A Great Asset for Oregon's Catholics - New faith formation chief wants people to 'encounter Christ'

3/25/2016 9:15:00 AM  from the Catholic Sentinel. Parents must practice faith zealously if children are to follow, says Rolando Moreno
Archdiocese of Portland photo Rolando Moreno works in his office on Ash Wednesday. In the corner is an image of St. John Bosco, patron of youth. Moreno, new director of the Archdiocese of Portland’s Office of Catechesis and Faith Formation, says the focus of teaching the faith should be an encounter with Jesus. The church needs to teach people that Christian belief matters in their everyday existence, says the new director of the Archdiocese of Portland’s Office of Catechesis and Faith Formation. “We have to place a strong emphasis on the encounter with Christ,” explains Rolando Moreno, who took the post in December. “Christ has to be proclaimed as real and that he has a plan for our lives.” Moreno sees catechesis in part as a confrontation of what he calls a “post-Christian worldview” — relativism, uncertainty and self-centeredness. Parents and catechists themselves need to be transformed by the gospel before they can help children move past cultural malaise, he says. “I think that to reach young people today you have to be real to them, taking their lives and questions seriously,” says Moreno, a 39-year-old member of St. Joseph Parish in Salem. “We have to speak directly to them and not speak down to them. We have to present the faith in a beautiful and dynamic way, in language that speaks to their hearts.” It’s crucial for parents to bring their children to Mass from day one, says Moreno, who with wife Angela is a parent of five, including an infant girl born in late February. “It builds a family culture centered on the faith,” he explains. Moreno embraces what Pope Francis said about catechesis in “Joy of the Gospel”: It’s about accompanying people. Moreno received a master’s degree of Theological Studies from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of America in 2005. In 2003, he received a bachelor’s degree in theology and philosophy with a concentration in religious education from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Archbishop Alexander Sample has identified catechesis and faith formation as a top pastoral priority for the Church in western Oregon. Before taking the new role, Moreno worked as pastoral associate in massive St. Joseph Parish in Salem, 2005-2014. Then he taught theology for a year at Central Catholic High School. Since 2008, he has been a part-time theology instructor for the Archdiocese of Portland Ministry Formation Program. For Moreno, catechesis in the family and the need to strengthen marriage and families makes up “the most important challenge facing the Church today.” Calling parents “the first witnesses of the Gospel to their children,” he challenges them to live out their baptism and live what they profess. If parents do so, he says, the chances are better that children will, too. “We are convinced that the work of catechesis has to be strong in the family in order for the church to be strong as a whole,” Moreno explains. “The first step in this task is to call the family/parents to conversion. Parental catechesis is only effective if the parents are actively living the faith with humility and sincerity.” He says families need to center their lives on Sunday Mass, Holy Days of obligation and family prayer. “In my experience, this has to go beyond just a routine adherence,” he says. “When we encounter the Lord in the Eucharist with openness, it begins to shape our lives and we then take on our role as parent-catechists.” Moreno says nine years in the bustling Salem parish taught him about parish ministry among a culturally rich — and diverse — population. The task of reaching different cultures in the church is not something new, he explains. “The church has been living its catholicity — universality — from its very beginning,” Moreno says. “The universality of the church —meant for all peoples, of every time and space — is a concept that is imbedded in the church’s theology, in its very nature. From this point of departure, the unity of faith can be lived because the church knows how to reach humanity with all of its varieties of peoples and cultures.” Moreno says experience has taught him that “the human heart is the same across the board.” No matter our heritage, we all have the same need to encounter the infinite, the same need for love, fulfillment, joy and truth. On a practical level, he says, the church does need to respect the particular needs of different communities. Moreno grew up in Michigan in a mostly English-speaking neighborhood. He is not fluent in Spanish, but can converse and understand quite a bit. He promises to continue working on his Spanish.  As the Spanish-speaking community of Catholics grows, parishes are short on trained Spanish-language catechists, Moreno says. That’s a problem he’d like to address. It will be his job to offer support and resources to help parish ministers flourish, no matter the language. He will train and form catechists, hoping especially to boost faith formation among young families. The end game for Moreno is “a renewal of Catholic life and culture in the archdiocese.” Moreno is humbled by his new post and by the trust Archbishop Alexander Sample has placed in him. The new job, he says, has prompted new prayer in him.