Articles
Romero on Social Sin: Personal Conversion and Structural Transformation

Book Reviews
Turner, Paul. The Hallelujah Highway: A History of the Catechumenate and Ages of Initiation: The First Two Christian Millennia

New and Noteworthy
McNulty: Praying the Movies: Daily Meditations from Classic Films
Princeton Theological Seminary: Cloud of Witnesses: Ministry
Cummings: Mystical Women, Mystical Body
Florian: Sign & Symbol, Word and Song: Creating and Celebrating Classroom Rituals
Melton: The Voice: A Story about Faith and Trust
Palmer and Palmer: The Spiritual Traveler: England, Scotland, Wales
Kemp: Catholics Can Come Home Again! A Guide for the Journey of Reconciliation with Inactive Catholics
Campbell: God First Loved Us: The Challenge of Accepting Unconditional Love
Wezeman and Wezeman: Finding Your Way After Your Child Dies

Departments
Editor's Foreword
Calendar
Department of Education News
Index to Volume 37

Editor's Forward
Horace Bushnell, Nurture, and the Catechumenate
By Berard L. Marthaler

Long before the Second Vatican Council described the family as a "domestic church," Horace Bushnell (1802-1876) described families that are imbued with religious sentiments and values "as so many little churches." Before Catholics began speaking of parents as "the primary educators in the faith" (the 1917 Code of Canon Law gave this honorific to pastors), Bushnell, in his classic work, Christian Nurture, articulated the principle that "the true idea of Christian education" is "that the child is to grow up a Christian, and never know himself as being otherwise" (350).

Much of Christian Nurture was based on the author's personal experience and a good deal of common sense. Bushnell, noted preacher and pastor of North Congregational in Hartford, Connecticut, wrote towards the end of the period known in New England as the Great Awakening, when the revival movement was still a major force in American religion. Preachers looked on conscious conversion, after inner struggle and an outward sign of commitment, as the usual requisite for entry into the Kingdom of God. But revivals paid little attention to children, and individuals not given to an emotional display of religion were marginalized. Churches began losing members who could not give testimony to a dramatic conversion experience.

Bushnell challenged this view of conversion and the underlying doctrine of grace it presumed. "The aim, effort, and expectation should not be," he wrote, "that the child is to grow up in sin, to be converted after he comes to a mature age" (3). He rejected the notion that "a technical experience" of conversion was a necessary condition for salvation (4). He preferred to think about "a holy principle" in children to be nurtured by a "Christian atmosphere" in the home with the support of the church of God (5). Thus Bushnell framed the terms of a debate that continued among Protestants for a century and a half and now resurfaces among Catholics as they examine the role of the catechumenate in contemporary catechesis.

I would like to highlight three specific points lest they be overlooked in more general arguments that follow. First, the English translation of the GDC fuels the controversy unnecessarily... Second, the GDC emphasizes the "fundamental difference" between pre-baptismal and post-baptismal catechesis and between catechumens in the strict sense and others who are already baptized (the English translation gratuitously identifies them as "infants")... Third, initiation, inculturation, and socialization into the Christian community (the GDC alludes to all three) does not mean domestication and passivity. Even more than catechumens, the catechized take an active part in the process of their own formation (GDC, no. 157). The Church is, in its very nature, missionary. The proclamation of the Gospel is a call to faith; catechesis nurtures conversion and maturity in faith, and in turn encourages the faithful to go forth to proclaim the Gospel to others. Author Gil Ostdiek puts it succinctly when he writes, "Mystagogy leads to mission."

[This excerpt is from the article "The New Constellation of Catechesis," by Robert D. Duggan, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

Anyone engaged in catechesis today might well keep in mind the definition of "paradigm" used by Thomas S. Kuhn: "It stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community."¹ Of particular note in this definition is the word "constellation," an image from the physical sciences that conjures up the notion of interlocking dynamics, where the interplay of certain forces keeps the whole in balance. Kuhn's image reminds us of the importance of thinking about systems and of the several levels of systems that must be understood simultaneously if we are to operate with any measure of sophistication in today's complex world. His image sheds light on how catechesis is looking for ways to organize the data of experience and to name reality in consistent fashion.

Paradigms Change The relevance of Kuhn's work for this article, however, lies primarily in his demonstration that paradigms change and of how they change. The process of paradigm shift inevitably involves struggle, defiant resistance, bursts of creative insight, and close-minded refusal to accept the obvious. The "entire constellation" only gradually gives way under the weight of opposing forces. Sometimes change may seem to happen "overnight," especially when the community's source of authority proclaims in some official fashion that "this is the way it is" from now on. But the reality is that the official declaration of a new paradigm has happened because the old paradigm has gradually given way, has ceased to function effectively, and no longer offers the "technologies" for success. Even before it is proclaimed as the new truth, elements of the new paradigm have been describing reality to the members of the community in ways that make more sense to them than the old paradigm. And even before there is a shared consensus about the new paradigm, its values have gradually begun to replace the operative values that the community had grown accustomed to and taken for granted.

1. Evangelization as the Context in Which Catechesis Is Situated
   The fact that the GDC situates catechesis within the larger framework of the ministry of the word, specifically evangelization, has received widespread attention. Avery Dulles has written that in his judgment "the evangelical turn in the ecclesial vision of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II is one of the most surprising and important developments in the Catholic Church since Vatican II."³ It is certainly true that the assertion of Paul VI in Evangelii nuntiandi (On Evangelization in the Modern World) that evangelization constitutes the Church's "deepest identity" (no. 14) has already had profound consequences on the Church's pastoral agenda. What the GDC has done is to articulate a particular understanding of the network of relationships within which the catechetical activity of the Church is to be understood and in which it is carried forward. This involves an analysis not only of the levels of activity involved, but also of a very differentiated understanding of the various groups who are appropriate targets of the Church's attention in this regard.
   
   The first set of distinctions that the GDC sets forth involves three separate but interrelated activities that take place within the context of the Church's ministry of the word: (1) the missio ad gentes, which is evangelization properly speaking, directed at those with no faith, which leads to what is called "initial conversion"; (2) catechesis, which is referred to as being "at the service of Christian initiation," directed at those who have come to initial faith but who still need to be fully converted and initiated; and (3) cura animarum, which is referred to as "catechesis at the service of ongoing formation in the faith" and is the Church's pastoral care, directed at those with mature faith, hopefully sustaining and nurturing continuing conversion.
   
   
2. The Catechumenate as Model and Inspiration for All Catechesis
   If indeed the GDC is suggesting a new paradigm for catechesis, then its assertion that the restored catechumenate should be the model and inspiration for all catechetical activity (cf. nos. 29, 59, 68, 90-1) stands at the heart of this new "constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on." Nothing in the GDC has aroused so much comment, disagreement, and hearty approval as this startling directive. Pastoral ministers and theologians who for decades have been insisting on the prophetic character of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) have acclaimed this role of the restored catechumenate as similarly prophetic in nature. If this mandate is to be taken seriously, they say, the implications for the catechetical enterprise in its entirety are enormous.
   
