Church in the World

Neocatechumenate gets its wish for a special status

The Vatican last week approved the statutes of one of the fastest-growing of the new Catholic movements. The decree of approval was handed to 50 leaders of the Neocatechumenal Way by Cardinal James Stafford, head of the Pontifical Council of the Laity, during a ceremony in Rome on 28 June. The Way?s Spanish founders, Kiko Arg?ello and Carmen Hern?ndez, were among the leaders attending the ceremony, which opened and closed with songs accompanied by Arg?ello on the guitar. Cardinal Stafford said that within the movement of renewal of the Second Vatican Council, the Way ?is at the service of diocesan bishops and parish priests as a means of rediscovering the sacrament of baptism and of ongoing education in faith?. Arg?ello has sometimes been compared with his fellow Spaniard, the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola. Since it began in 1964, the Way?s growth, like that of the Jesuits in the first generation of their existence, has been huge it now has more than a million members spread across 16,700 communities in 105 countries, mostly in Europe and the Americas. The ?Neocats? are present in 883 dioceses and nearly 5,000 parishes, where they have attracted hundreds of vocations the Way currently has 731 priests, 63 deacons and 1,457 students training for the priesthood in 24 ?Redemptoris Mater? seminaries. In Spain, Neocats and their communities are known as kikos.

Growth has been accompanied by controversies between the Way and diocesan bishops. In a few cases, Clifton diocese in Bristol, England, and two dioceses in the United States ? Milwaukee and Palm Beach, Florida ? disputes have led to bans by bishops. Complaints have usually centred on the Way?s programme of formation, which critics say divides parishes by appearing to promote a parallel and competing parish community.

The Way?s status is a juridical novelty neither a movement, nor a religious congregation, nor a simple association, the statutes recognise it as a ?an itinerary of Catholic formation? in the service of parishes and dioceses. The approved statutes, which are valid provisionally for five years, contain 35 articles grouped under six titles and run to nearly 23 pages.

They follow five years of discussion with Neocat leaders and consultation with bishops around the world, and make it clear that the Way?s work is to be carried out ?under the direction of the diocesan bishop? in conjunction with local group leaders. The statutes state that the Way will ?promote in its adherents a mature sense of belonging to the parish and kindling relations of deep communion and collaboration with all the faithful and other components of the parish community?.

Of the ?new church movements?, only Opus Dei has been granted the status of ?personal prelature?, answerable only to the Pope. But the Vatican?s endorsement will make it much harder for a bishop to deny the Neocats a presence in his diocese. It is, after all, unprecedented for the Vatican formally to approve a method of Christian initiation for those already baptised, a process which takes about 10 years to complete in the Neocatechumenal Way.

Besides this ?post-baptismal catechumenate?, the Way?s activities are identified by the statutes as ongoing formation in the faith, preparation for ordinary baptism, and catechesis. As an example of the last, the statutes praise the way in which the Way has resurrected the evangelisation methods of the early Church, when itinerant groups would spread out across the world. Speaking at the ceremony in Rome, Arg?ello said the Way sought to revive the ?serious catechumenate? of the first three centuries of the Church under Roman persecution. Just as those communities ?converted the Roman empire?, he said, now by approving the statutes ?John Paul II is saying there needs to be a return to the primitive model? of catechumenate and liturgy to counter secularisation and atheism.

The story of the Neocatechumenate goes back to 1964, when the young Francisco ?Kiko? Arg?ello, a painter from a middle-class Catholic family who had lost his faith, became disillusioned with his professional success. Finding that no one could answer his questions about the meaning of existence, he went into his room and began to cry out to God ?If you exist, help me. I don?t know who you are ? help me!? His prayer was answered by a profound experience of God.

Arg?ello left everything to live among the poor in a Madrid shantytown, Palomeras Altas. With a guitar, crucifix and Bible as his only possessions, he began to seek and to give catechesis and to celebrate the Word of God and the Eucharist in small groups. There he met Carmen Hern?ndez, a teacher in a religious missionary institute who had been living a similar life. Kiko and Carmen began to lead their programme in a number of parishes in Madrid, where people would be led by stages to the kerygma, or news of salvation. Word, liturgy and community remain the three ?pillars? of the Way, and catechesis its principal work. The fundamental idea of the Neocatechumenate is that infant baptism is like a dormant seed which must be revived.