Detecting FAKE Tongues in Charismatic

[tru_dvotion]

The thing is, nobody can (or rather, should) offer generalizations such as this to reject something which may come from God. In realising this, we can objectively examine the case and be open to it with discernment and prudence.

Yes, I believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. I However, I do not believe that God is limited to the visible confines of the Church. The Holy Spirit still directs the Church, and ensures that she will not teach universal errors (ie. to be taught to the whole Church, in matters of faith and morals, when the Pope speaks ex-cathedra). However, this does not limit the Holy Spirit from bestowing his other gifts, which are many: 1 Cor. 12:4 - “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit”.

It does, but not routinely, as charismatics would have you believe. No, the Spirit will blow where he wants, and not at all when or where we commend him to.

Again, I would suggest that it is not whether or not the Holy Spirit can act among Protestant Christians, who the Catholic Church recognises as being our brethren, but the Catholic pride, of being the elder brother who never left home in the first place, which refuses to acknowledge the Prodigal, who is clearly welcomed by Our Father who runs to greet him, even outside the House.

Well of course, but just think for a minute, the Father runs outside to take the prodigal son into His house. The prodigal son is already! on his way to the Father’s house. The Father does not go down to the foreign land and does not enter the sty where the prodigal son has been residing. If we use your analogy… then the Catholic clergy and religious went down to the sty to get anointed by the prodigal son. See how ludicrous this analogy is?

If the Holy See has approved it and given it its blessing, I do not see what the problem is.

Show me how and where the Holy Father approved this movement, its teachings and practices. You cannot, because this simply does not exist. What the Holy Father said did not relate to the Charismatic Movement as you have been led to believe.

Would the Holy Spirit be a part to error? Would he really conceal or deny to the one true Church for 2000 years something which, “should have been a normative experience” for all baptized Christians?

Who said it should have been a normative experience? I do not see it ANYWHERE, in any credible Catholic source, in Catholic Dogma or in Canon Law or in anything the Holy Father ever said that speaking in tongues should have been a normative experience! Show me where do you get this idea, that it should have been a normative experience?

 

[tru_dvotion]

**Hello TTM, I suppose, with this post I will have answered everything you posted for me. **

Again, I would suggest that it is not whether or not the Holy Spirit can act among Protestant Christians, who the Catholic Church recognises as being our brethren, but the Catholic pride, of being the elder brother who never left home in the first place, which refuses to acknowledge the Prodigal, who is clearly welcomed by Our Father who runs to greet him, even outside the House.

This is a delusion TTM. The prodigal son had/has no intention of coming home, so what is the point using this analogy? You are comparing apples and oranges. Lets face it, this doesn’t work.

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[tru_dvotion]

**The following article is intended to those of you, who quoted the Holy Father’s speeches and endorsements to the Charismatic Renewal. **

**The Pope does not work in isolation and he certainly does not write his speeches. He is responsible for tasks, no human being could possibly fulfill. So a speech to a group, even a comment that he may have made is quite insignificant in the course of his day as he governs the Catholic Church. **

**Furthermore, the Charismatic Movement INDEED began with Catholic clergy going outside the Catholic Church for anointing. This is a historical fact, and this has been publicly recognized by the various leaders of the Charismatic Movement. Cardinal Suens is responsible for taking it inside the Vatican and hence the movement has spread to the highest levels there. **

**No way am I insinuating that the Pope has been hoodwinked into endorsing the Charismatic Renewal. Considering all his responsibilities, the Charismatic Renewal is really not as significant to the Pope, or to the Catholic Church as those caught up in this movement would like the rest of us to believe. **

So unless, this “renewal” would make its way into the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or into one of its Dogmas, it has basically no relevance or credence. The Pope did not speak ex-cathedra, so there is no burden on any Catholic to be obedient to what he said in these speeches. These speeches were not HIS opinion. He red what was written. It would be wrong to be influenced by a speech or even several speeches addressed to a group of pilgrims. It really does not matter how many times people quote this papal speech or who is doing the quoting.

