It could just be that as a teacher it is hard not to be reactionary when you have this neat little lesson plan in your head and someone comes in and, in your mind, mucks around with it. The less secure a teacher is in his or her position, the more true that is. Even for a seasoned teacher, though, if there is a feeling of “a long way to go and a short time to get there,” it is hard to welcome confounding variables. That’s human nature.
Dovekin:
Well, conversion is a process, not a program. OTOH, they have to know what it is they are converting to and the Catechism is certainly going to anwer a lot of questions.
Just as an aside of sorts, one thing I can tell you — from personal experience — is that Americans don’t even want to hear about ethnic hatreds or feuds from “the old country”. Generally speaking, Americans don’t even know where these places are, don’t know anything about these countries, don’t want to know anything about these countries, and expect immigrants to leave these problems at the border and “get with the program”.
The rites are very old. Evidence has been found in the catacombs. The ‘process’ lasted an undetermined number of years, and culminated with initiation at the Easter Vigil. When Constantine ‘legalized’ the Church, in the early fourth century, and it finally went ‘above ground’, there were so many people joining that the ‘process’ was no longer possible, and catechesis was postponed until after initiation.
Private is probably the wrong word. Usually there just weren’t enough converts in any one parish to form a group of converts. People were received for instruction and catechized one at a time, which was not surprisingly a one-on-one thing. It wasn’t private in the sense that the confessional is private.
Was the delay to ensure that the catechumen was really sincere, able to withstand the persecution, and not an informant?
This is the conclusion I have been reaching.
If you read St Augustine’s Confessions you will see that people often waited years between becoming a catechumen and baptism. For him, the issue seems to have been the limited use of sacramental Reconciliation. Baptism was the forgiveness of sin, best to wait until you finish sinning. Quick baptism was not a thing, despite scriptural examples.
I see what you are saying. I was thinking of the scriptural examples you cite. I also had in mind the fairly short time before baptism is conferred in evangelical/fundamentalist churches, and perhaps I was subconsciously thinking “the only reason we wait as long as we do, is that we have more information to convey, whereas the E&Fs just go ahead, baptize, and tell their people to continue to read the Bible and fellowship (verb, not noun)”. I was also looking at it through the traditionalist goggles of “no one’s salvation can be assured unless they are actually baptized”. I assume that if a catechumen were facing imminent death, the priest would go ahead and baptize them.
I was wondering if you’re in Canada where the Winnipeg Statement originated. Back in the 70s priests were telling us that contraception was perfectly OK if we felt it was necessary. And it was only about 10 years ago that I had an argument with the priest who would become my pastor. He was in full agreement with the Winnipeg Statement and said the Pope had accepted it and approved. I argued that documents showed that he only acknowledged receipt of the document and there was definitely no “agreement.”
Nope, not Canadian. This was a diocese on the edges of both the southern and the midwestern US. It was a time when everything was up for grabs, Paul VI was in his waning years, and John Paul II had not been elected. Everybody was making up their own rules. The general tenor of the times was that the world is changing and the Church must change too. People were pretty sheepish about standing up for traditional faith and morality. Humanae vitae had just come out and it wasn’t what many people were expecting or hoping for, and they weren’t disposed to forget about what they had wanted and just obey.
We have 45 this year. And that is about average.
That is outstanding! Praise God.
I’m blaming PJPII for this. He made it popular to be Catholic and demand for instruction went up. I was on staff at a parish (still am) when PJPII passed away. We had a big bump in our already large RCIA program.