What is wrong with RCIA?

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The first parish was like, the worst of Vatican 2. It didn’t even have its own church, it was sharing an “interfaith center” that had rooms that looked like a gym with no statues, crummy portable chairs, and felt banners. The second parish was more traditional and the priest there was a good man who in hindsight had his hands full. I have had anxiety my whole adult life, so I don’t really want to blame the second parish for all my hangups. The priest there ended up being very kind and helpful to me and my future husband later. Also, the two other parishes in the immediate vicinity were full of child sexual abusers (one of them had like 3 in a row and some acting in concert, and the other had the priest from “The Keepers”) so I will be forever grateful to Father R (now deceased and never accused of anything) for keeping that rot out of our parish, which at the time had an elementary school attached.

In those days, with no internet, it was harder to look around and find diocesan options or other parishes with stuff going on for young singles. I managed to meet a nice husband anyway, but he wasn’t Catholic.
 
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blackforest said:
My RCIA experience 20 years ago was a mile wide and an inch deep.
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This was my experience too. Fortunately, I discovered CAF when I was about half-way through RCIA. While I don’t think CAF provides a fully complete “picture” of the Church, I feel that it is more accurate than the watered-down, just-skim-the-surface version of Catholicism presented at RCIA. I think RCIA, at least at the parish I attended, does a terrible disservice to converts who don’t get “the rest of the story” until after acceptance into the Church. Consequently, I “dropped out” about a week before Easter.
 
RhodesianSon said:
My experience with RCIA is that after it’s done, you’re done. There’s no effort to help integrate you into the parish, no further challenge, no personal level effort to help anyone connect with church institutions.
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Our Knights of Columbus council does a good job recruiting the new men into the council.
 
You can join online at kofc.org/join. When you join, the council receives a prompt to reach out and contact you about being part of the local council.

As far as not hearing back, I understand your frustration, but it is a volunteer organization with relatively high turnover in leadership each year. Your email may have gone to the wrong person, or simply been lost in the daily deluge.
 
Nah, the same guys ran it around here for 15 years. It’s a very cliquey group. Small town politics.
 
That’s too bad. I suppose that will change in the future (or the council will just collapse). I’ve found that being a knight has helped me to grow as a man, a father, and as a Catholic.
 
I think my RCIA was great compared to a lot of what I hear. While it was led by lay parishioners the priests did come to many classes and gave talks. Members from each group came to talk about their ministries and how to get involved. The instructors were very devoted and we each got assigned one as a mentor and had scheduled 1:1 talks. Mine even became my sponsor. I know myself and at least two other mentor/catechumen pairs still meet for coffee or dinner. My only complaints were that I did wish it was longer, they did kind of gloss over the sex and marriage topics, and I was disappointed we weren’t reading the Catechism directly (we had great materials though that did reference the Catechism for further reading on each topic). All that said, out of a group of seven of us I know only three of us attend weekly and two I see on occasion but still rarely. I don’t think this has anything to do with RCIA. I know at least two did it because they were raised Catholic but never confirmed and I feel like it was just checking it off the list. Of one of those, one actually worked for the Church and got disillusioned because of the scandal and all that he witnessed. One just seemed young and flakey. One seemed to do it because her husband is Catholic. None of that has to do with RCIA. Ironically one of the ones I see weekly didn’t love the RCIA process but is the most dedicated out of the group other than myself.
 
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Pyjamarama said:
Not really because I don’t usually understand what is being said.

I wasn’t educated very well in a schooling sense either.
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Please do not take this the wrong way - Do you have access to EWTN television? I’m in my 60s and have watched many of their children’s programs. Jesus tells us to come to him as little children - and the programs (and yes, cartoons!) are easy to understand. I’ve recommended this to many adults who have no experience or knowledge of Catholicism. I would also recommend programs about the Saints.
 
I forgot to add that many take for granted the huge change in lifestyle and/or relationships people may experience after conversion. I had two huge fights with my atheist best friend and a few others questioned me, including many ex-Catholics. I joined Catholic Match and had awful experiences with Catholic men. I also went through a deep depression shortly after conversion. I think I had it in my head that my faith would fix all my problems, it didn’t. I had to go to therapy to address some issues. I do know prayer brought me to a place of valuing myself and knowing God wanted me to heal and feel loved. That empowered me to get help. But anyways, I’m still here, others may not be able to cope with those kind of issues and stay devout.
 
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RhodesianSon said:
My experience with RCIA is that after it’s done, you’re done. There’s no effort to help integrate you into the parish, no further challenge, no personal level effort to help anyone connect with church institutions.
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I think this is the main significant point (beyond ensuring good catechesis) I’d hope RCIA directors might attend to.

My RCIA experience was okay – but I was also coincidentally already involved in very active, real-life, Catholic community. So when RCIA finished, my other community involvement didn’t, and that provided a segue into living out Catholic life for a good while after.

I can’t quite imagine what my experience would have been if I wasn’t part of ongoing Catholic peer groups before, during, and after RCIA. If after RCIA, it felt as if I was ‘dropped’ and there was no more community etc. I wonder if people feel they were sort of ‘snared’, if that happens? What do they call it… love-bombed? Getting all this attention right up until Catholic, and then once Catholic: community and support disappears.