Please read the Gianni Valente’s interview with Cardinal Cottier, OP, the Pope’s Theologian by as it appeared on the pages of Dominican Life Magazine. It is quite enlightening and pertinent in light of this topic:

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[tru_dvotion]

An Interview with Cardinal Georges Cottier, OP the Pope’s Theologian. by Gianni Valente for Dominican Life Magazine

**Forgive the obvious question: what job does “the Pope’s theologian” do?

**GEORGES COTTIER: It’s a role that has existed since the Middle Ages. Except in three or four exceptional cases, in which Fransciscan popes chose Franciscan theologians, the post has always been entrusted to the Dominicans. That’s why I find myself here. In past centuries, when the papal court moved home for long periods, as during the sojourns in Orvieto and in Viterbo, these theologians, known as “Teachers of the Sacred Palace”, probably gave lessons in theology to all the court. Now the work consists in rereading almost all the Holy Father’s texts, except those of diplomatic character, so as to make a theological judgment on them. The Pope gets help from quite a lot of collaborators, and one needs to watch out for quite a lot of things. First, the texts need to be harmonized. If the source is different, one has to give the texts the imprint of the Pope’s style. One has to ensure the clarity of the texts also, because everything the Pope says or writes must be able to be understood by all believers, and not provide a pretext for misunderstanding. In addition, even the Pope must keep to certain criteria in his magisterium. It’s not good, for example, that the Pope pronounce on problems that are still the subject of theological discussion, because if he intervenes on such matters, it means there is no more discussion on that theme. So there’s no lack of work.

**What are the most important documents you’ve happened to supervise? **

COTTIER: Going back to the early years, the first “big” text I worked on was the social encyclical Centesimus annus. And then the Ut unum sint on ecumenicalism, the moral encyclical Veritatis splendor, and the Fides et ratio… also the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is for me one of the finests fruits of this pontificate, and has still not been absorbed in its richness. That is why the abridged edition with questions and answers is now about to be published.

**Which of these documents had the most “toilsome” genesis?

****COTTIER: **I remember very long work done for the Veritatis splendor, of which I saw at least five versions. The Pope brought us together in long work sessions to reread the drafts that came one after another.

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[tru_dvotion]

**Can you tell us of a case in which you intervened to correct a text by the Pope?

**COTTIER: I remember one of the first texts I went over. It was a speech to a charitable organization received by the Pope, that I didn’t know and now can’t even recall. The outline of the Pope’s speech had been a bit prepared by them. In the text the Pope congratulated them on the fact of having proclaimed a Sunday for their foundation. In short, it made the Pope almost a sponsor advertising the affair. That seemed to me something to avoid, not so much out of strict doctrinal reasons, but out of simple prudence.

**As for “papal” sponsorship, it seems that somebody even tried to obtain it for the notorious film by Mel Gibson on the Passion of Christ.

**COTTIER: I was invited to a showing before the film opened in the cinemas, but I decided not to go. The physical suffering of Christ was terrible, as was that of all those condemned to the cross, a great many at that time. But in him, true God and true man, in his soul, in virtue of his divine person united with the Father, there was the suffering proper to the servant of God, of which the prophet Isaiah speaks. I don’t see how this mystery of the suffering sui generis of Christ can be portrayed in film fiction. In cinematic technique there is an immediacy that I don’t see in painting or in sculpture. Because the painter maintains a certain distance, and in that distance prayer and contemplation can find place. Painting respects and reflects the mystery better. I confess that the immediacy of cinema is a problem for me.

**Yet there has been a curious coming together of Catholic bodies and spokesmen.

**COTTIER: I know that Cardinal Lustiger has said: I prefer the icon to the film. And I prefer the sacrament to the icon…

**Let’s get back to your work. The countless papal interventions have created a process of emulation in the Vatican Palaces. Documents, instructions, vademecum produced in a continual stream.

**COTTIER: Some bishops say they don’t even have the time to read everything produced by the Holy See and the Roman departments. I would like to make a distinction about the Pope’s position. The writings of John Paul II occupy the whole of that wardrobe. Those two shelves there are enough for Paul VI [pointing to the neat collections in his study, ed.] If we go back to Pius XI, the official texts are very few. For audiences and public gatherings Pius XI almost never wrote anything official. He spoke extempore. But one can no longer do that. Not least because there is always some recorder in ambush, the newspapers would write what the Pope said according to their interpretation in any case, maybe forcing the Holy See to make a denial when the information is inaccurate. That’s why, even when he receives a small group, there must always be a text, brief maybe, but that is official and authoritative. That goes against spontaneity. If there’s a spontaneous person it’s the current Pontiff, and this mechanism must also be a kind of penance for him. But he can’t get out of it, and us with him. Not least because there is the pressure he has to face up. Until the 'sixties people traveled much less. Now everybody comes to Rome, all the congresses want an audience with the Pope…

continued

 

[tru_dvotion]

**But, to be precise, it’s not just the Pope who “produces”…

**COTTIER: The Council led to the creation of new Roman departments, while there were very few beforehand. All the departments, for reasons more or less matching, are keen to make documents, sometimes bulky ones. The impression is of an invasion of paper that sometimes ends by hiding contents that are often worthwhile. It’s a question of the rate of digestion, if you’ll allow me the triviality. And it’s a matter that poses questions, and that perhaps needs reconsidering. Is it a normal development? For that matter, the whole world is having new problems with the development of the media, and they have to be faced in the Church as well.

