Prof. Julian Porteous, Sydney

The General Directory for Catechesis (1997) (a revision of the 1971 General Catechetical Directory) is both a fruit of Vatican II and a synthesisation of its theological and pastoral orientation: Dei Verbum centred all catechetical activity in the Word of God; Sacrosanctum Concilium situated the formation of a living faith in the Catechumenate; Lumen Gentium explicated the fruit of catechesis as the Church ‘in the nature of a Sacrament,’ living ‘her mission as a visible and actual continuation of the pedagogy of the Father and the Son’, for which reason ‘the Christian community is in herself living catechesis;’ Gaudium et Spes acknowledged that the fundamental orientation of all catechesis in the various times and places of human history is to reveal Jesus Christ as the Revelation to man of his most sublime vocation.

One welcome change between the 1971 Directory and its 1997 revision has been the deletion of a chapter devoted to the presentation of the contents of the faith. This has been made possible by the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992). This clarifies the distinct but mutually complementary natures of the two documents. The Directory now more clearly serves its task as an instrument of the Magisterium in guiding the catechetical activity of the Church by ensuring it is implemented and systematically carried out according to well defined fundamental theologico-pastoral principles. The immediate end of the Directory is to assist the local Churches in their composition mutually complementary local catechetical directories and catechisms.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has proven to be an excellent tool to accompany the Directory. One fundamental ongoing challenge facing the local Churches is to translate the principles of the Directory into practice on the parish level. The principles behind the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), which the Directory acknowledges as a necessary condition for the parish to succeed in ‘activating effectively the mission of evangelisation,’ have been thoroughly articulated over the last thirty years. The problem is translating the principles into an effective, systematic and profound way of formation for both the baptised and unbaptised on the parish level. This has been achieved to various levels of success.