Trusting the Spirit: Renewal and... | Buy

Chapter One

Let the Spirit Move the Structure

Catholic Charismatic Renewal

It's difficult to remain a removed observer when it comes to the Roman Catholic charismatic movement. Charismatics, with their emotional, even ecstatic, worship, their close bonds of fellowship, and their expressive affection, had a way of putting me in the middle of things. Seated in the back row of a large meeting, I was sought out by a prayer team that zeroed in on this visitor with the "laying on of hands." At a prayer meeting huddled in the corner of a huge church in New Jersey, I was ushered into the center of a small circle where praise, prayers, concerns, and testimonies of miracles were exchanged in a casual, matter-of-fact manner.

"This prayer group is a real family. We've been together twenty years. The renewal has sustained us. In this parish, you can get lost in the crowd," said Frank, a veteran of the Catholic charismatic renewal since the early 1970s. Ann, an elderly woman who came to the group more recently, said that since becoming involved in the renewal her faith "has become personal. The Word came alive. It was me and Jesus."

Like that small prayer group dwarfed by its mammoth parish, the Catholic charismatic renewal movement no longer draws much attention in American Catholicism compared to its early days. But the renewal generated a more personalized and informal style of faith that spilled out from the prayer groups and large charismatic conventions to have a significant impact on the contemporary church. When we look at the influence of the various charismatic and evangelical groups and movements in mainstream denominations, we see that it is the charismatic Catholics who have managed to contain much of the energy of the renewal within their institution. How have they done that? And what are the costs and benefits of taming the fires of ecstatic worship and spirituality to the needs and restraints of a centralized institution?

It Started with Duquesne

Just as the Pentecostal movement emerged out of the Holiness churches in the early twentieth century and intended to transform this tradition from within, the mainline and Roman Catholic churches of the 1960s and 1970s saw the growth of charismatics in their ranks. Like their Pentecostal siblings, the charismatics saw their mission as one of infiltration and witnessing from within their churches about their experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. As with other evangelical renewal groups mushrooming in mainline Protestant churches, the charismatics felt that their church bodies had lost their spiritual direction through the influence of liberal theology and social action. They thought that once their fellow laypeople and clergy experienced the filling of the Holy Spirit (also known as the baptism of the Holy Spirit), they would seek to follow the New Testament Christianity they found spelled out in the Bible. The charismatic way of church renewal is not focused much on the political work of activism and electing leaders into high church positions. Rather, charismatics believe that true renewal can take place only after people feel the power of the Holy Spirit.

Catholic charismatics in particular hoped that the renewal would lead Catholics--both laity and church leaders--into a personal encounter with Christ and the Scriptures. The Second Vatican Council, held in the 1960s, had laid the groundwork for a more Christ-centered church that involved the laity in new ministries and the study of the Scriptures, a practice not previously encouraged for fear that individual interpretations of the Bible might conflict with church teachings. But it was the charismatic renewal of the 1970s that introduced Catholics to a more intimate and evangelical style of faith. Although the renewal did not disregard the liturgy and the role of priests and rituals that defined Catholic worship and piety, its leaders argued that believers also needed a more informal and direct encounter with Christ to build their faith and revive the church.

Pentecostals and charismatics believe they have recovered the gifts and infilling of the Holy Spirit described in the New Testament book of Acts. Speaking in tongues, healings, and prophecy are considered signs of being open to the Holy Spirit. The experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit is seen as a key experience that comes after conversion, empowering believers to live the Christian life.

The charismatic renewal in the Roman Catholic Church traces its roots back to 1967, to a group of college students and professors at Duquesne University in Pennsylvania. They had some contact with and knowledge of the Protestant Pentecostal movement that had pioneered in recovering the spiritual gifts described in the New Testament. During a retreat, these Catholics soon began to experience many of the classic Pentecostal manifestations, particularly speaking in tongues. During this time, the charismatic renewal had been seeping--sometimes exploding--into all of the mainstream Christian bodies. Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Presbyterians were all recipients of a new infusion of enthusiasm and ecstasy marked by speaking in tongues, healings, and other gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The Catholic students contacted leaders of other campus spiritual renewal efforts such as Cursillo, a group also based on Bible study and personal spirituality, though without the Pentecostal practices. These contacts helped transmit these strange new practices and teachings around the country. There was enough interest in charismatic phenomena among Catholics during that same year to organize a national conference at Notre Dame University--the first of many such large gatherings that would give the renewal a national and eventually an international presence. But the trademark of the Catholic renewal was the mushrooming of small prayer groups based in parishes and homes. Both the small groups and national conventions were coordinated by diocesan renewal centers and a national coalition known as the National Service Committee for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (NSC). The committee, which is also known as the Chariscenter USA, did not seek to regulate or control the movement, but rather to act as a resource center, organizing national conferences, publishing literature, and channeling services to diocesan renewal centers.