   I believe that both the RCIA and the GDC are prophetic documents. Ralph Keifer has called the reformed rites of Christian initiation "a massive rejection of the presuppositions both of pastoral practice and of most churchgoers regarding the true meaning of Church membership."⁴ Such a radical change, he has written, "is either suicide or prophecy of a very high order." Many have continued to question which, in fact, it is. But there is now a substantial piece of empirical support for the view that the RCIA does, indeed, hold the prophetic potential of revitalizing our experience of Christian community. In October 2000 the U.S. Catholic bishops released a report containing the results of a massive multi-year study of the implementation of the RCIA in the United States.⁵ Summarizing the data in that report, the five bishop co-chairs who collaborated on the study affirm that their research has shown decisively that the RCIA "has the potential to renew parish life in our country."
   
   Particularly because the study also revealed how much work still needs to be done to foster the full implementation of the RCIA, these are words of high praise. The bold claim of Aidan Kavanagh in The Shape of Baptism has, it seems, been vindicated:
   
   

   [In the RCIA] the Church's mission is constantly being set at the most fundamental level. Here the obligations to service and the limits on power and authority are established for all ministries within the Church, ordained or not. Initiation defines simultaneously both the Christian and the Church, and the definition is unsubordinated to any other except the gospel itself, no matter from what source other definitions may originate. This being the case, theological discourse, canonical reform, religious education, ministerial training programs and even the practical day-to-day running of dioceses and parishes will find it impossible not to take the [RCIA] as their starting point. . . ."⁶

   Thus, when the GDC says that the catechumenate should serve as the model and inspiration for all catechesis, one must probe deeply the implications that this holds for traditional understandings of the entire catechetical enterprise. Failure to do so would be a form of resistance in the face of what Rome is clearly proposing as a new catechetical paradigm. In this context, it may be helpful to indicate some of the practical insights that have been gleaned from the "genius" of the catechumenal experience over the past several decades. From our efforts we have learned:
   
   
   • The value of maintaining an intimate link between liturgy and catechesis
     
   • The fact that the entire community, for better or worse, contributes to the faith formation of its members
     
   • The enormous formative impact of lavish and expressive symbols in ritual experience
     
   • The fact that entire communities, not just individuals, are transformed when the word proclaimed in the Sunday Lectionary becomes the center of parish life and the focal point for all catechesis
     
   • The power of word-based faith sharing in small groups
     
   • The importance of sponsoring/mentoring in the process of faith formation
     
   • What Pope Paul VI meant when he said that with the revision of the Sunday Lectionary, Sacred Scripture would become "the chief instrument for handing down Christian doctrine"7
     
   • The fact that when evangelization and the call to conversion happen at every level of the community on an ongoing basis, the entire parish is transformed
     
   • The power of a firm belief that our baptismal consecration sets the missionary agenda for individuals as well as the entire Church
     
   • The richness of the ecclesiology in a community where the full complementarity of ministries flourishes
     
   • The gradual development of faith by stages and over a lifetime and how that growth and development require the constant care of a faith community on multiple levels
     
   • The fact that naming the demonic forces we encounter is central to our struggle with evil and happens best in the midst of a community that prays for and stands with us in that struggle
     
   • The value of a probing discernment of readiness prior to our celebrating any of the sacraments
   
   
3. The Christian Community Itself Is "Living Catechesis" (GDC, no. 141)
   The broad rethinking that the GDC demands of us is nowhere more evident than in the GDC's assertion that the life of the community itself constitutes the fundamental experience of catechesis: "The parish is, without doubt, the most important locus in which the Christian community is formed and expressed" (no. 257). So true is this, the GDC insists, that catechesis "will be effective to the extent that the Christian community becomes a point of concrete reference for the faith journey of individuals" (no. 158).
   
   This is perhaps just another way of expressing one thing learned from our experience with the catechumenate: catechesis is seen as an apprenticeship in the Christian life, much more than as a merely instructional encounter. The literature of the social sciences, especially studies of the conversion phenomenon, also reinforces the importance of social bonds in the process of restructuring a person's world view. A famous definition of conversion from the sociology of religions is "coming to accept the opinion of one's friends." What this implies is the enormous significance held by one's immediate circle in shaping basic values, beliefs, and so forth. In the past, catechesis has too often ignored the primary, formative impact of the local community on the faith of those being catechized. How else can we explain the still widespread phenomenon of parents dropping their children off for religious instruction on Sunday morning, but never considering it important to participate with them in the Sunday eucharist? Or consider how infrequently the catechetical team of a parish reflects on the total life of their community and weighs its overall impact on the faith of those they catechize. Yet the presence or absence of a vital network of social outreach ministries in a parish is certainly more decisive in shaping the value system of its members than an occasional lesson or lecture on Catholic social teaching. The GDC challenges this myopia and insists that those responsible for catechesis attend much more explicitly to the quality of lived faith, which characterizes the overall life of the local faith community.
   
   
4. The Primacy of Adult Catechesis
   The assertion of the GDC that adult catechesis is "the axis around which revolves the catechesis of childhood and adolescence as well as that of old age" (no. 275; cf. nos. 172-76) is not particularly new. The GDC's 1971 predecessor, the General Catechetical Directory, said much the same thing, as have official documents before and after. Mere lip service has been paid to this guiding principle for generations, yet its practical implications have been virtually invisible on the catechetical landscape. In this regard, one is reminded of Cardinal John Henry Newman's distinction between knowledge that is "real" and knowledge that is merely "notional." Few in the catechetical enterprise have challenged the assertion that adult catechesis serves as an axis; few, likewise, have taken its implications to heart on a practical level. It has remained one of those "notional" truths that we assent to in the abstract, but that fails to engage or motivate us on any real level that matters.
   
   It seems that in their 1999 pastoral plan for adult faith formation, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, the U.S. Catholic bishops have accepted the challenge of making the GDC's vision of adult faith formation come alive.8 In the introduction of Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, the bishops write,
   
   

   To make this vision a reality, we, as the Catholic bishops of the United States, call the Church in our country to a renewed commitment to adult faith formation, positioning it at the heart of our catechetical vision and practice. We pledge to support adult faith formation without weakening our commitment to our other essential educational ministries. This pastoral plan guides the implementation of this pledge and commitment. (no. 6)

5. The Gospel Must Be Inculturated
   The GDC states that with inculturation, "evangelization encounters one of its greatest challenges" (no. 21). We can quickly add that the same holds true with catechesis. Inculturation remains one of the most overwhelming challenges we face in the task of catechesis. The GDC speaks at great length about the need for an effective catechesis to adapt the gospel message to the situation of the one being catechized, taking into account developmental abilities, cultural factors, age, and so forth. But as one reads the GDC's verbiage asserting the importance of accomplishing the task of inculturation, one cannot escape a growing realization that this is a work whose dimensions we have not even grasped, let alone begun to tackle. We simply have had little experience with any substantive attempts at inculturation. At this point, we can only nod our assent, as if agreeing to what is going on within a place we have never entered.

1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 175.
   
2. Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997). Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
3. Avery Dulles, "John Paul II and the New Evangelization," America 166 (February 1, 1992): 70.
   
4. Ralph Keifer, "Christian Initiation: The State of the Question," in Made Not Born: New Perspectives on Christian Initiation and the Catechumenate (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), 149-50.
   
5. U.S. Catholic Bishops, Committee on Evangelization, Journey to the Fullness of Life: A Report on the Implementation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults in the United States (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 2000).
   
