By Thea Jarvis

Bringing a new member into the Church is like bringing a new baby into a family, says Father Tom Caroluzza, a Catholic Priest from the Diocese of Richmond, VA who was part of a team from the North American Forum on the Catechumenate who visited Atlanta last week.

“What happens in a parish is analogous to what happens in a family when a new baby is born,” he pointed out at the Ecumenical Beginnings Institute held at Emory University April 21-26. The new member takes some getting used to, particularly when he makes demands and challenges some of the things the family has been doing for years.

Like a newborn, “The neophyte comes in with a fresh faith, and for many of us, faith is no longer fresh,” he acknowledged.

Examining the ecumenical ramifications of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults along with some hundred-plus participants from a broad spectrum of Christian churches, Father Caroluzza shared his conclusion that the very questions new members pose can be the Church’s greatest source of strength in the post-modern era.

“The catechumenate challenges the parish family to renew its life and vision,” he said. “The young in faith are like the Biblically young -- dreaming new dreams, triggering new visions in their elders.”

The Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, which most often begins as the Church assisting in the faith journey of a potential member, in fact most often results in the Church itself being “reconverted in the process,” he judges.

Those in the Church who are “just plain tired” -- bored, burned-out, unaware of options or downright self-serving -- can be thrown into crisis by the process of initiating new members, Caroluzza has observed. But the Rite of Christian Initiation, he is sure, “has the power to reform the Church” precisely because of its openness to new members with new ideas and insights.

“A catechumenal model of Church is a Church that is open, pilgrim, reaching out, engaged in the mission of Jesus Christ,” he said at the Institute’s closing session last Friday. Speaking to men and women clergy, religious and laypersons who have shared intensive experiences of prayer, liturgy and learning during the week, he emphasized that the RCIA is far more powerful than just “another new program of parish renewal.” It represents a dynamic, grassroots model of reform, “a vision that will fit the post-modern world.”

Father Caroluzza, who also works with the RENEW team that implements parish and diocesan-wide renewals, identified three ecclesial “megatrends” on which he feels the catechumenate is having a positive impact. In the area of community, where congregations have a tendency to become larger and larger, intimacy is losing ground. The Rite of Christian Initiation, in which people share a faith journey, support one another and celebrate together, is a model of small group interaction and growth that can help the Church reclaim this spirit of intimacy.

“This age needs more intimacy than the former age,” he has learned, and people are seeking closeness in and out of the church community.

Another ecclesial “megatrend” Carouzza sees is a change in the leadership models the Church has formerly embraced. Within the process of Christian initiation, he explained, the criteria for leadership emphasize “baptism, charism, and ministerial abilities.” The catechumenate is “helping us redefine leadership in our Church” because of key roles that are emerging in small groups, the heart of the Rite of Christian Initiation.

The final “megatrend” that is surfacing in the post-modern Church, Father Caroluzza pointed out, was the realization that “we are a Church in mission, not a Church nurturing itself.”

The catechumenate’s emphasis on a walk in faith leads participants from inner scrutiny and conversion to a joyful Easter experience. The involvement that follows such a personal resurrection can, however, include pain, commitment, a movement outside of oneself toward others. This is the very antithesis of ecclesial “narcissism,” a quality that sometimes emerges in contemporary church communities that can’t seem to go beyond themselves. A redefining of the Church’s sense of mission can be clearly seen in the parish which immerses itself in the Rites of Christian Initiation, Carouzza said.

Sister Joan Leonard, OP, staff member of the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta and instructor at Emory’s Candler School of Theology, agrees with Father Carouzza about the impact of RCIA.

“The week (of the institute) has shown people that the Rite of Christian Initiation is a process, a journey, not just another parish program,” she said, praising the institute’s focus and its theology of the catechumenate. “It calls not just individuals to conversion, but can call a whole congregation.”

The Ecumenical Beginnings Institute, the first program put on by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate that was internationally ecumenical in scope, was sponsored locally by the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Catholic Diocese of Savannah, the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta and Emory University’s Center for Faith Development. The institute brought to Atlanta such notable theologians and educators as Ms. Christiane Brusselmans, Rev. John Westerhoff and Father James Dunning. Local team members included Emory staff members Dr. Don Saliers and Dr. James Fowler, who coordinated the week’s activities with Ms. Anita Willoughby, director of the Atlanta Archdiocesan Forum on the Catechumenate.

“There was so much process, so much sharing,” Mrs. Willoughby said as the institute drew to a close. “Every day, people got closer together.”

The primary purpose of the program, she felt, was accomplished, because participants became directly involved in the Rite of Christian Initiation, traveling a faith journey of their own.

“The week was an opportunity for everyone to experience a conversion,” she remarked. “Those who are initiating people have to experience conversion in their lives so they can recognize conversion in others.”