Francoise Darcy-Berube

Dr. Francoise Darcy-Berube was the third of four children born in Paris on May 8, 1922 to Maurice Darcy and Jeanne de Chabaud La Tour. She was baptized Roman Catholic and spent her childhood in France and Great Britain. After earning a bachelors degree in philosophy from the University of Toulouse (France) in l939, she studied psychology and philosophy at La Sorbonne and L'Institut Catholique in Paris between l940 and l943 where she also became involved in the Young Catholic Student Action Movement. Living as a member of a religious community from l943 to 1967, she worked as a catechist with children, teen-agers, young adults and parents. In l960 she continued her own formation as a catechist at Lumen Vitae, an International Center for Studies in Religious in Brussels, Belgium. (Personal correspondence, April 15, 2006)

As a student in both Paris and Brussels, Darcy-Berube experienced first hand the heady intellectual ferment that was a precursor to the reforms of Vatican II. In her latest book reflecting on her journey as a catechist, she remarks,

I can still feel the enthusiasm with which my friends and I moved on from one catechetical discovery and adventure to another, as the biblical, liturgical, theological, and catechetical movements of this century were developing before and after Vatican II, and it fills heart with gratitude… .How privileged indeed we were to live in Europe when many of the prophetic figures of these times were teaching, publishing their books or having them translated: Congar, Chenu, Rahner, Schillabeeckx, Haring, Teilhard de Chardin, Danielou, de Lubac, Jungmann to name only a few. How we devoured these books and discussed them eagerly! (l995, p. 6)

She also cites a number of educational theorists who has significantly influenced her catechetical work including the psychological and developmental perspectives of Piaget, Erickson, Kohlberg, Maria Montessori, A. Vergote, Helene Lubienska de Lenval, and Sophia Cavaletti. In addition to Joseph Jungmann in the field of catechetics, she also notes appreciation for the work of Otto Wildman and Johannes Hofinger. (l995, p. 9)

A 1961 article on curriculum development published in the journal Lumen Vitae brought Darcy-Berube international recognition and an invitation in l962 to join a writing team developing a new catechetical series at the Provincial Catechetical Office in Montreal, Quebec. It was here that she met her future husband and writing partner, John Paul Berube. She continued her studies in Canada, earning her masters degree in theology from Montreal University in l964 and a Ph.D. in theology from Ottawa University in l969, her doctoral thesis written under Dr. Jean-Marie Beniskos, coordinator in psychopedagogy in the Faculty of Education, entitled Concepts et attitudes concernant la mort et l'au-delà. Une recherche théorique, exploratoire et expérimentale chez un groupe d'enfants canadiens catholiques (Concepts and attitudes concerning death and hereafter. Theoretical, exploratory and experimental research in a group of Canadian catholic children). After completing her graduate studies, Dr. Darcy-Berube held dual positions as assistant professor at Montreal University beginning in l964 and at Fordham University beginning in l967 where she taught catechetics and religious psychology. She continued teaching at both Universities part-time until her retirement in June l988. In 2003 the Dominican College in Ottawa awarded her an honorary doctorate in Pastoral Theology in recognition of her outstanding contributions and years of dedicated service to the catechetical ministry of the church. (Personal correspondence, April 15, 2006)

As a Canadian citizen with European roots and a deep fondness for the United States, Darcy-Berube is a truly "multicultural" and "international" person whose work has helped to lay the foundation for a major "paradigm shift" in catechesis on both sides of the Atlantic and across the U.S.-Canadian border for the past forty years. She is probably most recognized for her work as the principle author (though unnamed) of Come to the Father the first elementary school religious curriculum for American Catholic children written in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. In l961 a thirty person team of Canadian catechists, theologians, psychologists, sociologists and teachers, including Darcy-Berube, began work on the series that was published as The Canadian Catechism which by l965 was being used by 125,000 students in 6000 classrooms. A U.S. version was published by Paulist Press in l967 which Kevin Lynch at Paulist considers his crowning achievement as a publisher. (Personal correspondence, April 15, 2006). Announcing the release of the book, Fr. Alvin Illig, general manager of Paulist Press, opined that "as the Church today searches for a 'pivotal point' around which to begin the revitalization of the parish family in the light of Vatican II, Come to the Father may be just that central point from which renewal may radiate." (Cited in Likoudis).

The series was clearly a radical departure from traditional catechisms with their familiar question and answer format focused on memorization of abstract doctrine that became more philosophically complex from grade to grade. Together with W. H. Sadlier's On Our Way textbook series, Come to the Father introduced theological and pedagogical innovations that are still considered standard practice in the field of catechetics today.