The history of the NSC reflects the divisions and tensions between Pentecostal origins and Catholic identity present in the renewal itself. The committee was the result of cooperation between new communities, called covenant communities, that were born in the heat of the renewal. Two of the most prominent of these covenant communities--the Word of God in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and People of Praise in South Bend, Indiana--found there was a need to coordinate services and resources to the fledgling movement.

Some leaders saw New Testament--style communal life as an outgrowth of charismatic activity. Renewal leader Kevin Perotta writes that "many participants originally saw the movement as restoring to the Catholic Church some of the miraculous and communitarian character of the early church." The covenant communities sometimes functioned as actual communes, with members living and worshipping together. Many others, however, permitted members to live outside of the communities but required them to make a strong commitment to common life and service in the group. These communities became vehicles for new charismatic innovations in education, publishing, and worship. Leading charismatic periodicals such as Pastoral Renewal and New Covenant owed much of their inspiration to covenant communities. Several of the prominent communities and the ministries they spawned became ecumenical after a few years, particularly as likeminded communities sprang up among Protestant charismatics.

The NSC was also established to prevent schisms and bring some unity to the growing but unorganized movement. "There was always the potential that the movement might spin out of control," says Walter Matthews, director of the NSC. In fact, Matthews often used this image of things spinning out of control during my interview with him in a restaurant not far from his Virginia headquarters. "You have to integrate religious experience with Catholic practice. If you don't, you'll spin out." He stressed that the renewal lives in a tension that many participants have difficulty handling. "To some, the initial experience [of charismatic worship and praise] is so galvanizing that they want it all the time. Then they go to Mass and they don't experience it." So they formed enclaves where the charismatic experience was in the forefront of Christian life or left for Protestant churches. "Others resolved the tension by going the other way, by leaving the renewal. They wanted to be Catholic and hid their charismatic experience," Matthews says.

The covenant communities were in the former camp, as they created "little islands" of charismatic purity and intensity on the edges of American Catholicism. In attempting to be ecumenical (or nondenominational, as doctrinal issues pertaining to church unity were not a key concern of these communities), the covenant communities distanced themselves from the church hierarchy. In the 1980s, bishops started investigating and intervening in covenant communities in which members and former members made charges of authoritarianism and other abuses. For example, former members saw the idea of headship, both of the community leader and of husbands toward their wives and children, as one of the covenant community teachings that sometimes led to abuses of power. A recent case of a covenant community moving in authoritarian directions and feeling the hierarchy's discipline, as well as its own members' rebellion, is the Mother of God community in Maryland.

The community started as a prayer and Bible study group during the renewal's beginnings, but in its thirty-year history it evolved into a large community--with over twelve hundred members at its peak in the mid-1990s--with a complex hierarchy of leadership. It was during the 1990s that members and former members made public their charges of a controlling lay-based leadership that regulated and had to approve their careers, finances, marriages, and courtships. When financial discrepancies were reported in the community, the Archdiocese of Washington started investigating the group. Eventually, Mother of God was brought more closely into line with the archdiocesan system, which monitored any further abuses of leadership. Like other communities experiencing leadership breakdowns and reorganization, Mother of God is a shadow of what it once was in terms of membership. Even now, charismatic leaders debate the best course of action for dealing with these communities. Critics suggest that a watchdog organization such as the NSC should oversee these communities.

By this time, the covenant communities had became a source of division within the NSC. One wing of the NSC eventually moved to Ann Arbor with the Word of God community, and the other wing, subsequently to be called the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, took a more distant approach to these communities, although it was based at the People of Praise community in South Bend. Matthews, once a member of the People of Praise, said that the NSC wanted to be in the mainstream of the church. "We wanted to be bridge builders to all the expressions of the renewal." There was growing diversity in the movement during this period. There was the emergence of renewal among ethnic communities--particularly the Hispanics--the growth of diocesan renewal offices, parish prayer groups and specialized ministries such as FIRE, an evangelistic organization, and several[ prominent healing ministries. The covenant communities saw themselves as forerunners of a new kind of religious order and did not have much to do with the charismatic renewal spreading through ordinary parishes. But that was where the renewal was to find its main expression and its greatest influence.

