What is the Initiating Community?

By Elizabeth Harrington
Several items which have appeared in the Catholic press in the last few months have caused me some consternation.

• The first reported the confirmation of 22 young people by the diocesan bishop at a Catholic School during Lent.
• The second story was about a young man who had become a Catholic at university while studying to be a teacher. The article explained that he had completed the RCIA process under the direction of the campus minister and university chaplain.
• The third told of the initiation of 24 secondary students at a weekday Mass on the school’s patronal feast day.

To read of new members being initiated into the Church should be a source of joy. Why then did I find these stories rather disturbing? Through the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist we are incorporated into Christ, made sons and daughters of God, and initiated into the Church. The Catholic Church is manifested locally as the Sunday eucharistic community of the local parish. Through this community God calls people to a life of faith. It is here that we participate in the Easter event of Jesus death and resurrection. It is in the midst of this community of the Church that catechumens are nurtured through the period of formation and welcomed into full membership.

The initiation of catechumens is a gradual process that takes place within the community of the faithful (RCIA 4). The entire community must help the candidates and the catechumens throughout the process of initiation (RCIA 9).

Initiating new members into the Church through schools or universities is not in keeping with this vision and understanding. Whatever else it may be, a Catholic school is not a Sunday eucharistic community because it does not gather on the Lord’s Day to be nourished at the table of the Lord and to be sent out on mission to the world. The school is no doubt a Christian community which worships, witnesses and serves, but this does not have the same ecclesiological status as a parish which celebrates a ‘weekly Easter’ at Sunday Eucharist.

The school or university can play a significant role and will constitute a supportive peer group for the catechumen’s journey of faith, but it needs a firm orientation to Sunday Eucharist in the parish. If the school usurps the role of the parish and becomes the initiating community of faith for young people, do they graduate from the Church when they finish school?

Gathering to celebrate Eucharist on Sunday has been the hallmark of the Church from the very beginning. The importance of Sunday was emphasised by Pope John Paul II in his 1998 Apostolic letter Dies Domini. It is envisaged that many of the rites of the catechumenate are held on a Sunday, for example, the Rite of Election and the Scrutinies on the Sundays of Lent. How can these be celebrated as intended in a community that does not gather for Sunday Eucharist? None of the three reported initiation rites took place on a Sunday.

Further the sacraments of Christian initiation are intimately linked with the Easter mystery of Jesus’ death, resurrection and the Pentecost outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is why the RCIA sets the initiation sacraments during the Easter Vigil. Yet all the reported events were held outside the Easter season. This anomaly is another consequence of moving initiation away from the parish and its cycle of liturgical feasts.

Finally the Rite of Baptism for infants and adults clearly assumes that the liturgy uses a permanent font located in a baptistery. Schools and universities do not have such a baptistery, making them quite unsuitable places for celebrating this sacrament.

According to the Rite of Confirmation, it is the responsibility of the people of God to prepare the baptised for confirmation… the initiation of children into the sacramental life is for the most part the responsibility and concern of Christian parents (RC 3). Sacramental preparation is family centred, parish based, and school supported. The school is thus an extension of the parish community. The one attraction that the school or university does offer is the company of peers for the young person throughout the conversion process. This role of faith support is crucial but is not the same as establishing the academic community as the initiating community. Rather the school is always oriented to the parish. The parish offers what the school or university cannot: Sunday Eucharist and belonging to an on-going community of witness to the gospel, a faith community of young and old which undertakes lifelong service in Christian love.