symposium

Group Responses from the RCL Benziger Symposium

To Explore the Future of Catechesis

Responses from Session I

Presenter: Alejandro Aguilera Titus

  • Rubber Band Image. We are under tension between independence and communal/relational; between economy of scale (one size fits all) and the secular, post-ethic ethic; between apologetics and experience; and between spirit driven leadership from natural gifts to professionalism and standards.
  • Belonging leads to believing
    • Need to learn how to evangelize as people become Americanized
    • Evangelization leads to catechesis
    • What is the initiating Catholic culture of today Diversity?
    • What is the ecclesiological framework & vision re: the role of church leadership—consumer-provider or discipleship
  • How can we respond to growing cultural diversity?
    • Necessary spirit of hospitality is a skill that needs to be taught/learned by those in catechetical ministry
    • New models of catechetical leadership and infrastructure are needed to accommodate multiple directions of catechesis
    • Strengthen ownership/stewardship of the whole parish
    • Unveil our own prejudices and how it aborts an authentic experience of catechesis
    • Augment our understanding of who we are as Church and the diversity that makes us Catholic
  • Goal of ecclesial integration is
    • Conversion of heart
    • Discernment & mentoring/forming leaders reflective of the community
    • Sense of remembrance to learn from the past
    • Intercultural faith sharing, story telling
    • Materials, resources, focus on process—compendium
    • Specific target audiences
  • What is the power of ethnic beliefs toward Catholic identity?
    • Is there a theological sense of Catholic identity that gets expressed through ethnic practices or are people’s identities shaped exclusively by ethnic/cultural issues?
    • Who decides what Catholic identity is?
    • What is our commonality as Catholics?
  • Diversity is a gift.
    • How do we welcome that, recognize that, and celebrate that?
    • Diversity is more than ethnic and cultural
    • Changing face of catechesis is more than ethnic and cultural
    • Fostering the welcoming of diversity among those being catechized

Responses from Session II

Presenter: Tom Walters

  • Supporting future catechetical leaders
    • Money is needed to support the ongoing formation of home grown catechetical leaders—are dioceses willing to help pay the bills for those catechetical leaders seeking advanced degrees?
    • What is the influence of culture on the data presented? How does it reflect the attitudes of people from other cultural groups?
    • Will younger, more traditional catechetical leaders be able to reach their peers who are less interested in institutional church?
    • With catechetical leaders at differing levels, how do we reach them all or form them all?
    • Where are the un-churched in this picture or our call to evangelize?
    • Does the data correctly measure the current crop of catechetical leaders?
    • The generational approach is less relevant than it seems because it doesn’t adequately reflect the Hispanic and other non-European cohorts
    • Is the trend toward more conservative practice a response to the practices of boomer catechetical leaders or and inevitable pendulum swing?
  • Catechetical personnel and their formation
    • Differing needs across generational and ethnic cultures, yet a common need for professional/theological education despite diminished resources (money, diocesan personnel, etc)
    • The spirit of hope in an age of hope!
    • The challenge is to keep our focus on conversion across generations and within cohorts
    • Consolation: The desire for God and desire for communion with Christ, no matter the emphasis—cognitive or experience—or route we take.
  • Generational concerns
    • There is hope in the questioning among the generations
    • Did/do the silent and boomer leaders reflect their cohorts?
    • Will there be unique differences of future leaders based on culture?
    • Is the family the initiating community any longer?
    • How do we resource the family?
    • Homegrown leaders need training but dioceses have fewer resources to train
  • Where do we go from here?
    • Each person brings his or her own unique knowledge, skills, and experience to the table to share through dialogue, conversation and discourse
    • This will lead to a true increase of self-awareness, a true increase of other-awareness, will foster and build intergenerational trust, and will nurture and develop the primary role of the initiating community
    • The catechist learns from being mentored and from the act of teaching, he or she becomes an integrated person who is focused on those being served.
    • Catechists need to develop a Christological focus, not an ecclesiological focus
    • Education (doctrine) plus inspiration (experience) plus discernment (ongoing) will raise up leadership and everyone’s giftedness

Responses from Session III           

Presenter: Sr. Catherine Dooley

  • What types of materials will be needed in the future?
    • Initiation resources that help intersect/connect with Catholic life
    • Flexible materials that meet people where they are
    • Resources that make catechesis part of one’s ongoing initiation/formation
    • Resources that close the vast gap between what we say about the centrality of adult formation and our focus on children and youth
    • Resources that facilitate intentionality—lived faith
    • Resources that break free of print and paper
  • What should shape these materials?
    • Culture as the organizational principle
    • Engage the dominant culture
    • Pay attention to all cultures
    • Empower future leaders
    • Integrate evangelization throughout
    • Shift from focus on educating children to educating adults
    • Bury old assumptions
    • Curriculum technology
    • Should textbooks die?
    • See ourselves as immigrants going to a new country
  • What we have learned
    • A welcoming community where all belong and it’s safe to ask questions is need for effective catechesis
    • We need to identify the tools from the information/technology age that will be most effective for catechesis?
    • What are the right questions we need to ask?
    • Need to recognize that catechetical development is not a pendulum but an evolution
    • Need to really believe in the importance of the role of catechist
    • It is all about relationships
  • Catechesis of the future should
    • cultivate the religious imagination
    • involve parents as central
    • focus on the initiating community
    • develop further the spiral approach
    • empower the learner to share faith with others
  • Challenges
    • Recognize that integral Catholic culture doesn’t exist (milieu)
    • Importance of maintaining a holistic formation approach (keep 4 elements in balance: word, liturgy, community life, mission)
    • Questions of methodology
      • can liturgy provide the framework?
      • What’s best formation for the variety of catechists we have today?
    • Resources for adult faith formation !!!!!!!!

Responses to Session IV

Presenter: Michael Horan

  • An attitude of mission can bridge among conflicting positions
  • We need a Catholic anthropology for today—Who does Jesus say that YOU are?
  • We need to move from oppositional to propositional
  • No encounter—no conversion; no conversion—no communion; no communion—no solidarity; no solidarity—no mission
  • Trust needs to be built, get to know people; small group settings are the key
  • Need more catechetical leaders from all groups with varying skills
  • Start with Part 4 of the Catechism; start w/ experience of prayer life
  • Concerned about lack of feeling welcomed; need to bring people together in structured settings with intended outcomes and purposes; needs to happen, not just a part of a parish plan
  • Settings matter: small groups and home settings are important, online forums could be helpful way to encourage people to engage in parish life
  • Need to overcome popular understanding of “community”—Christian community welcomes strangers; sustainability is grounded by biodiversity; Need to support individuals within the community instead of “blanket statements”
  • It all depends on leadership
  • Acknowledge value of post-modernity: endorse what is good about society; increase scripture hermeneutics; help people to learn discernment skills; catechetical leaders need to be aware of the culture—look at the world and see the good; post-modernity is an awesome opportunity to catechize
  • Globalization and inculturation are key; revelatory and rational elements of the faith are key.
  • Real structures that reflect the varying expressions are needed: spiritual categories; ecclesial divides?
  • Catholic imagination needs to be at the center (David Tracy, Paul Gallagher); the challenge in nurturing the Catholic imagination; it is unique, common ground, Catholic “and/both”; rational grounding has strong implications today
  • Go from the particular to the universal; forge and reclaim our “universality”; freshly articulate our Catholic identity

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