The path the Church offers adults

OCIA stands for the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. You may have heard it called RCIA, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. The English-speaking Church is gradually adopting the new translation, and you will hear both names used in Shrewsbury parishes for some time yet. The diocesan welcome page still uses RCIA, while the formal liturgical books are being updated to OCIA. Whichever name your parish uses, the path is the same.

OCIA is how the Church accompanies an adult who is preparing to be baptised, or who was baptised in another Christian tradition and is being received into full communion. It is also for baptised Catholics who never received Confirmation or First Holy Communion as children and want to complete the sacraments of initiation now.

It is not a course in the academic sense. It is closer to an apprenticeship. You learn the faith by living it inside a parish, with people who love it.

The four stages

The Church sets OCIA out in four stages, each with its own quality and pace.

1. Inquiry. The first conversations. You meet the priest or the OCIA team, you ask questions, you read a little, you come to Mass. There is no commitment yet. The Church calls this period the precatechumenate. It can last a few weeks or several months. The point is honesty: do you want to take the next step?
2. Catechumenate. Once you ask to go further, you are formally enrolled as a catechumen. You begin to learn the faith in depth, walking through the Creed, the sacraments, the moral life and prayer. Most parishes meet weekly for the better part of a year. You attend Sunday Mass and are dismissed after the homily to reflect on the readings, returning later for the Liturgy of the Eucharist once you are baptised.
3. Purification and Enlightenment. This is Lent. After the Rite of Election at the Cathedral on the First Sunday of Lent, you are no longer a catechumen but one of the elect. The forty days are given to prayer, fasting and the scrutinies, three special rites at Sunday Mass that ask the Lord to free you from anything that holds you back from him.
4. Mystagogy. The Easter season and the year that follows. Mystagogy is a Greek word meaning the unfolding of the mysteries. You have received Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist at the Easter Vigil. Now you live them.

How OCIA runs in a Shrewsbury parish

OCIA is administered from the diocesan offices alongside the Certificate in Catechesis and Religious Studies, with the Mission Secretary working with Father Michael Coughlan as course coordinator. Enquiries from parishes route to the diocesan office.

Each parish runs OCIA slightly differently. A larger parish may have a team of catechists meeting a group of ten or twelve candidates each week. A smaller parish may run it one to one with the parish priest. Some parishes hold sessions on a weeknight evening; others wrap them around Sunday Mass. Whichever shape it takes, the heart is the same: the Mass, the Scriptures, the Catechism, and a community walking with you.

What the Bishop expects of every Catholic

OCIA does not only form the candidate. It also forms the parish. Bishop Davies has been clear that the surge of converts is a gift to the existing community, and that every Catholic shares responsibility for the welcome.

It is by striving to live our own conversion that we can best support a new generation of converts. For Lent calls us to recognise that every member of the Church must always be a convert.

Bishop Mark Davies, Pastoral Letter for Lent 2026.

The 171 candidates who attended the 2026 Rite of Election at the Cathedral, drawn from 31 parishes, did not arrive on their own. Each was carried by an OCIA team, a sponsor or godparent, and a parish that prayed for them. In 2025 there were 100; in 2024, 82.

What the Catechism says

The Catechism describes the catechumenate as a unique time, not a mere preliminary. "The catechumenate, or formation of catechumens, aims at bringing their conversion and faith to maturity, in response to the divine initiative and in union with an ecclesial community" (CCC 1248). Saint Paul wrote to the Romans that we are "buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). OCIA is the Church teaching you how to walk in that newness.

How to begin

The first step is the same one Bishop Davies recommends on the diocesan welcome page: speak to your local parish priest. Tell him you would like to enquire about OCIA. He will know what to do next.

• Find your nearest parish at catholicshrewsbury.com/find/parishes.
• If your parish does not currently run an OCIA group, the diocesan office will help. Email Natalie Orefice at Natalie.orefice@dioceseofshrewsbury.org.
• If you are unsure whether OCIA is right for you, simply attend Sunday Mass at Shrewsbury Cathedral or your nearest church for a few weeks first. The path opens by walking it.