RCIA in focus at major gathering

About 125 people attended "The Initiation Experience: Beginnings and Beyond," an institute co-sponsored by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate and the Albany diocesan Liturgical Commission's Initiation Committee.

The one-week institute, which concludes June 25, is one of several being conducted by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate, an international network of pastoral ministers, liturgists, catechists and theologians established in 1982 to share the vision and practice of the RCIA.

Learning

Participants paired up with each other to experience the RCIA process firsthand, with one partner serving as a candidate who went through the adapted rites of Christian Initiation, and the other partner acting as a companion to guide the candidate through the process.

BY co-sponsoring the institute, the Albany diocesan Liturgical Commission's Initiation Committee hopes to create "a renewed interest in and enthusiasm for the rituals, the pieces that connect the different periods of RCIA," said Sister Anna Tantsits, IHM, local coordinator for the institute and a member of the Initiation Committee.

There's a hunger for knowledge among pastoral ministers for information and insight into RCIA, a process with a rich history that can be updated for today's Catholics, Sister Anna pointed out.

"This is the birthing process of the Catholic Church," she said. "It's the universal way we bring people into our faith communities. It's a process from the early centuries of the Church, but it's done in such a way that it can be adapted."

Why they came

* Christopher Tierney, a member of the RCIA core team at Corpus Christi Church in Ushers, attended the institute because he wanted to learn ways to relate with candidates and catechumens on a personal level.

"Anytime you have more training, that's almost always going to improve the ministry because it moves the individuals from where they're at in their initiation," he said.

* Rev. Dominic Ingemie, pastor of St. James Church in Albany, came to the institute with several pastoral ministers from his parish. He has attended an institute before but decided to return "to learn more, draw from other people's experiences and develop processes," he said. "The week is very experiential. You actually do the rites. It's a retreat experience."

* Rev. Wieslaw Swieck, SCJ, will bring what he learned at Siena to the small Catholic population in the diocese of Helsinki, Finland. He had been on sabbatical in Hales Corners, Wisconsin, and came to the institute to better understand ways of continuing the RCIA in Helsinki, a diocese that consists of 7,500 Catholics in a country that is mostly Lutheran.

"Now I will have more information I can use and share with other priests and parish councils," he said.

* Marie Bushey, administrator of faith formation at Immaculate Conception Church in Hoosick Falls, is starting to work with people in the RCIA process. She enjoyed participating in the institute because the information is essential to good pastoral ministry.

"We need to hear this repeatedly so that we can bring this back to our faith community," she said.

(06-24-99) [[In-content Ad]]