here. But the older kids felt it was too simple. We did break the group in 2 for about 15 minutes a session and the older kids went with the seminarians(along with 1 parent) to another room and they’d go a little deeper. But 15 minutes isn’t much time, they’d just be really getting into it, getting the kids to come out of their shyness and time was up. Both of the young men will be tremendous in their vocation, we need more young men like them, but 15 minutes is simply not enough time.

I think my older child would have done better in a group say ages 12 to 16. But it is a numbers issue.

Now my eldest daughter is entering, but she is 15 and must go with the adults. She is not keen on that at all. Neither is the Sr. that runs the children’s program would prefer that dd is in the kids program as the new candidates the youngest is 40, at the moment, and that is a huge gap.

 

[Apologista]

But I too have seen some candidates who were clearly there to please a spouse or potential spouse and sadly we don’t see much of them after the Vigil. But we all keep praying and being open to their return.

Take care and thank you again
Lisa

I think there should even be an ongoing prayer apostolate - maybe it could be part of a larger effort to pray for all who have left the Church - but special mention could be made of the RCIA candidates who “go missing.” The reason I say this is, sometimes I’ve seen it happen after they’ve only been in the Church 2-3 years - so if they haven’t gotten to know very many people, they could never be missed.

You wouldn’t have to mention each by name, but just “All our past RCIA converts who have left the Church” or something like that. One lady I’m thinking of led a Bible study and was so enthusiastic after her conversion, and then she got the hubby-pressure to return to the Protestant church with him, plus I think maybe she had some mental illness issues.

But it seemed as if the other ladies in the Bible study were sort of like “oh well” about it. That may just have been my perception, and I imagine they tried at first to persuade her not to go (this was in a different parish than mine so I wasn’t always around to know what was happening; I only found out about it after the lady had already been away for some time).

My point is, again, they’re all family, they should not be forgotten in our prayers. :grouphug:

 

[LisaA]

Just personal preference really. I can learn massive amounts of information if you leave me alone with a bunch of books/materials. I do not learn well sitting around being talked at. Our local RCIA is mostly taught by non-priests as we have a critical lack of priests. This leads to problems as their technical nowledge isnt great. Also they dont have teaching experience. Unfortunately it creates the perfect storm for mediocrity.

I guess another solution could be upgrading technical skills and mandatory teaching experience. The problem is thats asking a lot for volunteers.

As for the requirement of a sponsor, it just seems unnecessary.

Interesting answer and I appreciate your candor. What did you want out of RCIA? Just a knowledge of the Catechism and what Catholics believe?

Speaking for myself, I had no clue what RCIA entailed. I had heard from another convert that it was “long and difficult” but it was the price of admission so to speak and I didn’t think twice about the commitment of time. That being said I got so much more from RCIA than simply what I might call “head knowledge.” Like you I am a voracious and fast reader and can cover much more material on my own than could be done in a lecture. So the classes weren’t so valuable as simply learning Catholicism 1.0. I learned a lot more on my own with books, EWTN and the Catholic Channel, and quite honestly this discussion forum than I ever learned in RCIA classes.

OTOH what I got out of the group discussions were so many blessings and benefits. As someone else has posted, I made incredible close friends on the journey and having “fellow travelers” along the road made it more enjoyable. We were mostly from very different backgrounds, some evangelicals, some baptized Catholics who never went through Confirmation, some going thru to please a spouse or fiancee, some mainline Protestants. This gave us a lot of different perspectives and interesting questions came from the classes.

We still have a bond that has lasted the seven years since I became Catholic and after I joined the RCIA team I had the opportunity to get to know a lot more people in our Parish.

Anyway not arguing with you just explaining why I found your answer so surprising. I hope you are still in love with your Catholic faith.

Lisa

 

[LisaA]

I’ll add another thought - a lot of people are shy and don’t like the idea of sitting around with a group of people every week discussing things. I understand that a group structure is supposed to make the experience easier or inviting, but it may actually act as a disincentive to some people.

The system should be structured so that you need to have a base level of knowledge and the RCIA criteria would be satisfied regardless of how you get there.

Also, some of the issues noted above I think are unfortunately very common - e.g. talking about how you interpret scripture or how it makes you feel - that’s completely irrelevant

Hi again, just wanted to also respond to this post which is very helpful. We are going through a debriefing of our RCIA program and even though you went to a different Parish I am sure you speak for others’ experience.

One comment is that our RCIA sessions were divided into the first hour being an opening prayer and then the topic of the evening. That was about an hour. Then we had a break and always tried to make sure someone brought snacks or drinks. That would allow people who don’t like asking questions in a group to have ‘one on one’ with the instructor or other team members or other members of their class. It was obvious that some of our RCIA people are very reserved in a group setting and would never say a word during the class but would seek out someone during the break for additional discussion. After the break we’d often split into small groups and go over some questions from the class topic.

Is that how your RCIA operated?

Also meant to respond to the sponsor issue, I found my sponsor to be very helpful but apparently you didn’t? Did you already know the answers or feel that they didn’t add anything to your conversion? Just curious again.

