Apprenticeship in the Christian Life

By Fr. Eric Banecker

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, under the leadership of Archbishop Nelson Perez, has embarked on a familiar journey, but with a unique twist. Full disclosure: Philadelphia and its environs are a very specific place and we tend to be a bit parochial. Nowhere is this more evident than among Philadelphia Catholics, an identity which I claim, with all its virtues and vices. Yet, our claims to “Philadelphian exceptionalism” notwithstanding, the fact is that the story here is the story of every large legacy archdiocese on the East Coast: dwindling numbers of clergy, an aging Catholic population, and physical plants, built for a different time, which are almost universally in need of repair—if they are needed at all. Religious women, the backbone of our catechetical efforts for generations of children, are rapidly aging, to the point that a young person at the parish where I serve could easily spend 12 years in a Catholic school and never meet a religious sister.

In the last 30 years, our net decrease in active diocesan priests has been around 600. In that time, we’ve closed almost 100 parishes and many primary and secondary schools. But all that has been via piecemeal, localized efforts which often came at the expense of the poor. The order of events was this: residents of a large Catholic, ethnic enclave clear out to the suburbs; those who remain hunker down and find it difficult to welcome newcomers (who are often not Catholic); the parish declines and buildings deteriorate; the parish is eventually suppressed and the church building closed and sold. All of that might have taken fifty years. The closing may have happened via “twinning” with another parish or a decree from on high merging five into one with a stroke of an ecclesiastical pen. But it all happened, many times over, and almost always in places where the poor lived.

And even with those drastic measures, our clergy are still spread too thin as we try to prop up ministries at so many institutions: parishes, schools, convents, hospitals, nursing homes. Too often, priests live by themselves, cut off from the presbyterate’s fraternity, which is at the heart of diocesan spirituality. In many places, the pastoral work is getting done, but often in a perfunctory way: there isn’t enough time or manpower to accomplish the work well. While our number of diocesan seminarians puts us at the top of the large dioceses in the United States, it still doesn’t come close to the per capita ordination rate of smaller, more vibrant dioceses. Nor will it make up for the many retiring baby boomers who were ordained in an unprecedented wave from 1960–1975.

But we cannot just roll over and play dead. A simple solution would be to cut more and fast: get out of pastoral and administrative obligations until we are right-sized relative to the numbers of available clergy (and laity!). One could start with the forty parishes we have that see less than 300 people in a weekend, many in the inner city. But that repeats the same mistakes of the past: demanding that the poor assume the burdens in a disproportionate way. Even more damning, is that such a solution doesn’t presume conversion or plan for fruitfulness: it assumes that continued decline, albeit managed, is the fate of the Church in this time and place. But Saint Augustine’s Sermon on Matthew 17 gives us the antidote to such disastrous thinking. In meditating upon Jesus’ chastisement of the Apostles for their lack of faith, the great bishop of Hippo turns to his own hour:

Bad times! Troublesome times! This men are saying. Let our lives be good; and the times are good. We make our times; such as we are, such are the times.

There are no foregone conclusions in a Church which Christ promised not even the gates of hell would stand against. We make the times.

Forming Missionary Disciples

The model being developed in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (and “being developed” is the proper descriptor—this is still very much fluid), is the idea of “hubs” focused on forming and equipping missionary disciples. In other words, while the usual pastoral work continues, the hubs will serve as the centers of evangelization and mission, where we hope to go on offense instead of just playing defense. The hubs will be planted at parishes throughout the five counties of the Archdiocese and will feature a full pastoral team along with additional staff focused solely on forming missionary disciples by: proclaiming Christ, inviting people into intentional discipleship, forming them to understand their Christian dignity and live according to it, and sending them off to do the same for others. This mission staff will work in tandem with the parish priests and deacons, along with the lay staff who attend to the usual pastoral work of educating the young, ministering to the sick and shut-ins, and keeping track of the various parish ministries.

Admittedly, this model is new, and there isn’t a good name in the Church’s traditional lexicon for this model, which ultimately involves making sure that every area of the Archdiocese has not just a place to go to Mass but a place to live Christian mission in an intentional way. Nothing happening in these hubs would be different from what any parish can and should be doing. But there is a concept which enjoys a much longer history in the Church that I think sheds light on what a hub parish is supposed to be about. That concept is the catechumenate.

A Model for Intentional Apprenticeship

This year I read through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults because it was recently re-translated into English. As with the other re-translations, this provides an opportunity for me, as a young priest (well, sort of), to study again what the purpose and goal of the particular sacrament is. I should note that as with all the liturgical books, reading the introductory material and instructions contained within is very enlightening. If we took them seriously, I think we’d be in a better place than we are today.

