Every year, just before Lent, we tend to get a lot of questions about conditional baptism. I think of conditional baptisms like being struck by lightning or winning the lottery. These things happen, but not to me. Not to anyone I know. And not to anyone my friends and acquaintances know. Like lightning and the […]
Conditional baptism is like being struck by lightning: What RCIA teams need to know
“Archbishop,” someone in the audience asked, “so many people are leaving the church because of the scandals. What can we do to address that?” Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta had just opened the floor to questions after his keynote talk at the Cathedral Ministry Conference on January 15, 2019. The archbishop took a deep breath
Give your RCIA seekers a reason to stay
There are two dismissals in the Sunday liturgy. The one Catholics are most familiar with is the second one, the dismissal of the faithful at the end of Mass. The other is becoming better known. That is the dismissal of the catechumens at the end of the Liturgy of the word. Both dismissals are sometimes
The symbolic importance of the RCIA dismissal
Some years ago, business leaders were caught up in a trend called “Management by Objective” (MBO). MBO is a method of organizing and motivating employees to accomplish the objectives of the company. So if the objective of a company is to sell a million widgets, whatever any employee does to help the company reach that
What is your RCIA team’s objective for the catechumens?
When your seekers look at the church, what do they see? I wonder if they see a pyramid — with the bishops and priests at the top, supported from below by the laity. Honestly, that’s the way I saw the church throughout my childhood and most of my teen years. It is the way the
Your RCIA team’s number-one job
Several years ago, I was helping lead a training institute for RCIA teams. One of the participants was quite young compared to the rest of us who were mostly well past 40. I asked her how she wound up serving on her parish’s RCIA team. She told me that when she was in college, she
RCIA formation is a call to holiness
Recently, a candidate for reception into the full communion of the Catholic Church wrote an article for America magazine titled: “How can I think about becoming Catholic after the latest sex abuse reports?” I share the writer’s overwhelming grief, and I am completely dismayed and disheartened about the abuse scandals. I suspect many of you
Why be Catholic in the midst of scandal?
When I was in my junior year in high school, I had an awakening of faith. It wasn’t spectacular or miraculous — unless you’re me. That is to say, it was somewhat private, and there was no dramatic “before” and “after” that anyone around me recognized. But I felt completely different. I was energized and
Four ways to help your parishioners live their apostolic vocation
