Dear Pax,
Certainly it is a beautiful site, but under the heading of Basic Doctrine we get Fr. Wm. Most's take on the charismatic gifts, which is merely his opinion, and *not* that of the Church.
In the years preceding the Council and during the Council *the entire Church* prayed the prayer of Pope John XXIII, "Lord, Renew your wonders in our time as in a new Pentecost." Yet, when many in the Church began to witness that precisely that had happened in 1967, many pastors in the Church coldly refused to believe. Nevertheless, those in authority have given the Charismatic Renewal in the Church their blessing, and Pope John Paul is a case in point. In fact, at Pentecost in 1998 in Rome he entrusted the New Evangelization in a special way to the movements whom he had invited to Rome especially to receive his blessing, approbation and commission. These included the Cursillo Movement, Focolare, the neo-Catechumenical Way, but far more populous and widespread than any other by a huge proportion are the charismatics.
Their home is most properly in the Catholic Church, and I take great exception to whomever formulated this website attempting to drum them out of the Church by quoting someone who is no more than a private theologian, a private theologian by the way who even as he talks about the need for Church discernment ignores the discernment the Church has in fact given.
My personal experience of being on the receiving end of such coldness has led me to believe that such an approach is in itself a great scandal, and a scandal that has driven many out of the Church. It is uninformed and badly based theologically. As George MacDonald once said, "The cold shoulder is a terrible weapon." Indeed it is.
Nevertheless, today is a happy day indeed for the Church, her birthday. May the Holy Spirit descend on us one and all, "As in a New Pentecost"....
Lee