**Faced by so many pronouncements the delicate question arises again of the degree of authority possessed by individual declarations and the degree of assent required.

****COTTIER: **Paragraph 25 of the Lumen gentium should be kept in mind, where it says that according to the subject treated one can recognize in each pronouncement the degree to which the pope himself commits his authority. For example, in the Evangelium vitae, where abortion and euthanasia are spoken of, even if it is not a matter of an infallible definition in the proper sense, the Pope is speaking as authorized representative of the magisterium of the Church. The authority of the Church is committed in these things. It’s a matter of the ordinary magisterium.

**There are widespread misapprehensions in the collective imagination on these things. For example on the infallibility of the pope.

**COTTIER: I remember a discussion I had in Geneva with a Protestant pastor, who confused infallibility with impeccability. As if the Petrine primacy saved the pope from the consequences of original sin. The pope is a man like other men. Let us suppose that a pope sins grievously: to return into the grace of God the only way is the sacrament of the confession for him, as for all. They’re obvious things, but by now the confusion is such that they sound like extraordinary novelties.

**So perhaps it’s better to reiterate them.

****COTTIER: **The intervention of the charism of infallibility comes about only under precise circumstances. As defined by Vatican Council I, the pope’s task is not to bring out new doctrines, but to safeguard, make known and defend what is contained already, even if in implicit manner, in the apostolic depositum, that is to say the revealed truths that are the object of faith. And revelation was fulfilled with the death of the last apostle. In this faithful exposition of the faith of the apostles, the presence of the Holy Spirit is absolute and guarantees the infallibility of the definitions. It’s not that the pope proclaims his personal ideas or opinions infallible…

continued

 

[tru_dvotion]

**That leads to a certain “restriction of the field”…

**COTTIER: There are infallible definitions only in matters of faith and morals. If for example the pope makes a diagnosis of a problem linked to culture or politics, infallibility certainly can’t be brought in.

**There one moves into the field of prudential decisions …

****COTTIER: **Speaking of the consequences of the Lateran Treaty, Pius XI, wondered: “What will happen tomorrow?… We don’t know”. In the changing flux of historical circumstances, a decision that might appear opportune, some time later may not be so anymore. Some people thereby deduce that the Church is contradicting itself. But most times one is looking at the urge of pastors to make out what La Pira, after Pope John and the Council, called the «signs of the times».

**On that your teacher Journet has written some very fine pages, for example in Théologie de l’Église…

**COTTIER: There he explained that the divine presence promised to the Church “sometimes limits itself to assuring its physical and empirical existence”, sparing “neither ordeals, nor gropings, nor errors of government”. So he thought understandable the freedom with which even historians like Ludwig von Pastor, «who did not lack pontificial approval, were able to give a retrospective judgment on the felicitous or disastrous nature of the politics of the popes».

**Is it not, in that perspective, perhaps valid and useful to distinguish the primacy of the successor of Peter – as Jesus Christ wanted it and as it has been defined by the Church - from interpretations in terms of worldly hegemony that have been given of the primacy in the course of history, even within the Church?

****COTTIER: **To look critically at ecclesial affairs does not mean to be destructive. The Church has always taught that to be pope or bishop is a service. But when the authority of the pope over the Church was challenged even by Catholic princes, the need was felt to affirm that ecclesial offices were legitimate powers like other powers. And there are maybe still residues of that confusion in appearances.

**To give a concrete example: reading the propositions condemned by the Sillabo, a simple believer could be led to think that denying the temporal power of the popes was the same as denying the Petrine primacy.

COTTIER:** And instead at the time of Vatican Council II Cardinal Montini, who was archbishop of Milan, could affirm that the ending of the Papal States had been a liberation for the Church. But maybe Montini himself, if he had found himself in the circumstances of Pius IX, would have experienced the same torments of conscience. Because Pope Mastai, as a person, simply didn’t feel entitled to liquidate the Papal States since he didn’t consider them private property, having inherited them from his predecessors. Sometimes God rids us of burdens in painful manner.

continued

 

[tru_dvotion]

Ridding the field of misapprehensions that confuse the papcy with a kind of sacred imperium might also help ecumenic relations with what some calls the sister Churches. From where should one start?

