Common’ folks. This is the silliest conversation on the Internet and the Internet is pretty big. The Catholic Charismatic Movement is Catholic, because it is approved by the Holy See. Canonically, it has a legal right to call itself Catholic. It even has an office in the Holy See and so do the Traditionalists. Both sides should stop complaining, because the Holy See is being fair to both. The Charismatics have a department for them and the traditionalists have the Ecclesia Dei Commission.
Secondly, are there individuals in the Catholic Charismatic Movement who are strongly influenced by Protestantism? Of course there are. Does that make the movement Protestant? No more than having Augustinian roots makes Lutheranism Catholic. There are always crossovers and not always bad either.
One of the things that the Catholic Church has recently said that it admires about the Evangelical Protestants is their love for Scripture. OK, they don’t always interpret it correctly. But more Evangelicals than Catholics read their bibles. Many Catholics, who had never opened a bible, started to do so when they experienced the Charismatic Movement.
Is the theology of the Charismatic Movement incorrect? No it’s not. There can be differences in theology and both be very correct. This exists in the Catholic Church today. There are different theological positions on purgatory between Roman Catholics and all other Catholics. The Holy See says that both sides are correct. There is a difference in the definition of grace between the Jesuit school of theology and the Dominican school of theology. The Holy See says that both sides are correct and threatened to excommunicate anyone who said that either side was a heretic. There is a difference in theology between Aquinas and Bonaventure on the priesthood and the Eucharist. The Church says that both men are correct. In other words, not every theological difference has to be a cause for a debate or a division.
Are there great truths in Protestantism? There better be, since the first Protestants were Catholic. They must have kept some of the things they took with them. Not everything in Protestantism is heresy.
Is there heresy in Protestantism? Duhhhh, there would not have been excommunications and executions if there were none.
Have we Catholics always dealt well with differences? Noooooooooooo. Just look at the attitudes that Roman Catholics have toward Eastern Catholics. Many Roman Catholics treat them like foster children, even though they were Catholic when the Irish and French were still running around in bear skins and loin cloths.
Is anyone obliged to participate in the Charismatic Movement? NO
So . . . the best thing to do is for those who do not want to participate, not to do so and to keep their opinions to themselves, because the Charismatics are no doing any harm to them.
It is equally good for the Charismatics to tone it down when they’re outside of their group, because it is overbearing and an over kill to have someone saying “Praise the Lord” or “Praise you Jesus” every five minutes. Actually, it gets annoying. Even monks and friars don’t do that. We have five times a day for praise. We do it on cue and on schedule and where more people don’t see or hear us.
I truly fail to see the benefit to the Church to have a standoff between Charismatic Catholics and Traditionalist Catholics. In his first letter, St. Peter reminds us not to let criticisms and negativity cross our lips. He wrote this for a reason. The people whom he shepherded were doing this exact same thing. Don’t think that the Epistles were written on whim. They were in response to real situations. There were camps in the Church during the time of the Apostles and Peter and Paul had to tell people to knock it off. You don’t belong to Peter or to Paul. You don’t let a bad thought about your neighbor cross past your lips to the ears of another. And you mind your own business and work on your salvation.
No one is damned to hell through the actions of another. That’s horrible theology. Man has freedom. If he is dammed to hell, it is because of his choices, not those of someone else. This nonsense of this one or that group are leading souls to hell is just that, nonsense. People who go to hell choose to go there. People who make poor choices, very innocently, are not culpable, because there was no malice intended.
Let Catholics praise God in tongues, in Latin or in Swahili. As long as they praise God, God is happy.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
