About the Work
This book is the service document of the Fourth All-India Catechetical Meeting, held at the National Biblical, Catechetical and Liturgical Centre in Bangalore from 5 to 10 December 1976. It was passed unanimously by the 140 participants of that consultation and offered to the Bishops of India as an act of homage, and to the whole Church in India as an inspiration—especially to all those committed to the ministry of catechesis. The gathering brought together an unusually broad cross-section of the Indian Church: Bishop members, the secretary and consultors of the CBCI Commission for Catechetics, Bishop representatives of the Regional Councils, regional and diocesan directors of catechetics, heads of Catechists’ Training Schools, professors of Major Seminaries and Scholasticates, and representatives of brothers, sisters, and lay people. Their work unfolded in three stages across six full days, deliberately positioned between the diocesan and regional-level study of the Synodal theme and the General Meeting of the CBCI, so that the fruit of wide consultation could be carried into the deliberations of the Indian hierarchy.
“We hear Him now calling us to a new interior renewal: “Re- pent, and believe the Good News” (Mk. I:15).”
The occasion that gave the document its theme was the 1977 Synod of Bishops, whose subject was “Catechetics in Our Time.” The Bangalore consultation took that Synodal theme as its own, treating it not as an abstract academic question but as a pastoral summons. The document is therefore best described as a working instrument of the Indian Church: part theological reflection, part pastoral programme, part examination of conscience. It speaks in the plural voice of a community—”we,” “our youth,” “our catechists”—and it moves constantly between the universal teaching of the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi on the one hand, and the concrete realities of Indian parishes, families, institutions, and villages on the other. Its five parts correspond to the five areas of pastoral concern the meeting identified: adults, youth, the content of catechesis, the context of India, and the formation of catechists.
Context
The document stands at a particular intersection of church history and Indian history. In the years following the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church worldwide was rethinking almost everything about how faith is handed on: the place of Scripture, the role of the laity, the dignity of local cultures, the Church’s relationship to the modern world, and the meaning of mission. The 1974 Synod on Evangelisation and Pope Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi had sharpened the conviction that the Church’s deepest identity is to be “evangelised and evangelising”—a community that receives the Gospel and then lives it out in witness. The 1977 Synod on Catechetics was the natural next step, asking how the faith is taught, nurtured, and matured after the first proclamation has been heard.
For India, these questions carried a distinctive urgency. The country was politically free and sovereign, but the document insists that freedom had not made it self-enclosed: the land remained interdependent with other nations economically, socially, culturally, and religiously. “We live in one world,” the text observes, and the Church in India must take responsibility for itself and its own progress while remaining open to international sharing in the catechetical apostolate. The Indian Church of the mid-1970s was also overwhelmingly a Church of the poor—the document directs its pastoral reflection toward “the poor, blind, lame, and downtrodden”—and a Church living amid enormous religious and cultural plurality. The ecumenical movement therefore had special importance in India, not as a matter of theological nicety but as a condition for credible Christian witness, particularly in common commitment to development. The consultation’s own method reflects this context: it was conducted in the spirit of the Synod’s invitation to a pastoral examination of conscience, asking not only what should be taught but who is being neglected, who is drifting away, and why.
Structure of the Book
The document is organised around five areas of pastoral concern, and its parts follow that order. It opens with a general introduction that frames the whole enterprise, defines its basic terms, and names the five concerns that the subsequent parts will treat one by one. The first major part is devoted to the catechesis of adults, which the document regards as the chief form of catechesis and the most neglected. The second part turns to youth, asking who India’s young people are, what they are seeking, how adults actually love them, and how the Church can help them more effectively. The third part widens the lens to the context of all catechesis—the socio-economic and cultural-religious situation of India, including the Church’s own place within a world of interdependent nations. The fourth part addresses the content and approach of catechesis: what is proclaimed, how it is proclaimed, and why so much catechesis has failed to hold. The fifth and final part treats the formation and training of the catechist—bishops, clergy, religious, and laity alike—as Christian prophets faithful to Christ’s Spirit, to his Church, and to the needs of India. A brief conclusion gathers the document’s sense of urgency and its call to renewal.