**COTTIER: **One always needs to keep in mind that the magisterium is a service and, as such, an instrument. The purpose of the Church is the salvation of the world. The function of the magisterium in the Church, that starts with the safeguarding of revealed truth and with the daily guidance of the people of God, is justified in the light of the goal. And that determines the criteria and the ways in which auctoritas is exercised in the Church. But let me take advantage of the question to say that the expression “sister Churches” doesn’t convince me. The Church is one. It’s another thing to speak of “local Churches”. That formula can be used correctly. When Paul VI, bishop of Rome, meets Athenagoras, bishop of Costantinople, it is two heads of local Churches who are meeting. John Paul II also often underlines the fact that he is pope because he is bishop of Rome. A little time ago he even spoke in Romanesco [the dialect of Rome]!

Your human and Christian path has hardly been “curial”. Let’s begin from when you were a boy: France occupied, the Catholic magazines censored, and you, with a few friends, fighting your little “resistance”…

COTTIER: Geneva is near France. We are of French culture. The occupation of France was a terrible shock. I was finishing high school. With a very dear friend we read Temps présent, a Catholic magazine first linked with the Dominicans, the editorial board of which had retreated to Lyons after the occupation of Paris. The editor was Stanislas Fumet. We invited him to Geneva. He told us how life was in France, the censorship and all the rest. He spurred us to take some initiative. We began to publish free texts that were forbidden in France. A very handsome collection of them came out, the Cahiers du Rhône. Fumet was devoted to the sanctuary of La Salette. Once, we got permits and were able to organize a pilgrimage to the sanctuary where we met up with him.

Who is more important to your Dominican vocation, Saint Thomas or Saint Dominic?

**COTTIER: **Perhaps more Saint Thomas. I was at university. I had an aunt who was a Dominican nun, and that counted for a lot. Then Journet himself acquainted me with Maritain’s work. I was in touch also with Father Domenach, a Jewish convert, a great friend of Journet, who was in Freiburg. My vocation ripened within that milieu and in those encounters.

**In the brief outline of you edited by Professor Chenaux it says that your generation was marked by the condemnation by Pius XI of Action française, the movement that aimed to renew society on the basis of Christian values. **

COTTIER: It was a trauma that particularly marked the generation prior to mine, and there are traces left today. Many Catholics in favor of Petain were former Action française. Maritain was also connected. In her books of memoires his wife Raïssa explains that their spiritual father, Father Clerissac, made it almost a religious duty. It seemed an obvious choice. In certain ways the situation was similar to today. A moment of confusion. People don’t know where we are, there is much moral decadence, and the Christian contents are proposed as factors in an ethical order. A great many supported that view. The Lefebvre group is still today, in certain ways, following in the wake of Action française.

continued

 

[tru_dvotion]

**But also today there is an ample front that lauds Christianity as cultural matrix of the West. Just think of the neocon theorists who are influencing US geopolitics. Isn’t there here also, in more refined forms, a resurgence of categories similar to those of Action française? **

**COTTIER: **Action française was a typically Catholic matter, of Catholic France. Behind some of the theories on the historical mission of the United States the main cultural root is a certain Protestant fundamentalism, with an eschatological tinge, in which a geopolitical vision is cultivated that looks to the end of time, and in which one of the keys to the problem is the role of the State of Israel. A very strong politico-religious ideology that has undoubtedly had its weight. But in Europe also a certain lauding of Christianity as maker of civilization doesn’t convince me. I was struck by the debate on the crucifix that developed in Italy in recent months. When even some Catholics said that the cross is highly important even for those who don’t believe, as cultural symbol. But no! That is the cross of Jesus! That Christianity also has cultural consequences, we’re all agreed. But Catholicism is not a cultural fact. There is a certain conservatism that is creating confusion.

**I’m reminded of a notion that you already expressed in 1969, in an article in Nova et Vetera: religion as instrumentum regni is the other side of the coin to religion as opium of the people. **

COTTIER: Maurras, one of the founders of Action française, was a positivist. He exalted Catholicism as the “religion of the French”. What interested him was France, not Catholicism, nor the Church. It’s an attitude we also find in the Enlightenment. Voltaire sent his servants to mass. He thought that religion was helpful in keeping people quiet. The conception of a Maurras, and also of a Mussolini, who had read Maurras, is that. But God is already left out. Christ is of no interest. We mustn’t be naive. It’s easy to pick out those who deny God explicitly. But those who use him, offends him grievously. It’s more insidious.

