Every once in a while, a flurry of letters hits a local Catholic paper, grousing about the state of Catholic schools: kids and teachers who don’t attend church regularly usually tops the list of complaints. Clearly the complainants haven’t read David Seljak’s articles in this and the last issue of Celebrate! or understood their implications for the practice of catechesis.

Let’s revisit n. 42 of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which describes what has to happen during the precatechumenate (aka evangelization or inquiry) to provide a foundation for catechesis in the catechumenate:
evidence of the first faith conceived during the period of evangelization, evidence of an initial conversion; intention … to enter into a relationship with God in Christ … evidence of the first stirrings of repentance, a start to the practice of calling on God in prayer, a sense of Church and some experience
of the company and spirit of Christians …

Parents promise to develop all these attitudes and practices in age-appropriate ways when they bring their babies for baptism. We presume—or cross our fingers and hope—that the same cultural and religious resources that existed fifty years ago and promoted evangelization in families then exist today. That is simply unrealistic. Having been caught in the cultural changes our Catholic world has experienced, many parents—and teachers—themselves have not been sufficiently evangelized or catechized, and are trying to raise their kids using what little residual cultural Catholicism they have gleaned from their own family and school experience.  Few parishes offer resources to help them in this task between the time of baptism, and the time their children are ready to attend school. The General Directory for Catechesis describes their situation well: “the baptized of all ages, who live in a religious context in which Christian points of reference are perceived purely exteriorly. Here primary proclamation and basic catechesis are priorities” (58c). But we still expect that the children coming to our schools have been evangelized … and we expect to be able to offer catechesis based on that evangelization. And when it doesn’t happen, we blame schools.

The blame game might feel awfully good, but it isn’t the least bit helpful. Much more helpful would be to review our own expectations, recognize reality, and then move ahead in that context. To this end, the insights of the RCIA about evangelization are significant.

First, the process of catechesis presumes leaders who have been both evangelized and catechized. Yet we expect teachers who haven’t been fully evangelized and catechized to be able to witness to their living faith in Jesus Christ, and excite students about Jesus and their Catholic tradition—and then we complain when, through no fault of their own, they can’t. We expect students to be able to receive catechesis when they haven’t been evangelized. And we keep using programs that presume evangelization in families, teachers and students alike. And then we compound the difficulty by the reluctance to admit the real scope of the situation lest the admission compromise government funding that Catholic schools in some jurisdictions receive.

Second, the process of catechesis presumes evangelization as its foundation. We forget everything the RCIA has taught us when it comes to our expectation of religious formation in schools. If one of the roles of the Catholic school is to catechize, then the assumption—of leaders and programs—is that evangelization has already happened. If it hasn’t, then catechetical efforts are bound to fail as spectacularly in the school context as they will in a parish RCIA that fails to discern whether the foundation that the period of evangelization was to build has, in fact, been built. Absent this foundation, catechesis will founder, or only be able to function very inadequately.

We can keep up the façade that it’s someone else’s fault that catechesis isn’t happening in schools as we expect it should. If we do, the situation will not change, and complaints, though perhaps justified, will continue. Let’s try another, multi-faceted approach.

First, let’s presume that the premier role of Catholic schools is evangelization, not catechesis. If we keep presuming its primary role is catechesis, we’re always going to be three steps ahead of most of the school population, to everybody’s frustration and disappointment.

Second, let’s recognize the ongoing need for faith formation of teachers. This is not first and foremost oriented to their classroom skills, but instead to personal faith formation—to evangelization and catechesis. It would be unrealistic
for school boards or individual schools to undertake this process alone; this urgent pastoral task needs to involve schools, school boards and dioceses.

Third, let’s encourage our bishops to produce resources that respond to this need for evangelization. The point of these resources is both the resource itself and official recognition of this need. There’s nothing shameful in having to evangelize—but refusing to recognize the need to do so should make us hang our heads.

 
Fourth, let’s encourage parishes to a concerted effort to support young families in their promises to raise their kids Catholic.

Such a multifaceted approach, in itself good news, would respond to the Easter challenge to proclaim the resurrection gospel to all people.