Speaking in Tongues according to Fr. Ripperger

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Patagonia1

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I came across this interesting speech by Father Chad Ripperger, who is an exorcist, regarding the charismatic gift of speaking in tongues. In his speech, he mentions that there are three kinds of tongues.
  1. Authentic Form - I speak my language and you hear me speak in yours
  2. Infused Knowledge - God gifts knowledge of the language of Tongues, so the speaker actually knows what he is speaking
  3. Human Form - People speak their own personal version of tongues
Fr. Ripperger makes the argument that, as an exorcist, the main factor in determining whether a person was possessed was whether or not the person “knows” what they are speaking (see Point #2) and that it can be diabolic when a person speaks in tongues. Possessed individuals don’t have a clue what it is they are saying.

He also makes the argument, concerning Point #3, that scientific studies were performed from people speaking in tongues and found that the people were following the same grammatical patterns of those in their own personal habits of speech – so in other words neither authentic nor diabolical.

Video Link Here:

I’ll admit I know little about Tongues, but I looked up YouTube videos of people speaking in Tongues, and with each video I felt quite “troubled” to say the least. I have learned to generally trust my intuition and my intuition was screaming “Red Alert!” on this stuff. One video was even from a “Catholic Mystic” who “sang” in tongues. To me it all sounds like ecstatic gibberish and I can’t help but feel like the people in the videos are simply practicing #3 above and perhaps on a slippery slope to inviting the diabolical into their lives.

We also know that the Charismatic Gifts can only be given by God if he so wills it. One cannot ask God for these gifts, they are simply given by Him. Now I have never been to a CCR service, but it is my understanding that oftentimes the congregants are encouraged to “pray in tongues”. Please correct me if I am wrong about that! So I would like to ask CCR Catholics – do you pray in tongues, and how can you be convinced that it is authentic given Fr. Ripperger’s points above? Do you have the knowledge of what it is what you are speaking?

I understand this may be a very touchy subject for some people, so I ask, let’s please keep this discussion civil. God Bless!
 
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My third-intended in college was a Trinity Pentecostal minister. I attended church with him a couple of times. One of those times I heard someone speaking in tongues. Everyone was murmuring a prayer of thanksgiving as she was doing so. Afterward, she went to the podium and gave an inspiring message. She seemed humbled and emboldened by the experience.

I had intended to attend Saturday evening Mass, then help him with his church on Sunday (and probably Wednesdays). Obviously, none of that came to pass.

I have also been prayed over by a Charismatic Catholic. Her hand shook and she spoke in tongues as it happened.

Blessings,
Mrs Cloisters OP
Lay Dominican
http://cloisters.tripod.com/
http://cloisters.tripod.com/charity/
http://cloisters.tripod.com/holyangels/id9.html/
 
Patagonia1 said:
I’ll admit I know little about Tongues, but I looked up YouTube videos
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I sincerely doubt that Youtube videos of people speaking in tongues are going to shed any meaningful light on this subject for you.
Now I have never been to a CCR service, but it is my understanding that oftentimes the congregants are encouraged to “pray in tongues”
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Perhaps, if you are really interested in CCR (which is approved by the Vatican for a very long time now), you should actually attend a service and speak to a priest or two involved in it, not make preliminary judgments based on unreliable sources. Fr Ripperger is controversial and not everybody accepts what he says either.
 
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I was raised in a Pentecostal denomination, and after I had my authentic conversion experience at the age of almost 30 (the experience that actually stuck), I continued in various Pentecostal and Charismatic movements for another 20 years. By professional training I was a linguist (Russian and Arabic); I speak several other languages with varying degrees of fluency, and there are maybe 20 other languages that I can neither speak nor understand, but I can recognize them when I hear them. I have heard many people speak in tongues, and I have never heard a language that I could recognize as a human language, let alone a language that I understood. I haven’t prayed or spoken in tongues for a couple decades. I’m still open to it, but if you ever hear me speaking in tongues, you will know that something (or Someone) has really got a hold on me, as we say here in the South.

