RCIA

[sgcecilia]

Why do non-Catholics have to go through RCIA in order to join the Church, and thus receive importants sacraments? Shouldn’t they be allowed to join as soon as possible? How long does RCIA take? What does RCIA stand for?

 

[Phemie]

Why do non-Catholics have to go through RCIA in order to join the Church, and thus receive importants sacraments? Shouldn’t they be allowed to join as soon as possible? How long does RCIA take? What does RCIA stand for?

Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

The RCIA dictates the rituals that will be used while they are preparing, it doesn’t dictate how they will be catechized. Some receive one-on-one catechesis, some are in groups, some a mix of both.

Non-baptized persons have to have a true conversion and that can take years. They should be in the Order of Catechumens for at least a full year and with no date set for their baptism when they enroll. They are properly baptized into the Church at the Easter Vigil.

Baptized non-Catholics are a different matter. They should be dealt with differently from the non-baptized. The Rite says that no greater burden should be placed on them than is necessary. So if they are well-catechized and are ready to be received into full communion in June or July they shouldn’t be made to wait an extra 8 months until the Easter Vigil. Unfortunately, not all parishes are equipped to deal with them differently and both groups are lumped together.

 

[capablanca911]

Why do non-Catholics have to go through RCIA in order to join the Church, and thus receive importants sacraments? Shouldn’t they be allowed to join as soon as possible? How long does RCIA take? What does RCIA stand for?

By becoming Catholic, you are entering communion with the Church. That means that you need to be sure of who the Church is and the Church gets to be sure of who you are.

It’s your engagement before you’re married, by analogy.

 

[Catholic1954]

Why do non-Catholics have to go through RCIA in order to join the Church, and thus receive importants sacraments? Shouldn’t they be allowed to join as soon as possible? How long does RCIA take? What does RCIA stand for?

Receiving the sacraments takes preparation. Even Catholics must go through a period of preparation to make First Communion and First Confession. We do baptize our babies, but then the parents and godparents bring the child up in the Faith. Besides, we have over 2000 years of history and doctrines to learn and understand, adults should be fully informed before they convert.

 

[bzkoss236]

Joining the Catholic Church is a big deal. It’s not like some of the Evangelical churches where you can pretty much go to any church or denomination on a whim with whatever floats your boat at the time. We want people to be absolutely sure they know what they are getting into.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Why do non-Catholics have to go through RCIA in order to join the Church, and thus receive importants sacraments? Shouldn’t they be allowed to join as soon as possible? How long does RCIA take? What does RCIA stand for?

Because we aren’t “joining a church.” We are converting in heart and soul to faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ. It used to take years to be accepted into the Church. Now it usually takes about 8 mos. Aren’t we lucky?

There are people who start RCIA and b never finish, they decide once they find out what the Deposit of Faith contains that they can’t accept it. When we come into the Church, we make a promise, a vow, really. We’d better know what we are getting into.

Nothing stops you from being at Mass or partaking of Parish activities while you are in RCIA or before you go through it. But becoming pone with the Holy Universal Church is a rather serious matter.

We aren’t a “denomination” of some generic Christianity. The Church is the presence of Christ on earth.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

The RCIA dictates the rituals that will be used while they are preparing, it doesn’t dictate how they will be catechized. Some receive one-on-one catechesis, some are in groups, some a mix of both.

Non-baptized persons have to have a true conversion and that can take years. They should be in the Order of Catechumens for at least a full year and with no date set for their baptism when they enroll. They are properly baptized into the Church at the Easter Vigil.

Baptized non-Catholics are a different matter. They should be dealt with differently from the non-baptized. The Rite says that no greater burden should be placed on them than is necessary. So if they are well-catechized and are ready to be received into full communion in June or July they shouldn’t be made to wait an extra 8 months until the Easter Vigil. Unfortunately, not all parishes are equipped to deal with them differently and both groups are lumped together.

I disagree with you. You imply that the only time a non-Baptised person can be baptised only at the Easter Vigil. I learned many years ago, in Parochial School religion class from a Jesuit Priest (pre-Vatican II), that Baptism can be performed on anyone at any time at the discression of the local Pastor. It is up to him to discern that the individual is ready for the Sacrement.

 

[Phemie]

I disagree with you. You imply that the only time a non-Baptised person can be baptised only at the Easter Vigil. I learned many years ago, in Parochial School religion class from a Jesuit Priest (pre-Vatican II), that Baptism can be performed on anyone at any time at the discression of the local Pastor. It is up to him to discern that the individual is ready for the Sacrement.

While it’s true that the priest may baptize at any time, once the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults was promulgated and the Catechumenate restored, the Easter Vigil became the normative time for baptisms of adults.