It was in the 1980s that Catholic leaders signed on as strong supporters of the renewal. There appeared to be less opposition to the renewal among Catholic leaders than in most mainline Protestant churches. Fairly early on, the Catholic bishops established a working committee to relate to the movement. One of the first statements from the Bishops' Committee on Doctrine in 1969 declared that "theologically the movement has legitimate reasons of existence. It has a strong biblical basis. It would also be difficult to inhibit the working of the Spirit which manifested itself so abundantly in the early Church [ sic ]."

A major statement on the renewal issued by the Bishops' Committee in 1984 praised the charismatics for their "efforts to foster the pursuit of holiness, to encourage Catholics to a fuller participation in the Mass and the sacraments, to develop ministries to serve the parish and local Church [ sic ], to foster ecumenical bonds of unity with other Christians, to participate in evangelization." That last point about evangelization seems particularly important, as the Catholic Church has increasingly sought to rally the many renewal movements and groups to bring about a re-Christianization of the West. Under the dynamic and conservative papacy of John Paul II, the church has seen movements such as the charismatics, Opus Dei, and Cursillo as agents to revitalize and purify both stagnant church structures and society at large. All of these movements promote loyalty to church teachings while also stressing distinctive personal spiritualities and vigorous outreach to inactive Catholics and non-Catholics. Pope John Paul II has continuously praised the charismatics in such efforts.

In dioceses, bishops often designated a priest to act as a liaison with the movement. In the Rockville Centre Diocese on Long Island, New York, the charismatic renewal office even merged with other renewal ministries and became an official division of the diocese. Most of the other renewal offices are independent nonprofit organizations that cooperate with their dioceses. Although the popes, bishops, and dioceses have to some extent sought to support and harness the renewal for reenergizing Catholicism, it is at the parish level that one finds the strongest charismatic influence.

The number of American Catholics affected in one way or another by the charismatic renewal is impressive. One national survey finds that about 22 percent of Catholics surveyed, or an estimated twelve million of the fifty-five million Catholics, claimed charismatic gifts or self-identified as charismatics. Walter Matthews points out that this does not mean that these large numbers are involved today. A revolving-door phenomenon has affected the renewal for some time, with many becoming involved in and many leaving charismatic groups. A study of the renewal by sociologists Richard Bord and Joseph Faulkner in the early 1980s already showed slower growth rates and suggested that there were other conservative groups in the church and thus "now more avenues for expression of traditional values [in the church] than existed at the time the [renewal] flourished."

Whatever the reasons for the defection rate, Matthews estimates from prayer group figures and informal surveys taken in dioceses that 250,000 to 500,000 Catholics are involved in the renewal today. Of that number, only about one-half are involved on a weekly basis (such as attending prayer meetings). Carl Nobile of the Renewal Office of the Rockville Centre Diocese in New York estimates that about 70 percent of the lay leadership in his parish came from the ranks of the renewal, for example, graduates of Life in the Spirit seminars, an early innovation of the renewal. These courses are usually presented in parishes and serve as a step-by-step introduction to charismatic Catholic teachings and practices. Those who finish such a course usually receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Nobile estimates that about 50 percent of lay leaders in the whole Rockville Centre Diocese also emerged from the renewal. He may not be exaggerating. A study of Catholic small groups headed by William D'Antonio of the Catholic University of America found that participation in charismatic prayer groups created a strong interest and involvement in parish life. The 1999 study found that even among charismatic prayer groups that are not an official part of parish life, participants are still very involved in parishes. In a survey of members of charismatic small groups and communities, 67 percent say they have become more involved in parish activities since joining.

Diane and her husband, Ed, who are participants in a Long Island prayer group, demonstrate how the renewal turns out active parishioners with strong involvement in church ministries. When Diane received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, she was in the process of becoming more involved in the church after a long period of inactivity. She was working with the ministry for young married couples and attending Mass regularly when she began to notice a group of worshippers who always sat together in the front of the church. They were in charge of hospitality, welcoming visitors to the Mass, but what really stood out for her was their joyfulness in worship. "I wanted to have what they had. I asked my husband about them and he said they were the charismatics. To me, they just seemed like really alive people. They brought a sense of God to the church," Diane says.

