Expert: Fr. Michael - 6/7/2006

Question
Since I value your traditional Catholic perspective, please forgive me for asking a few questions- 1. What do you think of the Catholic charismatic movement? Harmless fanatics or actual heresy? 2. Which Bible do you recommend? I just don't mean the translation- I also mean which Bible would have the most orthodox, educational and edifying explanatory notes? I use the New American Bible (Catholic) and its notes and cross references are pretty good, but they're frequently a little naturalistic- meaning they explain certain Biblical events or statements as less than divinely inspired. I would like something with a lot of explanatory information but which respects the Bible as something divine. 3. What is the traditional Catholic position on prayer and signs? For instance, I hear people say that they prayed to God about a certain decision and then God "spoke" to them and gave them the right direction. I was always under the impression that God does not directly speak to us but hears our prayers and might answer them through natural things- such as what Pope Benedict XVI says in this article- http://www.spiritdaily.com/signssmall2.htm What do you think?

Answer
Sorry, we can take only one question at a time.

       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, Theology of the Body, and Wicca (Gaia).

        This Charismatic Movement is far from true Catholicism.  It represents an almost complete abandonment of even nominally Catholic practices, beliefs, and modes of discourse.  Charismaticism is based on the erroneous notion that emotional experience always accompanies the conferral
of grace, whereas the Catholic doctrine is that the only sensible indication of the conferral of grace is the Sacramental sign itself.

       Charismatics see no reason to exclude non-Catholics or even non-Christians from the chance to experience the "charismata," the extraordinary manifestations of the Holy Ghost, which helped to spread the Faith during the early Church, but disappeared after the Apostolic Age, when the Church had established itself and had no further use or need of the charismata.  Such manifestations had specific purposes, such as to spread the Gospel to hearers of different languages, or to prove the credibility or holiness of an apostolic speaker.  In fact, one of the aims of the Charismatic Movement is to unite various Protestant movements with New Order Catholics under the banner of "signs and wonders."

      Charismaticism is intimately connected with the error of "Fatimism," which finds a new basis of faith in private revelations, prophecies, visions, "signs and wonders."  So far does this sometimes go that there are "Charismatic Catholics" who still continue to practice witchcraft and idol worship.  All this is, of course, heretical and of Satan, as St. Paul tells us:

"And then that wicked one shall be revealed:  whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:  him Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power and signs and lying wonders:  And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish:  because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.  Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying" (2 Thessalonians 2:8-11/DRV).

       Regardless of the fact that certain New Order Church officials have made personally favorable statements or that the post-conciliar popes have addressed groups of Charismatics, no official pronouncement has been made or
official approbation given.  Even the U.S. bishops in a "Statement on the Catholic Charismatic Renewal" (1975) had to point to the dangers of the movement:  gnosticism, biblical fundamentalism, exaggeration of the importance of emotionalism, reckless oecumenism, and "small faith
communities."

       Archbishop Dwyer, of Portland, Oregon, in a scathing criticism of the charismatic movement, warned in 1974: "We regard it bluntly as one of the most dangerous trends in the Church in our time, closely allied in spirit with other disruptive and divisive movements threatening grave harm to unity and damage to countless souls."