I forb. med de nordiske biskopenes hyrdebrev om voksenkatekumenatet (som jeg skrev om her), tenker jeg tilbake på mitt år på presteseminar i London, der jeg både deltok i en RCIA-gruppe, og skrev en oppgave om Kirkens nye General Directory for Catechesis fra 1997, som bl.a. tar opp forberedelsen av katekumener og konvertitter ganske grundig.
Mitt inntrykk da jeg da (for 13 år siden) studerte Kirkens retningslinjer for katekesen, var at fokuset på evangelisering, og forkynnelse til å få et personlig gudsforhold, og til omvendelse, var svært sterkt. Bl.a. leste jeg slike setninger: «By faith man freely commits his entire self completely to God; making the full submission of his intellect and will to God who reveals, and willingly assenting to the Revelation given by him. … Faith involves a change of life, a «metanoia», that is a profound transformation of mind and heart; it causes the believer to live that conversion. Catechesis must often concern itself not only with nourishing and teaching the faith, but also with arousing it unceasingly with the help of grace, with opening the heart, with converting, and with preparing total adherence to Jesus Christ on the part of those who are still on the threshold of faith.»
I tillegg til det de nordiske biskopene skriver om den positive effekten en skikkelig innføring av voksenkatekumenatet vil ha for hele menigheten, vil jeg legge til deb sterke oppfordinga til et personlig gudsforhold, og til omvendelse fra synd (både for katekumenene og hele menigheten) som også skal vektlegges. Jeg tar med noen avsnitt fra min oppgave, som i sin helhet kal leses HER:
My first reaction to this new understanding of catechesis is that it has not reached the Catholic Church in Norway yet (and I am not sure that the process has come very far in other countries either). One important reason for this in Norway is that the RCIA program has not been introduced there yet, and then of course the whole dynamic of the adult catechumenate doesn’t work. Converts are received into the church in the ‘old way’, they have sessions with a priest or a deacon, they are not very much introduced to the Christian community during this learning process, and the sessions with the priest are more informative than evangelizing in the spirit of Catechesi Tradendæ.
One obvious and positive effect of the RCIA as I have seen it here in London, is the involvement of the lay members of the parish in the formation process of the new converts, and the integration of the new people into the Christian community; through regular contact with sponsors and other faithful, and through the different rites of the RCIA program. In addition to this, the learning process in an RCIA group is (at its best) more personal, challenging and closer to everyday life, and not as theoretical, abstract and impersonal as it probably often used to be in the past.
The disadvantages seem to be the possibility of pushing the parish priest to the periphery of the process, at least if he doesn’t regularly take part in the meetings, so that the personal contact between the priest and the converts suffers. The quality of the instruction might also not be the best if lay people share their views in a group setting, rather than professional priests or catechists giving a more comprehensive and structured presentation. The best solution would probably be if one could mix the ‘individual teaching’ and the ‘group sharing’ approach in a even more fruitful way.
Another ‘problem’ with the introduction of the new, more dynamic and Christocentric, understanding of catechesis, is that it is too ‘evangelical’ sounding for Catholics in Norway (and maybe also in England). Expressions like ‘invitation to conversion and faith’ and ‘intimacy with Jesus Christ’, quoted earlier, would feel very difficult to use for a Catholic in Norway. Until the seventies the Catholic church in Norway was very small and consisted of descendants from earlier European immigrants and Norwegian converts, the latter group often from the intellectual and cultural elite. These converts had often reacted to the pietism and spirituality of some low church, evangelical Christians in Norway and very consciously spoke about their own faith in very different terms. Sometimes Catholics don’t even want to use the word ‘Christian’ about themselves; nor words like salvation or conversion.
Over the last twenty years the Catholic Church has changed completely and today about two thirds of the Catholics are new immigrants to Norway, mostly from far away countries. They have their own piety and their own religious language; traditions that will enrich the Church in Norway, but it will take time before this affects the attitude and vocabulary of Norwegian Catholics. The use of a rich, biblical language to describe the faith introduced by the Magisterium will have to reach even Norway, but it will take time and a conscious effort to make this happen. I will certainly do my best to help (but a convert should be careful not to sound too pious!), because the abstract and noncommittal language often used is impoverishing for a living faith in Christ our Savior.
In fact some Catholics seem to have a rather weak faith and several converts disappear a short time after their initiation. This might be because their faith hasn’t developed further than to a felt need for something and a vague notion of a holy God. I heard that this problem also is felt here in England, even after the RCIA program has been well established. The new Directory stresses the importance of conversion and commitment for the integral process of evangelization and catechesis … …