She and Ed started to attend charismatic prayer meetings and eventually a Life in the Spirit seminar held at the parish. When it came time for the leaders and other participants of the seminar to pray over her to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Diane was ready and willing. "It was like an eruption. I burst out in tongues and tears. It was ecstatic but not really driven by emotions. It was driven by God. After that time, I was never the same. God took my heart." Eleven years later, Diane says her spiritual life has been a "roller coaster ride. I feel like I haven't had a minute to breathe." Diane involved herself in ministries that she never thought she could do, especially caring for the dying and ill at hospitals and hospices. She is also involved in a pastoral formation program at her parish. Ed did not have the same ecstatic experience as his wife. He believes that the spiritual experiences he had as a Lutheran youth were the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but even after the seminar and other charismatic gatherings, he has never spoken in tongues. "I don't think it's the only sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives gifts where he will. Some, like my wife and other people at our prayer group, consider it a `surrender gift.' [They say] if I just yield my life enough to God, the tongues will come." He added that Catholics, unlike Pentecostals, don't necessarily see speaking in tongues as the main evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit; other spiritual gifts might be given.

Diane and Ed's charismatic faith brought greater devotion to the Eucharist. Diane takes part in the adoration of the Eucharist daily at a nearby church. But at the same time, she sharply contrasts the church she grew up in with her current charismatic lifestyle of faith and practice. "We were never taught to praise God. We were taught rules and regulations but not the experience of God." She adds that the charismatic movement has "empowered the laity to experience God on a different level. The hierarchy is not as important. Before, you really had to experience God through them. The priests took that role of being in between God and the people. [Now] it's a direct experience." On following church teachings, Diane added that she doesn't "blindly have to follow rules. There's more a sense of God in the community" found in her prayer group or other church gatherings.

On such a divisive issue as women's ordination, both Diane and Ed disagree with the Vatican, saying they see no reason against ordaining women priests. They feel no scruples about attending their more charismatic-friendly parish even though they live within the boundaries of another parish. Diane and Ed are part of a larger pattern of American Catholics shopping for a parish that fits their beliefs and practices, even though Catholics are officially supposed to attend the parish of the neighborhood in which they live.

Even without the strong parish connections, charismatic prayer groups have a unique dynamic that is highly valued by and beneficial to participants. A typical prayer meeting usually starts with a time of enthusiastic prayer and praise. Contemporary praise songs with simple but catchy melodies, often written by composers who share in the charismatic faith, and scriptural lyrics fill the room. Participants raise their arms in a sign of praise and pray silently or aloud.

At one point in a meeting I attended, there was silence, and then the woman leading the service invited everyone to "use their gifts of tongues"--bringing on waves of foreign sounds that sounded like rapid-fire repetitions of word fragments--alamana, alamana, alamana, alamana. During one song, the worshippers left their seats and joined hands while raising them, then danced up and down the aisles, up the front, and around the back of the room. At times the meeting seemed almost to lose control, but then the woman in front would assert some order and move the service along. Shortly after the dancing, she called for "words of knowledge" and "prophecies." These are utterances, usually in English, said to be directed by the Holy Spirit. One woman from the back spoke quietly in the first person: "My children, I love you and I'm with you. Be my witnesses." Then someone else broke forth in tongues--this time, it sounded less like fragments of words and repetitions of vowels and more like an actual foreign language. After the speaker was through, the leader asked whether anyone had an interpretation of this message. A man on the side answered with another brief first-person prophecy: "My children, I am here. I am here. Stay in my love," followed by several people praying in tongues and offering thanksgiving.

The give-and-take between participants prophesying and those interpreting the message did not always involve speaking in tongues. At one point, a man said the image of a bridge and people going back and forth on the bridge came to his mind. A few moments later, an elderly woman stood up and shared a verse about hope and then explained how the bridge image may be showing people how God is bringing them to a new place in the new millennium.

Sociologist Matthew P. Lawson found that the interaction and sharing that takes place in a Catholic charismatic prayer group often has a flow and rhythm to it that is distinct from that of other small groups. When a participant shares a message or scriptural teaching, he or she is confirmed or challenged by the others, as the group seeks to negotiate a unifying theme from the individual contributions. This unified theme--whether it be a new direction for the prayer group or a solution to a member's particular problem--is taken by the participants to be the will of God. Lawson writes that rather than blindly following habitual routines, prayer group participants are taught to be "open to different ways of doing things, and to be attentive to how multiple and sometimes conflicting demands may come together to indicate alternative courses of action." He concludes that "Charismatics, by desiring God's will rather than their own, and by searching for that will by opening themselves to the integrating force of the Holy Spirit, may be practicing skills that help them negotiate their way in a complex society."

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