The arrangement is deliberate: the document moves from the most neglected pastoral group (adults), through the most hopeful (youth), to the setting in which both live (India), then to the message they must hear (the Christ-event), and finally to the people who must carry that message (the catechists). Each part presupposes the others. One cannot speak of adult catechesis without asking what adults are to be taught, and one cannot speak of content without asking who is equipped to teach it.
Inside the Book
The Catechesis of Adults
The first part opens with a definition of the aim: adult catechesis exists to deepen personal faith-commitment by making adults aware of their vocation and mission to witness to the Paschal Mystery within their own life-situation. The mature believer is described as someone who shares a Christian vision, gives Christian meaning to events, and works for the Kingdom—the final fulfilment of human history. The document then maps the levels at which this catechesis can happen. At the parish level, it works through the liturgy, the homily, and the sacraments, from Baptism and First Holy Communion through pre-Marriage catechesis; liturgical catechesis presents the Christ-mystery through the Liturgical Year, Sunday homilies are essential, and popular piety—devotions, novenas, feasts, triduums, missions—can serve well-planned adult catechesis. The Adult Catechumenate, especially in mission areas, is singled out as determining the faith of the whole community: it is not mere doctrine but training for the whole Christian life, an apprenticeship that joins disciples to Christ, instructs in the mystery of salvation and Gospel morality, introduces through sacred rites into faith, liturgy, and love, and fosters authentic conversion. The entire community, and especially sponsors, shares this task so that catechumens feel they belong to the People of God.
At the family level, the document invokes the “domestic Church” of Vatican II, where informal catechesis occurs between husband and wife, parents and children. It quotes the Council on the apostolate of married persons, on Christian families as testimony, on the family as the place where the Gospel is transmitted and radiates, and on the mutual evangelisation of parents and children. At the institutional level, it names educational, health, social, religious, and cultural institutions, and programmes such as Natural Family Planning, Family Welfare centres, Vocational bureaus, and co-operative societies, all of which contribute if the faith-dimension is included; N.F.P. personnel in particular should highlight Christian family ideals. At the group level, the group is presented as a requisite for catechesis that fosters Christian responsibility, since group experience is Church community in miniature. Homogeneous professional and trade groups—doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, carpenters, mechanics—are called ideal, and existing parish associations such as the Catholic Sabha, the Sodality, and the Legion of Mary are named as natural settings.
The document then turns to moments of crisis and special need. At certain times, according to the need of the hour, the Christian adult must be guided to see things with the eyes of faith and bring the Gospel into his life. Natural disasters, accidents, and extraordinary events can become subjects for serious reflection and a re-orientation of values, leading the adult to discover God’s plan and see everything in the light of faith. Special concern is urged for the faithful who, because of their way of life, cannot sufficiently use or are cut off from the ordinary pastoral care of parish priests—among whom the document names the majority of migrants, citing the Council’s Decree on Bishops. Finally, adult catechesis must have an ecumenical aspect. The Council’s teaching that the restoration of unity is one of its chief concerns, and that concern for unity pertains to the whole Church, faithful and clergy alike, is invoked, along with the principle that what Christians can do together they should not do separately. In India, the ecumenical movement has special importance for giving witness by common Christian concern and commitment to development, and positive ecumenical attitudes must be fostered in adult catechesis.
Catechesis for Youth
The second part begins with a methodological caution: generalising on an All-India level is risky and sometimes impossible, especially regarding Indian youth today. Reflecting in the spirit of the Synod’s invitation to a pastoral examination of conscience, the document poses basic questions—who are our youth and what are they seeking? How do adults love them? How can we be more effective in helping them?—and then offers a few points of general agreement.
