Liturgical features of the Neocatechumenal Way movement in the context of integration into the structure of the Roman Catholic Church

Abstract

The Neocatechumenal Way (Neocatechumenate) is a movement that emerged within the Roman Catholic Church during the Second Vatican Council. Its main mission is to bring into the Church baptised persons who, for various reasons, are distant from the life of the Church. Because of its liturgical peculiarities, the Catholic movement has received mixed reviews from scholars. On the one hand, Western theologians have been positive about the activities of the Neocatechumenal Way, especially in terms of the results of ecclesialisation. On the other hand, some researchers and representatives of the church hierarchy and clergy reacted negatively to the closed nature of the church communities, the sacramentology and the practices of churching. The article attempts to identify and analyse the liturgical characteristics of the Neocatechumenal Way and their role in the process of integrating the movement into the structure of the Roman Catholic Church. In order to achieve this, the author has examined a number of sources that provide insights into the specifics of the Neocatechumenal worship. The central question addressed in the article is why the Catholic hierarchy refused to accept the liturgical particularities of the movement, despite its general recognition as a legitimate way of being church. The author suggests that the leaders of the movement based their liturgical practices on the theological concept of “communion” — a central ecclesiological idea of the Second Vatican Council — and sought to renew parish life. In the process of reform, however, the movement rejected a significant part of the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgical heritage and challenged the institutional form of the Eucharistic community.