The Catechetical Review - Communicating Christ for a New Evangelization

RCIA: Questions, Answers, Issues and Advice

Authored by William Keimig in Issue #29.3 of The Sower
This page on Christian initiation is offered in each issue of The Sower as an on-going way to address specific questions that do not necessarily get addressed in more general articles and training resources. The questions all come straight from the field, and have two sources: 1) from readers like you; 2) from issues raised during seminars conducted by the Association for Catechumenal Ministry (ACM) over the past nine years in various dioceses. In this issue we cover the following questions: Q: Under what circumstances may a lay RCIA leader/catechist give a blessing or minor exorcism to a catechumen or candidate? Q: An RCIA director is frustrated in her attempts to get a particular inquirer to come out of his shell. He is marrying a parishioner in ten months, and wants to become a Catholic to have peace in the marriage. What are some suggestions that might help her to get him to relate to the process and begin to foster conversion? Q: What if a previous marriage of one of our RCIA candidates is determined to be valid, and a decree of nullity is not possible? Q: An RCIA team is somewhat at a loss for how to handle, pastorally and catechetically, a participant who has a mentally disability. What would you suggest?

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This article is from The Sower and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of Maryvale Institute. Contact [email protected]

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