The particular Church responsible for and promoter of catechesis

 

Why should this subject be discussed? Relations between the church and catechesis are absolutely innate. If there is a novelty to be emphasised here, it must be found in the subject of the Church’s particularity or locality.[1] We are effectively aware of the events that led the Church of the Second Vatican Council to recuperate this important dimension of her ecclesial identity.

1. The Church and catechesis

 

The history of catechesis, intrinsically linked to the life of the Christian community, is also linked to the events that led the Church to emphasise first the particularity and then the universality of her historical form.

 

In the ancient church the mission was carried out by local churches and catechesis has passed down to us the names and events of this reality. The evangelists were already the expression of particular communities. In the days of the ancient catechumenate, the local community was the spontaneous place for Christian initiation and formation. The itineraries, the modalities, the liturgical gestures and doctrinal catechesis referred to the life experienced by the various particular churches. Those churches were often church-communities generating believers.[2] This because catechesis, especially the part involving initiation, emerged as integration in Christ’s paschal mystery and in the mission of the church in which one was baptised.

That initial situation progressively changed and a more uniform model of mission and catechesis emerged. The Church in fact has had to answer new requirements. She has had to fight so as to maintain her freedom during the times of the so-called “Investiture Conflict” culminating with the Gregorian reform. She experienced the times of the contraposition-defence in the days of the issues generated by the Lutheran reform (the church of the Council of Trent). She has battled to defend the values of the Christian doctrine from accusations formulated by modernity, when modern states were born and sciences developed in the centuries following the season of Enlightenment (the church of the First Vatican Council).

In this perspective the Magisterium and theology accentuated above all the proclamation of the Church’s objective truth in the form of doctrinal exposition. Furthermore, the ecclesial mission emphasised the sacramental dimension of redemption. This too contributed to the prevailing of the mission’s universality over the particularity of the receivers. The fruits of the passion of Christ are, in fact, the gift of the Church to all humankind.

Catechesis, as all pastoral matters, obviously followed this path. It is understood as the doctrinal explanation of the universal gift of the faith and the sacraments. This was why no need for particular attention was felt. However, even when the issue of the Church’s uniformity became emphasised, a degree of localisation of catechesis was maintained. Hence, for example, it was the very Council of Trent that gave impulse to the birth of the first catechism of the universal Church and that of local catechisms. It was in fact Trent that strongly emphasised the bishops’ right/duty to preach[3] and this indication was understood as a commitment to the organisation of catechism. This was why the only people authorised to do so were the bishop and the parish priest.[4]

 

The perspective of the Second Vatican Council. It was precisely the changed theological perspective brought by the Second Vatican Council concerning the Church’s understanding of herself that also changed the relations between the universal Church and the local church.[5]

The Second Vatican council in fact emphasised Trinitarian missions, the peregrinating image of the church as God’s people, her service to the Kingdom, the sacramental and dialogic vision of the Revelation, the shared responsibility of those baptised to continue Jesus’ mission, the reassessed identity of the bishops, the need to build churches incarnate in individual continents and cultures. Above all it re-established contact between the Church and her redeeming goodness and the real situation in the world. Territory and culture in fact have been increasingly interpreted starting from the theology of the creation and the incarnation. The post-council, furthermore, saw the explosion of the subject of enculturation and contextualisation as the main task for the church’s mission.

These emphases are fundamental for understanding our subject. The recovery of the episcopate’s sacramental dimension, of the ministeriality and common responsibility of the baptised as regards to the Word and the Church’s mission, the subject of enculturation and adaptation of ecclesial life especially with the preparation of local catechisms, the consideration of redemption as the insertion of faith within history, are the theological dimensions and hence the missionary ones that request a better defined local church and a more localised catechesis.

