Interested in Becoming Catholic?
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (the RCIA) is the process through which adults from other faith traditions can join the Catholic Church. It is also designed for lifelong Catholics who have never received their First Communion or the Sacrament of Confirmation.

St. Vincent’s will be gathering a new group of men and women to begin this process in early October. If you are interested in finding out more about the RCIA, please contact Mary McCain at mccainmary@hotmail.com, or, if you do not have access to email, call the Parish Center at 773/325-8610.

If you wish to become Catholic and are divorced, or if you are married or engaged to someone with a previous marriage, please contact Mary McCain at 773/325-8610 immediately to discuss your situation. Depending on your situation, you may be affected by an October 1st deadline — before our sessions officially begin — so it is important that you contact the parish as soon as possible.

Introduction
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which is better known as RCIA, is a process designed for two different groups of people: (1) adults who are not Catholic and would like to join the Catholic Church, and (2) adults who were baptized Catholic but have not yet made their First Communion and have not been confirmed.

The Catholic Church welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds into the RCIA process. Different parishes organize this process in slightly different ways. At St. Vincent’s, the class members meet on Sundays beginning in late September or early October (more on that in a moment). Those who decide after the first several weeks of the process that they do, in fact, wish to become Catholic will be formally brought into the Church on Holy Saturday (the night before Easter), at the Easter Vigil. To be considered a "fully initiated," or adult, Catholic, a person needs to have been baptized, to have made his or her First Communion in the Catholic Church, and to have received the Sacrament of Confirmation. At the Easter Vigil, members of the RCIA group receive whichever among these three sacraments that they need to complete their initiation. They are then considered full-fledged members of the Church.

How the process works
Here at St. Vincent’s, our RCIA group meets on Sundays between 11:15 AM and 1 PM, from early autumn until Easter weekend.  RCIA members are strongly encouraged to begin attending St. Vincent’s 10 AM Mass in October; they will be required to do so beginning in January.

During the sessions, we hear presentations on topics like the Bible, the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, prayer, Church history, the liturgical year, social justice and service issues, and the Mass. The speakers welcome questions, and the parish staff is always available to answer questions as well. We love questions -- even the tough ones! We want to provide you with all the information you need to make an informed decision -- and one that you’re comfortable making -- about whether or not you truly wish to join the Catholic Church. If, after you’ve asked some questions and done some reflecting, you realize that this is not the right faith for you, we will certainly wish you well as you continue your journey along another path.

The RCIA process, in fact, is specifically designed to help adults make informed decisions about their faith. The first half of the process is called the "Inquiry Phase" to emphasize the invitation to members of the group to ask questions. 

Those who wish to continue then move into the "Catechumenate Phase," a phase with a weird name but not (we hope) with weird sessions! In the Catechumenate Phase, the RCIA teams seeks to make sure that each person understands the nature of the commitment they are about to make and the particular sacraments that they will receive at the Easter Vigil.

People often ask what will happen if they have to miss a session. The answer is that we hope you will make every effort to attend every session, but that we certainly understand that other aspects of your life are important, too, and may require you to be elsewhere on a Sunday. A person who misses two sessions in a row will probably get a telephone call, but attendance issues rarely present an insurmountable problem. The RCIA coordinator will be happy to meet with people who miss sessions and would like a follow-up meeting to "catch up" with the rest of the group. On the other hand, we ask that class members not see this flexibility as an invitation to make a habit of missing sessions. If we believe we see signs that someone is not honestly committed to the process, for example, we might ask them to consider whether they really feel that this is a good time for them to be involved in RCIA.

Other things you might want to know
There is no fee for the class. 

Everyone who receives the Sacrament of Confirmation needs a sponsor. A sponsor is simply a Catholic adult who has already been confirmed and who agrees to support you as you prepare for Confirmation. Ideally, you and your sponsor will continue that relationship even after Easter. If you do not know anyone who could serve as your sponsor, we will be happy to arrange one for you. On the other hand, you are very welcome to invite a friend to be your sponsor, although your spouse or significant other cannot play this role. Of course, spouses and significant others are extremely important to this process - that person may be the reason you wanted to join the Catholic Church in the first place! We definitely recognize this and welcome their participation in any of the sessions they choose to attend. 

Asking you to select a different person to be your sponsor, however, has both a theoretical and a practical value. The theoretical aspect reminds you, and the Church as a whole, that your entry into the Church links to you a community that at present has about 1 billion members. In other words, becoming Catholic is not just a private matter between you and your loved one; it is also a public gesture on your part that imposes certain responsibilities on the broader community. On the more practical side, choosing a sponsor with whom you are not romantically involved offers you another outlet for questions and another source of support. For many different reasons, the decision for one partner to join the faith of the other partner can sometimes be challenging for the partner joining the Church. Talking to a disinterested third party can lend perspective to issues and might even help diffuse some tension. Sponsors come into the picture in December, though if you already have someone in mind and he or she would like to join you at sessions in the fall, that would be great! If you have questions about sponsors, please let us know.

Generally speaking, a person who has already been baptized in a Christian faith tradition will receive only their First Communion and their Confirmation through the RCIA process. This is because the Catholic Church accepts many other churches’ baptisms. If you have never been baptized, however, or if you were baptized in a denomination that does not use what’s called the "Trinitarian formula" for baptisms, you will be baptized at the Easter Vigil. There are usually 10 or 12 people who fall into this category in our parish. If you’re uncertain about your baptism, just ask us.

If you are getting married, you may have questions about Catholic marriage ceremonies. Often even lifelong Catholics are confused (sometimes without realizing it!) about wedding ceremonies in a Catholic church when one member of the couple is not Catholic. If we can help explain this to you, we would be happy to do so.

If you have other questions, please do not hesitate to call the parish center at (773) 325-8610. Or e-mail mccainmary@hotmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!