THE NEO-CATECHUMENAL PATH
:A lived parochial
Text of 1991, written by a group of parishioners of Paul's parish St. Vincent in NIORT.
It is about, by these few lines to analyze how, following a catéchèse proposed to the set of a parish, a group constituted itself, adopting the "path neocatechumenal" as essential manner to live his/her/its Christian faith.
	D'une leaves, we will carry a partial lighting on the teaching of the nc and a few more precise on the requirements of life of his/her/its members.
	Nous essayerons to see also how this group was located within the parish and what was the priest's role.
	Apres 4 years of common life and a lot of vicissitudes we will watch what are the problems poses by a parish to "two speeds" (Mgr Brand, archbishop of Strasbourg,)
I Presentation of the parish
	C'est at the time of one door-to-door done by animators of the path by the presbyteries that the priest of the parish was excited by a path of conversion to propose to the set of his/her/its parish.
	Cette parish of about 3000 people on the outskirts of the center city, whose dominical cult unites about about hundred people in what is called the church, but paid by others as a chapel.
	La characteristic of this parish, once supplementary of a big parish of the center city, it is that she/it is enlivened by a group of Christian having largely of the important responsibilities in different movements and services of church (QCFG, chaplaincy of the public teaching, CCFD, catéchèse, committee inter parochial of management, together parish of the city, equip our lady, society Vincent st of Paul, marriage meets, local pilgrimages, movement of health, Catholic help, hope and life, etc..) and that maintain a real tradition of welcome, easiness probably by the size of the parish.
	L'ensemble of these people meet once around the priest per month. It is not about a pastoral advice but rather of a parochial advice that takes in charge, alternatively the liturgical animation, that tries to be had the monitoring of this district and to create a certain parochial dynamism. He/it includes an important masculine population.
Presentation of the catéchèse of the path to the parochial advice
	C'est during one these meetings that the priest made this proposition, supported by the presence of 4 people of the path.
- the main animator and his/her/its wife
It is the first time that the advice heard to speak of the path.
After having given each their testimony of conversion and what they had brought the path, they propose this catéchèse whose goal is to make relive the stages of the baptism, that would be revived thus.
	Cette stage would return the set of the parish carrier of a light, deeply missionary within the one here and in the district.
	L'animateur leave from a negative report of the parish; superficial relations, inexistent testimonies of faith, ageing of the churchgoers, absence of youngsters, numerous divorced persons,.
	Ce report appeared a little absurd because, although imperfect, the parish didn't know any particular difficulties. The Christian were known like such and one knew how to find them to evoke the catéchèse, the funerals, the sufferings, etc..
	Mais certainly, would have - can she/it be a veil on the eyes? It was necessary to clear itself of a routine that had broken the impetus and the dynamism of the 1eres Christian communities.
How was it going to take place?
	Les parishioners were invited 2 evenings per week in the church to follow a catéchèse.
On the other hand, it was necessary to contact a maximum of people distant of the church and for it to distribute some invitations in them limps to the letters. This catéchèse would last 2 months.
	Le advice tried well of in to know more. Who were they? From where did they come?
A gait catéchuménale that had taken his/her/its source in Madrid, that had allowed many poor people to convert (especially of the gypsies), on the initiative of a layman nicknamed "kiko" but of his/her/its true name Francisco Argüello.
Many bishops sustained this gait, calling on catechists of the path.
And the bishop of our diocese agreed (the advice knew later than the priest had met effectively with the animator the diocesan persons responsible for information, but q'aucune explicit authorization had not been given).
	
	Il are called on the confidence. Can one require all to know and all to master in the beginning of a catéchèse? It is necessary to accept to let itself/themselves disturb.
	Une part of the advice is ill at ease and feels that it would be necessary to nurture this proposition, to adapt can be it, there to see clearer.
But the time is counted, the catéchèse must begin the following week; it is necessary to find a lodging for the animators.
The priest puts in play his/her/its function, and all his/her/its pastoral and emotional weight: a refusal would be a disavowal, a trustworthy absence. And the catéchèse began.
II The catéchèse
	L'ensemble of the parochial advice and other guests participated in this catéchèse. She/it regrouped about fifty people in the beginning.
In the lines that follow, the sentences are extracted in inverted commas of family's article Christian n° 682 of February 7, 1991 on the path neocatechumenal.
The conversion time is lived in three stages.
To The announcement of the kérygme
"One calls there with strength to convert to the suffering Lord, path of the truth and happiness offered the man in the name of jésus".
It is a phase of a big tension where each is invited to express his/her/its deep and intimate suffering, followed of a renouncement to the pain.
It is not about taking concretely in account these sufferings, but to put back them to the Lord in a total and confident abandonment to his/her/its will. During one these meetings, the participants receive the Bible.
Then one invites them to seal their conversion in the sacrament of the penitence and the reconciliation like a second baptism.