**Let’s come to your friendship with Jacques Maritain. How did you meet him? **

COTTIER: Between 1946 and 1952 I was in Rome, at the Angelicum, following courses in theology and philosophy. At that time Maritain was ambassador of France to the Holy See. I knew his work. I came in contact with him (introduced by Journet). I remember a lunch at Palazzo Taverna, where among Maritain’s guests there was also Father Garrigou-Lagrange, who had criticized the Thomist philosopher on political matters, causing him much grief.

continued

 

[tru_dvotion]

**What do you think is most relevant for today in the philosophical approach of Maritain? **

COTTIER: The ability to distinguish, proper to the whole Thomist tradition, that Maritain goes back to. The refusal to distinguish what is distinct leads to confusion and denies what maybe you wanted to defend in the first place. If everything is grace, then grace is no more. One of the dangers, that I note for example in the theology of religions, is that of attributing univocally to the Holy Spirit all that is religious. There are very praiseworthy human religious values, but that doesn’t mean they are salvific. They belong to a different order than the grace of Christ that saves. The distinction between grace and nature has perhaps at times been presented badly, as if there were an overlap of grace upon nature. That is never the thinking of Thomas. Grace operates from within nature. But nature has its own consistence.

**This is worth ad extra. But do you note confusion even within Catholic theology? **

COTTIER: For example a certain “panchristism” doesn’t seem appropriate to me. A theological system that absorbs all realities into Christ ends by turning Christ into a kind of metaphysical postulate of the affirmation of human values. And it makes us incapable of engaging in serious dialogue, even on the level of human rights. And then, saying that everybody is already of Christ, whether they know it or no, can make the mission futile.

**And at the same time can express an urge to intolerance and hegemony. “The idea that we are all Christians without knowing it seems to me religious imperialism”, Ratzinger once said.

****COTTIER: **We are not born Christians. One is born a Jew, one is born a Moslem. One becomes Christian, with baptism and the faith. Hence Christianity is unarmed. It is a divine helplessness. Because Christians are not manufactured, as those belonging to other religions can become so simply by being brought into the world. Every child must take its own step, nobody can do it in its place. Surroundings, catechesis, can help it. But no sociological condition can replace the attraction that is gift of the grace, that makes personal liberty assent.

**You have spent a fair part of your life studying Marx. How did you happen to come across the philosopher from Trier? **

COTTIER: When I had finished my ecclesiastical studies, my superiors asked me to do a thesis at the University of Geneva, where they had opened one of our Dominican monasteries. Many of my student friends had been gripped by communism. Now it’s not even possible to imagine the fascination of communism from after the war onwards. And then I was interested in grasping the relationship between Marxism and atheism. I centered my studies on that.

continued

 

[tru_dvotion]

**And what did you discover? **

COTTIER: I saw that the root of Marx’s atheism was all in Hegel. As Karl Lowith has said, the philosophy of Hegel is a massive «Gnostic christology». Precisely when Hegel is lauding to the skies the cultural importance of Christianity for the progress of civilization, he is denying the faith of the apostles in Jesus. Christ is interesting only as idea in his view, as divine model. Of Jesus as historical figure, perceptible, he doesn’t know what to do. Kierkegaard, who for me is one of the greats, understood all this.

In those years you also came across the worker-priests, and were a friend of one of them, Jacques Loew…

COTTIER: Loew was a Dominican at the time. He was close to Magdaleine Delbrel and the Little brothers of Charles de Foucauld at St. Maximin. I knew him there. Then I frequented his mission among the workers. He would question me on my knowledge of Marxism. He was attacked by the authorities of the Order to an exaggerated degree, without sufficient discernment. Some worker-priests had thrown themselves into union activism, they’d taken the party card. Some individual cases had compromised the cause. But he had always distinguished his missionary commitment from political commitment. And the impulse to go into dechristianized milieux, to share in the ordinary life of people, still seems to me a missionary attitude. They lived like the poor. They were real workers.

