Catechumenate and Catechumen

CATECHUMENATE AND CATECHUMEN. - The catechumenate can be defined as the novitiate of the Christian life, imposed by the Church on those aspiring to Baptism. A catechumen is the aspirant himself, who attends the catechumenate. Both terms derive from κατηρέω (I teach by word of mouth). This immediately indicates that doctrinal formation is the basis of the catechumenate.

I. THE CATECHUMENATE IN THE EARLY TIMES OF THE CHURCH

In the first centuries of the Church, the catechumenate entailed a set of rites, moral obligations and instruction, from which no one could escape.

Its development varies in the different Churches of the West, whereas its substance is common in the Churches of the East. From Justin (I Apol., 61: PG 6, 420) it is known how three conditions were necessary in order to receive Baptism: to be convinced and to believe the teaching of the Church to be true, to commit oneself to live as a good Christian, to repent of past sins. The time of preparation was spent in prayer and fasting. There did not yet exist, therefore, a catechumenate such as the Egyptian Apostolic Constitution, today attributed to Hippolytus, describes to us, of a duration, reducible, of three years. A complex of causes contributed to its universal and complete institution, such as the expansion of Christianity, the need for a greater formation in the face of the attempts of heretics and perhaps also, indirectly, the influence of the pagan mysteries. At first Baptism was administered throughout the year, preferably on Sunday, and therefore there was no precise period for the discipline of the catechumenate.

Since it had become customary to administer Baptism at Easter, those enrolled, while following during Lent the discipline of penance practiced by the faithful, attended in particular to the three practices that together constituted the baptismal apprenticeship: 1) the catechesis (v.); 2) the exorcisms: they consisted in various ceremonies and holy initiations with which the aspirants to Baptism renounced Satan and his works and were gradually sanctified and prepared for the Sacrament of regeneration; 3) the scrutinies: a kind of examination in which the competentes were questioned on what they had to know and promise with regard to the faith and the Christian life in order to be declared fit to be numbered in the Christian family. There were three of them and they were celebrated on the Sundays preceding the one we call Palm Sunday, which in the ancient order was also destined for the competentes, who celebrated in solemn form the handing over of the Creed (traditio Simboli). In the 6th century this was preceded by the handing over of the Gospels (aperitio aurium) and followed by that of the Pater noster. When with the 7th century the Baptism of adults became nothing but a liturgical reminiscence, the rites of the catechumenate left the ground of actuality and reality to slip predominantly into the field of symbolism, where they developed wonderfully. The scrutinies, for example, definitively became seven "secundum formam septem donorum Spiritus Sancti". The catechumenate no longer existed except in the memory of rites substantially preserved in the Ordines for the administration of Baptism, but to which, in some Churches, the future godparents were called to be present, so that they might renew those notions of faith which one day they would have to cooperate in instilling into their spiritual children: this until about the 14th century. Since antiquity, as the catechumens were not yet initiated into the eucharistic rites, after the first part of the Mass (called the Mass of the catechumens), they were dismissed.

Enrico Cattaneo

II. THE CATECHUMENATE IN THE MISSIONS

In the missions the catechumenate has not always had the importance and the development it deserved. Toward the middle of the 16th century the Jesuits and others sought to react against the insufficient preparation of catechumens, as did also certain councils and synods, but without great success. We thus had examples of the catechumenate in China and even more so in Africa through the work of the Italian Capuchins.

Pontifical documents in general and especially the prescriptions issued by Propaganda and by the Holy Office insisted on the necessity of the catechumenate, recommending a thorough pre-baptismal preparation. In the instruction of 1669 to the French apostolic vicars of the Far East, the Congregation of Propaganda established a duration of forty days for the catechumenate, and in that of 1801 it left to the apostolic vicars the faculty of determining its length. At present the duration of the catechumenate in the various missions is quite varied and ranges from a few months to four and five years, especially in the African missions. Such diversity in practice depends on many subjective and environmental factors, which can delay or hasten the preparation of the individual for Baptism. Mission territories present such diverse particularities that it is impossible to establish fixed criteria in this regard, and a flexibility therefore becomes necessary so that, for the most willing, the day of Grace is not uselessly delayed.

Modern methodology has introduced the pre-catechumenate or postulate, during which candidates acquire the dispositions indispensable for entering the catechumenate properly so called. It seems that priority belongs to Cardinal Charles M. Lavigerie, who, concerned about the difficulties that the conversion of Muslims presented, thought in this way to submit them to the influence, if not to the yoke, of the Gospel. According to this principle he distinguished three classes of catechumens, namely the postulants, to whom only the fundamental truths of the natural order needed to be taught, apart from the light of Revelation (admission to this instruction, which constituted the pre-catechumenate, required no commitment or sacrifice); the catechumens, who formed the second class; and the faithful. This was the practice introduced by the White Fathers, founded by the same Cardinal Lavigerie, and imitated by others.

The pre-catechumenate must be organized outside and independently of the catechumenate, with regular meetings in premises distinct from the church. The true catechumenate is instead the period of preparation for Baptism and begins when the pagan postulant is enrolled in the list of those to be baptized. In China, India and Africa, where it is more in use, admission is accompanied by a public ceremony, which includes an instruction; the solemn renunciation of fetishism, idolatry and polygamy; the profession of faith; and the formal request for Baptism.

In many missions there is the custom of gathering the catechumens for a few days, often even for many months, at a central station of the mission or even at the missionary's residence, in a kind of boarding school or closed catechumenate. Catechumenate houses were introduced in the Portuguese colonies through the initiative of St. Ignatius, who had seen them in London, and he himself had established one in Rome for converted Jews. In certain missions the whole preparation for Baptism takes place in these houses; in others it is limited to an immediate preparation, and beforehand the catechumens undergo a trial in their villages. Elsewhere they are brought there on several occasions, namely at the beginning of the catechumenate, after some months, and at the end of it for the final preparation. Furthermore, some missionaries want all the catechumens to spend a few weeks there, while others are content that each family of catechumens send one of its members. Nor are there lacking those who require this only of isolated converts and, when it is a matter of groups of families, the missionary himself goes to them.

In the Congo and in Rhodesia the Jesuits, as early as 1805, introduced the fermes-chapelles to gather the children there in order to remove them from the corrupt pagan environment. In 1933, owing to the hostility of the Government, the fermes-chapelles ceased to function altogether. Nonetheless the Jesuits still today apply similar systems, seeking to found new villages in Rhodesia with the candidates for Baptism.

The multiplicity of initiatives in this matter and the difference in the duration of the catechumenate depend on the ends one wishes to attain, as well as on the urgency of remedying not a few inconveniences arising from closed catechumenates, especially if they are prolonged for a considerable period of time. Short and repeated periods of internment are to be preferred. The method of the fermes-chapelles and of Christian villages is not free from difficulties, both because of the complex organization it requires and because in many regions, inhabited by individuals of different tribes, it is doomed to failure, being contrary to the principle of respecting the ethnological and moral units of the territories.