This time lasts 2 months at the rate of 2 meetings per week. A certain number of participants quit with the progression of this stage because they were shocked by the impossibility to converse, to emit the reserves, to express a disagreement.
The absence to one these meetings were tolerated badly by the animators whom there saw carelessness and inconsistency.
B Phase catéchétique strictly speaking
	 "those that accept to pursue this interior work of conversion regroup then in community."
	Cette community constructs itself at the time of a convivence the time of one weekend and chooses itself 2 persons responsible. Then the community meets 2 times per week.
To tower of role, about once per month when the community is numerous, a ten of people prepare the celebration of the speech. A theme is chosen for it (water, the rock.) and one searches for in the biblical theology vocabulary the references written down under this theme.
All references are read and are classified in 5 categories: former will, the law, the prophets, acts, and gospels. Are chosen then among them, 4 texts that will be read during the celebration of the speech,; the participants prepare the presentation of these texts to the other members of the community.
	Au courses of the celebration of the speech, at the end of the reading of the texts, each is invited to "express how the Lord, through this speech that it gave us, acts concretely today in our lives."
"Sélèvent then actions of grace, confessions of interior struggles, temptations and falls, brotherly demands of prayer".
Follows the homily of the presbytre that makes the synthesis while leaning on lived it of each.
The celebration often ends by a song to Marie.
	Les takedown times that take place another evening that the one of the celebration of the speech, are often long (4 at 5 o'clock, because of the multiplicity of the references to take in account).
	Pour the celebration eucharistique, the path to a ritual that is clean to him and that to been recognized by the Roman community for the divine cult in December 1988.(In fact the only authorization that has been granted to the NC according to the Declaration of the Roman Community of the 19-12-1988 is to receive communion under the two cash and to place, "ad experimentum", the ritual of the peace after the universal prayer. No other authorization has been given. For example, the NC use to entrench the Gloria, the Creed and the Agnus dei of the celebrations eucharistiques has not been allowed by the Community. He/it is not therefore exactly of the to say that the NC ritual "has been recognized by the Roman community for the divine cult in December 1988." The parishioners of St.-Vincent-Of-Paul in Niort probably believed merely what one told to them and have been deceived. Already in 1981, members of the NC had affirmed to me that the NC had gotten the authorizations to celebrate the liturgy eucharistique of the manner of which one made it in the NC, for example, while entrenching the Creed, the Agnus dei and the Gloria. I had gone then to the Community of the divine Cult to verify. The Community had answered to me that, "the affirmation that the Holy See, either by our Community is by the one of the divine Cult, would have conceded to the neo-catéchuménales communities the permission to omit some texts of the plain of the Mass (Gloria, Creed, Agnus dei) is absolutely free and deprived of all foundation.", note of Michel Fauteux)
Some features :
Every month, the whole community meets the week end in a convivence that includes :
Saturday after noon :
Sunday :
The sacrament of reconciliation is proposed inevitably every month.
The mission
This stage of the hard catéchèse about 9 years. At the end of the one some members enter here, into the mission that intends to cause the creation of other communities néocatéchuménales :
72 families in December 1988
about hundred January 3, 1991
These catechists "answer the call of bishops of Africa (rating of ivory and Cameroon), of Asia (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan), of Australia, Latin America and the United States but also of East Europe and Soviet Union."
	Il are not anything says the financing of these families catechists that seems to be sustained by their community of origin.
The local experience shows that they have first been taken then here in charge by the parish the time of the phase kerygmatique by the community in the beginning of the one.
&#For 9;Il are asked all members to participate in the purchase of liturgical objects (chalice, ciborium, cross, ornaments of value), of elements of decoration (carpets and bouquets of consequent flowers for the celebrations), but also to the journeys of formation of the persons responsible.
	Une financial gene has been expressed by members for which the asked contribution was heavy in relation to their budget.
II The different viewpoints
To the priest's side, founding of the community, the path is a place of deepening that puts in coincidence the community, the teaching, the celebrations.
His/her/its wish: to allow the parish to achieve this place of unit and mission.
He/it is difficult to him to live juxtaposed 2 places: the impetus and the unit of the path on the one hand, the diversity and the daily of the parish on the other hand.
The path is for it privileged place and probably the parish place of failure.
The valorization of the role of the presbytre in the path allowed him of himself resituer to the level of his/her/its function and probably of his/her/its person in a group that recognized it more explicitly and more symbolically (armchair, ornaments, references.) as the shepherd.
B of the side of the members of the path, it is the rediscovery of the flavor of the first Christian communities.
Lived them, their dynamism immediately puts them aside from the parish.
They are the picture of an ideal parish.
He/it is difficult to them to understand that the other members of the parish don't join them in this ideal. This dismissal, this opposition dealt with them like a refusal of désappropriation of a certain power within the parish.
