I did RCIA as a team member this year. wonderful experience
...I used to work on the RCIA team, until I realized what a closed circle of do things our way nor no way bunch they’d become...I committed a horrible crime, the worst thing that a parishioner in a modern suburban church can possibly do in that RCIA setting...I suggested we ought to inject a tiny little bit of Latin into the Mass...I’d have been less an object of terror if I advocated slaying the Pope...
...just for the fun of it, in your next RCIA group, just prior to the Easter Vigil, ask the newbies what they think the Mass is...and if your team’s instruction is anything like my team’s, they will respond with ‘a gathering of worshippers sharing a meal of love and gratitude with Jesus Christ’...at which point you can add, since you know this, that it really is a representation of the Sacrifice of the Spotless Victim at Calvary, except in an unbloody manner, at which the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine, are offered by the confecting priest to God for the purpose of remission of our sins...
...after saying this, take note of the looks on their faces, and if they’re like my parish, you might think you’ve just sprouted a second neck or something...ah yes, catechism ain’t what it used to be...
Mine is doing a bit better, and I can't analyze why: could be a good, capable pastor (leadership absolutely counts) plus it's a newish diocese, erected in 1989, in an area of Catholic population growth by migration (Eastern TN filling up with Rust Belt Yankees) so there's stll some of that new-guy gumption.
I'm on the parish RCIA team, and We! Teach! Catholicism! We haven't got it all together, but are committed to doing it better every year.
Do not give up on your parish. Virtually every saint-biography says that the saint was "in struggle with a corrupt, slack church" --- no matter what the country, the continent or the century.
I agree with the premise of the posted article. Evangelism? Catechesis? We, the laity, need to do it, and keep on doing it.
Sorry you had a bad experience with RCIA. Actually, our group was/is quite conservative. We had one session on NFP and both the leader and two of the other team members were recently in seminary but decided to marry and have now amongst themselves, something like 10 children. We did a lot on the Mass and the Communion of Saints. There was one old couple who were not happy I think because they had been happy with the sort of RCIA that you describe.
Our RCIA team is using Father Barron’s series on Catholicism.
Good choice, huh?
I wish we still used the old Baltimore Catechism. It sure sticks with you, at least more than, "hey, let's recycle for Jesus!" That's about what I had, back in 1973.
Fortunately, I had time in my twenties to get my head together, and my homeschooled kids were raised on the Baltimore Catechism.
I'm guessing their kids will be as well.