6. Aidan Kavanagh, The Shape of Baptism (New York: Pueblo Publishing Company, 1978), 145.
   
7. Paul VI, Missale Romanum (Roman Missal Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council) (April 3, 1969).
   
8. U.S. Catholic Bishops, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1999). Also see The Living Light 37:1 (Fall 2000), which features this document.
   
9. Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1990).

This excerpt is from the article "Conversion, Nurture, or Both: Towards a Lifelong Catechetical Education—A Cautious Reading of the GDC" by Thomas Groome, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light

Some twenty years ago, I wrote a piece about the debate on whether conversion or nurture was the key to religious education, and I felt lucky to get it published.¹ In the mainline Protestant churches the fire had gone out of the debate, with most seeing the need for both conversion and nurture. The revivals that had once fueled the controversy had long lain dormant, and Catholics by then generally viewed it as a Protestant problem. In my article I summed up the consensus on what seemed at the time a resolved issue: catechetical education should nurture people in lifelong conversion.

Now, however, the issue has been raised again, with a strong tip of the scales toward conversion. Surprisingly, this debate is fanned by a Catholic document, the General Directory for Catechesis (GDC).² Church leaders who have assisted in the pastoral reception of the document tend to over-interpret the GDC to favor all catechesis as catechumenal. They have neglected nurture by the family and lifelong catechetical education. Therefore the document leaves itself open to being interpreted as totalizing catechumenal catechesis.

With this essay, I argue again for a dual commitment to nurture and conversion that is lifelong. Further, I argue that the most fitting paradigm is not the catechumenate but permanent catechetical education. The GDC often uses "permanent" in defining catechesis; it is for every Christian, everywhere, and across life spans. "Catechetical education" combines what I consider dual and necessary aspects of educating in faith, namely, catechesis and religious education. Though it is only a sub-theme to this essay, the debate between "catechesis" and "religious education" is another balancing act that we must achieve instead of choosing one or the other. I am urging a more cautious reading of the GDC, one that is alert to the dangers of totalizing a conversion/catechumenal paradigm. My first reading of the GDC was overwhelmingly positive, and this continues to be my sentiment. However, other commentators have led me to re-read it, wary of its potential to be over-interpreted. Catechetical educators will do well to balance the GDC with the U.S. bishops' statement Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us.³

I am concerned that asking the catechumenal model to carry all catechesis will diminish the catechumenate's effectiveness in its primary purpose—initiating adult converts—and will curtail rather than encourage permanent catechetical education. To think of catechizing in purely catechumenal terms will focus us exclusively on the sacraments of initiation as if they were sacraments of termination. In sum, I am convinced that the catechumenal train is a "local" to some early stations along the journey but was never designed to travel as far as the whole Church needs to go.


Proceed with Caution: Evangelization as an Umbrella for Catechesis? My concern is that the GDC's enthusiasm for evangelization shunts the discussion toward a catechumenal model for all catechesis. The caveat is to appreciate the sea change in the Church's understanding of evangelization; the old stereotype—making Catholics out of pagans or Protestants—is inadequate.

Under Pope John Paul II, the term "evangelization" has continued to gain currency. Breaking new ground, he popularized the term "new evangelization." The GDC designates evangelization as the umbrella description of the Church's whole mission in the world and situates catechesis as one function within it. This move will prove pastorally wise, however, only if we embrace the "new evangelization" and abandon our stereotype of "evangelization." Essentially, the new evangelization is about Christians' ever renewing themselves to live their faith boldly as credible witnesses in the world.

Five Contributions to our Understanding of Evangelization

1. Evangelization is first and foremost about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This is one of the richest aspects of the new evangelization: a reminder that the "heart" of Christian faith is not scriptures or traditions, not dogmas or doctrines, not Church or sacraments, not creeds or codes—integral as all of these are—but the person of Jesus. Evangelization and catechesis, then, should bring people into "communion and intimacy with Jesus Christ" (GDC, no. 80).
   
   The GDC uses the term "apprenticeship" interchangeably with "discipleship"; apparently the New Testament term "mathetes" can be translated both ways. Christian faith will always be a personal "following of Jesus" as apprentice to the Master (GDC, no. 41 passim). Of course, this following is not individualized—a "me and Jesus" syndrome. Christian faith is radically communal and yet should also be a deeply personal relationship with Jesus, an intimacy of the heart and soul.
   
   
2. Evangelization is not about "bringing non-Christians in" but "bringing Christians out." Catholics often think of evangelization exclusively as bringing "converts" into the Church. Though this could be accomplished "at home," it was preeminently the work of missionaries who went to faraway cultures that had not yet heard the Gospel. As a child, I remember missionaries returning home to my Irish village with great tales of baptizing thousands of "pagan babies," and we locals rejoiced that so many more had been "saved" (and to our village's credit) by becoming Catholic. In this vein, Vatican II understood evangelization as the "mission ad gentes"—bringing people into the Church who did not yet belong.⁶
   
   
3. Evangelization not only is directed toward "peoples where Christ and the Gospel are not known" but also aims to mature the faith of those already Christian and, where necessary, to revivify missionary activity. In other words, every Christian person and community is always in need of evangelization. Particularly urgent is the re-evangelization of tired cultural faith, enabling it to become alive again and to permeate its cultural setting rather than remaining apart as an exterior trapping (cf. GDC, no. 58). The whole Church is both evangelizer and the evangelized.
   
   
4. Evangelization includes not only the ministry of the word but all of the Church's ministries and the realization of its whole mission (cf. GDC, nos. 46-48 passim). Etymologically, evangelization implies a ministry of the word. Vatican II explicitly stated that "the chief means [of evangelization] is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ" (Ad gentes, no. 6). In the Catholic tradition, however, "preaching the Gospel" always means more than simply preaching. It also includes celebrating the sacraments and the works of justice, peace, and compassion, as well as building up the Christian community. Besides the Church's ministry of kerygma (of the word), there is a deepened and explicit consciousness that the Church also preaches by being a Christian community that gives living witness to gospel values (its ministries of koinonia and marturia), by its public work of worshiping God (its ministry of leitourgia), and by its works of compassion and justice (its ministry of diakonia). In sum, evangelization is every way that the Church realizes its mission in the world.
   
   
5. Evangelization must renounce Christian hegemony, being marked instead by ecumenical sensitivity and dialogue with other religious traditions. Vatican II called Christians to enter into dialogue with people of other religious traditions. The Council urged Christians to engage in "truly human conversation" with all peoples of good will and to "learn by sincere and patient dialogue what treasures a bountiful God has distributed among the nations of the earth" (Ad gentes, no. 11). And though the Church "must ever proclaim Christ [as] ‘the way, the truth, and the life,'" her very faith in Jesus should lead Christians into "dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions."⁷

1. Thomas Groome, "Conversion, Nurture and Religious Education," Religious Education 71:5 (September/ October 1981): 482-496.
   
2. Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997). Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
3. U.S. Catholic Bishops, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1999). See The Living Light 37:1 (Fall 2000), which provides interpretation and implementation suggestions on this important document.
   
