23

Dans le contexte actuel, en Angleterre, la demande de baptêmes d’enfants en âge de catéchisme est grandissante, les parents n’ayant pas toujours été eux-mêmes baptisés ou catéchisés. Caroline Dollard relate dans cet article l’expérience pastorale qu’elle fait auprès de ces familles, notamment pour leur révéler leur rôle de premières éducatrices de la foi.

In the present context in England, there is a growing number of requests for baptism of children of catechetical age, since often the parents themselves have not been not baptised or catechized. In this article, Caroline Dollard describes her pastoral experience with such families in a process aimed at showing them their role as the prime educators in the faith. To this end she has used as her model and source of inspiration the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, for children of this age are initiated according to the same stages as those used for adults. These are children who are capable of a personal faith, even though the influence of their families is still considerable. The implementation of a catechumenal process with these families is intended first of all to reveal to them that God is present at the heart of their concrete life situation and that their lives “manifest the living presence of Christ”. This process also allows for the participation of the parents, enabling them to feel that they belong to a wider community, the Church as the Body of Christ. The approach presented here takes stock of a veritable paradigm shift, far from a model that reserves faith education to specialists in schools or parishes. It involves moving towards a model that enables families to grow in faith precisely at the heart of their family life. The author describes an experiment initiated in three dioceses by the Marriage and Family Life Project Office of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. The experiment involved listening to families, teachers and principals of Catholic schools, as well as to the clergy and catechists in the parishes, on the question of evangelization and catechesis through a partnership of home, school and parish. It should be noted that it is important to recognize and trust the domestic dimension of the Church, which lives by the rhythm of the daily life of a family rather than separating children and parents for religious education. The article thus encourages us to imagine and make possible a catechesis of initiation that is truly family-centred.