@LukeHill It's done in person. I have not been RCIAing in the COVID era so I have no idea how that's working out. Contact your local parish and ask them how they run it. There isn't a great deal of standardization, there is a lot of customization at the local/parish level.

@LukeHill my son in law was involved a bit in the youth/RCIA movement at SMU a few years ago, but I don't think he's still connected to that ministry. Doing other stuff now.

Best thing to do is go with a friend, get a Catholic friend to be your sponsor. That usually worked out well in my experience.

@LukeHill It's accurate to say the canon isn't fallible. But like with many things, we can have high confidence without absolute proof. A lot of theology is built on inductive arguments rather than deductive arguments.

@KorvinStarmast Did any of the ecumenical councils make a clear declaration on the canon?

@PeterTurner Well kinda, yeah. I assume it originally would've referred to non-Latin language Catholics, and now it's non-Latin Rite Catholics.

Catholic friends: which passages in the deuterocanon have you found particularly enriching for your faith? Which have encouraged you to trust and love God more in the face of difficulties? Which have caused you to treasure Christ more? I'd be interested to read them for myself.

@LukeHill Neither did I. So I started with Wisdom of Solomon yesterday, one of the most cited by NT, or at least provides the conceptual background of some NT verses such as Wis 5:15-23 to Eph 6:10-20, Wis 6:1-11 to Rom 13:1, Wis 7:23-8:1 to John 1:1-4 & Heb 1:1-4, etc. It also provides some expansion of OT verses such as Wis 2:21-24 to Gen 1:26-27, Wis 6:12-25 to Prov 8:1-36, etc.

@curiousdannii I welcome the challenge, so I started reading the Catholic deuterocanon starting with the Wisdom of Solomon. Finished the first 5 chapters last night. I immediately felt the thought background of the Psalmist & Proverbs who used the same terms, but more "prosy" than "poetry", so it feels like a treatise of how and why we need to live righteously.

In that spirit, I think it qualifies as "enriching for your faith" as at the very least, the first 5 chapters already provides a clearer sight on how God protects the righteous right here in fragile earth among the wicked with more explicit eschatological certainties.

As for "treasure Christ more", it gives me more concrete description of Christ as Lady wisdom, which reminds me of a commentary which connects living with this wisdom as Christ's easier "yoke", but yoke nonetheless, the yoke of living in the right "zone" where the wicked ensnares us from left and right sides, cajoling, persecuting, and even killing.

By "zone" I mean the right path, a narrow band, which allows freedom (so not too narrow like a tightrope), but more like a wide enough street but clear boundary of right and wrong, with wrong means going "off the road" into the "wilderness" (unpaved).

Tentatively, I see the common theme in the Psalm of "walking in the right path" as fulfilled with NT "walking in the spirit", since we have now been given the indwelling Trinity in our heart, we receives grace so we are becoming sanctified to be able to "stay on the road" much better than without grace.

Wait I thought wisdom was the same as proverbs. Huh I guess not 🤦‍♂️

@LukeHill I like the table here showing that Eastern Orthodox has "the most complete" canon 😃. The one I'm reading is this one, which in Catholic canon is the 4th book attributed to Solomon (or now we say, it is a Pseudepigraphon). The other 3 are in Protestant canon too: Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes.

@GratefulDisciple super cool. Also thanks for telling me I need to clarify my question, I was putting half of my attention towards writing it when I first wrote it

@LukeHill No problem. Just want to assist to make it easier for people to answer.

@LukeHill I just finished my answer, framing absolution 1) in the larger framework of reconciliation as well as 2) to heal us so we can forgive our enemies like Jesus does.