It has taken fifteen years, but they have finally made it: Kiko Arguello, Carmen Hernandez, Fr. Mario Pezzi and hundreds and thousands of people from across the world form part of the Catechumenal Way finally obtained the Pope’s definitive approval for their movement this morning.
The Way is an “itinerary of Christian initiation”, a path of faith, aimed, above all, at adults in Countries that follow the Christian tradition who were baptised but forgot about it, so to say.
The movement which was founded by Kiko and Carmen – as they are affectionately called – has been immensely popular in places where the Church is now facing a hard time: in big cities in the secularised world, among youngsters who, as Kiko keeps on saying, “would never dream of stepping foot inside a Church.”
The Vatican has finally given its approval and, paradoxically, the green light has been given by a Pope whom one would expect to be sceptical about Neocatechumenals.
Many of those who look at Neocatechumenals with suspicion were surprised to see Benedict XVI himself to approve The Way. They believed that the liturgical “peculiarities” of Kiko and Carmen’s movement – starting with the “convivial” mass celebrated on Saturday evenings by members of the community seated around a table – would never receive the approval of a Pope who wanted to reintroduce the Tridentine mass into Church.
Neither did they imagine that the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would be able to overlook the numerous theological inaccuracies and historical and doctrinal simplifications which, according to critics, are found in the corpus of the catecheses that mark the various stages of The Way.
But despite all the scepticism, Benedict XVI - who is concentrating his efforts in this phase of his pontificate on the “new evangelisation” and the rediscovery of the faith in the lives of Christians – preferred instead to judge the tree by its fruit, without failing however to tweak and smooth over certain aspects of The Way.
Pope Benedict XVI even defined The Way as “a special gift that the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon us in our times,” in front of 7 thousand participants who were present at the meeting in the Vatican. He then announced his final approval of the Neocatechumenal celebrations.
According to the Pope, Neocatechumenal communities can therefore “celebrate the Sunday Eucharist in the small community after the first Sunday Vespers” but only “in agreement with the diocesan bishop.”
The aim of this is to bring “people who have moved away from the Church, into contact once again, to the richness of sacramental life.”
The clash with bishops is a problem that has repeatedly affected The Way. Just last year, Japanese bishops protested in Rome, asking for an end to all Neocatechumenal activities in their Country.
This is because, often, the arrival of Neocatechumenal communities led by “outside” catechists and priests breaks the fragile local equilibriums of the Catholic community, particularly in Japan, a Country where Catholics are a minority.
This is why the Pope invited Neocatechumenals to “always search for a deep communion with the Apostolic See and with the Pastors of the Churches in which you are working: the unity and harmony of the Church as a whole are a crucial testimony of Christ and His Gospel in the world in which we live.”
The “separateness” of The Way’s mass, however, is not an absolute right: it is crucial, Benedict XVI underlined, that the liturgical Books “be faithfully followed” when the community celebrates mass.
Above all, thanks to their “progressive maturing in the faith,” members of The Way must make efforts to gradually “enter into the life of the great ecclesiastical community” – by participating in parish Sunday mass celebrations.
“During The Way – the Pope warned – it is important not to distance oneself from the parish community.”
According to Kiko, today’s events constituted a “historic moment” for The Way: “It was just what we have been waiting for: for the Church to recognise the validity of this Christian initiation.”
“After so many years – he added – how can we not be happy and grateful to God for the fact that after so much suffering and hard work carried out throughout the world, the Church has officially recognised that this form of Christian initiation if valid.”
As on other occasions, when the meeting with Neocatechumenals came to an end, the Pope himself sent out 17 new “mission ad gentes” from The Way: groups were made up of three or four large families, accompanied by a priest, who will go and live in a heavily secularised area which has never been reached by the Gospel.
The main destination will be the heart of Europe, from France right across to Estonia.
Kiko stated that “people across the whole of Europe are feeling very lonely.”
To combat this spiritual “desert”, The Way’s response is to “to form Christian communities within the most pagan environments.”
Like in Chemnitz for example, which was once a model city in communist Germany and where 98% of inhabitants are not baptised.