From Natalie Hudson re RCIA fallout. (Letters to the Editor).

I was interested to read one of your news items for the November 2002 issue entitled "50% fallout for RCIA candidates". Coincidentally, I myself was recently asked to 'resign' from teaching an RCIA program at a local parish here in Toronto.

I moved to Toronto in January of 2001 and volunteered to help with the RCIA team. I had taught RCIA in my parish in Vancouver for six years and had spent most of my undergraduate and graduate work studying classical philosophy and theology at credible institutions in the United States.

Unfortunately, my Toronto career in teaching RCIA was to be very brief. The nun who led the course is influenced by Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit whose teachings were rejected by the Church in 1962. She has a distinctly feminist ideology that is directly opposed to Church teaching.

In our first class, she declared that the notion of God as a Father is merely the result of a patriarchal, male dominated society. In the second class she claimed that there is no such thing as Original Sin; "St. Augustine made that up". When I objected, stating that this is not taught in the Catechism, I was informed that the Catechism held no weight in these matters. After all, she continued, the Popes are not infallible when they make doctrinal statements; take for example the case of Galileo.

I corrected her and informed the class that in fact the Church had not made a doctrinal error in the case of Galileo. But she turned to the issue of contraception as her alibi, declaring that the Church was in error in this case.

That week, I was visited by Sister who admitted to me that she and her whole order is in schism. I was then contacted by the pastor, who knew of Sister's overtly feminist ideology, and asked not to return to the class.

There is no doubt that the RCIA program can be a valuable means in the journey of a person who is seeking full membership in the Catholic Church, but it can easily be co-opted by those whose formation is questionable and who seek to implement an agenda of their own, quite contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

I have witnessed well-intentioned pastors fail to question the credentials of those who come forward as volunteers. When it comes to the formation of souls seeking communion with Christ, the utmost care should be taken in choosing teachers for this weighty task. In the case of my Toronto parish, it would be better not to have an RCIA program at all, than to have an admitted schismatic misinforming an entire class on matters that attend to their salvation.

Toronto, ON

Natalie Hudson is Director, Right to Life Association of Toronto