The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published Oct. 22 Venite ad me, a document on the transmission of the faith “in an epochal change.”
The 25,000-word text is the last of a series of documents to be published by the dicastery, commissioned by Pope Francis. It reflects on the transmission of the faith within families, parishes, and Catholic institutions in an increasingly secularizing world. The document proposes a return to the kerygma, better catechesis of adults, and developing a missionary spirit within parishes.
According to Venite, a renewed focus on handing the faith on is an urgent matter, since it “is capable of reawakening faith in those who have not practiced it for some time… or of fostering an experience of faith… in those who have not yet come to know Christ, without delving into the specific work of catechesis and the formation of believers, both of which are called to provide an orderly and gradual introduction to the Church’s doctrine.”
But, weighing in at more than 50 pages in length, plus footnotes, it might be a few days before Pillar readers have the chance to pour over the full text.
And we know that most of you don’t want a large-language-model to summarize it for you, at least not while we have mouths to feed. Right? Please, for the love of God, say “right.”
So here’s The Pillar’s human-written summary guide for busy readers.
Just considerations, not a doctrinal note
The document opens by noting that while it was originally commissioned by Pope Francis, Pope Leo confirmed the need for a text on transmitting the faith, and it was drafted with the input of several bishops’ conferences, which are quoted throughout the document.
Also included are personal testimonies of people “who, as young adults or later in adulthood, discovered or rediscovered the Lord Jesus and his Gospel,” in the last chapter of the document.
As such, the DDF text makes clear that it is “a set of Considerations, not a Doctrinal Note. Its purpose, in fact, is primarily to stimulate ecclesial reflection and pastoral commitment regarding the transmission of the faith. For this reason, the text examines a variety of points of view without, however, claiming to settle the matter, which remains open to further analysis and development.”
“This means that these Considerations are not marked, as are other documents of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, by terminological precision and systematic treatment, but instead allow a more discursive style, as is especially evident in the section on personal testimonies mentioned above,” it adds.
In other words, the dicastery prefaces the text with a kind of theological disclaimer that what follows isn’t meant to be taken as teaching, but more as fodder for conversation.
Love, light, family, and changing times
The opening chapters frame the text around “Jesus [who] is indeed the true light that illuminates every person, for he has revealed what no one had ever seen or could have seen: the unconditional love that dwells in the heart of the Triune God.”
The teachings of Christ in turn guide the hearts and minds of the people around him “toward the true light of the Father’s love and mercy—a love and mercy directed simply toward the good life of all. No one is excluded. Everyone’s life is worthy of being lived to the fullest.”
Quoting Benedict XVI, the document states that “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, with a person who gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”
The experience of Christ “frees us from darkness and fills human existence with light. It is an experience of light that, by its very nature, radiates outward to other lives, illuminating them with the same light; as they shine in turn, they extend the reach of the original light: the true light of the world, which is Christ.”
As the DDF text begins to discuss “forms of transmitting the faith,” the document recalls that “The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by ‘attraction’: just as Christ ‘draws all to himself’ by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the Church fulfills her mission to the extent that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes every one of her works in spiritual and practical imitation of the love of her Lord.”
“The first and most essential place for the transmission of the faith,” of course, is held to be the family, “the primary setting in which faith passed from one generation to the next.
“However… this favorable situation is gradually disappearing… the transmission of the faith within the family has been interrupted in many parts of the world. Consequently, the handing on of the experience of the Christian faith to new generations no longer occurs, so to speak, ‘automatically.’”
The situation is further exacerbated, according to the DDF text, by the realities of secularism and secularization in once Christian societies and nations: “Such a context for the transmission of the faith appears today to have been weakened, since it is increasingly characterized by the presence of ‘the baptized whose lives do not reflect the demands of Baptism,’ who lack a meaningful relationship to the Church.”
“For this very reason, the transmission of the faith today requires, in a particular way, the evangelization of adults and a move beyond pastoral ministry focused solely on the catechesis of children and adolescents.”
From here the text moves to discuss one of its main themes: that the crisis of the transmission of faith is at least partially due to an “epochal change.”
“This situation is fundamentally linked to the crisis of the cultural model of modernity, which particularly affects the European context. One might therefore ask whether speaking of an ‘epochal change,’ in the singular, fully captures the processes currently confronting Churches throughout the world. The answer to this question is undoubtedly affirmative, at least from a general perspective, for reasons connected with the well-known phenomenon of globalization,” the document says.
