Special status for Neo-catechumenate. (News in Brief).

Rome--On June 28, Cardinal James Stafford, head of the Pontifical Council on the Laity, handed fifty leaders of the Neo-catechumenate Way a decree of approval from the Vatican. The Way's Spanish founders, Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez, were among the leaders attending the ceremony, which opened and closed with songs accompanied by Arguello on the guitar.

Cardinal Stafford said, that within the movement of renewal of the Second Vatican Council, the Way "is at the service of diocesan bishops and parish priests as a means of rediscovering the sacrament of baptism and of ongoing education in faith." The movement, begun only in 1964, is now huge: it has more than a million members, in 105 countries (mainly in Europe and the Americas), and it has 731 priests and 1457 seminarians.

Growth has been accompanied by controversies. In a few cases, e.g., the Clifton diocese in England, and Milwaukee and Palm Beach in the U.S., disputes have led to bans by bishops. All three had progressive, liberal, bishops centred on the Way's programme of formation, which sometimes divides parishes by promoting a parallel parish community. The approved statutes of the Way make it clear that its work is to be carried on "under the direction of the diocesan bishop." It is supposed to "promote in its adherents a mature sense of belonging to the parish and kindling relations of deep communion and collaboration with all the faithful and other components of the parish community."

This new church movement is an oddity: it is unprecedented for the Vatican to approve a method of Christian initiation for those already baptised. Arguello said the Way sought to revive the "serious catechumenate" of the first three centuries of the Church under Roman persecution. By approving these statutes, he said, the Holy Father is saying there needs to be a return to the primitive model of catechumenate and liturgy to counteract secularization and atheism. Besides promoting a post-baptismal catechumenate, the Way stresses ongoing formation in the faith, preparation for ordinary baptism, and catechesis. It is a juridical novelty in the Church-- not a movement, not a religious congregation, not a simple association, but "an itinerary of Catholic formation." Word, liturgy, and catechesis are its three pillars, and catechesis its principal work; its central idea is that infant baptism is like a dormant seed which must be revived (Tablet, July 6/02).