First, the series Come to the Father embodied a Trinitarian perspective (now also reflected in the Catechism of the Catholic Church) that invited children into a relationship with God experienced in the loving outreach of Father, Son and Spirit. Traditional Catholic catechisms, according to Darcy-Berube, introduced children to the mystery of God in "confusing and abstract ways," using the term "God" indiscriminately to identify the divine nature of any of the three persons of the Trinity. "What is important for the children is to put them in contact with the divine persons, not to provide them with a theological definition of the Trinity." To counter the confusion the concept of "three persons in one God" generated for children, the series adhered to two basic principles when speaking about God. First, the text was never to use the word God without a specification. Each person of the Trinity was presented with a corresponding action; for example God the Father is love, Jesus Christ came to tell us about God and the Holy Spirit is always with us. Second, the series would not begin talking about God with an abstract presentation of the Trinity. Rather the series first worked to establish each person of the Trinity and then once children were acquainted with each person, introduce the mystery that the three Divine Persons are "one, united in love." The mystery of the Trinity is one of communion and relationship.

Second, the series approached the task of religious education not as the intellectual presentation of a body of truths to be learned, but as a developmental process of moral and spiritual awakening. According to Kevin Lynch its publisher, the series was the first "psychologically oriented" Catholic religion textbooks written for the child's age level, taking "into consideration his personality, his universe, and his way of knowing." "The young child" Berube later wrote "has a capacity for religious experience, for an intuitive global acceptance of God's revelation." Religious education should not be "indoctrination" but "the slow awakening in the child of an awareness of God's loving presence right in the threads of his experience of life." In a review of her latest work, Albert P. Koppes credits Darcy-Berube with "play[ing] a key role in the shift of religious education from a content/instructional basis to an awareness of God's presence in our lives basis." (26)

A third innovation of Come to the Father was the integration of Bible stories and texts into lessons in a way that led students to prayer, contemplation and celebration. It was this aspect of the series that Darcy-Berube claims was the most revolutionary feature for catechists, generating many testimonials from religious women claiming that teaching Come to the Father had actually taught them how to pray! (Personal correspondence, April 15, 2006).

Finally, the program was the first to offer special pages for parents to involve them more actively in the faith formation of their own children. The emphasis on the role of the family as "the natural environment for Christian education" (Darcy-Berube, 2002, p. 92) continued throughout her career. Darcy-Berube often reminded catechists that their task was "not to substitute for the family, but to enable the family to carry out its responsibility for first religious education of children, sacramental preparation and the creation and development of real, truly alive Christian communities where children will gradually experience the full richness of Christian life." (l995, p. 382) Judith Dunlap, author of Practical Catechesis: Visions and Tasks for Catechetical Leaders, credits her passion for family based catechesis and alternatives to classroom models of religious education to the mentorship of Darcy-Berube who "took me under her gentle wing…offering hope and encouragement both professionally and personally." (p. xv)

Excerpts from her work

These themes sounded in Come to the Father would continue to echo in Darcy-Berube's writing throughout her long and fruitful career. A central focus in her later teaching, writing and curriculum work was sacramental preparation. In l992 she coauthored with her husband, John Paul Living the Eucharist: a Preparation for First Communion and Living Reconciliation: A Preparation for Celebrating Forgiveness. That same year, she spoke at the 20th Anniversary of the East Coast Religious Education Conference in Los Angeles, California, giving voice to the central principles at the heart of her pastoral vision:

1. Christian initiation from Baptism to the threshold of adulthood should be considered as a whole, as an ongoing process.

2. The children's catechumenate and the RCIA should inspire and guide that process all along the years because preparing children for the sacraments is not preparing them for a celebration but for a way of life within a community.

3. If any one aspect of the Christian initiation of children, i.e. sacramental preparation, is to bear all its fruit, it should be planned and carried out in coordination with all others. In others words, all aspects of religious education in a parish should be deeply integrated with one another and with the total parish life in its liturgical and pastoral dimensions.

4. An authentic Christian initiation of children is inseparable from the evangelization and or spiritual care of the parents, whatever their lifestyle and according to their degree of readiness.

5. The catechists' task in sacramental preparation should be described today according to a ministerial model and not only an educational model. That ministry should be geared to a family and to a "bubble child." And catechist formation should take that into account.

6. The quality of the relationship between the catechists and the parents is of extreme importance. The catechists are often at the start the only link between the parents and the community. They are the ones who give flesh, reality to God's love for that family and to the community's concern.

