The Neocatechumenal Way

In the early Church, those who wanted to become christians had to go through a initiation process called "catechumenate". This was a journey of stages in preparation for baptism. Today, the ongoing process of secularisation has led many people to abandon the Church and their faith. There is therefore a renewed need for a path of Christian education.

The Neocatechumenal Way is neither a "movement" nor a "congregation", but an instrument at the service of the Bishop in the parishes to help those who have lost their faith.

The "Way" was started in the early 1960s in a Madrid slum by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernandez and encouraged by the then Archbishop of Madrid, mons. Casimiro Morcillo, who saw in that first community a practical realization of what the Vatican II Council was proposing for the Church.

Seeing the positive experience of the Church of Madrid, the Congregation for the Liturgy and the Sacraments in 1974 named the experience "The Neocatechumenal Way".

It is a road of conversion, where the richness of the Gospel can be rediscovered. Over the years, the Way has expanded to more than 900 dioceses and 105 countries, and there are more than 20,000 communities in 6,000 parishes.