Extremely properly the Magisterium’s documents and especially the Synod on catechesis (1977) in the Message to the People of God emphasise precisely this reality: catechesis takes place in the local church.[6]

 

It therefore appears opportune, within the Council’s perspective we have just mentioned, to re-understand the subject of the particular Church’s catechesis, developing a triple reflection: the particular church as the subject of catechesis, place and contents, the object of catechetic work. In these three reflections, I wish to indicate a number of theological-pastoral points that may help the future of catechesis.

 

2. The particular Church as the source and subject of catechesis

 

1. The local church as an active subject. This expression (church source and subject) emphasises the renewed reconsideration that that all those baptised are, each within their order, operators of the catechesis. Ecclesial documents describe this principle both following a descending line (from the responsibility of the Supreme Pontiff to the individual faithful) and the ascending line (from the community’s shared responsibility to the bishop).

The reasons for this renewed perspective are founded on the Christian identity, the result of Christian initiation and on the common participation in the Tria Munera Christi. This is so true that the recent 1983 CJC defines the bishop, within this framework, as the moderator of catechesis (756 § 2).

One should therefore exalt a catechesis that recoups the plurality of the various ecclesial subjects. We need to recover a specific catechesis of the Bishop, which must guarantee above all the interpretation of the Gospel in the ecclesial and historical situation of one’s own diocese during a given time (it is the enculturated catechesis we are trying to achieve). A catechesis of the parish priest and of the presbytery of parish communities, further contextualising the catechesis of the bishop and continuously incarnating the apostolic kerigma. The missionary responsibility within and belonging to the family, to godparents and to catechists.

Serious pastoral work will be necessary addressed at identifying and well-defining the responsibility of the various subjects within this shared responsibility.[7]

 

2. The local church as an interpreting subject. Secondly, the statement about the local church as a source and subject means recuperating the relation between doctrine and life testimony. What “are we all responsible for”? A careful reading of LG 12 and DV 8 allows us to discover the complexity of this statement. On one hand there is the duty to pass on unaltered the Christian doctrine (what has been called “the holy depository of the faith” since the days of the author of the letters to Timothy) and on the other there is the duty-right to the interpretation and understanding of its role in daily life. The Church’s Magisterium is responsible for faithfulness to the doctrine. All those baptised share responsibility for the profound understanding and application to daily life. Catechesis belongs to this second category. I believe one can state that this is the profound meaning of catechesis’ “prophetic mission”.[8]

In catechesis, in fact, there is the encounter between a truth that belongs to the church and an individual history expressing subjectivity. This encounter’s objective is to interiorise the Word and as a means the enculturation of it through formulations suited to the situations. It is above all the catechist or the operator of the announcement who becomes the mediator between these two realities. It is in this dimension that the subjectivity of the local church and its ministers is exalted. We all understand how this operation will increasingly need careful discernment achieved among all the operators of catechesis. This discernment is the responsibility of the bishop and its contents are the relation between the faith passed on by the universal church and possible enculturations of the faith itself.[9]

This is the sense of the relation between the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Local Catechisms. This is what John Paul II invited us to in the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum. And this is exactly what is happening in continental and local churches.

 

3. Lay people co-responsible for the announcement. To  translate these theological statements into concrete choices, it will be necessary to systematically and correctly introduce into catechesis the principle of the mission entrusted to all God’s people. One must provide space for the role played by lay people in passing on the truth and in formation for a Christian life. One must acknowledge the right to “preaching by lay people” in the modality of bearing moral testimony that the medieval church had already recognised. One must recover the role of the lay Confraternities that Trent had emphasised. 

In particular one must support the form of catechesis that develops the family’s explicit role as a “subject” of the mission. Catechistic language speaks on this subject of family catechesis, equal-catechesis, communitarian and inter-generational catechesis.[10] The Dgc (Part Five, c. 3) also follows this line of thought. In synthesis catechesis of the future will have a correct distribution of the formative subjects.

 

3. The particular church as place and content of catechesis.

 

Authors who have studied the theological importance of the local church and the parish have emphasised already during the Fifties that “one enters the history of redemption in a place”, through the life of a real church. This means that the culture of a territory, adequately purified, will have to offer new ways for understanding and living the Christian faith.

