Is RCIA too great a barrier of entry into the Church?

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[kmaaj]

… I think that as soon as a Priest thinks a person is ready to be received into the Church, that person should be received ASAP. .

The priest has the final say as to how and when for any given candidate. Myself, I had 8 months of catechism in the Antiochian Orthodox Church, before I realized God’s call for me to be Catholic. RCIA would have been redundant for me, and it was impossible to boot, since I work nights. I attended masses on my own for a year, and my pastor took me straight to reconciliation and confirmation, and I am blessed because of it. There is no cookie cutter approach. Every situation is different. The priest has the final say.

That said, if one of my family decided to go, I would attend RCIA with them.

 

[cheezey]

Too long… I think that as soon as a Priest thinks a person is ready to be received into the Church, that person should be received ASAP.

The priest in question for me doesn’t have a clue as to who is in RCIA in his own parish still, five and seven months later, nor does he know that there were only 8 classes before summer break.
This does not bode well. Makes me feel that he still won’t know who anyone is at confirmation time, or that he will even care.

Maybe. It really depends on the person. The biggest issue is the one size fits all approach. The rites make it clear that those who are already baptised should have no greater burden than nescessary placed upon them before being received. Too often both candidates and catechumen are lumped together into a 6 - 9 month class. This approach does not take into account the various levels of catechisis that candidates might already have received. Having a person that had been a practicing Anglican go through 9 months is ridiculous.

The best approach I have seen follows something like this…

Yes, ask them what they know already via the RCIA director/teacher. This makes sense.

…There is no cookie cutter approach. Every situation is different. The priest has the final say.

Which means the priest should be involved; he could interview the hopeful as well. And be formally introduced to the candidates. This makes sense to me, too.
Not everyone entering is completely ignorant of the knowledge needed. In fact, I would say most RCIA hopefuls want to join the Church because of what they already know.

The priest could interview as a preamble as well.

I have graciously corrected 2 people regarding some doctrines, etc., of the Catholic Church; one a recent convert, the other a life long.
Far from knowing everything (and no one does anyway and so it’s a lifelong process also), I know some things. This should be considered for RCIA.
Thank you for reading…

 

[livingwordunity]

“Is RCIA too great a barrier of entry into the Church?”

No. I went through RCIA, and the soft-sell approach is a good thing. If someone wants to become Catholic they will patiently endure the process like I did. People should know what they are getting into so that when they make the commitment to join it will be informed and sincere.

 

[Casilda]

Maybe. It really depends on the person. The biggest issue is the one size fits all approach. The rites make it clear that those who are already baptised should have no greater burden than nescissary placed upon them before being received. Too often both candidates and catechumen are lumped together into a 6 - 9 month class. This approach does not take into account the various levels of catechisis that candidates might already have received. Having a person that had been a practicing Anglican go through 9 months is rediculous.

The best approach I have seen follows something like this:

• Candidate is interview to determine their understanding of Christianity, grace and salvation, sin, the sacraments, Catholic Dogmas and doctrine, etc.
• Based on their ‘score’ in each area they are sorted into no catechisis, basic Christianity, etc.
• Candidates attend classes to “fill in the gaps.” Each major section of teaching is a 4 to 6 week module.
• Multiple modules taught concurrently based on needs.
• ‘Check points’ to see where each candidate is in their conversion and learning.
• Once every 6 to 8 weeks candidates have the opportunity to be received.

In esscence this is setup to allow persons that are we all founded in the Bible and Christianity to only attend classes to explain specific Catholic teachings, but leaves open the possibility that others might need more instruction. In this way people aren’t delayed or rushed to be received. Since their is always another chance to be received a couple months out it gives those that are sitting on the fence a little extra time to discern without thinking “if I don’t do it now I’ll have to wait another year.”

The biggest disadvantage is that there has to be a group that is dedicated enough to do it year round and also flexible enough to be able to tailor the lessons to individuals not a class.

Genius.

I am a Catholic that fell through the cracks. I was baptized, catechized and received First Holy Communion. My parents then left the church. I wasnt confirmed. When I was in college I tried going back, and have tried going back several times. I married a Christian from another faith and we’ve since both given up on the emptiness of protestantism. I am now trying to seek a priest who will ‘evaluate’ me for an adult catechism class as opposed to an RCIA. Its agonizing review, I know what I want and am being kept from it, just want to come to church and commune again.