On the first question, youth is described as searching, at times discouraged, confused, and questioning. Youth thirsts for true freedom—a total, spiritual liberation from all bonds. They look for witnesses rather than teachers-in-word only. Pope Paul VI is cited in Evangelii Nuntiandi saying that the present century thirsts for authenticity, and that young people have a horror for the artificial or false and search above all for truth and honesty. Another characteristic is how articulate young people become when they discover injustice and untruth; their expression may not always be the best and is sometimes exaggerated, but within the demonstration there may be a prophetic call. Youth has energy and power, is generous, and is eager to be involved and shoulder responsibility in the adult world. As they become more conscious of their own personalities and of the world around them, they yearn to play their part and be identified with a just and noble cause. These features, the document insists, are true in both cities and villages.
On the second question, the answer is stark in its simplicity: for the adult Christian community there is only one form of love, in cities and villages alike—Jesus and His command to love one another as He has loved, by which everyone will know they are His disciples. When Christ encountered the rich young man, he looked steadily at him and loved him; Our Lord not only respected and loved him but challenged him: “Come, follow me.” Taking their cue from the Master, adults prove their love by listening to youth, taking their opinions seriously, treating them with respect, and sharing responsibility by involving them in the work of evangelisation—for example, by encouraging young people to be apostles to their own peers. The document acknowledges that the era speaks much of a “generation gap” and a “credibility gap,” and it asks the community whether its own sometimes negative or superior attitudes alienate youth; whether youth’s lack of interest in religion is due in part, perhaps a large part, to neglect by parents and pastors; whether youth is more sinned against than sinning. Christ sets the example: when the disciples turned the children away, Jesus was indignant, saying “Do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” On another occasion, praising those who receive children kindly, he identified himself with them, and then added that anyone who is an obstacle and brings down one of these little ones who have faith in him would be drowned in the depths of the sea with a great millstone round his neck, and alas for the world that there would be such obstacles; obstacles indeed there must be, but alas for the man who provides them.
On the third question, the document argues that if youth is to be what it is called and sent to be by God—the hope of our tomorrow, both of the Church and of India—youth needs respectful, concerned guidance. What they need above all is a personal faith-commitment to Christ. In the past, the adult community often presumed that because a child was baptised in infancy, administered the other sacraments of initiation, and provided with Christian instruction, therefore he personally believed in Christ. This assumption can no longer be made; it is called the most fatal mistake in the pastoral care of children. Basically, young people hunger for a new and satisfying experience—the Christ-experience that is ever elusive. And has not the Church the greatest experience possible to share with its youth, the Christ-experience? The Church is sent to proclaim to youth, in terms it can understand, the Good News: “the Kingdom of God has come!” What the Father has done through Jesus, with him, and in him, the Father wants to continue doing in and through the Church.
The Context of All Catechesis
The third part situates catechesis within the wider reality of India and the world. The Church in India must take responsibility for itself and its own progress. Yet just as the country was once colonially dependent, so the land today, though politically free and sovereign, is interdependent with other free nations economically, socially, culturally, and religiously. “We live in one world.” The catechetical apostolate and the Catholicity of the Church require international sharing to forge a just and loving world in which “Everyman is my brother” is not an empty phrase. This context is not decoration around the catechetical task; it is the soil in which the task must be rooted, because the faith is always handed on to people who live somewhere specific, under specific pressures, with specific hopes and fears.
The Content and Approach of Catechesis
The fourth part is the theological heart of the document. Pastoral experience shows that all evangelisation must lead to catechesis, as newborn faith must grow to maturity; and every real catechesis must evangelise, leading to a change of heart. The central content is the Christ-event: Christ as the great revelation, the “radiant light of God’s glory,” fully man and fully God. His saving words and deeds climax in the Paschal Exodus—ministry, passion, death, resurrection, return to the Father, and coming in glory. By this mystery of the Father’s love, Jesus abides with us forever; his spirit witnesses in power, transforming, inviting, challenging, purifying. The sacred sciences—Scripture, Liturgy, Doctrine—along with Christian witness serve catechesis, which is the faith-formation of the individual within the community.