On the other hand, with regard to Fr. Ripperger’s comment that speaking in tongues can be diabolic, I think that it might be a little dangerous to attribute to the Devil something that could actually be a work of the Holy Spirit; see Mark 3:22-30. Even when I was living as a lower-case pagan, I never said anything like that.

D
 
DaveBj said:
I haven’t prayed or spoken in tongues for a couple decades
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Thanks for the reply Dave. I am curious, as a former speaker of tongues, did you have the knowledge of what it was you were saying?
 
Yes I’ve heard Fr Ripperger explain this in another talk of his. He is a very wise man. It also makes complete sense that the Spirit would give people understanding (gift of the Holy Spirit) of the language during tongues and not have them babbling away and not knowing what they are saying, in my humble opinion.
 
We hear the “gibberish” claim constantly. It is invariably from those who are NOT (or just barely) involved in the charismatic renewal. As to Fr. Ripperger, I honestly say that I take him with a grain of salt.

Fr. Vincent Lampert and all other exorcists whom I have read, mention that the demonic enters in when someone speaks a human language that they otherwise do not know.

NOTE: the demonic is nearly always associated with other identifiable demonic influence, such as grunting, levitation, foaming at the mouth, etc.

NOTE ALSO: Some of these observations have also applied to the Saints.
 
I heard a story from a priest about his grandmother. She was given the gift of tongues and was using it at a devotional at the parish.

An Religious Sister from Ireland was sitting behind her heard it. The sister thought she was from Ireland because the sister said it was the most beautiful Gaelic hymn/prayer she ever heard.

The priest’s grandmother was not Irish and didn’t speak Gaelic.

Awesome story to hear from priest.

NOTE: I don’t know if the grandmother understood what she was saying or not
 
po18guy said:
We hear the “gibberish” claim constantly. It is invariably from those who are NOT (or just barely) involved in the charismatic renewal.
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I have actually wondered if this sort of judgmental stuff coming from people who know nothing about CCR other than what they see on Youtube is why the Charismatic groups in some areas do not publicize their Holy Spirit Masses very much, and one often has to find out about them via a mailing list or “through the grapevine”.

I myself don’t pray in tongues, but I don’t mind if other people do. As Tim Staples said in the video I posted, quoting Fr. Brennan, if you’re praying, God bless you.

Also I am pretty sure when people are attending a Mass or praying the Rosary or similar, and the priest leads them in prayer and it happens to be prayer in tongues, these folks aren’t going to have demons barging past the Holy Spirit and Mother Mary and possessing them right and left. Although I enjoy some of Fr Ripperger’s talks, a lot of his stuff (and Fr Amorth’s stuff) reminds me of the old saying about how if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Both of them trade heavily on being exorcists and they see demons under every bush. I have met other diocesan exorcists who don’t carry on that way.
 
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I wonder what other Church teachings they disagree with?

Have never spoken a single syllable in any kind of tongue. My charism(s) are much quieter. Since I tend toward the flamboyant in other aspects of life, such a showy gift would serve only to puff me up.

All matters spiritual are subject to Church scrutiny. We’d best not condemn good practice because of a few poor practitioners.
 
phil19034 said:
I heard a story from a priest about his grandmother . . .
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There is a lot of anecdotal evidence like this out there. It is a big reason why I keep my mouth shut when it comes to actually criticizing glossolalia.

D
 
Patagonia1 said:
I understand this may be a very touchy subject for some people, so I ask, let’s please keep this discussion civil. God Bless!
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Father Ripperger and charismatic renewal in one single topic…

Let the games begin!
 
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I have a friend in the CCR and have heard her speak in tongues many times. As far as I can tell she uses a repetitive set of syllables. She has told me she has no idea what she is saying. I went to a CCR conference with her one time and it wasn’t my cup of tea.
 