I know of one parish where a woman was deemed by the community, her sponsor and the Pastor to not be ready for Baptism for several years, until she, a Croat Muslim, was able to offer the Sign of Peace to a Bosnian Catholic at Mass. In the Catechumenate all that time, every year in Lent she would ask, “Will I be baptized this year?” and the answer was “No.” until the year that she was able to shake hands with that person. Once she was baptized she admitted that she had, in fact, not been ready until that point and she now realized that.

 

[O_Moriah]

I disagree with you. You imply that the only time a non-Baptised person can be baptised only at the Easter Vigil. I learned many years ago, in Parochial School religion class from a Jesuit Priest (pre-Vatican II), that Baptism can be performed on anyone at any time at the discression of the local Pastor. It is up to him to discern that the individual is ready for the Sacrement.

The discretion a priest has as to when is not arbitrary. Without good cause, the pastor is bound to wait until the Easter Vigil. And simply for convenience or preference is not considered to be good cause. Good cause would be danger of death, illness preventing attending the Easter Vigil, being called up for military duty, etc…

The ordinary course of events is that once discernment for readiness has taken place, then they all wait until the subsequent Lent and be accepted as an Elect by the bishop and then baptized at the Easter Vigil.

It would certainly still be valid if done at some arbitrary time, but the timing is no longer supposed to be arbitrary.

 

[sgcecilia]

It doesn’t seem right to me that non-Catholics should have to wait such a potentially long time to receive important sacraments.

 

[Phemie]

It doesn’t seem right to me that non-Catholics should have to wait such a potentially long time to receive important sacraments.

Do you think they should be baptized as soon as they ask to be, even if they don’t know what they are getting into?

 

[choliks]

It doesn’t seem right to me that non-Catholics should have to wait such a potentially long time to receive important sacraments.

We may not like it but we need to trust the Church and her wisdom. If you knew how long it took for a catechumen to be part of the Church in the first few centuries, it would make the current RCIA program look like it’s just a few minutes long.

 

[iloveangels]

It doesn’t seem right to me that non-Catholics should have to wait such a potentially long time to receive important sacraments.

They should have to do a much more intensive preparation. We still have many who come into the Church not ready to attend mass on a weekly basis and obey the Church’s moral laws.

Do you think they should be baptized as soon as they ask to be, even if they don’t know what they are getting into?

No, definitely not.

 

[thistle]

Why do non-Catholics have to go through RCIA in order to join the Church, and thus receive importants sacraments? Shouldn’t they be allowed to join as soon as possible? How long does RCIA take? What does RCIA stand for?

I was a Methodist and went through RCIA. I loved it. It was a journey of discovery for me and there was an added benefit for my wife. She is a cradle Catholic and many things I learned during my RCIA time she did not know. Sadly, many cradle Catholics don’t seem to be well catechised so we always discussed what I learned week by week.

 

[sgcecilia]

I guess y’all are right. Haha.

 

[RedSparklyShoes]

I’m in RCIA right now. I had been praying for over 2 years about doing this. I wasn’t sure and positive that I was ready until past Easter last year. Had I realized that it was months long and I would have lots more time to figure things out, I might have jumped in earlier. But I honestly don’t think it was the right time for me. I was a cradle Anglican and left that to go to the Charismatic Episcopal Church when my parents did in my early 20s. Then I fell in love with a Roman Catholic. One of the reasons that I took so long to make this decision is that my father was a priest. He knew I was thinking about RCIA, but I didn’t get a chance to tell him my decision. I was wanting to tell him in person and he died suddenly not long after I had decided that this was what God’s call on my life was. My mother hasn’t been all that supportive but I was in tears at the Rite of Welcoming because she was planning to be there and phoned me to tell me that she couldn’t because she wasn’t feeling well.

 

[klm120861]

Unfortunately in many parishes RCIA is kind of the catch all class for any adult who doesn’t have all (or any) of their sacraments. When I came into the Church, my RCIA class was made up mostly of confirmands (people who had never been confirmed for one reason or another, but were Cradle Catholics). There were some who had never been to any church ever. That’s the group RCIA is supposed to be for. Or for people who have been baptized in another Christian faith as children, but again, for all intents and purposes are unchurched. In other words, RCIA is for people who know next to nothing about God, and even less about the Catholic Church. The purpose is two-fold. First, and most importantly is to introduce them to Faith: to God so that when they are baptized they have a relationship with the One who is taking away their sins. And second, to know at least the basics of Church teaching.