 

[jeannetherese]

Genius.

I am a Catholic that fell through the cracks. I was baptized, catechized and received First Holy Communion. My parents then left the church. I wasnt confirmed. When I was in college I tried going back, and have tried going back several times. I married a Christian from another faith and we’ve since both given up on the emptiness of protestantism. I am now trying to seek a priest who will ‘evaluate’ me for an adult catechism class as opposed to an RCIA. Its agonizing review, I know what I want and am being kept from it, just want to come to church and commune again.

HI Casilda,
Our FSSP priest provides catechesis on a rolling, individual basis. You might want to check to see if there is another FSSP parish in your area and call to see if they follow suit.
Locations may be found through the FSSP wesite:
fssp.com/press/locations/
May God bless you! Welcome home!
jeannetherese

 

[TK421]

I’ve spent my entire life in a world of instant or near-instant gratification. It stinks. I was radiantly happy when I discovered that I will get to spend a year in preparation before partaking in the sacraments. It feels right in my soul. It is a time of reflection and excitement, and I would easily wait longer if I was asked.

RCIA (or personal study with a priest) is not a barrier. If it keeps certain people away, then I believe that is for the best. A person entering into the Church cannot go back. They are binding themselves to the Church under pain of eternal damnation. People should know what they are signing up for, and far more than knowledge, they require prayer and spiritual preparation. I would be deeply saddened if this time of edification were taken away. Even in the one-size-fits-all scenario (which is the one at my parish, since it is a smaller parish) if a person doesn’t know anything, then it is their opportunity to learn it. If a person does already know everything and is angry with the catechizing, then it is their opportunity to fix their rotten attitude. If a person does know everything and enjoys going over it with others, then it is their opportunity to show charity. Either way, it is beneficial.

 

[TrueLight]

HI Casilda,
Our FSSP priest provides catechesis on a rolling, individual basis. You might want to check to see if there is another FSSP parish in your area and call to see if they follow suit.
Locations may be found through the FSSP wesite:
fssp.com/press/locations/
May God bless you! Welcome home!
jeannetherese

This is the method by which I was instructed, and then received.

 

[HeadingBackHome]

The length of it is just fine (1 year) if the quality is good, but when you have to wait for a entire year and the program is way to slim I think its just a Waste of time.
For me this year is frustrating becouse I had to find out about all concerns I had by myself due to a rather poor RCIA program at my local Church and now after considering to enter the Church for 5 months or so Ive desided to og for it and for me to wait for 5 more months now is soooo frustrating and sad. Im so eager to confess and recieve Our Lord in the Eucharist, but have to wait just for time to pass by. Meaningless is what I Call it.
Yes you can say that this is a way of Learning obediance to Rome and the Church, but I think there are far better ways to show obediance to the Church than to refuse us/ converts to confess and to recieve the Eucharist, it feels like a punishment.
I think as mentioned in previous posts that it should be a “case to case” mentality rather than to force everyone thrue the same RCIA program.
Some might need 6 months others 1 year and some even longer than that.

 

[anon53744415]

Hopefully I’m not dredging up too old of a thread! However, I figure this topic will remain relevant for many of us.

My answer would be that for me, no, it has not been too great of a barrier, but it hasn’t always been easy! In my case it would have helped to have known initially how it all worked. How being baptized or unbaptized affects your status as catechumen or candidate and how that all plays out with the amount of time needed in RCIA. I had always been told by my parents that I was baptized, but I had no paperwork or certificate to prove previous baptism and no one who might have been there was living anymore, so I was placed into RCIA as if I were starting from nothing.

In my case I had grown up in the UMC. I had become uncomfortable with the liberalism in both the Methodist denomination and especially within my particular church and wound up spending quite a lot of time researching and studying the Catholic Church before getting into RCIA.

I started RCIA a bit late in their cycle and had only missed a few classes when I started last fall, but it became clear to the RCIA team pretty quickly that I was already quite far along in my formation and discernment about entering the Church (“you’re more Catholic than most Catholics!”). But that was not enough to get me into confirmation last Easter! That was quite a disappointment at the time but I got past that and now am enjoying the classes more than ever. I have said this in another post but I’m very lucky to be in a good, orthodox RCIA program. The material is solid and the team members are wonderful.

Several people on my RCIA team have asked that I consider joining them once I’m confirmed and that’s what I plan to do if they’ll still have me! I am looking forward to confirmation by next Easter. Until then I’ll keep learning in RCIA and studying on my own.