 

1. Catechesis in community life. The meaning of this expression is understood remembering the model of catechesis that was established after the First Vatican Council. To give dignity to catechistic organisation, already with Maria Teresa of Austria’s reforms (1774) catechesis was invited to assume the “form of a real school. In this manner also the “confraternity of the Christian doctrine” had followed this model.[11] Everything had to resemble a school: the seriousness, the cyclicity, didactic material, time available, objectives. In this manner the school became the fundamental “place” of catechesis. The Christian community remained in the background without intervening in depth. Returning catechesis to the local community will involve developing a model in which one must exalt the vital relation between the community that passes on the faith and those asking to be baptised or be educated in the Christian life. And furthermore, it will mean that the place in which the faith is passed on, or – to use the language of science of communication – the linguistic channel, will be the community’s life. From the previous model - that exalted faith’s theoretical moment and placed in the shadows or left to each individual experimentation of the faith – one moves to a model in which the definition of the faith – the catechetic formulas – is understood while experiencing Christian life.

 

2.  Community life as the contents of catechesis. Secondly, this statement means that the contents of catechesis are broadened. The community’s real life enters as a source and content of the catechistic process next to the passing on of the doctrine of the faith. Christian life in fact is always local; the exemplarity of local sanctity (also that which is unknown), the concrete mission choices of a diocesan community. The manner in which prayers are said and good work is done; in a word: the historical life of a local church enters catechetic work as “building material”. Christian initiation and formation come into contact and communicate real spirituality.

 

3. The vital places of catechesis. Different real experiences try to incarnate this modality of post-Council catechesis. All documents refer to the different forms of basic ecclesial communities and new ecclesial movements and associations. This is required by the newly recovered catechumenal model for initiation. But also all the forms of catechesis in which there is the concept of lieu catéchètique[12] hence the idea that catechesis is achieved within a real vital group and not the abstract catechistic schoolroom.

It will be important to retrieve diocesan catechesis, hence the moments during which the bishop recreates the “assembly of God’s People” in which God’s eternal word “echoes”, that it may become the community’s life. It is above all important to overcome the custom of the “catechism course”. Those who ask to be baptised or those receiving post-baptismal education must meet a real community. The “place” of initiation and formation is life of a group that really already lives the faith and shares it with others.[13] This leads to the debate between catechesis and community models and the importance of the parish that remains the “original place” of catechesis.[14]

 

4. The particular church as catechesis’ goal.

 

The catechumenal model, also valid for all catechistic work, clearly emphasises that the objective of Christian initiation also consists in integration into the Church and sharing her mission. It is above all the sacrament of confirmation that exalts this aspect: the Spirit is bestowed upon us to confirm baptismal faith and to discover a specific ecclesial vocation. Integration into the Church is effectively integration in the diocesan community and the local church. It is participation in the mission of testimony and charity of that particular church.

In a Western context it is above all necessary to pay attention to the efforts made by many baptised people in developing a full belonging to the Christian community.[15] Omitting an analysis of cultural and pastoral reasons that have caused such a phenomenon, it is necessary to rethink catechesis so it is capable of providing new motivations for this fundamental aspect of faith. Without a strong sense of belonging to the community, the level of redemption present in a territory falls.

Pastoral care having for its fundamental objective the development of belonging to the community integrating catechesis also within great moments of youth assembly is therefore positive. Catechesis is thereby closely linked to mass communication and the dynamics of groups.

Above all it seems important that local catechisms should provide a great deal of space for the presentation of the church’s theological theme in reference to local churches. Italian chrismal catechism provides a good example.[16]

 

 

 

Luciano Meddi

Urbanian University

President AICA
Associazione Italiana dei Catecheti

 

 


[1] There exists a debate as regards to terminology. Here we use the words “local” and “particular” as proposed by the DGC in Part Five, c. I, no. 1. The words are however the same when referring to catechistic practices.

