Opening the "Door of Faith": US Bishops Announce Plans for Year of Faith

Although in my area any professional parish catechetical leaders worth their salt have already planned and announced their line-up of adult faith formation activities for the upcoming catechetical year, and DRE's have already published calendars for child/family activities, the USCCB yesterday finally unveiled its campaign.  Our diocese, like most, has a committee, but as yet no guidelines or suggestions for parishes (probably because they were waiting for the USCCB), so up until now, savvy leaders have had to rely on the original Vatican guidelines.

Yesterday's resources announced by the USCCB are

• An online searchable edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (find it HERE)
• An announcement of plans and a theme, based on the "door of faith" (find it HERE)
• A new resource page on the USCCB site (find it HERE)

Here is what they had to say about "the door of faith" (which comes from the title of Pope Benedict's October 2011 motu proprio entitled Porta fidei  in which he declared the Year of Faith :

“The central image of the Year of Faith is the ‘door of faith’ based on Acts of the Apostles,” said Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, in his presentation to the bishops. “The ‘door of faith’ is opened at one’s baptism, but during this year we are called to open it again, walk though it and rediscover and renew our relationship with Christ and his Church.”

OK, we have their wisdom. Now, parish leaders need to re-focus their plans for next year or find ways to tie already-scheduled events in to this theme.