A ‘Sunday school’ model of catechesis could play a key
role in helping parishes raise young people in the Faith, Limerick’s
Bishop Brendan Leahy has said.
The bishop told The Irish Catholic that while
good work has been done in the Irish Church since the introduction five
years ago of ‘Share the Good News’, the Church’s plan for promoting
catechesis, evangelisation, and religious education, much remains to be
done.
“We need creative explorations for how this could happen,”
he said, adding that current programmes to help children, parents, and
the wider parish community prepare for First Holy Communion could be
rolled out further.
Direction
“What we have at the moment is the programme ‘Do This in
Memory’, and that has proved quite successful in parishes,” he said,
continuing, “I think that shows us something of the direction we should
be moving in, but I think we could expand that a little more.”
Calling for a more collaborative approach to lifelong
catechesis, with adult catechesis being more integral to parish
activities, the bishop acknowledged that while parish priests are often
overstretched, “there has to be space somewhere for a new beginning for
the parish to take ownership of transmitting the Faith to young people
in a lively manner as a community.”
One possibility, the bishop said, was to have activities
taking place alongside the Mass where children could be taken out during
the Liturgy of Word to explore stories from the Bible, as some parishes
already do.
Pointing that he was using the term ‘Sunday school’ as
it’s a term with which people are familiar, he speculated that this
might allow children to engage a bit more both with the Gospels and with
parish life in a more lively and interactive fashion than is possible
in Mass.
“There was a time about 50 years ago when you’d go to a
parish school in a parish community, and it was very clear that it was
one and the same thing,” he said, continuing, “that isn’t so clear now,
and we need to help the community side of the parish be visible or be
experienced.”