**Your acquaintance with Marxism also explains your active part in the famous “dialogues” organized after the Council by the Secretariat for Non-believers. **

COTTIER: I’ve never felt the seductive powers of Marxism. A friend in the French diplomatic corps, who was in Russia at the time of the war, told me of the terrible realities of communism, and that inoculated me against it for ever. But then it looked as if the communist regimes were destined to last. Dialogue with the Marxists became really unblocked when the first signs of internal crisis appeared within communism. There one also saw that the communists were not all the same thing. For example, the Eastern Germans were toughest, the most approachable the Hungarians. By Strasbourg, the Gorbacev era had already begun, they started to open up. It was very interesting, one could see they were asking themselves genuine existential questions.

It was again because of your knowledge of Marxism that you also took an active part in the debate on the theology of liberation.

**COTTIER: **The theology of liberation was then strongly influenced by Marxist ideas. That threatened to exhaust all Christian hope in political and sociological interpretations. It is interesting to see the evolution of Father Gutierrez, who has now become an original Latin American spiritual writer. While at the beginning they all underwent the influence of European authors.

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[tru_dvotion]

**In 1984 and in 1986 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published the two famous instructions on the theology of liberation. Was there not, in those years, an excess of ferocity towards that theological tendency? **

**COTTIER: **So many of them had thrown themselves into Marxism without any critical sense. Correction was needed. But the outcome of that debate has been the preferential option for the poor. Out of the dialectic came that positive synthesis.

**A last question. You, as president of the Historico-theological Commission founded for the Two-Thousand Jubilee, co-ordinated the preparatory work for the request for forgiveness of the guilts of the past, decided by the Pope for the Lent of the last Holy Year. How do you now see the issue, which is still causing controversy in the Church? **

COTTIER: Some people described it as a novelty. But the Church has always been aware that sin exists. At the beginning of every mass we say the mea culpa for our sins. Not everything that is done in the name of the Church is the Church. That discernment, and the request for forgiveness, are in my view among the most important emphases of the current pontificate. End.

 

[TTM]

Hi,

Tru_devotion, I would firstly like to suggest reading the other posts in this thread, because many of what you said have been answered already.

tru_dvotion:

I am not sure how it is possible to carry on an objective dialog on a subjectice topic such as this? One of us is an obvious convert and the other is a survivor who by the grace of God managed to escape. I pray for the Holy Spirit to enlighten all those, who are caught up in it. God bless you all.

We have a moral obligation to seek the objective answer through an objective dialogue. Otherwise, there is absolutely no point in myself spending time here at all, or yours for that matter. I think beng has demonstrated well enough that enforcing a subjective conviction does not serve the dialogue, but ends up alienating the other party and misrepresenting the truth. Unfortunately, by the definition you have placed on yourself (“a survivor who by the grace of God managed to escape”), it seems evident that you too have not so much an interest in finding the truth, as enforcing your subjective opinion onto the other party. I’m sorry if I sound rather harsh, but I do not react too well to being belittled as the one “caught up in it, needing enlightenment”. I pray for a more charitable dialogue, based on both of our desire to knowing God’s will for us all.

I will resume posting shortly. In the meanwhile, may I ask you for a clarification on the whereabouts of the following incident in the Bible? Thanks.:

Well actually, it would be rather interesting to have the correct theological explanation for this. Because, in fact, there was an incident involving Jesus, when a demon possessed girl began praising God and created a disturbance, which Jesus rebuked.

God bless,
TTM

 

[robertaf]

Good Morning Church

Excellent post TTM. Beautifully said and I agree totally.

Tru_dvotion, good article. I think most of us were aware that the Holy Father does not write every thing he presents to the Church. I also think we all understand what his speaking infallibly is all about. I notice you leave the Holy Spirits guidance out of all of this. Why?

I would like to see documentation on your statement that it is well known the `Renewal got its start outside the Catholic Church.

I am also very curious to know why the Charismatic Renewal is such an obvious threat to you. Few folks spend so much time and energy attacking a spiritual movement in the Church.

 

[tru_dvotion]

Hello TTM,

To answer your last request first,

I had a feeling, I should have checked it and to include the scriptural passage, but in my hurry to conclude, I got sloppy. I apologize for that. It was not Jesus, it was Paul in Acts: 16: 16-18.

** “As we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl with an oracular spirit, 6** who used to bring a large profit to her owners through her fortune-telling. She began to follow Paul and us, shouting, “These people are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She did this for many days. Paul became annoyed, turned, and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

**You have indicated before I need to be more charitable. Can you consider that it may be charity that compelled me to enter this dialogue? **

From what I have red so far, there is plenty of dialogue left here. Besides, is it not the purpose of such dialogue to find the truth? What makes you so sure the participants of this topic have arrived at the truth? Why is it so unusual for me to have made up my mind? Cannot we say the same of those who are entrenched in the Charismatic Movement? Is it so easy to ask them to reconsider? Is the charismatic open or willing to challenge his or her conviction? Are they objective? I found the contrary.