While the document says that economic development and quality of life in Western societies is a “legitimate aspiration for better living conditions,” they also “contribute to the spread of materialistic and individualistic mindsets across all continents.”
The document states that the crisis in the transmission of the faith is particularly concerning in Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia in New Zealand, and says it is intertwined with “an advanced stage of secularization, which has led to a significant crisis in the practice of Christianity within the home.”
“In truth, ever fewer parents are fulfilling their responsibility to introduce their children to the living light of the Gospel message. It is precisely from such family settings that most of the young men and women come who, despite having been part of Catholic parish communities, eventually enter adulthood in a state of substantial religious indifference.”
Here the text incorporates the input of various episcopal conferences from around the world, which lend specific regional assessments of the roots and manifestations of common issues.
Bishops from former Soviet Union countries note that “the faith had been passed down from grandmothers […] to grandchildren, but without the direct involvement of the middle generation. As a result, the grandchildren’s generation did not see their parents living their faith in everyday life.”
Meanwhile Africa is “not immune to the dynamics that disrupt the intergenerational transmission of the faith. This is primarily due to a certain secularization of ways of life brought about by the influence of a Western lifestyle, which younger generations have embraced.”
Taken at a more global level, the document blames the lack of transmission of the faith also on an “incomplete inculturation of the Gospel — despite the continued prevalence of public expressions of religion in social life — [which] leads to a superficial faith: one that lacks roots and is more exposed to external influences.”
The document also identifies the “exaltation of the ‘sovereignty of the self,’” as the primary issue in contemporary culture, “which asserts its autonomy and freedom to determine every aspect of its own existence, subjecting other human beings and the surrounding reality to its own needs. This trend reflects the spread of an increasingly pronounced individualism, which generates separation, division, envy, jealousy, domination, narcissism, and worship of the self.”
But there is good news — and Good News — about community and liturgy
While all of this definitely represents a challenge for the Church, the document also sees opportunities for “a more conscious and convinced adherence to the faith.”
Citing the rise of adult baptisms in France, it says that “according to the personal testimonies collected, the motivations for seeking the sacrament include an encounter with the faith following a time of crisis (such as bereavement or illness), spiritual experiences or experiences of beauty, and contact with other believers, both in person and through social media.”
The important thing, the DDF text warns, is that while there is “a genuine increase in demand for the sacraments of Christian initiation in these highly secularized areas, there is also a parallel difficulty concerning the perseverance of neophytes, who often, shortly after receiving baptism, return to a state of practical indifference.”
Key to the effective handing over of the faith in every cultural context, though, is to communicate that the truth of the Gospel is not a mere concept, but the person of Christ himself to whom “the total commitment of oneself to Christ on the part of the individual human being enlightened by his grace (fides qua), and by the ‘things believed’ (fides quae)” are the keys to transmitting the faith.
It is the manifestation by the believer of a true relationship with Christ which ultimately lends credibility to the announcement of the Gospel: “The central proclamation of the presence and love of the Risen Christ; the inner experience of his presence and love, sparked by that proclamation; and finally, the beginning of a journey of knowing and loving Christ, made possible by the recipient’s acceptance of the proclamation with a free and sincere heart.”
The text says that authentic announcement of the kerygma is increasingly important to emphasize, because many parents request baptism for their children but don’t pass on the faith to their children. That “demonstrates a certain presence of faith and a fragile but genuine witness,” the Vatican says. Still, “it is … possible that the children or adolescents who come to catechesis have not yet received an explicit first proclamation of the Gospel.”
A key part of addressing this need for a first proclamation of the Gospel, even to and for those who have already been baptized, is the need to rediscover the essential role of the community in the transmission of faith, the text says. And the answer is not found online.
The Chrisitian community “must reflect sincere love among brothers and sisters, a commitment to caring for one another, generous openness toward all… In an increasingly fragmented world, where the only bonds among human beings that seem to carry any weight are those mediated by digital infrastructure, the need and desire for belonging are becoming ever more evident among many people.”
A key part of the lived reality of the Chirsitan community is, the text notes, liturgy, which “constitutes the privileged place in which this mystery is celebrated and communicated sacramentally. For this reason, it plays a central role in handing on the faith, serving as the beating heart of ecclesial life, where the community is nourished by the Word of God and the Bread of eternal life.”