The document then confronts a painful fact. To meet the challenge of people drifting from the Church, tremendous effort has been made since the beginning of the century to rethink catechesis’s pedagogy and content and adapt it to people’s needs and existential situation. Yet “leakage” continues and catechising grows harder, also in India today. The Church seems to have lost credibility, especially in cities and industrialised areas. Religion “classes” bore students when not made relevant; Sunday Mass attendance and the frequenting of the sacraments decrease. To make catechesis relevant, the document argues, we must identify what has gone wrong not only in approach and methods but ask whether, in our zest to catechise, we have side-tracked the imperatives of the mission and message of Jesus—first clarifying that mission and message, then relating it to concrete situations.
The content of proclamation, then, is not just past history. Catechetics teaches the faithful to give a Christian interpretation to human events, especially the signs of the times. This faith-discernment draws not only on divine revelation and the sacred sciences but also on the behavioural sciences—psychology, sociology, anthropology. By this reflection, helped by grace, Christ “fully reveals man to man himself”; through Christ the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful, whereas apart from his Gospel they overwhelm us; Christ has risen, destroying death, lavishing life so that as sons in the Son we cry “Abba, Father.” The modern catechetical approach starts with man as he is, where he is, helping him in the light of Christ to discover his sonship. Its content is the total life-situation here and now interpreted in faith by Christ’s and the Church’s full teaching and experience. In Vatican II, catechetics starts with man in his situation and moves interiorly to discover Christ—a life-long search reaching its goal in the Trinity. Every authentic catechesis is a saving event, a renewal of the Incarnation, moving beyond a mere “happening” to promote “maturity in Christ,” making each believer an adult, responsible Christian, living witness and apostle of India.
Christ’s mission is to liberate and unite: he lived in communion with his fellowmen, manifesting the Father’s power and caring love to free man from uncertainty, insecurity, fear, and the consequences of selfishness and alienation from fellowmen and God. He strove to unite man into one family of love, respect, and concern as children of the one Father: “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” This vision demands restructuring human relationships at every level—socio-economic, political, religious, cultural—and insists that every man has a right to existence, respect, and conditions allowing him to grow as a human being and Son of God. Every disciple must use all his powers to defend others’ dignity and rights, improve conditions for man’s growth, and establish more just relationships: “The servant is not greater than his master”; “Greater love than this no man has than that he lays down his life for his friend”; “So long as you did it to one of these my least ones, you did it to me.” Catechesis is thus faith-reflection on the actual multi-dimensional relationships among men and their existential situation of anxiety and hope, suffering and joy; its point of departure must be these realities.
The Formation of the Catechist
The fifth and final part turns to the people who must carry all this. Renewal implies people transformed in spirit, vision, mentality, attitudes, relationships, and values. Catechetical renewal calls above all, in a diocese, for a team of competent, renewed people who have undergone conversion, have professional and technical training in modern catechetics, and have practical catechising experience. The most important factor, the document insists, is not programmes or materials but persons—bishops, clergy, religious, and laity formed as Christian prophets faithful to Christ’s Spirit, to his Church, and to the needs of India. The formation of catechists is therefore not an appendix to the catechetical task but its precondition: without renewed people, no method and no syllabus can succeed.
Main Arguments
The document’s central argument is that catechesis is not the transmission of information about religion but the formation of mature faith within a living community. This is why it defines catechetics as the science and art of transmitting God’s message to believers to foster mature personal faith and witness, and catechesis as the actual transmission and ongoing faith-nurturing—the prophetic ministry by which Christians discern God’s saving presence in their life-situation, interpret their lives in light of God’s Word (Scriptures, Church history, life-witness, Worship, Magisterium), and surrender to Jesus in faith, realising communion with God and fellowmen, bringing self-renewal and transformation of society. No catechesis is effective unless it is situated within a community providing proper soil, nourishment, witness, and formal initiation into faith. “Total Catechesis” is elsewhere called “Adult Catechesis,” though in this document “Adult Catechesis” means catechesis for adults.
From this follows the document’s most striking pastoral claim: adults are the chief form of catechesis and the most neglected. Adults perform the most responsible work but carry the heaviest burdens and face secularism, which entails a radical change of priorities. If the Church neglects adults, it neglects the very people whose faith must shape families, institutions, and public life. The family, the parish, the professional group, and the institution are all named as catechetical settings precisely because adults live in them, and the faith must be brought into them.