4. Avery Dulles, "John Paul II and the New Evangelization," America 166 (February 1, 1992): 52. Dulles notes that evangelization was never mentioned at Vatican I (1869-70), whereas the documents of Vatican II (1962-65) use the words "Gospel" (evangelium) 157 times, "evangelize" 18 times, and "evangelization" 31 times.
   
5. Paul VI, Evangelii nuntiandi (On Evangelization in the Modern World) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1975), no. 14. Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
6. Second Vatican Council, Ad gentes divinitus (Decree of the Church's Missionary Activity), in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott (Chicago, Ill.: Follett Publishing Company, 1966), no. 6. Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
7. Second Vatican Council, Nostra aetate (Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions), in The Documents of Vatican II, no. 2.
   
8. International Commission on English in the Liturgy and the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1988), no. 76.
   
9. Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), 4.
   10. Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), in The Documents of Vatican II, no. 11.

[This excerpt is from the article "The Baptismal Catechumenate: An Inspiration for What?" by Florence Morgan Gillman, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

The General Directory for Catechesis (GDC), issued in 1997 by the Holy See's Congregation for the Clergy, put forth the baptismal catechumenate as the inspiration for all catechesis, at the same time reminding us that different processes of formation are needed for both the unbaptized and the baptized.¹ Catechetical ministers are challenged to discover creative and energizing ways of using the elements of the catechumenal model to enliven and enrich the catechetical experiences of all.

I agree with most of what Groome has written on this topic regarding the value of nurture and the need for instruction. His cautions are worth heeding. I agree that turning all catechesis into mini-catechumenates using the process followed in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) in the United States would be a terrible mistake. But here is where Groome and I disagree: Although the GDC does in fact call for catechesis to be inspired by the baptismal catechumenate, Groome seems to misread the text. The GDC does not, as he seems to fear, encourage a slavish imitation of the baptismal catechumenate. In addition, I believe that by allowing the catechumenate to inspire our understanding of catechesis, we will be enriched and catechetical ministry will be renewed. Through this article I will offer evidence to support both positions.

The Catechumenate, Source of Inspiration The GDC cites "the great catechumenal tradition" of the early Church to make the point that catechesis is by nature gradual (no. 89). It cites the RCIA: "Good catechesis is always done in steps" (no. 88). The GDC also singles out the four stages of the baptismal catechumenate (no. 88), but it adds that "there is a fundamental difference" between pre-baptismal catechesis and post-baptismal catechesis (no. 90). In view of "this substantial difference," the GDC elaborates on some elements of the baptismal catechumenate "as the source of inspiration for post-baptismal catechesis" (no. 90; italics added). In summary, these elements remind the Church that

1. The sacraments of initiation are of fundamental importance.
   
2. Catechesis is the responsibility of the entire Christian community.
   
3. The paschal mystery, the focal point of Christian liturgy, permeates all catechesis.
   
4. Catechetical activity is a process of inculturation linked to the background and particular needs of the individuals being catechized.
   
5. Catechesis is a process of formation as well as a true school of faith.

Post-baptismal catechesis, without slavishly imitating the structure of the baptismal catechumenate . . . does well, however, to draw inspiration from ‘this preparatory school the Christian life,' and to allow itself to be enriched by those principal elements which characterize the catechumenate. (no. 91; italics added)

1. The baptismal catechumenate demands a rethinking of our models and the approaches and processes we use in our catechesis of persons of all ages.
   
2. The catechetical process needs to include activities that allow people to
   
   • Build community
     
   • Experience creative hospitality
     
   • Tell their own stories
     
   • Share their faith experience
     
   • Learn the faith tradition
     
   • Experience agape
     
   • Participate in engaging, reflective worship
     
   • Apprentice for discipleship
   
   
3. Time is key—there are no shortcuts or quick recipes.
   
4. "Creativity" and "adaptability" should be key words for curriculum development in local situations—what we do with children and adolescents should not be determined or limited by a published series or programs.
   
5. Catechesis is lifelong and occasional; continual, not necessarily continuous; and certainly not terminal.
   
6. Special moments should be celebrated during catechetical experiences for persons of all ages.
   
7. Catechesis is an ecclesial activity—it is the responsibility of the whole community, not just of a few members.

1. Comprehensive and systematic
   
2. Formational as well as instructional (the GDC, no. 91, calls catechesis both a school of faith and a process of formation)
   
3. Basic and essential formation centered on what constitutes the nucleus of Christian experience: the most fundamental certainties of the faith and the most essential evangelical values (GDC, no. 67)

1. Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), nos. 59, 90. Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
2. International Commission on English in the Liturgy and Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1988), no. 4. Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
3. U.S. Catholic Bishops, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1999). See also The Living Light 37:1 (Fall 2000), which focused on this document.

[This excerpt is from the article "A Middle Way: The Road not Traveled " by Kieran Scott, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

When old debates and controversies keep resurfacing, one can safely say that past attempts at resolution have been inadequate. When new attempts to address the problem repeat the standard formulation of the issue, one can safely say history has not taught its lesson. This seems to be the case in the "nurture versus conversion" debate in current Roman Catholic catechetical circles.

I have friends on both sides of this conversation. Good friends, I presume, can agree and disagree, and keep conversing—especially when the issues at stake are so fundamental to our work. I find much to agree with, especially the general intention and direction, on both sides. However, what is keeping the two sides apart, from my frame of reference, seems a distinction without much of a difference. This is not an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the advice I offer would be much the same: strategically step back from this regional conflict and look at the broader picture.

As I attempt to navigate between both sides, I will not use my limited space to accentuate all the particulars on which we agree. Rather, I will offer the following three points to complement and to supplement Tom Groome's analysis (featured in this issue of The Living Light) of the emerging direction of catechesis in the United States: (1) the normativity of the catechumenate paradigm; (2) the relation of catechesis and religious education; and (3) the two languages of religious education. The points address questions of process (how), identity (what), and language forms (context).

The Normativity of the Catechumenate Paradigm The modern history of religious education can be read as a struggle around the issue of nurture versus conversion. Much of Protestant education has been caught in this debate for a century or more. The initial formulation of the issue by Horace Bushnell still governs much of Protestant Church writing.¹ Bushnell framed the discussion in light of what he saw in the mid-nineteenth century and reacted against the evangelistic and revivalistic approach to religion. This conservative framework holds that the child begins a sinner and that education is a preparation for conversion. Everything is staked on this one moment of conversion. Adolescence, according to this approach, would be the optimal period for this deep turn, which would then make any future education unnecessary.

Bushnell, on the other hand, had a more liberal and optimistic view of human nature: the child who is born into a Christian family is already Christian. He looked upon conversion with skepticism. He viewed education as a "nurturing" of what is already there. The child is to be brought up in conversion. Bushnell's argument is epitomized in his famous dictum: "that the child is to grow up a Christian, and never know himself [or herself] as being otherwise."² Bushnell's perspective showed the early traces of a developmental approach to religion. He believed in a calm, continual growth of the child into full Christian maturity.

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) has the dynamics of conversion at its center. The General Directory for Catechesis (GDC) points to the RCIA as "the inspiration for catechesis in the Church" (no. 90). "The model for all catechesis," it notes elsewhere, citing the 1977 Synod, "is the baptismal catechumenate. . . . This catechumenal formation should inspire the other forms of catechesis in both their objectives and in their dynamism" (no. 59). Does this make the catechumenate model normative for all catechesis, or does it over-interpret, over-impose, and over-totalize this paradigm? In light of the historical context I have sketched above, the answer is no and yes. It depends on the meaning of "norm(ativity)."

