Forum on the Catechumenate: "The Evangelizing Parish"

Last Friday evening, I travelled to St. Basil's Parish to join some forty representatives from across the parishes of the English Sector of the Archdiocese for a session on "The Evangelizing Parish", which proposed that the task of evangelization belongs to all the baptized.

The two-day session was presented by two members of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate, which strives to ensure that the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) become fully operative in all parishes.

Presenters were Catherine Ecker, pastoral agent at Holy Family Parish, Bolton, ON and Father Roy Roberts, pastor of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Newmarket, ON.

The evening program began with evening prayer in the Church followed by power point presentations and interaction afterwards in the hall.

While the RCIA has been more prominently present in English-speaking parishes in Canada, a special consultation was recently held in the Archdiocese of Quebec and was well-received as a promising dimension of the New Evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.