I definitely think human connections matter. And so many adult converts going through RCIA, don’t have Catholic family/friends. I think it’d be great if RCIA directors intentionally introduced RCIA-goers to Catholic young adults groups, women’s groups, men’s groups, Catholic Bible study groups, soup-kitchen volunteer groups – whatever, anything at all. Just have a list, let people know what the local opportunities are, maybe even make one week’s RCIA ‘assignment’ to go sit in on a local Catholic women’s/men’s group (or whatever), in a way that puts no pressure on the catechumen but also helps them get over the barrier of introductions and realize what’s available. So that the convert doesn’t suddenly lose all human connection with other Catholics after RCIA, unless they’re in the Confessional or shaking hands during the sign of peace.
 
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Thanks reminding me that I meant to begin watching The Keepers on Netflix…
 
You might want to wait till after the Thanksgiving weekend so you don’t ruin your appetite. It’s awful stuff.

Although I tend to think Sister Cathy was not killed by the abusive priest(s) but by someone else.
 
Good thinking. I’ll squeeze it in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
 
I guess I would start off with a question: I am presuming that most people have had at least 12 years of education (and possibly 14 to 16 years if college is included).

Stop for a minute and recall how many teachers you had who really made an impact on you.

Then stop for another minute and recall if there were any teachers who were horrible (many people can recall at least one).

Likely every teacher had graduated from college, with many of them having concluded a Master’s Degree.

And yet most of those teachers were likely somewhere between not horrible, and good but not stellar.

And likely most of them had a Master’s… Is this starting to make sense to anyone?

I am not apologizing for any poor RCIA program. And as I have not had to put one together entirely (long story, won’t side-track), but have had the opportunity to work as part of the team with a woman who had gone through a Catechist Certification Program nearly equivalent to a Master’s - and had a Masters in teaching; and subsequently I ahve had the opportunity to work with a catechist who has a Master’s in Scripture; and the two, while different in their methods, have a curriculum which hits 23 nights of topics One generally per night, except sacraments, which are split over 6 of those nights.

And while I agree with one poster that RCIA was intended to be a one year program, the reality is that the summer months tend to be nearly shattered with activities, plans, travel, and vacation which the Catechumens and Candidates have. In short, there seems to be little cohesiveness until school starts.

Some people want the priest to be teaching. However, the vast majority of priests do not have training to be a catechist, and most also do not have the time available.

There are approximately 17,000+/- parishes in the US. Most likely have an RCIA program.

Every one of them should have a certified paid catechist. I personally do not want to do the survey to find out how many don’t - my responsibility is to the team I am on, and I am not at all sure I really want to know - Oregon rain is depressing enough.
 
Some other thoughts on RCIA:

I honestly don’t know how many parishes actually have a young adult group, and I would suspect it to be extremely challenging to 1) convince young adults this is something they should attend; 2) figure out how to provide material and a setting which doe not look like a place to “find a marriage partner” or 3) a place for those who might not be able to find a marriage partner with a search light and 4) be able to provide something new the next year, and the next year and the… in other words, not be plowing the same ground repeatedly.

I have tended to be shy all my life; but I also have found that there is far more available in a parish to be involved with if I simply get off my (duff) and pick two or three of the activity groups and ask what I can do to help. I happen to say that after having been in a parish for about 30 years, and having more than a handful of people over the years tell me they joined the parish because it was the most welcoming one they had prospected. Some opf those people were in the next suburb over, so they were clearly looking for something.

I also have known a number of parishes I could walk into, go to Mass for several months, and not be missed when I moved on. I have no clue how one goes about changing that - but I suspect it is something that needs to come from top down.

It also helps to remember that many converts come from the evangelical and/or fundamental churhces which have no or extremely minimal liturgy as such; they seem to have primarily praise music ( alot) and preaching/scripture. And most of them have a strongly sturctured number of activities, often divided by age group/interest group. Having the sacraments and a high liturgy (as compared to their services) seems to be a far greater focus in the Catholic Church, at times almost to the “whatever” of interest groups - many of whom can be clannish without necessarily realizing it.

Why people leave after going through RCIA? Lack of what they knew as “fellowship”. High liturgy, which does not satisfy what they may have experiences for 20 or 30 years of life - e.g. emphasis on praise music and long instructional preaching/teaching.

Did I mention fellowship? Many (not all) of the evangelical/fundamental churches may have one involved on Sunday for several hours; and one or more activities during the week. Those churches are involved more deeply in the congregants’ lives than most Catholics ever experience. I mean, just look back at the Coffee and Donuts group after Mass; how many other parishioners (80%?) can’t get out of the parking lot fast enough when Mass is over, never to darken the facilities again until the next Sunday. Fellowship? “No, I want to be left alone/have stuff to do/don’t know these people and really don’t want to…” etc.

And we wonder why some people bail out after joining?
 
My husband went through RCIA in '06-'07. Out of his class I want to say that maybe him and one other lady were still practicing a few years later. To be fair, I don’t know for sure as others may have moved and we eventually left that parish for something else. I was his sponsor and he said he liked the way it was taught b/c the instructor wasn’t condescending towards the Candidates. (there were only 2 Catechumens). As another poster said, it was a mile wide and an inch deep…there just isn’t enough time to go into depth. I wish more churches would have more monthly Bible and church study groups. That could benefit everyone, cradles and newbies!
 
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