UNDERSTANDING CATECHETICAL PARADIGMS

Abstract

The catechesis, especially after Protestant Reformation, was conducted by paradigms that emerged from the needs of each age. With the Protestant Schism, the catholic faith had seen itself impelled to develop a catechesis able to assert its identity (Christian-Catholic) compared to the emergence and growth of the Protestant Church. The doctrinal catechesis arises, based in catechisms (first paradigm). This will be shaken by the advent of Modern Philosophy reason, which brings with it new demands. In front of these demands, emerges a new catechetical paradigm (second paradigm) which, seeking to answer the desires of Modern man, no longer starts from the doctrine, but from the existential concreteness of subjects. However, none of these paradigms, already consolidated, seems sufficient to answer the catechesis needs for the demands of contemporary man. Thus arose the third catechetical paradigm, still under construction, which seeks a return to the “original faith” pedagogy, the initiation and proposal pedagogy, able to provide a personal experience of the Risen One, transforming the lives and actions of contemporary individuals and their communities.