The Learning Church

The questions on the order of the day at the plenary assembly of the Czech Bishops’ Conference (CBK), held in Prague between 17 and 18 April, included not least a six-year programme called “The learning Church”: it is aimed at helping priests to choose suitable themes, base themselves on the liturgical readings and present the doctrine of the Church in all its fullness. The programme will be launched on 2 December, first Sunday of Advent. We interviewed Archbishop JAN GRAUBNER of Olomouc, President of the Czech Bishops’ Conference, who described the plan for us. Why was this project planned? “In our country, we feel a long-term lack of religious education of the faithful. All the long time of the Communist rule, only a small number of children attended Religious Education at school, its teaching was allowed only from 2nd to 7th grade of primary school. Young people and adults had no possibility to gain any religious education, only few of them met in small study groups and doing this they took great risk. We have made good experience with preaching on week days – after the liturgical reform, it was established as a matter of fact in our country. By this way, participants of Divine Service had at least some formation. Today, some parishes offer various courses and lectures, catechism and biblical meetings, but on a national scale this still concerns only some small number of the faithful. The project “The Learning Church” intends to make the best of Sunday and feasts mass participation and offer all who attend church regularly better religious formation”. Why is such a long-term project, six years? “We do not want to replace Sunday homilies with catechetical sermons. What we want is to avoid frequently repeated themes and pure encouraging. It is necessary to speak on topics that are important but often neglected. The program is based on biblical lectures of the day, sometimes on other liturgical texts. Thus it is not possible to go through the Credo or Decalogue, nonetheless all the important topics will be mentioned in the cycle. The number of these topics is so great that it couldn’t fit in a 3-year cycle, that’s why we chose 6 years. The topics cover biblical studies, dogmatic, moral, spirituality, liturgy; also ecumenism, social doctrine, science-faith relation; some topics deal with touchy questions of Church history and apologetics. Still, every topic is based upon the biblical (or liturgical) text”. What does Czech Catholic Church want to achieve with this project, what can it learn? “We wish to increase – even slightly – religious education of the faithful to allow them to be proud of their Christian faith and to help them to hand over their faith to next generations”. What kind of measures are planned by the project? “No special measures are planned. Of course, during every year’s parish visitations priests will be asked on the project and its realization and contribution. We also take into account some exceptions – confirmation, pilgrimages and local feasts. Let’s say it with a bit of humour: exceptions cannot prevail over the rule. Preacher will be given the theme, but it is upon him how to handle it. That’s what I see as important. Homiletic magazine will offer retrievals on the given scheme”. What difficulties in preparing and carrying out the project have already been identified? “The project was prepared by a liturgy professor who already died. Some points had to be updated, but it is not easy to change a compound scheme worked out by another person. Let’s hope it has been done successfully”.