Faith is not transmitted solely through individual teaching, but also within a liturgical community, as “in the liturgy, the believer is never isolated but is part of a ‘we’ that precedes, accompanies, and transcends him or her. This communal dimension serves as a powerful antidote to the allure of a selfish and individualistic lifestyle, which, as we have already seen, is so widespread today in many contexts.”
In a section sure to get picked up by the online Catholic commentating community, the document then offers a balanced defense of liturgical inculturation, within limits, and liturgical traditionalism:
Inculturation it describes as a “perspective [that] requires preserving the richness of the Church’s symbolic tradition, while at the same time making it accessible and meaningful to the men and women of our time, within a healthy and fruitful tension between fidelity to tradition and the comprehensibility of the message being celebrated.”
The document then exhorts dioceses to allow Catholics to experience and encounter “various liturgical sensibilities present within the tradition of the Catholic Church. With due respect for the liturgical norms currently in force, pastors are called to highlight the richness of the Catholic liturgical heritage—consider, for example the variety of musical styles that characterize it—in such a way as to enter into contact with the different sensibilities of their contemporaries.”
Liturgy as a force and venue for transmitting the faith, the document underlines, is especially crucial since many only go to church “during celebrations marking certain fundamental moments in life: baptisms, weddings, and funerals.”
The liturgy is, then, “a precious opportunity to reach them with a proclamation of the kerygma capable of touching their hearts, while avoiding words that fail to foster any genuine encounter.”
Cultural values
The final chapters of the document frame the crisis in the transmission of faith within a broader global cultural crisis “regarding the transmission of knowledge and values,” the answer to which is “achieving a synthesis between faith and culture,” which can involve challenges “since the Gospel message must be made understandable to people who share values and categories that do not perfectly coincide with the Hellenistic-Semitic ones in which the biblical text was originally formulated.”
But, the DDF text says, import tools like popular piety and good preaching can be powerful means of translating the Gospel into different cultural contexts and handing the faith on within a culture:
“The great strength of this resource within the Catholic tradition remains clear. No one can deny that popular piety remains an important means of transmitting the faith today. For this reason, it is necessary to foster a renewed commitment to it, both intellectually and from the heart.”
Similarly, “a well-prepared homily can play a decisive role in presenting the contents of the faith in a narrative form that reinterprets the Word of God in light of the concrete lives of the people, thereby fostering a living experience of encounter with Christ,” with narrative recognized as an important tool of evangelization and catechesis. “Jesus himself appears in the Gospels first and foremost as a great storyteller… He often draws on people’s daily lives, offering stories that can open his listeners’ imaginations before engaging their intellect.”
The text also highlights calls for a greater leadership role for women within the Church, saying that “the faithful who are most present and active in the life of communities are largely women. In recent years, however, the need to allow women access to those forums where important decisions regarding the life of the community are made has become increasingly clear.”
The document finishes with a series of testimonies from people around the world who discovered or rediscovered the faith as adults.
The first one is about a Colombian young man who was a drug addict and involved in criminal groups and ended up living in the streets as a teenager.
“I felt a very deep longing in my heart for something more, something wonderful, something good: to love, and to feel loved. I had nowhere to live, nowhere to bathe, nowhere to eat,” the testimony says, before he found a rehabilitation center run by a Catholic foundation and discovered prayer:
“The Holy Rosary, lectio divina, the Holy Eucharist…That is where my journey of conversion began. In that place, the Lord began to transform my life profoundly, because I began to see how many wounds and how many voids there were in my heart, and how much I needed love, forgiveness, and God’s mercy. Then I went as a missionary for two and a half years, receiving training, serving at retreats, and leading meetings,” recounted the man.
“After that, I returned to the foundation where I had been. I stayed there for a year, accompanying the young people as an educator and sharing with them a little of what the Lord had done in me.”
One quote I found particularly interesting that I don't think is referenced above:
"The question of transmitting the faith must therefore be considered within the context of that unprecedented culture, which today spreads from urban centers to their peripheries and even reaches rural areas. This culture exerts a pervasive and profound influence, as the bishops of the United States of America observe: today the faithful “tend to be more absorbed in culture than in faith. Culture, through social media and public discourse, in turn shapes how Catholics [...] think more than Catholic faith, tradition, and devotion do.”"
This definitely is relatable. And sadly with the proliferation of digital Catholic culture and communities, I think it's going to continue to be a problem especially for younger generations.
Right!