Pioneering New Paths for Adult Religious Education in the Roman Catholic Community

Abstract

The Roman Catholic Church faces significant challenges in fostering effective adult religious education in contemporary social and cultural contexts. This challenge is particularly acute in western societies and the Church is currently reflecting on how best to respond. Here it is suggested that insights from communities of practice theory and contemporary educational leadership theory have potential to foster effective adult religious education in parishes, Catholic educational institutions, and many other types of Catholic organizations. As an organizational form, communities of practice can exist within different models of faith communities and be established and integrated into existing structures. It is also noted that the Church has multiple historical precursors of communities of practice to develop adult religious educators and leaders. This article presents a preliminary conceptual exploration of how the Church might benefit from current communities of practice theory. It further considers how this might be appropriated and applied to promote the development of promising lay adult religious educators to enhance adult religious education teaching and learning as part of wider institutional renewal.

Keywords:

• adult religious education
• communities of practice
• educational leadership theory
• Catholic institutional renewal