What is wrong with RCIA?

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the book we have bought was , CHRIST AMONG US and we also gave them the NEW AMERICAN bible, many good resources,if you look.
 
At my parish, which is very small, we teach RCIA one-one using the Baltimore Catechism and any supplemental material the instructor wants to add. Our priest also makes frequent visits to these small classes to get to know the catechumens.
 
All the things people say about RCIA above are true, but I don’t think RCIA, good or bad, is responsible for people deciding to quit the Church shortly after joining.

I think people who quit the Church that quickly usually had expectations of the Church that it just wasn’t going to deliver on, such as
  • be perfect, don’t have scandals, don’t have bickering among Catholics
  • be interested in the new convert as a person, keep reaching out and trying to integrate them into things, also make sure you have a ready-made social group of Catholics in their age/ status group at the parish who share their interests and are ready to receive them
  • don’t ever present an issue that’s not crystal clear with a black letter answer
  • always have fresh, exciting worship, with music and preaching that suits the taste of the person joining
etc.
 
It’s important to remember that RCIA is a process, not a one-and-done graduation. Much depends on the effort you’re willing to put into continued learning and growing in your faith. I was able to jump into Bible Studies, studies by Jeff Cavins, Scott Hahn, Ascension Press, Catholic Radio, EWTN television, reading, reading, and reading. I also became involved in my faith community and took advantage of everything Catholic. Fortunately, I’m at a place in life where I have the time to do this (no children at home).
 
Dlee said:
Much depends on the effort you’re willing to put into continued learning and growing in your faith.
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I’d say this is true for many aspects of Catholicism, even for cradle Catholics.

For those of us who are generally self-motivated and don’t like/ don’t want someone looking over our shoulder constantly and telling us what to do, this works well. I feel free to find my own comfort zone in the faith without having some church ministry leader bugging me that I need to do this and that and belong to this group or that group. I don’t have people watching my behavior or expecting that I’m going to automatically socialize with their group because I’m a certain age or status and “everybody” of that age or status is expected to belong and contribute to the potlucks or work on the events.

However, I can see where some people might not feel so comfortable with all this independence, and might feel a bit like they are set adrift.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
be interested in the new convert as a person, keep reaching out and trying to integrate them into things, also make sure you have a ready-made social group of Catholics in their age/ status group at the parish who share their interests and are ready to receive them
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I think this is more of an issue for converts and especially for converts who are single people. I was born into the Catholic Church, as I believe from your posts that you were. I am also fortunate to be married to a Catholic woman and to have a large family, most of whom still attend Mass with us. Therefore, I am not looking for anything that helps me to feel that I belong. I don’t think it would ever occur to me that I would not belong in a Catholic parish. Of course, that could all change. 30 years from now, if I’m even still alive, I could be an elderly widower with middle-aged kids living 1,000s of miles away, attending Mass alone and not being noticed by anybody. I honestly couldn’t say whether I would mind that.

In the case of converts, and especially single converts, if they don’t have a really good support network within the parish, they can easily drop out. Suppose you are a 30-year-old lawyer from California who has moved to New York. You were raised in a non-religious family. You wish to become a Catholic, you complete whatever kind of instruction is offered in your parish, and you are baptized/confirmed/received. Thereafter, your relationship with the parish is that you go to Mass on Sundays and holy days. You arrive at church, sit by yourself, nobody speaks to you. The congregation has a lot of couples and families. After Mass, you walk out of church, possibly the priest stands at the door nodding a vague greeting to everyone as they leave. It’s not surprising that a lot of such people just drop out after a while.

Now, suppose that single 30-year-old Californian lawyer instead joins a church like Hillsong, Times Square Church, etc. As a new Christian, that person will be the congregation’s top priority. They will be anxious that that person doesn’t fall away. That’s why they recruit people for their various smaller groups that meet during the week, they have the prayer walk, they advertise volunteering opportunities. I have a friend who became a Christian through one such church. When I went to his bachelor party, there was only one other guy there who wasn’t from his church. The woman he was marrying was from his church. As soon as he started going to that church, his life was church on Sunday morning, lunch with folks from church, back home for a few hours, then back at church again for evening service. They assigned him to a cell group from the get-go, so once per week he was meeting up with a group of other guys from church to pray, study the Bible, and just hang out. Sometimes he’d spend the whole weekend going camping with friends from church.
 