 

[Noli_novitius]

I am a wader in the Tiber. I have been such for almost three years now. I was blessed with a conversion that led me to seek the Truth in the Church, out of frustration with the moving target that comprises nearly all of non-Catholic Christendom. I was or have become familiar with nearly every objection to Catholicism it would seem, and of them, I shared or perhaps still share a few. One problem is the shallowness of the “rubber on the road” faith I’ve seen locally. I truly expected a much deeper experience, and will have it, if I have to create my own.

After nearly 3 years, I am “Catholic” by desire if there is such a thing, baptized Trinitarian nearly 40 years previously, and as yet unconfirmed Catholic. I have gone through one course of RCIA, and while it was in earnest, and as well presented as any probably are, I was left with far too much to learn in order to commit myself to such a complex body of knowledge and belief. I have thus been in study, inquiry, and continued prayer in all that time.

My impression as a mere if longtime wader is that while RCIA may be important, and a reasonable hurdle for someone who is simply eager and more or less uncritical or non-analytical, that RCIA is the really the sole locus to increasing depth of knowledge for a new convert, and resolving questions, comprehending at least a modicum of the faith. For the eager and perhaps “ready”, RCIA is as good as it can be, inadequate for me, but not really much of a barrier should someone simply love everything, have no questions, and need no study. I am not that, though I love it beyond words.

For me however, it seems that other than one’s personal efforts or spotty acquisition of information through informal means such as radio or TV broadcasts and books, as diligent as I have been to gain greater comprehension prior to confirmation, there is nothing formal that is clearly available, and I’m left to my own devices. I was already enthusiastic, and still am, so a sponsor wasn’t necessary to prod me along, but what I wanted and could not find was serious fellowship that would help me get through it all.

I’m ok with that, but I wish there were, and hope there is, somewhere I can go to make serious and ongoing inquiries. (NOT, ad nauseum, but at least in serious depth.) As it is, I am left in independent study, studying the catechism carefully to be satisfied on as many issues as surface, etc… I am already a Christian, and have been for many years, though essentially unaffiliated. So, it’s not a resistance to Christ, nor really the Church, simply that my definition of due diligence might be more stringent than others.

I didn’t mean this to sound like a plea for help, but I suppose it rather does. Sorry for that. .One of the things that has slowed me down are the in extremis positions or proponents of various doctrines and certain candidate dogmas that are waaay past what I can readily accept, so far. I’m left with. “Well, what if they are successful in making that dogma?” which has slowed my previous pace “into and across the Tiber.”

What do I do, besides go to mass, go to adorations when I can get in, pray the rosary, study my brains out, and keep believing. Don’t tell me to seek out a priest. I can’t even get them to talk beyond the banal. It’s not me. There is little time or desire. I have not met a single soul I think would be interested or sufficiently well versed. (my judgment) My fault? Maybe. I am enrolled in a few general theology courses at the moment.

 

[thequeen]

I didn’t come into the church through rcia I had private instruction with a Priest but even through that route it took over a year by the time I was received in full communion I had been through all the holy days of obligation two of them twice so private instruction is not always the shortest route neither.

 

[Casilda]

I am a wader in the Tiber. I have been such for almost three years now. I was blessed with a conversion that led me to seek the Truth in the Church, out of frustration with the moving target that comprises nearly all of non-Catholic Christendom. I was or have become familiar with nearly every objection to Catholicism it would seem, and of them, I shared or perhaps still share a few. One problem is the shallowness of the “rubber on the road” faith I’ve seen locally. I truly expected a much deeper experience, and will have it, if I have to create my own.

After nearly 3 years, I am “Catholic” by desire if there is such a thing, baptized Trinitarian nearly 40 years previously, and as yet unconfirmed Catholic. I have gone through one course of RCIA, and while it was in earnest, and as well presented as any probably are, I was left with far too much to learn in order to commit myself to such a complex body of knowledge and belief. I have thus been in study, inquiry, and continued prayer in all that time.

My impression as a mere if longtime wader is that while RCIA may be important, and a reasonable hurdle for someone who is simply eager and more or less uncritical or non-analytical, that RCIA is the really the sole locus to increasing depth of knowledge for a new convert, and resolving questions, comprehending at least a modicum of the faith. For the eager and perhaps “ready”, RCIA is as good as it can be, inadequate for me, but not really much of a barrier should someone simply love everything, have no questions, and need no study. I am not that, though I love it beyond words.