[2] DELAHAYE K., For a renewal of pastoral care. The community, mother of believers in the words of the Fathers of the primitive Church,  Cassano (Bari), Ecumenica Editrice, 1974 [1958]

[3] Council of Trent, Session V, Second decree: On reading the Holy Scriptures and preaching, no. 9. See also  BENEDICT XIV, Etsi Minime, 2

[4] See the reconstruction in PALAZZINI P., L'opera svolta dalla S. Congregazione per il Clero nel campo catechistico,   in HOLY CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY,  Minutes of the II International Catechistic Congress in Rome, September 20-25 1971, Rome, Studium, 1972, 147-212.

[5] PHILIPS, L'Église et son mystère au IIe Concile du Vatican. Histoire, texte et commentaire de la Constitution Lumen Gentium,  París, Desclée, 1966 ; TESSAROLO A. (edited by), The local Church,  Bologna, Edb, 1970 ; LEGRAND H., Building of the Church in a place,   in LAURET B.-REFOULÉ F. (directories), Initiation to practicing theology. Vol. 3: Dogmatica II, Brescia [Paris], Queriniana, 1986 [1983], 147-355.

[6]RICA 41, EN 14, MPD 12-13; CT 16; CIC 774,1; RM, Part VI; CEP,  Guide for Catechists, 34; DGC 217-232. On John Paul II’s insistence that parishes should become places of announcement see STENICO T., The parish as the hearth of catechesis and the parish priest’s catechistic ministry, The Vatican City, Vatican Publishing Library, 2001.

[7] MEDDI L., Catechesis. Proposal and training for Christian life, Padua, Emp, 2004, c. VI.

[8] MEDDI L., Exercising prophecy. Catechesis in the faith’s adult community,   in ID. (edited by),  Becoming Christians. Catechesis as a formative process , Naples, Luciano Editore, 2002, 196-211.

[9] I believe these were the conclusions of the International Catechist Congress on the 10th anniversary of the edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the 5th anniversary of the renewed edition of the General Directory for Catechesis: see Final Message. [photocopied text].

[10] For a synthetic overview: DERROITTE H. (supervised by), Théologie, mission et catéchèse,  Brussels, Novalis-Lumen Vitae, 2002.

[11] BANDAS R.G., Contents and methods af catechization,  Saint Paul (Minnesota), North Central Publishing Company, 1957; GERMAIN E., Langage de la foi a travers l'histoire,  Paris, Fayard-Mame, 1972; BRAIDO P., Lineamenti di storia della catechesi e dei catechismi. Dal "tempo delle riforme" all'età degli imperialismi (1450-1870), Turin, LDC, 1991.

[12] French Episcopal Conference, Direttive per l'iniziazione cristiana dei fanciulli. Dagli 8 ai 12 anni, Turin, LDC, 1981, no. 3.1.1.1. see also the guidelines for the CONFERENCIA EPISCOPAL ESPAÑOLA. COMISION DE ENSEÑANZA Y CATEQUESIS, La catequesis de la comunidad. Orientaciones pastorales para la catequesis en España, hoy,  Madrid, 1983.

[13] GROOME T.H., Sharing Faith. A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry. The ways of shared praxis, San Francisco, Herper, 1991; ID., Educazione catechetica integrale,    in Concilium, 2002, 38,4, 114-126.

[14] DULLES A., Models of the Church. A critical assessment of the church in all its aspects,      Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 19872;  FLORISTAN C., Modelli di chiesa soggiacenti all'azione pastorale,    in Concilium, 1984,6, 127-138.

[15] PAJER F., Les Églises européennes et la crise de la catéchèse paroissiale,    in Lumen Vitae, 2000, 55,3, 291-304.

[16] Italian Episcopal Conference, You will be my witnesses,  Rome, Fondazione di Religione Santi Francesco e Caterina da Siena, 1991, cc. 4-5.