Just my own .02 cents, but I think if someone speaks in “tongues” and they are not faking it, most likely they are going through some sort of “lite ecstasy” if you will. I think most likely it is just a symptom of a strong spiritual experience.
 
I’ve never been encouraged to speak in tongues- It’s really depending on if you want to do it or not.
I only do it when I feel called to do so.

I mostly speak in tongues when I’m alone and by myself.
 
You are indeed being offensive. Many people deeply benefit from Church approved CCR. No one is forcing you to participate in it. Your opinion is neither kind nor constructive nor Christlike and I would hope CCR continues on its merry way ignoring Negative Nancy opinions like yours.
 
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Anne1964 said:
I have a friend in the CCR and have heard her speak in tongues many times. As far as I can tell she uses a repetitive set of syllables. She has told me she has no idea what she is saying. I went to a CCR conference with her one time and it wasn’t my cup of tea.
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I’ll speak of my own experience.
When I first was given the gift of prayer in the Spirit, it was a few syllables that I prayed over and over. Slowly over time the gift increased until today when I pray in the spirit it’s complete sentences, and sounds like someone speaking another language.
I have never had the gift of interpretation and don’t know what words I’m saying. For all I know it may not be words in any human language.

Romans 8: 26 (ISV): In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, since we do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.

I know that when I pray in the spirit my intent is to praise and glorify God and let Him bring me closer to Him.

From outside? The Catholic Church is the same Church to which the Apostles belonged. We are the heirs of the Apostles. It was they, the Twelve and those with them in the upper room at Pentecost, who first began to speak in tongues.
This gift is not from outside the Catholic Church. The fact that some non-Catholics have been given it does not in the least mean it originates from them.
 
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Pretty sure I’ve posted this on another thread, but my take on tongues as a Linguist (will need to be done in two or three posts due to length and forum limitations):

There is nothing mysterious about Biblical “tongues” – when referring to something spoken, they are nothing more than real, rational language(s); perhaps unknown to those listening to them, but always known by the speaker(s) – it’s their native language.

The “tongues” Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians are producing today is an entirely self-created phenomenon. It is non-cognitive non-language utterance (NC-NLU); random free vocalization based upon a subset of the existing sounds (phonemes) of the speaker’s native language, and any other language(s) the speaker may be familiar with or have had contact with. It is, in part, typically characterized by repetitive syllables, plays on sound patterns and over-simplification of syllable structure. The most immediately recognizable result of these processes is that no two ‘speakers’ will ever have the same “tongue”.

If the history of the Pentecost movement is examined, one fact is very clear: at some point, I believe between 1906 and 1907, Pentecostal/Charismatic leaders were compelled to re-examine the narrative of Scripture with respect to “tongues”. The reason for this re-examination was that it quickly became embarrassingly obvious that their original supposition, xenoglossy, certainly wasn’t what they were producing.

This forced a serious theological dilemma — As a whole, either the Pentecostal movement would have to admit it was wrong about “tongues”, or the modern experience needed to be completely redefined. It seems the latter option was chosen.

The resulting implicit theology however was not a synthesis of revelation and philosophy, but rather a synthesis of trying to make sense of the modern “tongues experience” in light of the narrative of Scripture. A way to legitimize and justify the modern phenomenon by ‘proofing’ it in the Bible. The problem with this however, was an obvious overwhelming absence therein of anything resembling modern tongues. Call it what you will, but for this group of Christians, the result was a virtual re-definition of scripture with respect to the understanding and justification of modern “tongues”; a re-interpretation of select texts to fit the modern practice/connotation of what ”tongues” was perceived to be.

With respect to the modern phenomenon, what Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians are doing today, 150 years ago, did not exist as a part of the Christian tradition.

People believe something to be supernatural because they can’t explain it otherwise. There are, of course, many things in religion which must be taken on faith; they can neither be proved nor disproved. “Tongues” however, is not one of these things. It is something very concrete and tangible; it is a phenomenon which can be (and has been) studied and analyzed.

(cont)
 
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