Postati novi čovjek. Sakralna reidentifikacija na Neokatekumenskome putu
Becoming a New Man. Sacral Reidentification on the Neocatechumenal Way

Author(s): Goran Pavel Šantek
Subject(s): Anthropology, Theology and Religion, Sociology of Religion
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: Identity; Neocatechumenical way; religion
Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses the aspect of religious phenomenon related to the changing of people’s perception about themselves, using the examples from the author’s ethnographic research on the transformation of personal identity of the members of the religious movement “Neocatechumenal Way”. This Roman Catholic movement, from the cultural-anthropological point of view, represents a popular subculture, in the world context and in Croatia alike, and the specificity of every (sub) culture is that it teaches its members to structure their thoughts and feelings in a coherent and appropriated way. This paper discusses in details the process of transformation through which the members of the “Neocatechumenal Way” transform themselves from “verbal” to “real proselytes” i.e. reshape their personal identity. It is also outlining the procedural radicalization of their attitudes, which is in accordance with the Neocatechumenal charisma, and analyzing the ritualization of everyday life. These two processes, the radicalization of charisma, during which the members are faced with increasingly difficult demands, and the ritualization of practices, during which the difference between the sacral and profane context in their everyday life is slowly disappearing, appear to be the two dimensions of the same process through which the religious transformation of human personality is expressed and, simultaneously, encouraged. The aim of the paper is to show that in one of its aspects religion is a cultural activity which is reshaping the conceptions of one’s own personality.

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