For instance, the OCIA ritual text presumes a few basic facts. First, those inquiring about Christianity need the gift of time to let their interest mature and deepen. While some exceptions are possible, the Church clearly sees wisdom not in rushing people to the baptismal font but in the kind of intentional spiritual investment which Jesus manifested in his own relationship to the Apostles. Second, inquirers need the prayerful support of an entire community, embodied in the sponsor who accompanies them through their journey. Third, not every single church is meant to have an active catechumenate. We get a hint of this in the various references to the bishop. The ritual book presumes that the bishop himself is presiding at the Rite of Election for the catechumens (First Sunday of Lent) and at the Easter Vigil itself, initiating all those who are 14 years old or over (see OCIA, 207). At least in the United States, while the bishop does preside at the Rite of Election as a norm, I don’t know of a single diocese in which the bishop himself personally initiates all those 14 and older. In my experience, what is much more common is for every parish to have one or two (hopefully!) Elect, who are baptized by the local parish priest, but often with a preparation that follows more of a “convert class” model, rather than the ritualized conversion the Church wants. This latter model, which is sorely needed, requires long-term investment in a group of several catechumens who are journeying together like the first disciples themselves.

One might counter, with good reason, that it would be far too complicated to expect every single catechumen to be fully initiated by the bishop in an Easter Vigil; that would, presumably, end up taking four or five hours to complete. The Church’s law certainly permits the local parish priest to baptize and confirm the Elect at the Easter Vigil, and that has become the standard practice. But I still think the Church is trying to teach us something, especially when we read this:

The catechumenate, or pastoral formation of the catechumens, should last long enough for their conversion and faith to mature, even over several years if need be. Moreover, by learning about the whole of Christian life over an appropriately extended apprenticeship, the catechumens are suitably initiated by the mysteries of salvation and the exercise of an evangelical way of life…” (OCIA, 76, italics mine)

When reading the whole description of the catechumenate in the ritual book, it begins to sound like the propaedeutic year, which the relevant dicasteries have decreed for seminary formation around the world. In that case, seminary formation begins with year-long basic apprenticeship in Christian life, not advanced academic study. And it takes place in an entirely different physical place from the usual formation program. The catechumenate, too, involves a slow integration into the larger Christian community, but clearly is supposed to involve intensive formation and pastoral care tailored just for them: men and women journeying by the prevenient grace of the Holy Spirit to an active living of the Christian life. It presumes that most coming in as inquirers will be so burdened by the effects of our secular age, that they will need particular care to help them arrive at Baptism and Confirmation fully prepared not just to go to Mass every week, but to live mission, to allow the gifts of the Holy Spirit to permeate their lives and effect transformation in their relationships. This, too, as my friends in seminary work indicate, is often necessary even for men entering seminary formation.

Reaching All Kinds of “Catechumens”

A fundamental part of the growth plan for the hubs involves implementing this very intentional apprenticeship in the Christian life for catechumens. But also, mutatis mutandis, this should be the model for accompanying many others: those who are Christian but not Catholic; those who are Catholic but have abandoned the faith; those who only come to church on occasion; and even those who attend Mass faithfully yet have allowed the soul-deadening effects of our secular age to stifle the living of Eucharistic mission that Sunday Mass is meant to fire in us.

In a weird way, we’re all catechumens now: the many non-believers who inquire; the Catholic mom who is burdened by life and struggles to do what the Church asks of her; the man who begins active discernment of a vocation to the priesthood at a diocesan seminary; a young woman who enters an aspirancy year in a religious community. While the OCIA goes to great lengths to distinguish the unbaptized from all these groups in view of the profound dignity of the baptized (even one in whom the faith has been dormant or never nurtured), we must admit that on a human level, we are all swimming in the pool of liquid post-modernity, with its false and unsatisfying gods of money and technological mastery over the world. Instead, what we need now is a place where we can all go to be purified of such idolatry and be (re-)introduced to the abundant life of the Christian, which is as far from this liquid vision of reality as it is from dour and inhumane vision of life which sometimes calls itself Christianity. The hubs will serve as centers of conversion and also for mystagogia: that continuing formation in the Christian life which all of us need our entire lives. The hubs will allow lay faithful—united with clergy and consecrated men and women living the Church’s mission—to drink deeply of the springs of eternal life and, with hearts renewed by living faith, invite their friends and neighbors who, like blind Bartimaeus, have been sitting and begging at the gate for so long.

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Fr. Eric Banecker is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.