In my case, I came from a Protestant Tradition where I had been “saved” at 8, baptized at 12, been in church all of my life, involved in various ministries and had studied to be a pastor at one point in time. RCIA was not a good fit for me, because my questions - and I had a lot - were extremely different from the questions of the rest of the class. I was the kind of Candidate a lot of RCIA programs don’t quite know what to do with. Perhaps because most RCIA programs don’t have enough people helping out. When there is only one person teaching, dividing out the different needs gets tricky. To me, RCIA was a “hoop” I had to jump through in order to receive the Eucharist. Part of that view was re-enforced by the fact that while a Candidate I was asked to lead discussion groups and lead Breaking Open of the Word a time or two (I clearly remember once, might have been twice). Which were things that a non-Catholic shouldn’t be doing. I couldn’t understand why I was “Catholic” enough to teach others, but not “Catholic” enough to receive the Eucharist. It was a lesson in patience, obedience (even when extremely hard) and humility. And God did shower me with many graces during that time, so now I am grateful things worked out as they did. But then…not so much.
Kris

 

[novelista]

I am a convert and I had been studying Catholicism on my own for about a year before deciding to go through RCIA. At the time I started, I was very anxious to be baptized and join the church, but by the time I finished at Easter, I was glad that I had gone through the entire process. I was that much more sure of my choice to join the church. I wish it had been a faster process, but at the same time, there was nothing like being baptized on the Easter Vigil as an adult. I feel very blessed to have been able to take the sacraments on the same day that Jesus rose from the grave.

 

[iloveangels]

Unfortunately in many parishes RCIA is kind of the catch all class for any adult who doesn’t have all (or any) of their sacraments. When I came into the Church, my RCIA class was made up mostly of confirmands (people who had never been confirmed for one reason or another, but were Cradle Catholics). There were some who had never been to any church ever. That’s the group RCIA is supposed to be for. Or for people who have been baptized in another Christian faith as children, but again, for all intents and purposes are unchurched. In other words, RCIA is for people who know next to nothing about God, and even less about the Catholic Church. The purpose is two-fold. First, and most importantly is to introduce them to Faith: to God so that when they are baptized they have a relationship with the One who is taking away their sins. And second, to know at least the basics of Church teaching.

In my case, I came from a Protestant Tradition where I had been “saved” at 8, baptized at 12, been in church all of my life, involved in various ministries and had studied to be a pastor at one point in time. RCIA was not a good fit for me, because my questions - and I had a lot - were extremely different from the questions of the rest of the class. I was the kind of Candidate a lot of RCIA programs don’t quite know what to do with. Perhaps because most RCIA programs don’t have enough people helping out. When there is only one person teaching, dividing out the different needs gets tricky. To me, RCIA was a “hoop” I had to jump through in order to receive the Eucharist. Part of that view was re-enforced by the fact that while a Candidate I was asked to lead discussion groups and lead Breaking Open of the Word a time or two (I clearly remember once, might have been twice). Which were things that a non-Catholic shouldn’t be doing. I couldn’t understand why I was “Catholic” enough to teach others, but not “Catholic” enough to receive the Eucharist. It was a lesson in patience, obedience (even when extremely hard) and humility. And God did shower me with many graces during that time, so now I am grateful things worked out as they did. But then…not so much.
Kris

I had a similar situation and was the odd one out. When it’s like that, RCIA is just something to get through, a hoop to jump through. It’s not that way for a lot of people though. There are a lot of people who need that very basic information. And RCIA does provide a decision time where the students are in contact with the Church and some people need that.

 

[iloveangels]

Unfortunately in many parishes RCIA is kind of the catch all class for any adult who doesn’t have all (or any) of their sacraments. When I came into the Church, my RCIA class was made up mostly of confirmands (people who had never been confirmed for one reason or another, but were Cradle Catholics). There were some who had never been to any church ever. That’s the group RCIA is supposed to be for. Or for people who have been baptized in another Christian faith as children, but again, for all intents and purposes are unchurched. In other words, RCIA is for people who know next to nothing about God, and even less about the Catholic Church. The purpose is two-fold. First, and most importantly is to introduce them to Faith: to God so that when they are baptized they have a relationship with the One who is taking away their sins. And second, to know at least the basics of Church teaching.

In my case, I came from a Protestant Tradition where I had been “saved” at 8, baptized at 12, been in church all of my life, involved in various ministries and had studied to be a pastor at one point in time. RCIA was not a good fit for me, because my questions - and I had a lot - were extremely different from the questions of the rest of the class. I was the kind of Candidate a lot of RCIA programs don’t quite know what to do with. Perhaps because most RCIA programs don’t have enough people helping out. When there is only one person teaching, dividing out the different needs gets tricky. To me, RCIA was a “hoop” I had to jump through in order to receive the Eucharist. Part of that view was re-enforced by the fact that while a Candidate I was asked to lead discussion groups and lead Breaking Open of the Word a time or two (I clearly remember once, might have been twice). Which were things that a non-Catholic shouldn’t be doing. I couldn’t understand why I was “Catholic” enough to teach others, but not “Catholic” enough to receive the Eucharist. It was a lesson in patience, obedience (even when extremely hard) and humility. And God did shower me with many graces during that time, so now I am grateful things worked out as they did. But then…not so much.
Kris

You got your first look at Catholics who don’t know their faith. Quite a surprise, no? There are LOTS of them. They need to be in RCIA, rather than some converts. Even better, they should have whole series of classes especially for them that they are required to attend, because most of them need it. Bad.