Lisa

 

[c0ldb33r]

Hi Lisa, I’m happy to give any (name removed by moderator)ut that I can.

HOWEVER, I really hope that my below post doesn’t make me seem rude. I’m just going to be honest and not censor myself.

I currently work in a very successful office of bankruptcy trustees. Before switching over to that I was a lawyer in private practice. I’m working towards obtaining my license as a bankruptcy trustee, a process which usually takes about 5 years. I’m working my butt off and finished the first 4 years of work in about 8 months including assignments and exams and working 60+ hours per week at the office. When you add the studying I probably work 80-100 hours per week, depending on the week. Needless to say I’m super busy.

So, the problems are:

1. the system doesn’t change to accommodate someone’s crazy schedule. It’s once a week for a few hours come hell or high water.
2. the system moves at a snail’s pace - because there is a mixed group of participants, the system must be structures so that no one falls behind - this is very slow
3. while I understand the social component is there to welcome people to the Church, our community shares one RCIA program for a number of different parishes. The problem is that you’ll never/rarely see these people again, so it doesn’t seem to accomplish its goal. Obviously if you’re part of a large church, which I’m not, this isn’t a big issue.

Finally, with respect to sponsors, I don’t really see the point. The problem is that most Catholics don’t know what the Church teaches. This isn’t a criticism, just an unfortunate fact. I bet that if you were to ask 10 random “once a week” Catholics whether the Eucharist contained the body and blood of Christ or whether it was merely symbolic, you’d get a mixed bag of answers.

I guess that issue can really be addressed by choosing the right sponsor, but if you’re new to the Church, how can you know who a “right sponsor” would be.

I think the system should be permitted that you need to know a certain level of knowledge, period. That way you ensure that, at least in theory, all Catholics believe the same thing and you can keep the ideology from splitting.

The actual process should depend on what would work best for the specific individual. Maybe give a few options - self study vs group work - maybe half a short exam at the end of the program for quality control. Or have an amalgam of both - a few short classes but supplemented mostly by reading.

 

[LisaA]

Hi Lisa, I’m happy to give any (name removed by moderator)ut that I can.

HOWEVER, I really hope that my below post doesn’t make me seem rude. I’m just going to be honest and not censor myself.

1. the system doesn’t change to accommodate someone’s crazy schedule. It’s once a week for a few hours come hell or high water.
2. the system moves at a snail’s pace - because there is a mixed group of participants, the system must be structures so that no one falls behind - this is very slow
3. while I understand the social component is there to welcome people to the Church, our community shares one RCIA program for a number of different parishes. The problem is that you’ll never/rarely see these people again, so it doesn’t seem to accomplish its goal. Obviously if you’re part of a large church, which I’m not, this isn’t a big issue.

Finally, with respect to sponsors, I don’t really see the point. The problem is that most Catholics don’t know what the Church teaches. This isn’t a criticism, just an unfortunate fact. I bet that if you were to ask 10 random “once a week” Catholics whether the Eucharist contained the body and blood of Christ or whether it was merely symbolic, you’d get a mixed bag of answers.

I guess that issue can really be addressed by choosing the right sponsor, but if you’re new to the Church, how can you know who a “right sponsor” would be.

I think the system should be permitted that you need to know a certain level of knowledge, period. That way you ensure that, at least in theory, all Catholics believe the same thing and you can keep the ideology from splitting.

The actual process should depend on what would work best for the specific individual. Maybe give a few options - self study vs group work - maybe half a short exam at the end of the program for quality control. Or have an amalgam of both - a few short classes but supplemented mostly by reading.

Thank you and no it doesn’t seem rude at all. I think your experience is probably on the “bad” end of the contiuum because of your own capacity to learn on your own and being a self starter it wasn’t a good situation. As you pointed out since RCIA programs tend to be run by volunteers and there is such a variety of ages, experiences etc it can be difficult if not impossible to tailor the program. In my own experience on the team I think the most difficult situation was mixing in children with the adults. When it comes time to speak about Catholic teachings on contraception, abortion, etc…what do you do about the 11 year old? OY VEY!

So I’m simply going to take your comments to heart and look at our program to see if we have any of the same issues. BTW did you have the weekly sessions in Mass. We call them Dismissal but some call them BOW Breaking Open the Word.

One comment in defense of the “social” parts of the process, I think many people leave the Church because they don’t feel part of either the Church or their Parish. The friendships and ‘bonding’ of the classes seems to be an important element to many. As I look back on the five RCIA groups I’ve seen go through the process, it was those who seemed most interactive and participated in various Parish events or ministries who stayed. I realize your schedule might not allow for this but just a comment for many this is as important as the “book learning.”

BTW you are right that many Catholics are poorly catechized. Being a convert I jumped in with both feet, did a lot of reading etc. One of my friends is a cradle Catholic and always asking ME what something means or what the church teaches. She said they were just too young to absorb most of what they learned from the Sisters.

Thank you!
Lisa