7. The community as a whole should be awakened to its real responsibility vis a vis the children and their families and challenged to live up to that responsibility in practical ways. (1992, p. 96)

For anyone seeking a basic introduction to her life and thought, Catholic Education at the Crossroads: Moving on in the Freedom of the Spirit, is a vivid personal memoir filled with anecdotes and reflections on her long and productive career. For those seeking to understand Catholic religious education in the last fifty years, the book is also a lively illustrated tour of post-Vatican II developments in catechesis by a knowledgeable guide with first hand experience of the movements, ideas, personalities, and conflicts that have shaped the era. For example, here is an excerpt from her account of the early Kerygmatic movement in Catholic catechesis:

Tremendous progress was made possible thanks to th[e] Kerygmatic approach. For some time the existentialist philosophers had been drawing attention to the importance of personal spiritual experience and conviction with regard to religious faith. Building on that new awareness, Jungmann invited the catechists to become the heralds (keryx) of the Good News whose power they would have personally experienced. They were also invited to concentrate on the core of the Christian message, the kerygma, which is the Good News of God's redeeming love manifest in the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ. That evangelization, proclamation of the Good News, was aimed at awakening in students a loving response to God's love and to God's call to live by Christian values. Finally, it was hoped, this loving response would allow a progressive maturation of faith. It was also the time when we were discovering the importance of what we then called Salvation History, and I can still see the great panels we would build illustrating the Creation, the Fall, the Paschal Mystery, the beginning of the Church, and the Eschatological Kingdom. And what beautiful celebrations we would build around these themes! We really believed "that is it!"

On the Future

At the end of a phone interview with Darcy-Berube, now comfortably retired with her husband in Montreal, Canada, I asked her to reflect on the future of the field to which she has been so unfailingly devoted for the past forty years. Her response reiterated the central theme of her latest book. Catholic education is "at a crossroads," challenged by two competing visions of the future for catechesis. On the one hand, she is disheartened by a "lack of real leadership in religious education" today and a "retreat from the vision of Vatican II." She fears the new Catechism of the Catholic Church will be used to stifle creative and critical perspectives in the church by reasserting greater hierarchical control of catechesis and an overemphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy. Berube noted that the review process to evaluate the conformity of catechetical texts to the Catechism, recently developed by the United States Catholic Conference, contributes to a new "inquisitional" spirit informing the life of the church. On the other hand, as a woman of faith, she has great confidence in "the Spirit at work in the people, especially at the grass roots level." At the end, despite huge challenges facing a church in crisis and a retrenchment that threatens the hard won gains of a lifetime of dedicated work, she expresses serene confidence in the future through her favorite Japanese proverb: "A tree falling makes a lot of noise but you don't hear it growing."

While we may be living in a time of "falling trees," at least one small seed that inspires her hope is the emerging conversation between physics and theology. One of her early intellectual heroes, Teilhard de Chardin had begun in the mid-twentieth century to explore the theological implications of an evolutionary, scientific perspective for Christian faith. Today, when physicists' claim that the essence of matter is "relationship, not substance," she argues, then the Trinitarian understanding of God as a relational being takes on new resonance. She was particularly struck by Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 Easter message which referred to Christ as "a qualitative jump in the evolution of mankind."

How do we sum up the contributions of a lifetime of dedicated service by a woman Catholic Educator Thomas H. Groome celebrates as "a miracle of God's grace writ large?" (p. ix)

Francoise Darcy-Berube has helped to create and establish many of the things we now take for granted in good pastoral catechesis. At the top of the list I would place her work to establish a Trinitarian focus (now a central emphasis of the Catechism of the Catholic Church), and for young children she based this catechesis more on their experience of God's triune outreach and presence in their lives than on knowing about the doctrinal mystery. Beyond that she championed and helped to establish the participation of parents in the sacramental preparation of their children; family and early childhood catechesis, the partnership of liturgy and catechesis, religious ritual to nurture the Christian formation of children, engaging and encouraging the contemplative capacity of the young child, the centrality of biblical and liturgical language in catechesis, and so on. (p. x-xi)

It is a fitting summary of both the range and depth of her contributions to the field that establish Francoise Darcy-Berube as a major Christian educator of the twentieth century.

Works Cited

• Darcy-Berube, F. (l992). The real challenge of sacramental preparation. In J. A. Corr, C. J. Pfeifer & J. Manternach (Eds.), Living the vision: 20th anniversary east coast conference for religious education (pp. 93-98). Morristown, NJ: Silver Burdett Ginn Religion Division.
• Darcy-Berube, F. (1995). Catholic education at a crossroads: moving on in the spirit Mahway, NJ: Paulist.
• Dunlap, J. (2001) Practical Catechesis: Visions and Tasks for Catechetical Leaders. Cincinnati, Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger Press.
• Groome, T. (1995). Forward: Wisdom from the heat of the day. In F. Darcy-Berube. Catholic education at a crossroads: moving on in the spirit (pp. ix-xiii). Mahway, NJ: Paulist.
• Koppes, A. P. (1997). Religious education at a crossroads / Parish school / the Contemporary Catholic. [Review of the book Religious education at a crossroads: Moving on in the freedom of the Spirit]. America, 176, 26.
• Likoudis, P. (June 21, 2001). Amchurch catechetics remains faithful to original 60's plan [Electronic version] The Wanderer.