The spring of the catechumenate” “

In France, 2,335 adults were baptized during the Easter vigil this year: 9,205 catechumens against 8,945 in 2001. The figures are slightly but constantly increasing, year after year. “Today, the catechumenate is one of the jewels of the Church of France”, declares Msgr. Michel Dubost, bishop of Corbeil-Evry and president of the episcopal Commission for catechesis and the catechumenate. A total of 284 baptisms were celebrated in 80 parishes of the diocese of Paris during the night before Easter 2002; that is 50 baptisms more than last year, and triple the number of 23 years ago. Who are the catechumens? Women represent two-thirds of the catechumens. The most numerous age group seems to be between the ages of 25 and 40: they represent 80% of the catechumenate. The social origins are various: 24% come from working-class backgrounds; 21% are composed of white-collar employees in the public and private sectors; 18% of students; 9% of managers, freelance professionals and housewives; 6% of persons with no fixed employment; and 3% unemployed. “When I abandoned drugs, I also left my job because it was there I procured drugs to feed my habit”, says the 40-year-old Maurice. “I became a person ‘of no fixed abode’. The Lord then manifested himself to me forcefully through the Carmelites who cared for drop-outs. Together with another homeless friend, I went each morning to warm up in church during Mass. We began praying in our own way with the Carmelites and gradually the desire to become Christians grew in us”. A long process of preparation. When people knock on the door of the Church, what awaits them is an initiatory process lasting approximately two years. They are accompanied in this process of initiation by a person or a couple whom they periodically meet: “When we were asked, my husband and I, to accompany a 70-year-old man, of high social position, very cultivated, also in his knowledge of the Bible, we were frankly afraid”, admits Jacqueline who lives with her husband in the suburbs of Paris. “But in response to his placing himself in question, his giving himself completely to the Lord with trust, we had a wish to do likewise. We saw how the Lord changed a human life. And, at the same time, he also changed our life”. Accompanying a catechumen is an art, it requires charism. “It’s not enough to know the Catechism of the Catholic Church by heart”, explains Msgr. André Dupleix, director of the national service of the catechumenate. “You need to establish a contact, and nurture it for the whole duration of the catechumenate”. And various obstacles may present themselves: the long duration of preparing for the sacrament, the radical nature of the demands made by the Gospel, the pressure of a hostile environment. Conversions to Islam declining. Msgr. Dubost notes a certain resistance on the part of Moslem families, especially after 11 September: “Since then – he points out – mixed marriages between Christians and Moslems have become less frequent, because the Moslem partner now asks his spouse to be converted to Islam. Young Moslems felt themselves demonized after the terrorist attacks in the USA. As a result they feel the urge to reinforce their identity and to defend it”. That’s why catechumens coming from an Islamic background represented 7% of the total last year, whereas this year they have dropped to only 5%. It is in fact the one percentage that has declined. Otherwise, 42% of the catechumens come from an atheist or agnostic background, 43% from the Christian tradition, 5% from the oriental religions and 1% from Judaism. For the French Church, the catechumenate is a real challenge, because the newly baptized sometimes have difficulty in finding a place for themselves in the parishes, either due to an excessive burden of responsibility, or because they feel abandoned once again to anonymity after having been the centre of parish concern. To tackle these problems, the national service of the catechumenate plans to offer appropriate guidance to all the dioceses of the country.