The situation of catechesis in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century. Following the publication of the General directory for catechesis

Abstract

The foregoing lecture was given in Rome during the Seminar of Study on Catechesis in Europe, the United States of America and Latin America organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the new Evangelization from 6 to 8 March 2014. There were 35 people invited to participate in the seminar: employees of catechetic faculties, university lecturers, editors of scientific journals and priests. With regard to the episode described in chapter XVI of the Acts of the Apostles concerning the baptism of a well-to-do woman, living in the city of Tiatyra, the attention was paid to the fact that in the catechetic and evangelical activity we deal with activities on two levels: human and divine. The divine level remains beyond our cognition. However, we have an influence on shaping the human one because it depends on us how much we use our possibilities in order to be well prepared for preaching the Gospel. It has to be said that after the Second Vatican Council the Church intensified its efforts in the field of the catechetic activity. This is expressed by the enormous number of documents on catechesis. In the first place the remarkable publication of 1992 the Catechism of the Catholic Church and also the General directory of catechesis of 1997 should be mentioned. As a consequence of the publications there appeared three initiatives which tried to describe the situation of catechesis in Europe. Those were the initiatives of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (Concilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum Europae – CCEE) of 2005, a German initiative of 2007 and the initiative of the Department of Catechetics at the Pontifical University of John Paul II of 2009. The author of the latter one was invited by the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the new Evangelization, abp. Rino Fisichella to present the research results in the above mentioned seminar. The article presents the situation of catechesis in the European Union and other related countries. The attention is paid to church documents on catechesis, the model of teaching religion at schools and in parishes. It shows the factors which influence the realization of teaching religion at schools and in parishes. It appears that despite difficulties teaching religion at school is the basic form of reaching out to children and youth. Owing to the fact that we cannot speak about just one form of catechesis in Europe, the emphasis should be placed on reconsideration of how to help the school teaching of religion keep the catechetic character. It seems that at the time of the new evangelization it is advised to talk about the new catechization which could be supported by developing a new, third the General directory of catechesis.