A second argument concerns youth. The document refuses both sentimentalism and pessimism. Youth is searching, discouraged, confused, questioning—but also generous, energetic, articulate against injustice, and hungry for authenticity. The adult community’s task is not to lecture them but to love them as Christ loved the rich young man: respecting them, listening to them, taking their opinions seriously, and involving them in evangelisation. The most fatal mistake in the pastoral care of children is to presume that baptism, the sacraments of initiation, and instruction automatically produce personal faith in Christ. That presumption must be abandoned. What young people need above all is a personal faith-commitment to Christ, and the Church has the greatest experience possible to share with them: the Christ-experience.
A third argument concerns content and method. The central content of catechesis is the Christ-event—Christ fully man and fully God, whose saving words and deeds climax in the Paschal Exodus of ministry, passion, death, resurrection, return to the Father, and coming in glory. But this content is not merely past history. Catechetics teaches the faithful to interpret human events, especially the signs of the times, in the light of faith, drawing on revelation, the sacred sciences, and the behavioural sciences. The modern approach starts with man as he is, where he is, and moves interiorly to discover Christ. Every authentic catechesis is a saving event, a renewal of the Incarnation, promoting maturity in Christ.
A fourth argument concerns the social dimension. Christ’s mission is to liberate and unite, and this vision demands restructuring human relationships at every level—socio-economic, political, religious, cultural. Every man has a right to existence, respect, and conditions allowing him to grow as a human being and Son of God. Every disciple must defend others’ dignity and rights, improve conditions for human growth, and establish more just relationships. Catechesis is therefore faith-reflection on the actual relationships among men and their existential situation of anxiety and hope, suffering and joy.
A fifth argument concerns the catechist. Renewal requires converted, competent, trained people with practical experience. The most important factor is not the programme but the person. Bishops, clergy, religious, and laity must be formed as Christian prophets faithful to Christ’s Spirit, to his Church, and to the needs of India.
Key Concepts
Several concepts recur throughout the document and give it its distinctive shape. The first is the Paschal Mystery—the passion, death, resurrection, return to the Father, and coming in glory of Christ—which is both the content of catechesis and the mystery to which adults are called to witness in their life-situation. The second is the Christ-event as the great revelation, the “radiant light of God’s glory,” fully man and fully God, whose saving words and deeds are the heart of all proclamation. The third is the notion of catechesis as a saving event, a renewal of the Incarnation, not a mere “happening” but a movement toward maturity in Christ.
The fourth is the distinction between catechetics and catechesis: catechetics is the science and art of transmitting God’s message; catechesis is the actual transmission and ongoing faith-nurturing. The fifth is the concept of Total Catechesis, elsewhere called Adult Catechesis, meaning catechesis for adults as the chief form. The sixth is the domestic Church—the family as the place where the Gospel is transmitted and radiates, and where parents and children evangelise one another. The seventh is the group as Church community in miniature, a requisite for catechesis that fosters Christian responsibility. The eighth is the signs of the times, the events of history that catechesis teaches the faithful to interpret in the light of faith. The ninth is the notion of faith-discernment, which draws on divine revelation, the sacred sciences, and the behavioural sciences—psychology, sociology, anthropology. The tenth is the idea of the catechist as Christian prophet, faithful to Christ’s Spirit, to his Church, and to the needs of India. The eleventh is the ecumenical principle that what Christians can do together they should not do separately, applied especially to common Christian concern and commitment to development. The twelfth is the vision of the Church in India as responsible for itself and its own progress while remaining interdependent with other nations in one world.
Themes
Several large themes run through the document. The first is the primacy of adult catechesis. The document is unusual in the strength of its claim that adults, not children, are the chief form of catechesis, and that their neglect is the great pastoral failure of the age. This theme is developed through the parish, family, institutional, and group levels, and through the special attention given to migrants, to moments of crisis, and to ecumenical witness.
