Edited by Donna Orsuto and David Dawson Vásquez

2025 | 232 p. | ISBN: 978-88-7288-241-2

 This book is about catechists: those who teach and strengthen others in the Christian faith. Since the beginning of the Church, lay people have taught and supported their fellow Christians in their faith journey. In our day, many give of their time to help with catechesis in the parish. While most do this for a few hours a week, some give their whole lives to this project, becoming fulltime catechists in the parish, Catholic school, or diocese or serving as leaders of faith formation. 

 In 2021, Pope Francis officially established the Ministry of Catechist as a recognized lay ministry in the Church, with its own rite of commissioning, in his motu proprio Antiquum Ministerium. In July 2023, The Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas and Immaculate Conception Seminary and School of Theology, Seton Hall University, sponsored a symposium in Rome to reflect on the role of catechists in the Catholic Church. Here we present to the wider public the valuable insights that emerged from this symposium. 

 Within, there are voices from across the Church and around the world, including ecumenical insights. Cardinal Giorgio Marengo discusses catechesis in Mongolia; Archbishop Vittorio Viola shares the Vatican perspective; Archbishop Mark O’Toole offers a perspective from the United Kingdom; and Sister Albertine Ilunga Nkulu describes the catechist program in Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lay leaders share their perspectives from contexts as far apart as Mexico and Pakistan. Challenges and benefits from today’s culture are also discussed, from the new perspectives of the digital age to business perspectives, the domestic church, and the contribution of synodality. We hear Anglican and Methodist recommendations. Finally, some thoughts on the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul bring the book to a close. Each section concludes with reflection questions that can be used either alone or in a parish study group. All who teach in the Church, especially professional catechists and those who support them, will benefit from the essays presented here. 

 Our participants in the symposium that gave birth to this book found the experience personally transformational and provocative of a renewed missionary élan in the face of our challenging times. Read here the diverse presentations that propelled our pilgrims upon their return home into myriad ministerial settings with new awareness, creativity and zeal for mission, imbuing catechesis with evangelical spirit. – Rev. Msgr. Gerard H. McCarren, STD, Rector/Dean, Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, Seton Hall University.