When I was a rookie catechist, fresh out of Franciscan University, my bishop sent me to a conference on the promulgation of the 1997 General Directory for Catechesis. Archbishop Daniel Buechlein, OSB, gave a talk that struck me so much that I introduced myself to him afterward. He asked me about my work and then exhorted me about its importance for the Church, a conversation that made a lasting impression on me.
That memory came to the fore recently when Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut—Archbishop Beuchlein’s successor at the helm of the U.S. Bishops’ Catechism Committee— visited campus in February.
Bishop Caggiano gave the annual Paul VI Lecture sponsored by the Office of Catechetics. He spoke passionately about the challenges our catechetics majors will face, including indifference, an “it’s all about me” secular culture, and the need to recover a formative Catholic experience in the family and in the parish. We should not underestimate the urgency of the task of evangelizing catechesis today.
In his remarks, he also acknowledged the significant impact of Archbishop Beuchlein’s work implementing the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, which has resulted in a great improvement in catechetical materials—an improvement I never imagined possible when I was new to the field. Hearing Bishop Caggiano praise that past success was an important moment for those of us laboring—some for many decades—against a growing crisis of faith in our culture that sometimes seems insurmountable. Yet, he said much work remains to be done.
Some of that work will be undertaken by the Catechism Committee’s latest initiative, the Institute on the Catechism. The institute supports publishers and writers of catechetical materials in a more pro-active rather than reactive approach. Our own catechetics faculty, Dr. Scott Sollom, Sister M. Johanna Paruch, FSGM, and Dr. Petroc Willey have been invited to participate in this process.
Our students, too, have a role, and Bishop Caggiano gave them a vision for a way forward in the face of the current catechetical challenge. He provided a moving articulation of the Gospel message, urging our students to learn to share this good news with the growing audience that has never had the thrill of “falling in love with Jesus,” an encounter that can quickly change the course of a life.
“Too many of our people have not encountered Jesus Christ in this way,” he said.
He also said, “How do you get from 5,000 Christians at the time of St. Paul’s death to 36 million by the Edict of Milan when the price for being a Christian at that time was martyrdom? Heroic witness and power of the Christian community did it then … and can do it now.”
His words reminded me of an encounter I had earlier that same day. President Father Dave Pivonka, TOR ’89, and I had spent two hours in a meeting where he shared Franciscan University’s Strategic Plan goals for the next three years. First, however, he acknowledged the accomplishments of the prior three-year strategic plan and our role as faculty and staff in them. He didn’t do that so we could give ourselves a collective pat on the back. Rather, he simply recalled the Lord’s past faithfulness so we could trust in the Lord as we advance this next part of God’s mission for Franciscan. Like Bishop Caggiano, Father Dave is well aware of the many challenges we now face and will face in the future. All the same, he challenged us to “reimagine the faithfully Catholic university of the future” and invited us to join him in making it a reality.
Bishop Caggiano and Father Dave are both men of vision. It remains a thrill to be on their team and see what the Lord has planned next for our Church and Franciscan University.
Dr. Ronald Bolster ’97 is an associate professor of theology and dean of the School of Theology and Philosophy at Franciscan University.
