The Way
The Neocatechumenal Way was born in 1964 in the shanty towns of Palomeras Altas, near Madrid (Spain). The environment of the shanty towns was formed by the most degraded layers of society: gypsies and “quinquis” (largely illiterate), homeless, thieves, prostitutes, young criminals, immigrants, etc. In this environment, the seed of the Neocatechumenal Way germinated. Among the poor and marginalized who received the announcement of the dead and risen Christ, Kiko and Carmen how the Holy Spirit started a process of Christian initiation, in the image of the catechumenate of the early Church.
In the early 1960s, Francisco José Gómez Argüello (Kiko), a Spanish painter, winner of the Special National Painting Prize in 1959, after a deep existencial crisis, discovered in the suffering of the innocents the mystery of Christ Crucified, who is present in the last ones of the earth This experience led him to abandon everything and, following in the footsteps of Charles de Foucauld, he went to live among the poor in Palomeras Altas.
In this process he receivedan inspiration from the Virgin Mary: “We must make Christian communities like the Holy Family of Nazareth, who live in humility, simplicity and praise. The other is Christ. “
Carmen Hernández, also a Spaniard, was a graduated in Chemistry, and studied at the Institute of Missionaries of Christ Jesus. She also graduated in Theology with the Dominicans of Valencia and there she discovered the renewal of the Second Vatican Council through the liturgist Mons. Pedro Farnés Scherer.
After two years in Israel, living with Jewish people and experiencing their traditions and the places of the Holy Land, she returns to Madrid with the hope of forming a missionary group to evangelize the miners of Oruro (Bolivia), as requested by the then-archbishop of La Paz, Mons. Jorge Manrique Hurtado. Through a sister of hers, she comes into contact with Kiko Argüello in the Palomeras shanty towns. She built a shack on the wall of a factory and began to collaborate with him.
Important Documents
Lectio Magistralis on the Neocatechumenal Way
November 25, 2016 —>
His Holiness Pope Francis to Members of the Neocatechumenal Way
March 6, 2015 —>
Definitive Approval of the Statutes of the Neocatechumenal Way
June 13, 2008 —>
The identity and significance of the “Redemptoris Mater” seminaries
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Statue of the Neocatechumenal Way
June 2008 —>
Saint John Paul II to the Bishops of the United States of America on their “Ad Limina” visit
May 28, 1993 —>
Letter of Saint John Paul II “Ogni Qualvolta”
August 30, 1990 —>