Becoming Catholic

…To those who are seeking

A greater insight into the Catholic Faith and Church
A deeper relationship with God
A sense of belonging in a faith community
A greater fulfillment of your mission in life
To join the Catholic Church . . .

You are invited to join the Catholic Church through a Christian initiation process called OCIA (formally known as RCIA, for more information on this please see below).

The Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA) is a faith journey for those desiring to enter the Catholic Church or for those who wish to complete their initiation into the Church. A person is said to be fully initiated in the Catholic Church when s/he has received the three sacraments of Christian initiation, Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist.

When being initiated into the Church, a OCIA group is formed to guide you along the journey to Baptism and full membership into the Catholic Church. This process takes into consideration whether one is baptized in another faith tradition or unbaptized. It helps us look at each person’s religious experience and spiritual needs.

There are two main parts of the OCIA process:

Inquiry: During this step, questions are answered and a person is introduced to the Catholic faith tradition. All questions are valued and worthy of a response! If and when a person is comfortable with proceeding to becoming Catholic, then the Rites can begin.
Rites: During this second step, the whole community prays with and supports the person as he or she continues and deepens their conversion in faith.

If you, or anyone you know, is interested in becoming Catholic, please contact: Sheri Hanson, Pastoral Associate (262) 375-6500 Ext. 175 shanson@stjosephgrafton.org

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has decided to change the name of the process by which individuals enter the Catholic Church

The Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, or RCIA, as it has been more commonly referred to, will have its name changed to Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, or OCIA, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decided in November 2021.

The name change applies both to the process by which one enters the Church and the book that contains the ritual text and prayers for those steps.

Following the trend of updating all liturgical texts to reflect greater fidelity to the original Latin, the U.S. bishops, meeting in Baltimore for their annual fall assembly, approved on Nov. 17 a revised English edition of the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. The English version passed 215-0 with two abstentions.

On May 7, 2001, Pope John Paul II published Liturgiam authenticam, a document on the use of vernacular languages in the publication of the books of the Roman Liturgy. This document set in motion a translation effort aimed at preserving the closest wording of the Latin liturgy. People in the pews may be most familiar with the way this effort affected the translation of the Mass.

Book by book, the bishops conferences of each language have translated updated versions of the various rites in the Church, renaming the Rite of Penance to the Order of Penance, for instance, after the Latin “Ordo paenitentiae.”

This is the latest book to undergo the translation effort. Because RCIA was also the name popularly associated with the process of going through the restored catechumenate, the process also has been renamed, a potentially confusing switch that may leave people wondering if anything else changed within the process.

In a slight revision, the traditional categorization of those petitioning for full acceptance into the Church has been changed. The new revision includes four groups: catechumens (who are unbaptized adults); unbaptized infants; baptized non-Catholic Christians, and baptized Catholics in need of confirmation.