The second theme is the situation of youth. The document treats youth not as a problem to be managed but as a sign and a summons. Youth’s search for freedom, authenticity, and a just cause is read as a prophetic call, and the adult community is challenged to examine whether its own attitudes have alienated the young. The “generation gap” and “credibility gap” are named, but the document’s response is not nostalgia or alarm; it is the command of Christ to love, to listen, and to share responsibility.
The third theme is the Indian context. The document refuses to treat catechesis as a purely ecclesiastical affair. India’s poverty, its religious and cultural plurality, its colonial past and interdependent present, its cities and villages, its migrants and its institutions—all of this is the material out of which catechesis must be built. The ecumenical movement has special importance in India because common Christian witness is more credible than divided witness, especially in the service of development.
The fourth theme is the Christocentric character of catechesis. Everything the document says about method, context, and formation returns to the Christ-event. The Christ-experience is what youth hunger for; the Paschal Mystery is what adults are called to witness to; the Christ-event is the content of proclamation; and the catechist is a prophet of Christ.
The fifth theme is the social and liberating dimension of the Gospel. Christ’s mission is to liberate and unite, and catechesis must therefore address the actual relationships among men—socio-economic, political, religious, cultural. The document quotes the words of Jesus about the least ones and the servant who is not greater than his master, and it insists that every disciple must defend others’ dignity and rights and work for more just relationships.
The sixth theme is renewal through persons. The document’s final emphasis is that renewal implies people transformed in spirit, vision, mentality, attitudes, relationships, and values. Programmes and methods matter, but the most important factor is the team of converted, competent, trained, and experienced people who can carry the work forward.
The Author’s Conclusions
The document concludes with a call to renewal that is both practical and spiritual. Catechetical renewal in a diocese requires above all a team of competent, renewed people who have undergone conversion, who have professional and technical training in modern catechetics, and who have practical catechising experience. The most important factor is not the syllabus or the textbook but the person of the catechist—bishops, clergy, religious, and laity formed as Christian prophets faithful to Christ’s Spirit, to his Church, and to the needs of India. The document’s final movement is therefore from analysis to formation: having examined the neglect of adults, the situation of youth, the context of India, and the content of the Gospel, it turns to the people who must embody all of this in their own lives. Renewal, it insists, implies people transformed in spirit, vision, mentality, attitudes, relationships, and values. Without such people, no method and no programme can succeed; with them, the Church in India can take responsibility for itself and its own progress, and can share in the international task of forging a just and loving world in which “Everyman is my brother” is not an empty phrase.
Significance
The document’s significance lies in several directions at once. For the Church in India, it is a landmark of collaborative pastoral planning: a consultation that brought together bishops, theologians, directors of catechetics, heads of training schools, professors, and representatives of brothers, sisters, and lay people, and that produced a unanimous text offered to the Bishops of India and to the whole Church. Its method—six full days of work in three stages, positioned between regional study and the General Meeting of the CBCI—models a way of doing ecclesial reflection that is both consultative and authoritative.
For the wider Church, the document is a significant contribution to the post-conciliar conversation about catechesis. Its insistence on adult catechesis as the chief form, its critique of the presumption that sacramental initiation automatically produces personal faith, its attention to the “leakage” of the faithful and the loss of credibility in cities and industrialised areas, and its call for catechesis to start with man as he is and move interiorly to discover Christ—all of these are themes that resonated far beyond India. The document’s use of Evangelii Nuntiandi and the documents of Vatican II shows how the universal teaching of the Church was being received and applied in a specific local context.
For anyone interested in the relationship between faith and social justice, the document is also significant for its refusal to separate catechesis from the transformation of society. Christ’s mission to liberate and unite, the demand to restructure human relationships at every level, the insistence that every man has a right to existence, respect, and conditions allowing him to grow as a human being and Son of God—these are not appendices to the catechetical task but its substance. The document’s vision is of a Church that teaches by witnessing, that forms adults who give Christian meaning to events, that loves its youth enough to listen to them, and that forms catechists as prophets. In that vision, the theme of our time is not a slogan but a summons: to interior renewal, to mature faith, and to the transformation of the world in the light of the Paschal Mystery.
