It's the night of
the Easter Vigil. After the lighting of the new fire, the glow of
candles in a darkened church is a vivid reminder that the light of
Christ, shared in baptism, lights up our common life. The restoration of
the baptism of adults to its primary place in the church’s ensemble of
rites for the Easter solemnity underscores the treasure we have, and
share, in baptism. But baptism is in trouble in the United States. Not
only is infant baptism declining throughout Catholic dioceses, but adult
baptism has been diminishing too—and at a startling rate.
In 2000, the U.S. bishops published a scientific study (the only one to date) about how the
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
(RCIA) is faring. The news was encouraging. Seventy-five percent of
U.S. Catholic parishes were using it. Most people who participated rated
their experience “good.” RCIA was also shown to have the best retention
rate of any sacramental preparation process in the church today: 64
percent of Catholics who went through RCIA attended Mass weekly after
initiation; 50 percent were active in parish ministries and committees.
The bishops affirmed that the RCIA “has the power to
transform parishes when implemented as the rite is intended.” No other
rite of the postconciliar era has received such a strong evaluation, but
the bishops’ praise seemed fitting when one saw what was happening. The
active involvement of sponsors, parishioners, and teams of laypeople,
as well as clergy and pastoral staff, produced a revitalization of the
parish from the base up. For many, RCIA was perceived not merely as a
means of adding new members to the rolls, but as a way of rejuvenating
the faith and increasing the joy of those already in the pews.
According to Balthasar Fischer, chairman of the
committee that reformed the rites of baptism after Vatican II, those who
worked on the new rites thought a lot about the idea of mater ecclesia.
They hoped that the renewal of baptism would eventually—certainly not
in their lifetimes—lead to a deeper sense of the whole church as the
bearer of new life. Yet as early as 1987, when Fischer visited the
United States and was introduced to examples of RCIA in parishes, he
remarked with astonishment that it was already happening.
The bishops mandated the rite in 1988, and the number of
candidates steadily increased. Then the bottom dropped out. From 2005
to 2010 adult baptisms fell by 41 percent. Those losses were masked by a
slight gain in the number of adult receptions into full communion—those
already baptized in another Christian community. But then those totals
began to fall too.
The dropoff has slowed, but the losses were never
regained. There are 49 percent fewer adult baptisms today than there
were in 2000. In 2013, the North American Forum on the Catechumenate,
the premier agency for training in the ministries of Christian
initiation,
closed its doors for lack of participants in its institutes. The bishops have not given much sign of having noticed; their attention seems focused elsewhere.
Why the sharp downturn? It’s not for lack of talk about
“the new evangelization.” Short of another survey, however, one can only
speculate. The sexual-abuse crisis has taken its toll in morale and
money. Still, it’s worth noting that despite sustained media accounts of
the scandal beginning in 2002, the number of adult baptisms held steady
for three more years. The decline did not begin until John Paul II died
and Benedict XVI was elected. Perhaps people who were considering
becoming Catholic perceived a change in direction in the church and
decided, “This is not for me.”
Will the “Francis effect” reverse this trend? Early
reports are promising, but the number of adults seeking baptism would
have to double in order to reach pre-2005 levels in absolute terms, and
increase even more to hold its own relative to the growth of the
Catholic population as a whole. To bank on Pope Francis as some sort of
deus ex machina without a corresponding effort to rebuild the conditions
that made adult baptism grow before 2005 would be absurd.
No, we need to return to what spurred the growth in the first place:
hospitality, a sense of faith as a journey we undertake together,
reliance on the word of God and human experience over textbooks, and the
celebration of rites that boldly use symbols. If we are to revive the
mandate of
mater ecclesia, the bishops must embrace the liturgical re
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