The State of Catechesis in Vicariate 7 of the Archdiocese of Lipa Towards a Unified Catechetical Program

The study was conducted to know the state of catechesis in Vicariate 7 of the Archdiocese of Lipa and proposed a unified catechetical program for basic education public schools under the vicariate. To achieve this purpose, this researcher assessed the students’ extent of catechetical knowledge on Catholic doctrine, and it inquired about the effectiveness of catechetical methodology employed by the catechists of the vicariate. The respondents included 396 students from 16 secondary public national high schools. To gather the necessary data, this researcher employed quantitative and qualitative methods. Generally, the results revealed that students have significant, above-average scores in terms of Catholic Doctrines. However, upon further validations through focus group discussions, some discrepancies within the results were observed. There are several topics in the Catholic Doctrine that students still need to know, clarify, and understand better. On the other hand, the students assessed the effectiveness of Catechetical Methodology to be moderately effective. However, students’ opinions revealed that some of the enumerated methodologies were not practiced nor applied in their class by the catechists. Moreover, the results of the study also showed that the students lack spiritual activities for their spiritual formation.

Keywords: catechesis, catechetical methodology, catechetical program, Catholic Doctrine, spiritual formation