Much as it is with the Sacrament of Confirmation. In so many cases, once Father confirms them, he might as well anoint them and provide the Viaticum, as that is the last time they’ll be seen.

OK, joking again (still) but I think the point is made.

Time spent in adoration would certainly help - it is the most neglected spiritual aspect of the faith, IMO.
 
Yes I agree. It is often rightly said that a good way to convert is by example. How can anyone even see an example if people don’t connect with each other?
 
superhancpetram said:
I think this is more of an issue for converts and especially for converts who are single people.
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This thread is primarily about converts, so my post was directed mostly to converts.

While I can see why one might say this is more of an issue for single people, we’ve had some married converts post here over the years that they are having difficulty making social friends and connections in their Catholic parish. It usually seems to be related to the demographics of the parish.

I’m a cradle. However, I can tell you that when I was in my 20s and belonging to my first couple parishes out of state where I knew no one, I fit in like a square peg in a round hole. Both parishes were focused mostly on married people/ parents and there was little or nothing of interest to a single person in their 20s. I did not leave the Church over this because I had been taught you go to church for Jesus not for other people. But it did make me less than excited about attending, and sometimes I’d skip Sunday Mass in favor of doing something fun with non-Catholic friends my age. Mass became an anxiety-causing event rather than my being happy to go there.
 
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My RCIA experiences has been largely positive. The local RCIA is run by a nun/sister, but there are many different people with different backgrounds as teachers. Some are priests, some ar laity, and there was even one professional historian. I feel like i belong with the other converts as part of a team. It’s hard to say exactly what is done right at my RCIA, but it just works. Every single weekly meaning has been fantastic! And i haven’t ecountered any misrepresentation of the faith yet. However, i think i’ve learned more by myself, outside of RCIA, but i still love it!
 
Salli05 said:
The local RCIA is run by a nun/sister, but there are many different people with different backgrounds as teachers. Some are priests, some ar laity, and there was even one professional historian.
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This sounds like you have a really awesome RCIA. It’s great that you have all those resources. It also provides a better base of people to answer questions so it’s not just one or two lay people trying to do everything and answer, or deflect, questions they might not know anything about. Kind of like how here on CAF we have probably a couple dozen subject matter experts rather than just one person trying to answer all the questions.
 
Have you taken steps to put that right? Sometimes that can be an adventure in itself.
 
Maximian said:
Have you taken steps to put that right? Sometimes that can be an adventure in itself.
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No because I wouldn’t know what to do.

I never had instruction for first holy communion either.

I didn’t understand what was going on when I was confirmed.

And as for the pre-marriage instruction all I remember was the bit about nfp which doesn’t apply to us.
 
It sounds as if you need a good priest.

Do you like reading? There are some very good books out there.
 
Plenty of people have lived rich Catholic lives without even being able to read.

Do you have a good priest nearby?
 
I think the advantage of being a cradle Catholic is that you have hopefully been “built up in the faith” as a child in your family, and it becomes just a part of who you are. Therefore, when you belong to a parish that is less than ideal, you can more easily accept that it’s just that parish.

I would also say that if going to Mass “became an anxiety-causing event”, then that parish was getting something wrong. It is great that you for the most part managed to carry on going to Mass despite it not making you happy to do so, but not everybody has your level of faith and commitment. Some brand new converts would be unable to stick that out.

It would be helpful if the Church could somehow collect statistics showing the retention rate for converts. Estimates I have read claim it’s anything between 10% and 84%, which seems like a very specific figure. One RCIA director guessed it was 50%. The retention rate is highest for those who marry a Catholic spouse (or already have one). What is clear is that a lot of people are converting and then dropping out, and I think the Church needs to ask itself why.
 
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