Correlation between religious instruction and parish catechesis in the contemporary discourse of Polish catechists

Abstract

In the catechetical activity of the Church conducted among children and adolescents, a significant place is given to integrity. This is the reason why in the academic discourse Polish researchers focus not only on the transfer of knowledge and education, but also on mystagogy. Taking into account social, cultural and religious transformations, they rightly consider the correlation between religious instruction and parish catechesis to be important. The researchers unanimously claim that the crisis of the traditional Christian initiation model, which is manifested, among others, in the crisis of Christian initiation in the family, in the crisis of sacramental pastoral care and in the didacticism of religious instruction at school implies the need to particularly emphasize the value of the complementary function performed by catechesis in the Church service. This requires placing an emphasis on evangelization in religious instruction and the mystagogic and community dimension of parish catechesis, with family catechumenate playing an indispensable role. The above-mentioned issues are often undertaken by Polish catechists. A deepened reflection seems to be even more urgent in contemporary times, in the context of dynamically progressing secularization and dechristianization. Therefore, it should be examined from the perspective of soundly conducted pastoral diagnosis to develop new strategies on this basis for correlating religious instruction with parish catechesis.