The Relation of Catechesis and Religious Education The RCIA has been the most successful educational model to emerge since Vatican II. The role of the catechist is closely tied to sacramental life. This relational linkage of instruction and sacramental ritual could be carried over into other parish formats. The strengths of RCIA, however, also became its weakness and limitation. Its priority is formation in the Catholic Christian way. It is to be "an apprenticeship in the entire Christian life" (GDC, no. 30). The root metaphors guiding the process are induction, initiation, and the passing-on of a way of life. Catechesis and the RCIA are engaged in this process of "traditioning." This traditioning can no longer be taken for granted in the twenty-first century. Preserving and transmitting what is most religiously valuable from one generation to the next requires particular attention today. Criticism of tradition is indispensable. However, one cannot criticize it until one recognizes that it is within us and all around us.

Still, Groome has legitimate concerns that the catechumenate model (and catechesis in general) is "no more than an agency of socialization."⁶ This, he fears, will be counterproductive to the model's true purpose and not be sufficient by itself to promote Christian maturity. This socialization process alone tends simply to maintain the status quo. We have a choice, Groome asserts, between being conscious participants in tradition or unconscious victims. The key to the former is the incorporation of a critical educational process. The name he gives to this process is "permanent catechetical education."

The Two Languages of Religious Education Lutheran theologian George A. Lindbeck describes religion as a language.⁹ As a cultural linguistic system, it functions like a language or a culture. That is, it is a preexistent system. We do not so much invent our language and our culture as much as it invents us: we learn to speak the language and dwell in the culture we have inherited. This miracle of language and culture, according to Lindbeck, makes us the kind of people we are. Language is our house of being, giving us our particular view of the world—our outlook on life, expectations, and values. The language of catechesis and the catechumenate is such a language.

Groome and the RCIA share this common catechetical language: the Catholic Church's internal language of religious education. This warm, intimate, caressing language nurtures Catholic becoming and belonging. It fosters religious identity and cultivates convictional knowing and practice. Church ministers (catechists, homilists, liturgists, etc.) have a right and duty to preserve this internal language.

Catechesis and the RCIA need a complementary language in both gathering educational efforts within the Catholic Church and establishing a bridge with other religious and educational agencies beyond it. A more public language of religious education is needed, one that will provide a linguistic world where Catholic educational endeavors can encounter the educational endeavors of the Other in the public square. This linguistic framework could save catechesis/RCIA from being encapsulated in its own linguistic world. "Without public speech," writes Thomas F. Green, "there is no public . . . only pleadings, pronouncements, claims and counter-claims. Without public speech . . . we are left with nothing we can reasonably speak of as public education, public service, or public life."¹⁰ In the same spirit, Groome's mentor professor Dwayne Huebner advocates, "We need a public language, as we need public buildings, public gardens, public transportation, public ceremonies."¹¹ It will provide the grounds upon which we meet. It will create the basis for community. It will give direction as we do things together. It will provide the context for lifelong developmental conversion.

Kieran Scott is an associate professor of religion and religious education at Fordham University in New York.

1. See Richard Robert Osmer, "A New Clue for Religious Education?: Cross-Disciplinary Thinking at the Turn of the Millennium," in Forging a Better Religious Education in the Third Millennium, ed. James M. Lee (Birmingham, Ala.: Religious Education Press, 2000), 179-202.
   
2. Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), 4.
   
3. George Albert Coe, "Religious Education as a Part of General Education," in Who Are We? The Quest for a Religious Education, ed. John H. Westerhoff III (Birmingham, Ala.: Religious Education Press, 1978), 15-16.
   
4. James W. Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian: Adult Development and Christian Faith (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), 138-141.
   
5. William Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1995), 14. Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
6. Thomas Groome, Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), 122.
   
7. See Berard Marthaler, "Toward a Revisionist Model of Catechesis: Reflections on David Tracy's Blessed Rage for Order," The Living Light 13:1 (Fall 1976): 458, 468-469.
   
8. For more on the two faces of religious education, see Gabriel Moran, "Religious Education After Vatican II," in Open Catholicism: The Tradition at Its Best, eds. David Efroymson and John Raines (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1997), 151-166; Maria Harris and Gabriel Moran, Reshaping Religious Education: Conversations on Contemporary Practice (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 30-43.
   
9. George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984).
   
10. Thomas F. Green, "Public Speech," Teachers College Record 95:3 (Spring 1994): 369.
    
11. Dwayne Huebner, "The Language of Religious Education," in Tradition and Transformation in Religious Education, ed. Padraic O'Hare (Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist, 1979), 90.

[This excerpt is from the article "Liturgy as Catechesis for Life" by Gilbert Ostdiek, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

Catechesis and Liturgy In the recent past, the ministries of catechesis and liturgy occupied separate pastoral niches, meeting occasionally and momentarily in times of preparation for and celebration of the sacraments. Vatican II planted the seeds for a new and fuller coordination of these ministries. Sacrosanctum concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy) (SC) decreed the restoration of the catechumenate, which it described as a period of well-suited instruction "sanctified by sacred rites to be celebrated at successive stages" (no. 64). What the Council had in mind was not a superficial juxtaposition of classroom-style instruction and liturgical celebrations. Rather, Ad gentes divinitus (Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity), no. 14, spoke of the catechumenate as "a period of formation in the entire Christian life, an apprenticeship of suitable duration, during which the disciples will be joined to Christ their teacher."¹

This vision was implemented in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), particularly in the often-quoted no. 75, which calls for an integrated formation in Christian life during the catechumenate period, to be achieved through catechesis, community life, liturgy, and mission. Those same four elements are echoed in the less-noted description of the period of mystagogy: "This is a time for the community and the neophytes together to grow in deepening their grasp of the paschal mystery and in making it part of their lives through meditation on the Gospel, sharing in the eucharist, and doing the works of charity."² The catechesis typical of each period is to be tightly interwoven with the liturgy. Further, the celebration of the sacraments of initiation forms the bridge between these two periods. Catechesis and liturgy are thus linked together, not only for the catechumens, but also for the entire community that journeys with them (RCIA, no. 4).

This interweaving of catechesis and liturgy in the restored catechumenate has led to a broader periodic discussion of their relationship, often under the rubric of "liturgical catechesis."³ Despite differing definitions and perspectives, some common themes have begun to emerge.

A Continuous Cycle A first theme is this: catechesis and liturgy are intrinsically connected and can be said to form one continuous ministry.⁴ The biblical warrant for this can be found in the Emmaus story (Lk 24:13-35). As they make their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus, the two disciples also make an inner journey from loss of hope to full Easter faith under the deft ministry of the Stranger who joins them on the way. It is a journey from pastoral encounter (v 15-24) to catechesis (v 25-27),⁵ from catechesis to the breaking of the bread (v 30-31), and from table to mystagogy (v 32) and mission (v 33-35). Two threads of continuity weave these moments together: the unfolding journey of the two and the ministry of the Stranger. The results are cumulative; no step on that inner journey would have taken place without those that went before.

