A few days ago, Pope Francis announced the creation of the ministry of the Catechist to be instituted with the publication of the Apostolic Letter in the form of a "Motu proprio". Antiquum ministerium.
The need for evangelization in our society is as pressing today as it was in the first centuries. The realization of this reality led the priest José Antonio Abad, together with Pedro de la Herrán and a group of authors, to produce a series of catechumenal materials conceived as complementary material to the official catechism of the Spanish Episcopal Conference "Jesus is Lord". In fact, these materials have counted on the supervision of Msgr. José Rico PavésAuxiliary Bishop of Getafe and responsible in the EEC for the area of Catechumenate.
In this interview with Omnes, José Antonio Abad reviews the importance and work of those responsible for diocesan catechesis and the unavoidable task of first proclamation in a society far removed from the Christian humus.
How long were you in charge of the diocesan delegation of the Catechumenate in the diocese of Burgos?
In 2007, the catechumenate began in the diocese in its two modalities: adults properly speaking - adults of age - and children of catechetical age, and a Secretariat was created, of which I was appointed director and which I directed until a few months ago.
How would you describe the task of the diocesan catechetical director, do you think this figure is known?
I believe that the general public, that is, the People of God of the dioceses, is still unaware of this new pastoral figure. Among the clergy, it is known and they value the recovery of this pastoral.
As for the tasks of the diocesan leader, they are, above all, to support the work of the parish priests in the promotion and formation of the catechumens and, if necessary, to make up for what they cannot do at the parish level.
Priests know that the task of "making new Christians" is inextricably linked to their parish community. Because a family in which there are only deaths and no new children is slowly but inexorably dying out. At present, it is evident that there are many more "absentees" than new members.
In Spain, for example, we have gone from a "Christian" society to a society in which almost half of the children are not baptized at an early age.
It is clear to no one that we are no longer in a society of Christianity. The panorama that has opened up for us is that of the clear and explicit proclamation of Jesus Christ and that of making disciples of him to so many adults and children of catechetical age who are not baptized.
In this sense, it does not seem risky to think that this tendency will grow. It is enough to think of the religious practice of the new generations, from the age of fifty downwards, of the situation of marriages and of the ethical and anthropological deterioration of ever larger sectors of the population....
But this panorama is not something terrible and desolate but an opportunity given to us by Divine Providence to carry out a new evangelization in depth. When Pope Francis insists that "we are not in a time of change but in a change of epoch", he indicates that the time has come to move from a pastoral ministry of conservation to a radically missionary one. From a Church "of bishops, priests and religious" to one of the people of God, in which all the baptized are witnesses of Jesus Christ through their ordinary life. It is the hour of the "saints next door".
