Goa: After masses & retreats, catechism classes too go online

PANAJI: After the state’s Catholic clergy were forced to sharpen their tech skills to connect with the faithful after Covid-19 closed down churches, the Church is now imparting catechism classes over the internet.
The parish of Se Cathedral, the mother church of the archdiocese, took the initiative to begin catechism classes remotely for around 150 children in Old Goa after the archdiocese decided that churches wouldn’t be reopening on June 8.
“We held an introductory session for catechism students on Sunday, in the same way we would have done if they had come to Church,” said parish priest Fr Alfred Vaz. “The catechism teachers introduced themselves to the children, and gave them a summary of the year’s syllabus, along with some rules to be followed.”
At the end of the session, the students were asked to plant a sapling each and send photos to their teachers. “The saplings will then be gifted to their mothers on Mother’s Day, which the Church celebrates on September 8,” said catechism teacher Diffa Fernandes. “We used to conduct many programes during the year, and we don’t want to miss out on any of these due to the lockdown, so we are planning activities that can be undertaken at the individual level, in their own homes.”
The parish’s actual catechism classes will begin next Sunday, with the 20-odd teachers crunching their otherwise 45-minute classes into 30-minute capsules comprising creative PowerPoint presentations accompanied by narrations of the teachings of the Roman Catholic church. The parish dropped the idea of online interactive classes after it was found that all children didn’t have internet access at home.
“The lessons will be uploaded to Google Drive,” Vaz said. “At the same time, since we found that not everyone has laptops and an internet connection, we are also sending out the lessons via Whatsapp. In homes where children have absolutely no access to the internet, teachers and samudai (community) members have made arrangements for them to receive the lessons.”
The classes, for students aged 6-14, will end with homework, and children have been encouraged to send in questions on a WhatsApp group created specifically for the purpose.
On Saturday, the archdiocese stated that it is critically assessing the coronavirus-related situation in the state, and that is not in a position to declare its Churches open from June 8.