Recent church documents portray that same connectedness between catechesis and liturgy:

While not being formally identified with them, catechesis is built on a certain number of elements of the Church's pastoral mission which have a catechetical aspect, that prepare for catechesis, or spring from it. They are: the initial proclamation of the Gospel or missionary preaching to arouse faith; examination of the reasons for belief; experience of Christian living; celebration of the sacraments; integration into the ecclesial community; and apostolic and missionary witness. "Catechesis is intimately bound up with the whole of the Church's life." (CCC, nos. 6-7)

1. Since discipleship is rooted in relationship to Jesus and the God of the covenant, keep the person of Jesus at the center of catechesis and liturgy.
   
2. Keep the immediate demands of a given ministry from overshadowing the more fundamental pastoral concern—which all ministers must share—for the faith journey of the disciples.
   
3. Make sure that catechesis and liturgy are prepared in collaboration, with effective channels of communication.
   
4. Insist that both the catechetical and the liturgical questions be asked, if possible by collaborators from each ministry, when catechesis and liturgy are prepared.
   
5. Respect the difference between catechesis and liturgy, not reducing either to the other.
   
6. Attend to the formative power that liturgy has as first catechesis; always ask what formative impact the liturgical celebration will have and whether this is faithful to both the larger tradition and the spiritual needs of the participants.
   
7. Shape the specific symbols of the liturgy so that people recognize them as rooted in their culture and time, yet fashioned and celebrated in such a way that they evoke a sense of God's presence and holiness.
   
8. Avoid imposing on symbols, which are richly ambiguous, a thematic one-meaning-fits-all; rather, shape and prepare the rites to be as authentic and full as possible and let the people find in them the facet of meaning that helps them retell their life stories.
   
9. Since Jesus invites us to be his disciples and witnesses in the world of today, ask how the liturgy is forming people to live according to the beatitudes and to be credible witnesses to Christian ways of love and justice.
   
10. Be patient and don't lose your sense of humor when efforts to provide such a liturgy for the assembly yield less than perfect results.

1. The Congregation for the Clergy's General Directory for Catechesis (GDC) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997) repeats this theme of catechesis as a comprehensive formation in the whole of Christian life (see nos. 63, 67).
   
2. International Commission on English in the Liturgy and Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1988), no. 244. Subsequent references are given in the text. In initiatory catechesis, the GDC calls for integration of these same elements: knowledge of the faith, liturgical life, moral formation, prayer, belonging to community, and missionary spirit (no. 87).
   
3. Mary C. Bryce, "The Interrelationship of Liturgy and Catechesis," in The American Benedictine Review 28:1 (March 1977): 1-29; Kate Dooley, "Liturgical Catechesis: Mystagogy, Marriage or Misnomer?" Worship 66 (1992): 386-397; Gilbert Ostdiek, "Catechesis, Liturgical," in The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, ed. Peter Fink (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier Book, 1990), 163-172; John H. Westerhoff, "Liturgics and Catechetics," Worship 61 (1987): 510-516.
   
4. Sandra DeMasi, "Liturgy and Catechesis: One Continuous Ministry," The Living Light 31:3 (Spring 1995): 15-18; Michael Moynahan, "Liturgy and Catechesis: Two Sides of the Same Coin," The Living Light 29:1 (Fall 1992): 47-57.
   
5. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd. ed. (CCC) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), calls this the "Paschal catechesis of the Lord" (no. 1094). Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
6. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory for Catholics of the United States (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1979), no. 36.
   
7. Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Environment and Art in Catholic Worship (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1978), no. 15.
   
8. Thomas Morris, "Liturgical Catechesis Revisited," Catechumenate 17 (May 1995): 13-19.
   
9. Denis McBride, The Gospel of Luke: A Reflective Commentary (New York: Costello Publishing Co., 1982), 315-321.
   
10. See Gilbert Ostdiek, "Liturgical Catechesis and Justice," in Living No Longer for Ourselves: Liturgy and Justice in the Nineties, eds. Kathleen Hughes and Mark Francis (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1991), 170-184.
    
11. Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Music in Catholic Worship (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1982), no. 4.

[This excerpt is from the article "Call, Conversion, and Catechesis in St. Paul" by Chris McMahon, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

Paul of Tarsus was a convert to Christianity. Not only was he not a Christian by birth, but much of his early life was spent persecuting Christians. The story of his conversion is well known thanks to its drama and his significance for the early Church. Yet the four New Testament accounts of his conversion and the subsequent events do not paint a consistent historical picture. There are questions about what really happened in the ten years between his experience on the road to Damascus (a.d. 36) and his first mission to the Gentiles (a.d. 46).

The Damascus road experience (Acts 9:1-19a) has led many Christians to understand Paul's conversion as being instantaneous and has provided them with the dominant model of religious conversion. Unfortunately, this reading of Paul's conversion as narrated in Acts excludes other models of conversion.¹ In addition, this reading of Acts fails to take into consideration Paul's own account of this event—one that offers a more long-term conversion account—and other accounts found in Acts itself. The dramatic nature of Paul's experience in Acts does seem to be in tension with an understanding of lifelong conversion.² An appeal to Paul's own re-telling of the story actually confirms the idea of conversion as a process in which catechesis plays a vital role.

Paul's Conversion in Acts There are four accounts of Paul's conversion or, as he refers to it, his "call." Three are written by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles; however, conversion represents a continual theme of the pauline letters and the accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts as well. The interpretation of the book of Acts is notoriously complex because as a literary composition it represents a unique genre in ancient literature.³ For the purpose of this discussion, it is sufficient to note that Acts can be useful for reconstructing the life of Paul when Acts and the pauline epistles overlap.

Paul's Account of his Conversion in Galatians The attempt to bridge the account of Paul's life and ministry in Acts with the information we discern from Paul's own letters is notoriously difficult. Paul's descriptions of himself and his life are embedded within his letters, and these letters must be understood as occasional pieces (i.e., letters destined for particular audiences, addressing particular sets of circumstances). As such, Paul's self-descriptions, while not to be treated with undo skepticism, cannot be read as simple statements of fact.

The letter to the Galatians, in which we find the most detailed account of Paul's conversion experience, represents the autobiographical account of his call. Paul carefully constructs the opening chapters of the letter in response to his opponents in Galatia, who contend that his apostolic authority and his gospel are inferior and in some sense are subject to the control of other apostles. In Galatians Paul attempts to refute the charges of his opponents by narrating the story of his conversion and his relationship to the Jerusalem church. Paul uses this story to demonstrate that his gospel and his apostolic authority come from God and are not beholden unto any human power. It is in this context that Paul offers his only account of the events surrounding his conversion experience.

Call, Commissioning, and/or Conversion The discrepancies between Acts and the letters of Paul are a morass through which the greatest exegetical minds have only hesitatingly waded. It must be noted that the accounts of Paul's conversion in both Acts and Galatians are highly charged with the theological agendas of their respective authors.

Catechesis and Tradition in Paul As demonstrated above, the biblical evidence of Paul's conversion is at the same time clear and opaque: clear, in that all the witnesses agree that Paul has been singled out by God and dramatically called to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles; and opaque, in that the biblical data is not specific on how this conversion or call occurred and what the role of the early Church might have been. Outside the vitriol of Galatians and the confusion of Acts we can find evidence of Paul's "education" in the early Church by examining the content of his preaching as evidenced in the letters.