 

[tru_dvotion]

**The sensual “experience of the Holy spirit” is the problem with this movement. Those fully caught up in it are really attempting to substitute Catholicism. Ah, I realize, they are still active in the church. But their approach makes the Holy Spirit subservient to their emotions and personal conveniences, when our faith teaches us that grace is a free gift given by God (1 Corinth 4:7). They make their “experience” with the Holy Spirit into their new Magesterium, since we all have a direct line with the Holy Spirit which we can activate according to our own likings! **

**This is confirmed by the fact that the Charismatics will often refuse to admit that their “experience of the spirit” could be nothing more than a diabolic delusion or simply an intensification of ones own emotions. This is Charismatic heresy: 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 will often attempt to appeal not only to scripture but also Tradition to promote their efforts, yet if we look at both scripture and Tradition we find that such efforts are clearly unsuccessful. **

We read in scripture that on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles they spoke in tongues in such a way that while they were actually speaking in their own language they were understood by those present in their own native language (Acts 2:4 )

**The “Charismata” of speaking tongues enabled the early Church to spread to the ends of the known world rapidly and become well established before the death of the apostles. That is why St. Paul in his second epistle to the Corinthians, explains the purpose of the gifts was simply to build up the Church and not for the sanctification of those whom the gifts were given. The Charismatic idea of trying to revive the phenomenon of the early Church’s Charisma was an error the Montanist’s fell into in 170 A.D. These heretics were anathematized by the Church. **

 

[tru_dvotion]

Hello Roberta,

You wrote:

I think most of us were aware that the Holy Father does not write every thing he presents to the Church. I also think we all understand what his speaking infallibly is all about.

In that case, if you do realize the Holy Father does not write every thing he presents, why would you insist so emphatically on the validity of this movement with a papal speech? I doubt it very much the Holy Father ever attended a charismatic prayer meeting or partaken in a charismatic conference. No, he would have relied on others for that. So whatever he may personally feel regarding the “renewal”, we may not know it for some time, perhaps we may never know. The only things that we can be certain of are contained in the Bible, and in our Catholic Tradition. Nowhere is there anything about this “renewal” of yours in those sources.

I notice you leave the Holy Spirits guidance out of all of this. Why?

**What ever made you think that I leave the Holy Spirit’s guidance out? Is it not the Holy Sprit that is guiding the Magisterium? Was it not the Holy Spirit who gave us the Bible? Has it not been the Holy Spirit who has spoken through the Old and New Testament prophets? Have I not mentioned St Theresa of Avila, and some of the other contemporary saints? Were they not guided by the Holy Spirit? Has the Holy Spirit not guided the Church through Tradition, or through the Catechism of the Catholic Church or through our Canon Laws? **

I would like to see documentation on your statement that it is well known the `Renewal got its start outside the Catholic Church.

**I will research it and send you some reference material. But I am surprised that you are involved in this “renewal”… and yet you are so unaware where it started and how it was brought into the Catholic Church? Have you not attended Charismatic Conferences? Have you not heard or red any of the key leaders’ testimonies? **

I am also very curious to know why the Charismatic Renewal is such an obvious threat to you. Few folks spend so much time and energy attacking a spiritual movement in the Church.

Which is really too bad, that so few folks spend the time or have the courage to speak up. Had they not been sleeping, the “renewal” would not have grown into such monumental proportions. This is a false movement and although it seemed to have taken root inside the Catholic Church, the Church will eventually expel it, as it expelled other great and false movements, some of which have persisted for several hundred years.

 

[robertaf]

Greetings,

You said:
"I doubt it very much the Holy Father ever attended a charismatic prayer meeting or partaken in a charismatic conference. No, he would have relied on others for that."

Wrong, the Holy Father has indeed celebrated Charismatic Mass and partaken a Charismatic Conference. He has had many private audiences with Charismatic leaders as well and has a very good working knowledge of the Charismatic Renewal.

**What ever made you think that I leave the Holy Spirit’s guidance out? Is it not the Holy Sprit that is guiding the Magisterium? **

I would guess you mean the Holy Father, Cardinals, and Charismatic Bishops involved with the Charismatic Renewal?
I meant the Holy Spirit leading the Holy Father in the quotes he has made about the Charismatic Renewal.

