Pre RCIA Catholic Converts

[Dovekin]

RCIA was largely developed in Africa, based on the ancient rites in the Church. This allowed catechists to help people prepare for baptism, raher than rely solely on the few priests available. Some of the rites were still used in infant baptism, ohers were largely ignored; RCIA reestablished adult baptism using these rites in a more meaningful way.

Non Catholic Christians are treated differently from the unbaptized. They should be received into the Church after a briefer preparation that recognizes their prior relationship with the Lord. This can be similar to ‘the priest gives some instruction and then they are received.’ Noncatechized Christians sometimes attend classes with the nonbaptized, but RCIA itself calls for the briefer preparations.

In some places, reception of noncatholic Christians is not celebrated with much fanfare. It is a less consequential change than baptism for the Church, though it may be very significant for the individual and even the parish. Neighboring churches might get offended if every move from protestant to Catholic, and vice versa, were trumpeted by pastors. So only those who get baptized are called “converts” though that still has not caught on.

 

[TheLittleLady]

A good, brief article about the RCIA from the US Bishops:

http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/who-we-teach/rite-of-christian-initiation-of-adults/

Although some preparation may be with Catechumens preparing for baptism, the preparation for Candidates is different since they have already been baptized and committed to Jesus Christ, and many have also been active members of other Christian communities. The Candidates may be received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil or at another Sunday during the year depending on pastoral circumstances and readiness of the Candidate.

 

[Londoner]

1. I did private instruction and reception at a weekday Mass. All very low-key!

 

[twf]

That’s the root of the misunderstanding. North Americans use the term RCIA to refer to a “course”, but that’s not really what it is. It is the Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults. The Church defines the actual Rites leading up to baptism, and these are universal. Catechesis is part of this, of course, but it doesn’t have to take the form of a course. When I was received into the Church in 2005 in a largely semi-rural diocese, the priest met with me informally one on one until he felt I was ready.

 

[TomH1]

Maybe it’s a UK thing

Not so, we do have RCIA here in the UK. It’s important to remember RCIA is intended for non-Christians converting to Catholicism. Someone from the Church of England, for example, wouldn’t need to go through RCIA. A parish may put someone coming from the Church of England into an RCIA but that would be a matter of convenience and the way in which they would receive instruction. But, they wouldn’t need to go through the catechumenate and be baptised. Perhaps Londoner came from a non-Catholic Christian ecclesial community and so RCIA wouldn’t be necessary.

 

[po18guy]

Those studying the faith prior to baptism or reception into the Church are called Catechumens. Why? That word is extracted from “catacombs” since the early students of the faith had to learn among the tombs of the dead to avoid being killed for their professed faith in Christ.

Christians were persecuted and often martyred for their faith during the various persecutions of the early Church. R.C.I.A. is simply a name - which has become an acronym for the process. That process, BTW, could take much, much longer than RCIA!

 

[TheMortenBay]

Peace and a good weekend to you!

And a very nice weekend and happy Sunday to you too!

Are conversions growing or at least persisting

Yeah, conversions are still going here, though I think it’s a low steady rate. Our Bishop said a few years ago the increase in membership is mainly due to immigrants.

could you see a Lutheran Ordinate coming in the future

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark is a weird structure. It’s relatively light on liturgy (though High Mass is actually quite like the Tridentine Mass in structure) unlike what I hear about other Lutheran churches. It also leans quite heavily into the Luther part of LUTHERan (which has the benefit of allowing conversion of people who realise how wrong that single man was). But for the same reason I think an ordinariate isn’t very likely. On top of that, it’s my experience that the new ecumenical movements of the Church are not reciprocated by the Lutherans.
I think there’s a good chance of Danish priests converting to be ordained either as Deacons or Priests in the Catholic Church, however. What with all of the liberalism prevailing in the Lutheran church and all.

Do you have hope for the church?

Hope? Always. I have great hope for the Scandinavian Bishops’ conference. Most of our bishops are fairly conservative, but moreover I think the Holy Spirit is moving our Bishop to improve the Church here. God isn’t dead in Denmark!

 

[TomH1]

I have no reason to doubt you were. However, a single person’s experience does not amount to evidence. I do not know when you were received into the Catholic Church, which could be important to know. And, welcome home!