Paul was not a maverick apostle with his own gospel, beholden only unto God; rather, he stood firmly within the traditions of early Christianity. This is evidenced through Paul's use of the technical terms for the act of passing on traditions (i.e., the Greek words "paralambano" [receive] and "paradidomi" [hand on]). These words occur repeatedly in 1 Corinthians.⁷ In addition to these instances where technical language draws attention to the traditions of the early Church, Paul incorporates other traditional material without naming it as such. One can find in Paul's letters many examples of the kerygma, elements of Christian liturgy, and parenesis. Moreover, in several instances Paul reports sayings that he attributes to the historical Jesus. Obviously, these sayings and much of the faith that Paul claims was "handed on" were provided to him by other Christians and their faith communities. We may not be able to speak specifically of the catechesis of Paul, but an ongoing formation is clearly evident.

Certainly, Paul's theological insights were creative, for he did not simply repeat what had been handed down. The power of Paul's theological ingenuity had an inestimable impact on the early Church and provided for the possibility of the Church's rapid growth. Still, the fact that Paul makes use of elements of the early Christian tradition must also be affirmed. These elements of the tradition are the sine qua non of Paul's theology, for the appearance of the risen Christ was the genesis of the kerygma for the earliest followers of Jesus precisely because they had known and followed him during his lifetime. Paul did not know Jesus and therefore could not have made sense of his experience in a theologically significant way apart from the tradition of the early Church. Because he was a missionary, everything that Paul handed on to the churches was his own, but not simply his own. It stemmed from the catechesis that he received at the hands of other Christians: perhaps Ananias or Barnabas, perhaps even Peter or James. Paul's argument concerning the origin of his authority and the truth of his gospel is not mitigated by the probability that Paul was "educated" in the Church, and it is unfortunate that the letter to the Galatians has been interpreted in such a way as to suggest that Paul is reluctant to admit this. In fact, his dependence on the early Church for catechesis has little if anything to do with the argument he puts forth in Galatians. Catechesis does not stand in the way or frustrate God's activity; rather, it is the continuation of that activity.

We cannot know precisely what happened on "the road to Damascus," and the debates about how to reconstruct Paul's experience clarify little. Paul's experience will forever remain his own. But what does the biblical material on Paul's conversion mean for our understanding of conversion and its relationship to catechesis? First, the experience of conversion is real, always both unsettling and comforting. Paul's life was not transformed gradually. His call was dramatic by all accounts. However, the pauline model of conversion is problematic for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the biblical data does not consistently show how Paul's conversion/call took place. Second, religious conversion necessarily has both affective and cognitive/intellectual dimensions. The unmediated experience of God only becomes meaningful when mediated by language, symbol, and ritual—the constitutive elements of community. Paul's dramatic and unmediated experience of the risen Christ was brought to expression and meaning as Paul took the time to become familiar with the Church and its traditions. This association with the Church and its traditions was indispensable to Paul's innovative missionary activity.

The reading of Paul's conversion offered in this essay emphasizes the importance of catechesis in the life of the most creative and innovative thinker of the early Church. This helps to inform an understanding of a catechesis that is not simply an effort to get young people to know Jesus or to prepare Christians to celebrate a church wedding or the baptism of their child—even though so much of the catechist's time is spent dealing with these events. Catechesis, at least in light of the story of Paul, finds its most fruitful expression in the lives of those who have recognized their embrace by God in the Incarnation. Like Paul, they know that there is always more; they hunger for perfection, for transformation. This hunger is unsatisfied until we rest in God, so it is lifelong. Catechesis gives meaning and form to this hunger and its answer; it too must therefore be lifelong and not simply a prerequisite for the celebration of a sacrament.

Chris McMahon is a professor of theology at Mt. Marty College in Yankton, S.D. His is completing a Ph.D. in the Department of Religion and Religious Education at The Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

1. Richard Peace, Conversion in the New Testament: Paul and the Twelve (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999). Peace offers some important pastoral insights into models of conversion offered in the New Testament and challenges those—particularly in the Protestant community—who have adopted the pauline model of conversion as the exclusive model.
   
2. Cf. John Paul II, Redemptoris missio (On the Permanent Validity of the Church's Missionary Mandate) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1991), no. 46: "From the outset, conversion is expressed in faith which is total and radical, and which neither limits nor hinders God's gift. At the same time, it gives rise to a dynamic and lifelong process which demands a continual turning away from ‘life according to the flesh' to ‘life according to the Spirit' (cf. Rom 8:3-13)." See also the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd. ed. (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), no. 1428, and the General Directory for Catechesis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), no. 56 b.
   
3. Seminal in this conversation regarding the difficulty in understanding the genre of Acts is the work of Joseph A. Fitzmyer in the Anchor Bible series. Cf. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (New York: Doubleday, 1998).
   
4. H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, eds. Greek English Lexicon, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 842 (second volume).
   
5. Cf. Johannes Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1959); and Krister Stendahl, "Paul Among Jews and Gentiles," in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 7ff.
   
6. Cf. F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977); and Alan Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990).
   
7. Cf. 1 Corinthians 11:2, for a general reference to tradition; 1 Corinthians 11:23, for a reference to the celebration of the eucharist; and 1 Corinthians 15:1 and 3, for mentions of the traditions about the appearance of the risen Christ. Paul also makes less explicit appeals to early Christian traditions in 1 Corinthians 11:16; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Philippians 4:9; 1 Corinthians 11:2, 15:2; and Romans 6:17.

[This excerpt is from the article "Romero on Social Sin Personal Conversion and Structural Transformation" by Richard C. Stern, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

The image from the movie Romero of the assassination of Oscar Romero during the eucharistic prayer is not easily forgotten.¹ The movie tells the story of a man who as the archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador, taught on poverty, justice, peace, and social sin—teachings that led to his death. As discussion continues about naming Romero as "blessed," it is important to recall the teaching that characterized his episcopate, his life, and his witness.

To understand Oscar Romero's contribution to magisterial discourse on social sin, readers may find it helpful to begin with an overview of the rise of the language of social sin in Catholic social teaching. This will serve as the background against which I will explore Romero's appropriation of this evolving aspect of the tradition and the way in which he carved his own place in it.

The "language of social sin" denotes a reference to the social dimensions of sin that attempts to identify its structurally manifested aspects. While use of this language may still entail efforts to understand social sin in relation to personal sin, its invocation marks an awareness that the sinfulness at stake in a particular situation is most adequately addressed in systemic terms. Thus "structural sin," "institutionalized violence," and "situations of sin" all represent the language of social sin.

To examine Romero's invocation of the language of social sin in his pastoral letters, I will situate it against the horizon of the rise of this terminology in magisterial teaching since Vatican II. While the texts of Vatican II did not explicitly use the language of social sin, evidence suggests that the council fathers did in fact debate nuances in meaning as they sought to acknowledge the social dimensions of sin without undermining the role of personal agency in formal sin.² In the end, the conciliar texts did not venture much beyond traditional descriptions of the social consequences of personal sin.

