Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 94 No. 3, 2024.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.53745/bs.94.3.1
Adult Catechesis in the Context of Social and Church Changes. From the Eve of the Second Vatican Council to the Synod on the Synodality of the Church
Ana Thea Filipović
; Catholic Faculty of Theology University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
What is the relationship between catechesis and adult believers? How does the cultural environment and positioning of the Church in society affect the understanding of adult catechesis? In the eve of the Second Vatican Council, the crisis of the traditional model of Christian initiation through religious socialization, which had relied on the support of the »Christian society« and the so-called »social catechumenate«, became increasingly evident in the pastoral practice of the Church in Europe. The altered social and cultural atmosphere had brought to light the central importance of adult catechesis in building personal faith and mature Church affiliation of believers in a secularized and ideologically pluralistic environment. This fact is a reason to question the essential and functional meaning of adult catechesis in this article. After a brief historical overview starting from the New Testament practice and the beginnings of the Church, special emphasis is placed on social and ecclesial changes in the period preceding the Council. Then, the meaning of the Council for pastoral practice and adult catechesis is discussed, and the post-conciliar catechetical documents are analysed in terms of the role they assign to adult catechesis. Finally, new challenges for catechesis and adult religious education in contemporary plural contexts are presented against the backdrop of profound cultural changes and in relation to the communal and synodal understanding of the Church and her mission in the world facing the new challenges in the 21st century.
Keywords
adult catechesis; Christian formation of adults; maturity of faith; Church as a community; synodality of the Church; catechesis and culture.
Hrčak ID:
323599
URI
Publication date:
14.12.2024.
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