PLeeD,
You said: “You are clearly uninformed about what the Catholic church actually teaches about speaking and praying in tongues. You should consider learning more before commenting further.”
Umm . . . I did study the issue of “speaking in tongues” before I posted on this thread. I have never NOT studied something before posting. I would be an idiot to simply throw some opinion out here without even having taken the time to at least discover what the issue was, let alone present an answer.
As far as YOUR post, I respectfully suggest that YOU study what the Catholic Church has “officially” taught about speaking in tongues.
The answer is nothing.
Opinions have varied, but Catholic history pretty well documents a gap of no speaking in tongues from the time of St. Paul until around 1967. Protestants preceded Catholics in “speaking in tongues” by several decades.
The following is a response from a Catholic priest who specializes in apologetics:
In recent years its approach to this phenomenon seems to have been one of cautious acceptance, with an emphasis on the “cautious.”
Speaking in tongues (also known as “glossolalia,” from the Greek word “glossa” meaning tongue or language) has been part of Catholic experience at two periods of our history.
The first was in the very early Church, as recorded in the New Testament. There are three references in the Acts of the Apostles to speaking in tongues (Acts 2:4,6, 10:46 and 19:6). In these instances, speaking in tongues is described as a community-wide experience which assists in the establishment and expansion of the community of faith. When St. Paul describes tongues in his letter to the Christians in Corinth (1 Corinthians 14:5) he seems to be observing not a community-wide event but a gift that particular Christians receive. Paul recognizes it as a gift from the Holy Spirit, but considers it a less important gift than some others and counsels that it must serve, as do all the Spirit’s gifts, to build up the community rather than create distinctions or divisions among its members.
After the time of St. Paul, speaking in tongues does not make a wide appearance in the Catholic Church until 1967. In that year a Catholic prayer group meeting near Duquesne University in Pittsburgh received this gift. Other charismatic Catholic prayer groups began to experience speaking in tongues, and it became a key element in the development of the charismatic movement within the Church. It usually takes place at prayer meetings, but can also be part of private, individual prayer.
Speaking in tongues is not a phenomena unique to Catholic Christians. Some Protestant Christians in the United States, called “Pentecostals,” began to speak in tongues at the beginning of the 20th century. They considered it a sign of being baptized by the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues had spread to some “mainline” Protestant denominations by 1960.
While the Catholic charismatic movement has spread throughout the world, and charismatic prayer groups have found a home in many Catholic parishes, this movement would still represent a minority of Catholics. The Catholic Church does not believe that speaking in tongues is necessary for salvation or that its practice makes one a “better” Catholic or Christian.
Is speaking in tongues good or bad? The answer is probably that it depends. St. Paul’s test for judging gifts of the Spirit may still be the best. If speaking in tongues (or any other gift) brings genuine wisdom, understanding, right judgment, knowledge, and reverence to a person or a community, it’s likely to be a genuine gift of the Spirit. If a community which practices speaking in tongues is also characterized by joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trust, gentleness, humility, generosity, mercy, justice and truth, then it seems evident that the Holy Spirit is at work there. If, however, speaking in tongues leads to elitism, a sense of some Christians being “in” and others “out”, anger, dissension or divisiveness, then that particular faith community may be focusing too much on the gift of tongues to the detriment of other gifts which might more effectively build up its unity.
Thus, I stand by my original post/opinion.
I am more than willing to hear an explanation of why the Holy Spirit would cause someone to utter sounds that no one understands. What possible benefit would there be for anyone to listen to someone “speak” gibberish, and come away from the encounter asking themselves, “what in the world did that person just say?”
I truly am open to an explanation - I simply haven’t heard one that meets St. Paul’s “test” of " bringing genuine wisdom, understanding, right judgment, knowledge, and reverence to a person or a community."
P.S. - I was not exaggerating when I say that I saw a protestant get down on all fours and start barking like a dog. If that is “speaking in tongues”, I want no part of it . . .
If the Holy Spirit wants to communicate something to someone, why make the speaker use sounds that no one, including the speaker, can understand?