The Social Dimension of Sin Significantly, the conciliar exchanges regarding the language of social sin focused not on whether there are social dimensions of sin, but rather on how these should be rendered intelligible. This way of framing the issue served as the departure point for the Latin American bishops as they gathered for their second general conference at Medellín in 1968 to address the signs of the times on their own continent. As Gustavo Gutiérrez describes, they faced

a situation of increasingly intolerable poverty, a sharpening perception of the chief causes of this unjust state of affairs, a new assertion of the personality of the ancient indigenous races and cultures, a determination of the poor to organize, a restless search for nonviolent ways of dealing with the existing situation, and a hardening on the part of a social system that even used violence to defend its privileges.³

It is, perhaps, in this understanding of sin that one finds one of the greatest changes, and the source of the greatest conflict, in the relationship between Church and world. Down the centuries the Church has, quite rightly, denounced sin. Certainly it has denounced personal sins, and it has also denounced the sin that perverts relationships between persons. . . . But it has begun to recall now something that, at the Church's beginning, was fundamental: social sin—the crystalization, in other words, of individuals' sins into permanent structures that keep sin in being, and make its force to be felt by the majority of the people. (68)

1. Romero, dir. Jon Duigan, Vidmark Entertainment, 1989.
   
2. See especially interventions regarding Sacrosanctum concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), schema chapter 5, article 82, e.g., Antonio de Castro Mayer, written intervention on chaps. 5-8, schema on the liturgy, in Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, vol. I, pars. II (Vatican City: Polyglot Press, 1970), 695; Russell J. McVinney, oral intervention, Seventeenth General Congregation, November 12, 1962, in Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, vol. I, pars. II, 611; and Bishop Zauner, relatio, in Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani Secundi, vol. II, pars. III (Vatican City: Polyglot Press, 1972), 275.
   
3. Gustavo Gutiérrez, "The Church and the Poor: A Latin American Perspective," in The Reception of Vatican II, eds. Giuseppe Alberigo, Jean-Pierre Jossua, and Joseph A. Komonchak, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), 183. See also idem, "Vaticano II y la Iglesia latinoamericana," Páginas (separata) 12:70 (August 1985): 1-12.
   
4. J. B. Libanio, "Vaticano y Medellín: Memorial para nuestra Iglesia," Páginas 58 (1983): 15-16.
   
5. John Paul II, "Responsible for One Another," address at the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopán, Guadalajara, January 30, 1979, L'Osservatore Romano (February 19, 1979): 3.
   
6. CELAM, Evangelization in Latin America's Present and Future: Final Document of the Third General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate, Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico, January 27-February 13, 1979, in Puebla and Beyond, eds. John Eagleson and Philip Scharper, trans. John Drury (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1979), nos. 328, 482, 487. All subsequent references to the Puebla document will be taken from this volume.
   
7. Oscar Romero, "The Church, the Body of Christ in History," second pastoral letter, August 6, 1977, in Voice of the Voiceless, trans. Michael J. Walsh (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1985), 68. All references to Romero's pastoral letters will be taken from this volume.
   
8. Romero, "The Church's Mission amid the National Crisis," fourth pastoral letter, August 6, 1979, 146. The text refers to Puebla, no. 92.
   
9. Romero, "The Church and Popular Political Organizations," third pastoral letter, August 6, 1978, 106. This letter was co-authored with Bishop Arturo Rivera y Damas, bishop of Santiago de Maria.
   
10. Romero, "The Church's Mission amid the National Crisis," 143.
    
11. John Paul II, Ut unum sint (That They May Be One) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1995), no. 34.
    
12. Romero, "The Church, the Body of Christ in History," 65.
    
13. Romero, "The Political Dimension of the Faith from the Perspective of the Option for the Poor," Louvain address, February 2, 1980, in Voice of the Voiceless, 184.
    
14. Puebla, no. 1221.

[This excerpt is from the article "Catechizing and Evangelizing: Old and New Methods in Latin America" by Jeffrey L. Klaiber, The Living Light Summer 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

Sixteenth-century missionaries in Latin America perfected methods to catechize the native peoples that today seem remarkably modern. As I will show in this article, the missionaries were very effective catechizers. Yet a question—prompted by the inadequacies of Catholic religious practice in Latin America today—needs to be raised: Were the missionaries also effective evangelizers? To catechize is to teach the outward forms, symbols, and concepts that summarize the great truths of the Gospel. To evangelize, however, is to communicate the very heart of the Gospel so that it becomes a dynamic force in the life of a person. In this article I will discuss both realities from the point of view of the sixteenth-century missionaries, as well as from the point of view of the post-Vatican II Church.

The Doctrine From the very beginning of the colonial period, the Spanish founded special parishes for the natives called doctrinas, because their purpose was to teach them the Christian doctrine. The priest in charge was called the cura-doctrinero, which is roughly translated as "doctrine priest." The doctrina did not exist in a vacuum; rather, it functioned within a juridical structure, the encomienda, which was later replaced by the reduction. The encomienda was a trust or grant given to the first conquerors and their descendants by which they had the right to collect tribute or to exact forced labor from the inhabitants of the New World. It was not a land grant, for the natives continued to own their own lands. In return, the encomendero—one who received the encomienda—was obliged to protect his wards and to ensure that they were Christianized. In practice, that meant supporting the local cura-doctrinero. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish crown did away with the encomienda and replaced it with the reduction. There were two main reasons for this change: the encomenderos frequently exploited the native people; and given their unchecked powers, they were in danger of turning into a feudal ruling class, out of the crown's control. Also, there were many indications that the encomenderos only paid lip service to their obligation to Christianize the indigenous people. In contrast, the reduction was a fixed geographical area, consisting of a principal town and several smaller villages. Also, the reduction was placed directly under the king's control. The official in charge of overseeing the reductions was the corregidor, or "co-ruler." Unlike the encomendero, the corregidor had a fixed term and was accountable to the king for his activities. The most famous of these reductions were those created by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in Peru. During his tenure (1569-1581), he ordered thousands to be relocated into reductions.

At first glance, life in the reductions might seem rather oppressive. The people were not allowed to leave without permission. Furthermore, the corregidor collected tribute for the king; but because the natives did not use Spanish money, tribute was paid in the form of labor. Thousands in both Mexico and Peru were drafted each year to work in the great silver mines of Potosí and Zacatecas as their way of paying taxes. Needless to say, the trip to the mines and the harsh conditions in which they worked frequently destroyed their health and led to the deaths of thousands.

Nevertheless, there were saving and even positive features of the reduction system. One such feature was the fact that ordinary Spaniards could not enter or live in the reductions. As a result, the indigenous people were able to maintain their language and customs for most of the colonial period. The other major reason for the reductions was to evangelize the natives on a more systematic basis. At the center of the principal town was the church. The church bells set the rhythm for everyday life. The only white man who lived permanently among the people was the cura-doctrinero. Even though each town and village had its own native mayor, aided by other native officials, it was the priest who had the greatest influence on the lives of the people. He was the main nexus between the native people and the Spanish world, and he was their main defender against illegal incursions by white colonists or the abuses of the corregidor. In Brazil the Jesuits organized a similar mission system. There the missions were called aldeias, or "villages." In Paraguay alone were the missions called "reductions." Unlike the reductions in the rest of Spanish America, in these Jesuit-administered missions the natives were not subjected to forced labor. Furthermore, they themselves bore arms to defend the mission towns.