I have  experience with RCIA that covers about 6 years including sponsoring two people into the Church.

Now it is God who calls us and not the other way around. There are many ways God may choose to call a person into His Church. A person might just feel compelled and drawn to the Church. Others study religion, many from an atheistic paradigm who just end up being drawn by God’s call. And yes there are those called into the Church by personal relationships. Friendships or marriage. God uses His people to call others into the Church.

But I have also seen another class of people whom I never felt should have gotten through the discernment phase. These are the social rejects. People who are insecure and socially dysfunctional. They join to basically hold other Church members as social hostages. They know it is the un-Christian thing to do to turn people away so they basically  can unload all their negative and nasty attitudes on people, relentlessly.  No one in any other social context would put up with it.

I do not believe Jesus would put up with it either.

Let me give you an example using an imaginary person:

Jack Flip is a conspiracy theorist and a racist. He is insecure so he cannot stand up to others in real life. No matter how hard he tries others seem to reject him. I mean he normally does not come out and claim that there is a Jєω or illuminati world wide conspiracy or go around saying sambo this or sambo that. But for some reason people are uneasy around him and he does not understand why.

Jack Flip becomes interested in Catholicism. Mostly because it seems like a group of people who all believe in the same thing. He sees the happy families and camaraderie of the community and goes through RCIA, albeit a NO parish. He has a difficult time in RCIA but blabs anway because these people feel obligated to be nice. He has them over a barrel. He goes through the Sacraments on Easter. He goes to NO for a couple years and still feels rejected. In addition to that he does not like the few sambo families in the parish and resents them and the “burrito” families too. Actually he hates them because while he is rejected they seem to fit in and are accepted.

TLM becomes the next attraction. The NO Church that accepts all the sambos and burritos is just too liberal. He needs a cause that makes him feel part of something and important. So he joins the TLM. After awhile though, if he opens his big mouth he will be rejected there too.

You see, God created all people. Look around this world. God did not mean that everyone should look alike and it is blasphemy to hate or reject people just because of the color of their skin.

So, if you hold people in contempt just because of the color of their skin you are not a Catholic but a blasphemer. Hope that helps and hope you change if this is you.

I would be embarrassed to post some of the racial comments I have seen in this forum. I would be ashamed of myself.

TLM becomes the next attraction. The NO Church that accepts all the sambos and burritos is just too liberal. He needs a cause that makes him feel part of something and important. So he joins the TLM.

So...are you saying that the "TLM" doesn't accept "sambos and burritos"?  I wonder what the "sambos and burritos" that come to my chapel would say about that.  It never occurred to us that they weren't supposed to be accepted.

In any event, you don't seem to understand that God actually does want "Jack Flip" to become Catholic.  But He doesn't want Jack to simply go through the ceremony--and that is what RCIA essentially is:  It's a punch card.  A person has to go through RCIA, check all the required boxes including the "discernment stage", and then go through the ceremony.  And, presto, he's a Catholic!

What God wants is conversion.  In the Catholic Church, as opposed to the Conciliar sect, the priest will get to know the individual and he will not baptize him if he has not a conversion.  He must truly believe, or at least put on a really good show, in the truths of the Catholic faith.  But I don't think many people can put on that good a show because they have to learn the habits of living the faith.

Have I seen real racists at my chapel?  I can't say that I have.  Have I seen people at my chapel who recognize racial issues that today's popular culture would call "racist"?  Most certainly.  The real Jack Flips out there will be, I think, much more comfortable in a rural Novus Ordo parish, or better yet, a small Protestant community, than at a truly traditional Catholic Church.

The word "Catholic" means universal. There are many flawed people in the Church. They even let me in.  

I am not talking about flawed people- I am talking about negative creeps.

I will give you a true life example:

Nancy gets married to a Catholic who has a young daughter from his previous marriage.

The daughter is going through the process of being Confirmed.

Well, Nancy now wants to become a Catholic through RCIA so she can be Confirmed too. In fact, Nancy thinks it would be cute and wonderful if she and the step-daughter were Confirmed together.

So Nancy joins RCIA. While in the group one of the other Candidates relates the horror and pain she suffered as a victim of rape. During the process Nancy is completely negative towards the entire experience and expresses doubt that she even believes in God. She mocks and talks down to almost everybody and is disinterested and misses meetings.

So the sponsors and the team vote on Nancy to see if she will receive the sacraments this Easter with her step-daughter or give her another year in RCIA to see where it goes.

Nancy, when she learns what happened blows a fuse. She and her husband go to the priest and let him have it. Nancy's final mistake is to stick her finger in the priest's face and say, "Who cares if she was raped, that was stupid !"

By the way, your story about Nancy is indicative, not of your point, but of the problems with RCIA--not the Catholic Church

.

First, I am not going to comment about the clown and his anonymous post because he will just go back to his own thread and honk his bicycle horn at his own clown friends with some innuendo about me giving him attention elsewhere.

As for your comment above, you should reread it. It makes little sense.

Case in point:

The problems with RCIA are not indicative of the problems with the Church ? Really ?

The story about Nancy is entirely on point about the meaning of the OP. People with emotional or external reasons for wanting to become Catholic with no real belief in God or anything that has anything to do with being a Christian.

RCIA members are voting on whether or not to allow someone to convert?

Did I read that right?

RCIA members are voting on whether or not to allow someone to convert?

Did I read that right?

Let me elaborate.

The RCIA is not a process where a person prepares for sacraments. That is not the purpose.

The RCIA is a discernment process to discern whether an individual is being called by God.

In this program the sponsors and team members and the priest come together and relate what they have witnessed in candidates and catechumens. They pray and then they vote whether the person will receive the sacraments that year at Easter or give them another year. Some of the people who are rejected will quit some will go on another year.

The RCIA was a program that was to last at least four years. it was a discernment process not a ticket punching process.

The way it has evolved is a shake and bake go through a 4 month process and get dipped in water.

In this program the sponsors and team members and the priest come together and relate what they have witnessed in candidates and catechumens. They pray and then they vote whether the person will receive the sacraments that year at Easter or give them another year. Some of the people who are rejected will quit some will go on another year.

The RCIA was a program that was to last at least four years. it was a discernment process not a ticket punching process.

The way it has evolved is a shake and bake go through a 4 month process and get dipped in water.

I find it fascinating that you tell us what RCIA is supposed to be.  We tell you what it actually is and you condemn us for twisting what it is.  Then, here, you tell us that it has evolved into exactly what we told you it was.

I'm saying that RCIA is not Catholic.  And, frankly, I find it disgusting that you vote on whether or not to allow baptism or, more likely, reception into the church since the Conciliar sect accepts virtually all baptisms unequivocally.  This is collegiality at its worst.  I've heard too many horror stories (first hand accounts from friends) about what goes on at these RCIA meetings and you're just adding fuel to the fire--and that is the fire of hell.

The RCIA is a make-work program to give the laity a sense that they are involved and actively participating in parish life.  It is not really about the conversion of souls which the Conciliar sect finds anathema.  They want members, not true converts.  

Everything you describe reminds me of the "Disciples in Mission" program--the last such program I participated in before escaping from the Novus Ordo.  Disciples in Mission was a program purportedly designed to help the "faithful" in the "New Evangelization" while all it really is is a forum for small groups to get together and discuss various "faith matters" with no guidance and relate those issues to various scripture passages.  Half way through the process I asked the "facilitator" when we were going to start talking about evangelization and he replied that we weren't.  He was confused too.  I've come to realize that the purpose was not to teach us to evangelize but to evangelize people in the Novus Ordo sect who still had a modicuм of the Catholic Faith left into the New Conciliar religion.