C of the side of the other members of the parish, him there to those that abandoned the catéchèse quickly when they became aware of irregularities, to know, :
The essential being to make itself/themselves drive submissively.
Him there to those that left it by internal disagreement, by uneasiness, after having followed the path one or several years or by difficulty to follow the imperative of the schedule. Those are here in general very discreet on their departure.
	Pour all, the departure to painful summer either because of the division within the parish, either by aggressiveness and the verbal violence of which one gives proof the animators to their against, either by the impossibility to keep with the other members of the path, a friendly relation, either by the impression to lose something that helped them in their faith and that had been an enriching experience.
	Par their departure, they excluded themselves them even of the community, of where for some a real guilt to return to a lived of "plain" faith; depreciated.
	Cette depreciation was flagrant for all.
The homilies, but also the relations privileged between the priest and the members of the path, without forgetting their alternatively presence to the dominical eucharistie "by love", constantly reminded it.
	Devant this difficult situation, about twenty people, at the time of a meeting at an individual tried to specify in writing and individually what posed problem in the relation in the path.
The essential of the uneasiness articulated around the priest's too exclusive role. The ideal picture that the path sent back was supported badly, but his/her/its presence especially weighed in the fact that it didn't play the transparency, that would have permitted a discernment.
	3 among them among the most weighted and most diplomatic, met, at the end of this meeting the priest to explain the difficulties.
The answer was that the community of the path was currently the most important for the parish. He/it didn't see some what the other were wronged.
D of the side of the new priest charged of the parish, although knowing the existence of the path, he had not discerned the difficulties under ownerless. He/it only knew that the bishop didn't wish that he comes with the community of the path.
The departure of the presbytre, named in another parish of the diocese brought the set of the priests of the zone to answer the demand of the path: a priest for their eucharisties.
One of them began for a Mass per month, but without accompaniment. The one was assured here by a priest teaching and pensioner. But very quickly a conflict emerges between the community and the one here.
The structural ties between the presbytre and his/her/its community maintained themselves of fact (convivences, eucharistie).
The worries of the new priest were: "not to break the shack" but also not to maintain the ascendancy of the path on the parish.
The persons responsible of the path are currently present to the parochial advice. A statute quo got settled that is not without mutual suspicions.
IV A parish to two speeds?
	Le big problem put by the path in this parish was the presence of a community presenting itself/themselves like ideal in his/her/its working.
This place within a parochial community puts of it. uvre a parish has 2 speeds (preoccupation expressed by Mgr BRAND, that worries about a setting to part and of a multilevel pastorale.)
	D'une leaves a community with his/her/its own rules, his/her/its own celebrations, and whose finality is to encourage the other parishioners to join them, by successive catéchèses within the parish.
	Les children of the community of the path receive the sacraments (baptism, 1ere communion) inside the path and no in the parish.
	D'autre leaves, the other members, private in part of the dynamism of people that joined the path have to manage the daily of a parish of which the welcome to the most distant of the church with their sacramental demand and their episodic practice.
They must justify their refusal besides to participate at the path.
	L'engagement to the Path, with in particular, the hourly constraints, is as his/her/its members see themselves obligated to decrease to suppress their availability or even to the other movements and services in the church (catéchèses, liturgy.) especially as these members see tepidness and ambiguousness there only.
	L'enrichissement potential of such a community doesn't rebound in fact on the parish. (celebration closed eucharistique to the non members of the Path, interdiction to use and to reveal specific songs in the Path as well as the liturgical practices) and in a certain manner impoverishes it even if the priest is less available and less motivated by the whole parish.
	Le path is a place closed in the sense where it doesn't take in account the realities of the parish. The mission is discerned as the recognition sometimes exclusive of the path like place of conversion.
In parochial advice, in spite of repeated demands, he/it had there to no moment of the bottom discussions on the path-parish reports.
Concerning the liturgy for example, this discussion would have can be been able to be the place of a deepening, of a reflection on our dominical liturgies.
	Il are true that a big number of members of the board parochial being active in other services, are not completely available to enter into the liturgy. There is not person responsible of the liturgy, but at the same time, my multiplicity of the actors (about about ten groups or couples) permit various expressions.
	Cet deepening could also have concerned: how can one be missionary in the parish?
But the pre-eminence of the path led the depreciation of everything that was undertaken "out path."
This situation was painful because it was difficult to fear the specificity, the qualities of the path that would have helped the other parishioners.
Many had the attempt to leave the parish to live a more serene relation.
Finally, no one left, anxious that a voice another one that the one of the path was sensible, remaining attentive to those that would leave of the path, to those that don't understand what happened in the parish, but as anxious to maintain the unit of the parochial community.
Conclusion
	La nomination of a new priest pacified the parish, balancing the different sensitivities. However, the problems of bottom put by the path néocatéchuménal remain :