For me however, it seems that other than one’s personal efforts or spotty acquisition of information through informal means such as radio or TV broadcasts and books, as diligent as I have been to gain greater comprehension prior to confirmation, there is nothing formal that is clearly available, and I’m left to my own devices. I was already enthusiastic, and still am, so a sponsor wasn’t necessary to prod me along, but what I wanted and could not find was serious fellowship that would help me get through it all.

I’m ok with that, but I wish there were, and hope there is, somewhere I can go to make serious and ongoing inquiries. (NOT, ad nauseum, but at least in serious depth.) As it is, I am left in independent study, studying the catechism carefully to be satisfied on as many issues as surface, etc… I am already a Christian, and have been for many years, though essentially unaffiliated. So, it’s not a resistance to Christ, nor really the Church, simply that my definition of due diligence might be more stringent than others.

I didn’t mean this to sound like a plea for help, but I suppose it rather does. Sorry for that. .One of the things that has slowed me down are the in extremis positions or proponents of various doctrines and certain candidate dogmas that are waaay past what I can readily accept, so far. I’m left with. “Well, what if they are successful in making that dogma?” which has slowed my previous pace “into and across the Tiber.”

What do I do, besides go to mass, go to adorations when I can get in, pray the rosary, study my brains out, and keep believing. Don’t tell me to seek out a priest. I can’t even get them to talk beyond the banal. It’s not me. There is little time or desire. I have not met a single soul I think would be interested or sufficiently well versed. (my judgment) My fault? Maybe. I am enrolled in a few general theology courses at the moment.

Try an Eastern Catholic religious (nun or monk). I just hate it when you ask a priest something spiritual and their eyes bug out and they honestly tell you they don’t know the answer. It may be that Christ Himself is bringing people closer to Him, and we are seeking the church but the church isn’t really ready for us (yet?). I finally found my way back in, so to speak, and just sitting quietly at adoration, talking to Christ. So after many years in a spiritual desert, attempting to cross the Bosphorus and then the Tiber, I eventually forded the Euphrates.

 

[Noli_novitius]

Try an Eastern Catholic religious (nun or monk). I just hate it when you ask a priest something spiritual and their eyes bug out and they honestly tell you they don’t know the answer. It may be that Christ Himself is bringing people closer to Him, and we are seeking the church but the church isn’t really ready for us (yet?). I finally found my way back in, so to speak, and just sitting quietly at adoration, talking to Christ. So after many years in a spiritual desert, attempting to cross the Bosphorus and then the Tiber, I eventually forded the Euphrates.

Someone I met a long time ago, when I first began to be interested in the Church told me he himself had landed in the Eastern Church. I was less knowledgeable then, and thought the “different” mass might seem too “foreign”, and didn’t pursue it.

I don’t think any of the Latin priests or religious “eyes bugged out”, but simply were too rushed, or just acknowledged I was there and moved quickly on before I snagged them into anything significant. Frankly, I never had a chance to tell them what it was I was after,even at the “after party” for RCIA. The interest was in recruiting for various lay opportunities, which I should probably have pursued, but was not yet confirmed, and had that as my priority. (I did some volunteering at a kitchen, but did not volunteer to decorate for the festival of spring or whatever.) I don’t think anyone realized I had not been confirmed, which seemed - disconnected and odd.

The first religious I spoke to when I saw that I was undergoing a conversion simply directed me to the RCIA after listening, and saying little. I’ll just say the junior RCIA leader was not up to the task, and later went elsewhere.

I think you may be onto something as to the Church not being ready for “us”, that being people who have a level of knowledge and a desire to delve deeply before making that move. I have to agree that of all the things I do, the Rosary, Divine Mercy, adoration, and simply quietly sitting in Mass are the cornerstones for me, along with listening, reading, studying here and elsewhere, trying to live as though, and witnessing where I am led. I have tried to connect, but have yet to find anyone prepared to engage at the level I need. I don’t think myself above anyone, just maybe more curious or serious.

I’m ok here in the desert more or less alone, but it would be good to have a very knowledgeable companion in conversation on my “road to Emmaus”, and have the Lord walk up on our conversation, and lead me to breaking bread…if only.

Thanks for your “commiseration!”