Expert: Fr. Michael - 7/9/2008

Question
I belong to a N.O. parish and was speaking to the priest about tongues and the interpretation of such. I asked him whether the language spoken should be one that either exists or existed. His reply was that it could be something totally different since it was the Holy Spirit speaking through the person. Your thoughts?

Answer
       Charismaticism is a particularly virulent modern-day mania infecting the Church of the New Order, which has its roots deep in heresy.

       In the late 17th century, the beginnings of Charismaticism can already be seen as a derivative of the Protestant heresy.  Philip Jakob Spener and his disciple, August Hermann Francke, from his vantage point at the new University of Halle, through over 6,000 graduates in Protestant theology, spread the ideas of "Pietism" throughout Germany.  The Pietists specially emphasized emotional feeling rather than reason and cultivated "enthusiasm" in worship.  They encouraged "Herzensreligion," a religion of the heart founded on an "individual, personal experience" of Christ, much like the modern Protestant Evangelicals, who talk about a "personal experience of Christ," by which they refer to an over-emotionalized, highly personalized attitude that overrides true belief.

       The roots of modern-day Charismaticism (Pentecostalism) go back to 1901 when a group of Methodists at a Topeka, Kansas, prayer meeting began "experiencing the spirit."  The emotional prayer style soon spread throughout the Assemblies of God, as well as other small Protestant denominations.  A typical charismatic prayer meeting includes music, singing or praying in tongues, healing sessions, prophesying, and body prayer.

       The phenomenon caught on nationwide among Novus Ordinarians who were searching for new ways of praying during the first flurry of Vatican II changes.  The movement names Vatican II as the starting point, crediting a prayer by Pope John XXIII to the Holy Ghost to "renew Thy wonders in our day as by a new Pentecost."  The Charismatic Movement in the American Catholic Church traces its beginnings to a "spirit-filled" graduate student and faculty retreat at Duquesne University in 1967.  Protestant Pentecostal prayer forms such as speaking in tongues (glossalalia) and being "baptized in
the Holy Ghost" took hold.

       Known initially as "Catholic Pentecostalism," the movement was renamed to reflect the various spiritual "gifts" (charismata), purportedly given by the Holy Ghost to individuals.  The movement is associated with such other cult-like, mind-controlling organizations and programmes as the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD, which was perfectly traditional before Vatican II, but afterwards was corrupted), Taize, "oecumenism," Marriage Encounter, the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), Renew, Focolare, Cursillo, Neo-Catechumenate, Legionnaires of Christ/Regnum Christi, Communion and Liberation, Miles Jesu, Wicca (Gaia), and Life Teen.