**Have you not attended Charismatic Conferences? Have you not heard or red any of the key leaders’ testimonies? **

Have you read any of my earlier posts? I guess not or you would not have asked that question. I have been with the Charismatic Renewal since the start. I have not only attended many Conferences but I have worked on many, including SCRC in Anaheim. This is the largest english speaking Catholic Charismatic Conference in the world. I have known key leaders, personally. I do not know what testimonies you are talking about but look forward to reading the ones you research. I do know how and when this Renewal started and it is well documented.

This is a false movement and although it seemed to have taken root inside the Catholic Church, the Church will eventually expel it, as it expelled other great and false movements, some of which have persisted for several hundred years.

You speak as if you have an inside track on this. We would love to hear your source. In fact, I would really like to know where you get your inside information about the Holy Father having a “writer”, specifically about his comments on the Charismatic Renewal.

I still say this is just one persons opinion without anything so far to back it up.

I dislike being talked down to in the manner you are using. I hope it is un-intentional.

 

[tru_dvotion]

Wrong, the Holy Father has indeed celebrated Charismatic Mass and partaken a Charismatic Conference. He has had many private audiences with Charismatic leaders as well and has a very good working knowledge of the Charismatic Renewal.

And I suppose this is from charismatic sources?

I would guess you mean the Holy Father, Cardinals, and Charismatic Bishops involved with the Charismatic Renewal?
I meant the Holy Spirit leading the Holy Father in the quotes he has made about the Charismatic Renewal.

**Actually, this is what I responded to: “I notice you leave the Holy Spirits guidance out of all of this. Why?” **

---

Have you read any of my earlier posts? I guess not or you would not have asked that question. I have been with the Charismatic Renewal since the start. I have not only attended many Conferences but I have worked on many, including SCRC in Anaheim. This is the largest english speaking Catholic Charismatic Conference in the world. I have known key leaders, personally. I do not know what testimonies you are talking about but look forward to reading the ones you research. I do know how and when this Renewal started and it is well documented.

I red enough. That is why I found it so unusual, that you were unaware how and where it all started.

You speak as if you have an inside track on this. We would love to hear your source. In fact, I would really like to know where you get your inside information about the Holy Father having a “writer”, specifically about his comments on the Charismatic Renewal.

Calm down, you are taking my words out of context. I am not honoring this with an answer.

I dislike being talked down to in the manner you are using. I hope it is un-intentional.

Roberta, are you trying to create hostility? You are displaying the classic symptoms of a charismatic convert when anyone dares to question or oppose what they believe in. Unable to defend their point of view theologically or in terms of Church Tradition so they resort to personal attacks. I would hope this is not the case and we can keep the discussion on the topic.

 

[robertaf]

Hello,
No, I am not trying to create hostility. That is not my nature.
However, when you make comments like, “You are displaying the classic symptoms of a charismatic convert when anyone dares to question or oppose what they believe in.” , you should easily see what I mean about being talked down to.

I do not know what you mean by “charismatic convert”. I am a convert from the Protestant faith to the Catholic faith and have never converted out of the Roman Catholic Church. I am a Roman Catholic.
I have also not resorted to attacking you. Where did that come from?

Yes, the fact that the Holy Father celebrating Charismatic Mass at a Charismatic Conference does come from a Charismatic source. Does that make a difference? There was even a picture of him celebrating the Mass.

We believe when the Holy Father speaks to the Church, he is being guided by the Holy Spirit. If someone is writing something for him or assisting him in his Apostolic Ministry as a leader of Holy Mother Church, the Holy Spirit is right there in the middle of it. That would be whether the person assisting is Cardinal Ratzinger or anyone else chosen to assist him. That is what I meant about you leaving the Holy Spirit out of the Holy Father speaking about the Charismatic Renewal.

Once again, I know where the Catholic Charismatic Renewal started. I would recommend a very good read to you. It is called “AS BY A NEW PENTECOST” written by Patti Gallagher Mansfield. Patti participated in the Duquesne Weekend which was the beginning of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

You made the following statement,
“This is a false movement and although it seemed to have taken root inside the Catholic Church, the Church will eventually expel it, as it expelled other great and false movements, some of which have persisted for several hundred years.”

You said I took your words out of context. Since that is exactly how you posted them, would you be kind enough to put them in context, then.

Is this your opinion or as I asked before, do you have inside information that this is how Holy Mother Church has ruled on the Charismatic Renewal?