The situation in France: Jacques Bernard

Christianity is regressing in rich Western countries. It is threatened by a global, multi-confessional, and materialistic cultural environment that rejects it.

This is particularly true in France, in Belgium and in Holland where there is currently the highest percentage of atheists in the world.

One attributes this decline of Christianity to a loss of the values characterising society. One should perhaps instead say that globalisation provides an immense quantity of contradictory values from different cultures or religions that co-exists. To avoid this taking place through violence, those responsible for society attempt to establish harmony based only on human sciences, with no reference to a God who, no longer accepted by everyone, can no longer be decisive as a basis for rules.

A new secular moral order is established, spread by media sufficiently powerful to impose itself at the different levels of religions, families and individuals.

Christians are obliged to choose between this secular moral order and the one they receive from the Gospel. Formerly, choosing the Gospel was based on conformity between the evangelical morality and “natural” morality presumed to be acceptable to all. But this equation is no longer unanimously accepted by thinkers and must be refounded so it may be preached to a world that is increasingly non-believing.

This refounding is possible starting with the Word of God in the Bible. Following the stages that led all the way to Christ, it is possible to rediscover the « seeds of the Word », the beginning of the World. The « Exodus » changed these natural religions into an original form of Alliance between God and His People. The prophets maintained this Alliance as fundamental for humankind when confronted with the religions of the great empires. Jesus provides humankind with such dignity that it becomes capable of God, definitely establishing that humankind’s nature is not opposed to the divine plan. Finally, the Church has prolonged this incarnation of the Word in the different cultures she has encountered. These four stages represent as many « thresholds » that the faith had been led to cross so as to reach the Christ who is the foundation for the renewed creation.

Refounded in this manner within the history of redemption, in a dialogue with the religions and it encounters, the morality of the Gospel is no longer a stranger to a contemporary research for a unity of cultures and religions. But this unity is found starting from the religions and not against them, by ensuring they converge in listening to a God who, passing by humankind, is capable of imposing himself on this unity as the supreme value to which it subordinates its conflicts.

This choice between a secular moral order, and one enlightened by the Gospel, must be made by adults before it is passed on to children. The catechised child cannot resist for long the secular society it depends on to grow up, if its parents and catechists are not credible witnesses teaching the child to place itself as a believer in a world without religion. The catechesis of adults becomes a priority in this kind of society that we in France have come to know.

The IiFAC : original adult pedagogy

Founded in 1980, l’IiFAC is an Institute belonging to the Catholic University in Lille, in convention with the Faculty of Theology. Its main objective is to introduce an organised understanding of the Christian mystery. This fundamental catechesis is in conformity with the spirit of the General Directory for Catechesis describing the genesis and the history of the faith of God’s people in the Bible until its fulfilment in the ecclesial Credo.

This university level course must be held is a manner that is credible for our times, with the required scientific in-depth analysis

The discovery of the founding moments takes place combining various approaches: exegesis and biblical theology; philosophy; basic, dogmatic and moral theology, the pedagogy of faith or catechetic pedagogy.

While respecting the autonomy of each subject, the course adopts a totally global and cross-subject form.

Training must also open catechists to the communication of all they have to pass on. Of course one can only pass on what one has experienced and can bear witness to. Training must also therefore be a period of spiritual experience, with a minimum of community life around the liturgical celebrations.

This training also provides those at the service of communicating the faith to adults, quality audio-visual material. Art is in fact the border language between all that humankind dominates with his genius and all that he sees as capable of being beyond him. It is therefore a crucial location for passing from the world of earthly representations to those inspired by God. Art is the means offered to the Holy Spirit to incarnate the Word as also formerly also the Virgin Mary and as the Church continues to do in her liturgy which is holy art par excellence .

A good use of this audiovisual equipment and attention to the lives of the catechised, allows the development of a pedagogy that is not only addressed at intelligence but above all at the person, with the importance of personal history and environment.

Training at IiFAC uses original audio-visual systems created by theologian artists. The student however must be capable, after leaving the school, to also use other material and in particular that used in the environment he works in.

Training lasts 9 months with full time attendance and results in a school Diploma with credits that are compatible with the LMD European Diploma. Later it is the Bishop who decides case by case as regards to certification permitting the setting up of a catechetic group for adults.