There could be many reasons why you didn’t go through the RCIA process. But, it’s not because we don’t have it. Indeed, I have an edition of it for England with a foreword written by the late +Cardinal Basil Hume (RIP). It was article by +Cardinal Hume (RIP) that helped me to understand why non-Catholic Christians don’t need it.

 

[Londoner]

Yes, I came from the Church of England. I had been baptised and confirmed in the Church of England and came from the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church anyway, so becoming an actual Catholic was a fairly smooth transition.

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

There could be many reasons why you didn’t go through the RCIA process.

@Cecilia_Dympna
But you did go through RCIA, even if it wasn’t called such and minor, non-essential steps were skipped. My point being, there is no other way by which adults enter the Church; they are baptized (or make a profession of faith) and subsequently confirmed. That is, in essence, RCIA.

 

[poche]

In the 1930s my grandmother took instruction from the priest.

 

[OldCAFMember]

In 2012, my mother took private instructions from her priest. In the US, a regular archdiocesan parish. She had been an Anglican. This had much to do with her age, and our friendship with the priest.

 

[GordonP]

Might I ask how the Church in Denmark is doing?

I was reading a interview with Bishop Kozon, and was quite surprised when he admitted that the Catholic Church in Denmark is not self-sufficient, and depends on financial support from Germany.

could you see a Lutheran Ordinate coming in the future or not too soon)?

Nobody is remotely entertaining that possibility. The Catholic Church in Denmark is very small, with about 46,000 faithful, about half of which are either migrant workers or immigrants or their children, primarily from Poland. Of these, only about a quarter attend Mass regularly. People leaving the faith outnumber converts by a very wide margin, and youth retention is a huge problem, as is true for all religious groups in Europe.

Rather than founding some sort of ordinariate, any converts from Lutheranism are desperately needed to shore up the one diocese that already exists.

As for the Lutheran Church in Denmark, though it counts 75% percent of the population of the country as nominal members, only a tiny fraction of them attend church regularly, about 2.5 percent of the population, or only about 150,000 individuals. Of these, very few would be interested in anything like an ordinariate.

A good part of the converts in Denmark are Danes who are getting married to migrants and immigrants from other countries, primarily Poland.

Another thing to take into account is that the tiny number of Danish Lutherans who are turned off by the liberal positions of their church are often anti-immigrant, as well, and less disposed to the Catholic Church for that reason.

 

[HeDa]

The Catholic Church is not self sufficient in any Nordic country. Sweden is being weaned off as it is getting close to self sufficiency. Germany´s dioceses and organisations, are going to put a focus on Iceland, Finland, Norway and Denmark and also the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Salaries, seminarians, books, education etc all cost money. We are building churches or buying churches from other denominations which costs a lot of money. Starting something like a Lutheran ordinariate is not possible as there are not enough priests who could take on the responsibility of being in change of a parish. The greater majority of the Catholic priests are immigrants themselves and I would estimate it takes about 5 years before they have the necessary language skills to be responsible for the finances, employer responsibilities and also the church building itself as well as understanding the Catholic Church´s situation in the country and how the secular world functions.

When speaking (and reading about) with Lutheran priests and pastors of different ecclesial denominations I can see a small movement from reformed (SMF/SMK) pastors to becoming priests in the Lutheran church than the other way around. Mostly due to an agreement they had for a number of years regarding agreeing on the ordinations of each others pastors/priests. There is also a small movement from Lutheran priests becoming Catholics. This happens when the priests have retired, as Lutheran priests have a very, very high salary compared to Catholic priests and there is no certainty at all that they would be ordained as Catholic priests.

There is a recent (as in the past 10 years or so) interest in the Catholic and Orthodox churches from the protestants regarding Theology and mostly the writings of the Church Fathers. Traditionally nothing was talked about from after the NT to the reformation, and in the case of the churches that started from the 1850s and forward, nothing until their founder.

Pope Francis´ visit to Sweden in 2016 sort of opened the eyes of the citizens that there is a Catholic Church in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. Mother Maria Elisabeth, a sister of St Bridget of Sweden, was also canonized the same year which made very positive headlines in the news.

 

[dochawk]

In 2012, my mother took private instructions from her priest. In the US, a regular archdiocesan parish. She had been an Anglican. This had much to do with her age, and our friendship with the priest.

In the late 80s, my (now) wife and her mother received private instruction from a priest, simply because their work schedules wouldn’t let them attend RCIA.