Becoming Catholic
by David Yamane, OUP, £25 Buy here
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) was officially mandated for use in America by the national conference of Catholic bishops in 1988. Since then it has been the mechanism through which more than two million Americans have entered the Church.
David Yamane has written a detailed study of the RCIA – how it works, what it hopes to achieve and how successfully it meets its goals. His volume is based on a case study of six parishes in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend in Indiana, but his conclusions are of the broadest significance and should be read by anyone with the slightest interest in American Catholicism.
Yamane looks at three basic issues. First, why do people choose to join the Catholic Church through the RCIA? Without dismissing unmediated religious seeking, Yamane informs us that, in many cases, social and domestic circumstances play a crucial role. This, Yamane is at pains to stress, does not dent the authenticity of their choices.
Becoming a Catholic is frequently “a moral action by individuals seeking to align their actions with broader moral worldviews and belief systems”. This is an important point. Perhaps you first think about joining the Church because you plan to marry a Catholic, but there is no reason why this should mean your conversion is insincere. After the initial trigger you still have to be convinced, assuming that you are a rational and self-respecting human being, that your new faith accords with your beliefs. A genuine convert is a genuine convert, wherever his or her path began.
Second, Yamane looks at the processes of instruction and formation that lead up to initiation. As he explains, an explicit and fairly standardised curriculum awaits any catechumen, but the methods employed can vary from parish to parish. These can range from the participatory and democratic to the passive and hierarchical. In some places there is a lot of open-ended discussion, while in other places it is more a case of sitting at desks and being firmly instructed.
Third, Yamane asks the crucial question: does the RCIA achieve its goals? On one, obvious level it does. It produces formal members of the Catholic Church which is a watershed moment for all involved. The book makes a crucial observation: “‘Catholic’ is not just a label to be applied or a box to be checked on a survey.” It is, rather, “an identity to be achieved”, and this seems to hold true for many who work towards the RCIA.
Yamane and his colleagues have conducted excellent field work, although the RCIA is analysed through a reductive “rites of passage” prism and this occasionally stretches one’s patience.
For the most part, however, this is an earnest, even-handed and invigorating study which has resonance far beyond the realm of Catholic studies. There is a prevailing and parlous cultural myth about religious belief. We are told that faith is no longer a source of collective identity or sustenance and has become, at best, an idiosyncratic pursuit. This, perhaps, is the simmering paradox of modernity or post-modernity. Amid the flux, the appeal of stability and continuity only increases.
This does not signal a craven or old-fashioned way of proceeding. It simply means that tried-and-tested ideas still have their place. They might even be more important than ever. A solidly post-Vatican II initiative therefore bears the hallmarks of an ancient practice.
The study of religious conversion is always enhanced by charting individual experiences. That is precisely what this splendid book, written by a rigorous and imaginative scholar, sets out to do.
This article first appeared in the Catholic Herald magazine (6/2/15)
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