Editor's Note

How do Catholics evangelize?

Catechumenate leaders are fond of saying, "The RCIA is not a program; it’s a process." But what does that really mean? I’ve experienced a lot of folks who talk about "process," but what they are actually doing looks and feels very programmatic.

I’ll give you an example. I went to college in southern Missouri. It was not uncommon for a stranger to stop me on campus and ask if I knew Jesus as my personal savior. Now, on the surface, this seems like a process question. It seems like the evangelist is truly concerned about my relationship--my personal relationship--with Jesus.

But here’s the tip-off that this question was part of a program. First of all, it is a template question. Every good southern evangelical asks it, pretty much verbatim. Next, it didn’t really matter what my answer was. Yes, no, I don’t know, or (never say this unless you’ve got an hour to kill) I’m Catholic--it didn’t matter. The evangelist had a set pattern of replies, all designed to get me to "accept Jesus."

For some of these folks (not all), it didn’t really matter who I was as a person. Whatever my own life of grace might have been like up to that point had no influence over their encounter with me. They knew what they were going to say and what they wanted me to say before they ever met me.

I worry that we have a similar evangelical program going on in a lot of our RCIA groups. When I can, I ask RCIA teams if they know what they will be teaching about on the third week of September (pick a week at random). A lot of them can tell me, even though they currently have no inquirers. They know what they are going to say before they have even met those they hope to evangelize. And they know what they want the inquirer to say back. Just open the ritual book to the Rite of Acceptance and read the example responses of the candidates. These examples have become the rote replies of thousands of inquirers, regardless of the lives of grace they may have lead up to that point.

Move from program to process
So how do we move away from program and toward process? A first step might be to define "process" a little more. If the RCIA is a process, what is the process for? Becoming Catholic? That’s not what the rite says. The rite of Christian initiation is a process of seeking God. It is a process of living the way of faith and conversion (see RCIA 1).

If that’s so, then we might say the RCIA is not a program; it’s a relationship. Our job is not to read from predetermined templates. It is to explore the mystery of grace at work in the individual inquirer standing before us.

Share your thoughts
How do you evangelize? How do you help your parishioners evangelize? How do you equip them to make accommodations and adjustments when they are faced with an actual inquirer? Please share your thoughts on the Today’s Parish blog, http://bit.ly/MarchRCIA.

Nick Wagner
nwagner@bayard-us.com