How widespread is the Charismatic Movement in Catholicism?

[rakovsky]

How does the Catholic Church look at the Charismatic movement?
I think that the hierarchs officially endorse it.

And how widespread is it in the Church?

One Catholic article that took a critical view titled The Dangers of the Charismatic Movement described a Charismatic anniversary convention in Pittsburgh:

...taking his cue from Our Lord's "Who do you say that I am?" to Simon Peter, Bishop Jacobs screamed at the audience: "WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?" Screaming crowd "JESUS!" Bishop Jacobs: "WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?" Crowd: "JESUS!" Bishop Jacobs: "WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?" Crowd: "JESUS!" ... The homily was often interrupted by loud, stamping applause... mind you, this was in the middle of Sunday Mass

...
Pentecostals are not the only group claiming miracles and conversions to authenticate their movement. There are numerous unapproved Marian apparitions (some that report the Blessed Mother warning "the Charismatics are from Hell") that also claim miracles and conversions. [8] There are wild visionaries like Clemente in Spain who has crowned himself "Pope Gregory XVI" who's movement likewise claims healings and conversions.

The Dangers of the Charismatic Movement...

This brings up a question: Would the various modern visionaries like Clemente and those who see the unapproved Marian apparitions count as "Charismatics" due to their visionary claims?

More from the article:

Father Scanlon, obviously overwhelmed with enthusiasm, seized center stage and addressed the crowd as if in the grip of a dream: "I almost never get visions but I can see God's hand moving down inside of so many in this assembly and reaching in and grabbing the garbage ...grabbing the garbage. (rising to a shouting crescendo) Let Him PULL IT UP! GET RID OF IT. SEND IT UP NOW -- SEND IT OUT. THE HOLY SPIRIT'S GONNA REPLACE IT! GARBAGE OUT -- HOLY SPIRIT IN!!" The crowd responded with "Praise God, Praise Jesus, Alleluia, Alleluia,"

Do you think Fr. Scanlon actually visualized a humanoid hand reaching down into people in the audience?

Bleasdell was flanked by Bishop Jacobs on her right and what appeared to be another bishop on her left engaging in full body dance...

It is a religion of EXPERIENCE. Charismatics never really provide a satisfactory theological explanation of "baptism of the spirit," but emphasize that it is something that must be experienced. This mirrors New Age tendencies.

This is interesting. Catholic teaching is aware of ritual Water Baptism and of Baptism with the Spirit, ie the process of the Spirit coming on to a person that is associated with water baptism. But Charismatics add a separate event of "Baptism in the spirit" besides the one that the Church already recognizes. The addition of this new kind of Spirit Baptism does not seem to make sense theologically within Catholic thought. Why isn't normal Catholic baptism and normal baptismal reception of the Holy Spirit good enough according to the Charismatics?

 

[rakovsky]

Fr. Simon writes in Is Charismatic Renewal for real? :
Reverend Know-it-all: Is Charismatic Renewal for real?

In 1899, there were no Pentecostals. Now there are about 300 million members of Pentecostal churches and untold hundreds of millions of Charismatics, so called, in traditional churches.
...
It is great fun to drive down to the west side of Frostbite falls and read the church names. I remember one that read “Fire Baptized Church of God With Signs and Wonders Following, Inc.” The sign continued, “Rev. Jones, Bishop, Apostle, Prophet, Healer and Pastor.” This guy didn’t need a church. He was a church. Even today, the proliferation of churches goes on unabated as do the scandals from Aimee Semple McPherson, in the 1920s-1940s to Jimmy Swaggart, Marvin Gorman and Jim and Tammy Bakker in the 1980's.

The snake handlers of Appalachia are among the most delightful variations of Pentecostalism. In 1910, George Hensley started snake handling in the recently pentecostal-ized Church of God in Cleveland, Tennessee. He later resigned his ministry and started the first holiness movement church to require snake handling as evidence of salvation. In other words, if you’ve never danced around with poisonous snakes, you’re clearly not going to heaven. At least that’s what they think it says in the Bible.
(Mark 16:17-18)
If you’re going to prove you’re a believer who is saved, you are going to speak in tongues, heal the sick, right? ....Right. Well, what about drinking poison and handling snakes? Shouldn’t you have to do these things to prove you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and thus saved? Oh, they drink poison, too. And they often drop dead. If they die from poison or snake bites it’s obvious they didn’t have enough faith and weren’t saved.

I understand that the snake handling and Assemblies of God are not Charismatic Catholicism, but Fr. Simon is suggesting that Charismatic Catholicism came out of that kind of broader movement of Pentecostalism that includes snake handling as one variety.

It sounds like he became charismatic himself though, saying:

She laughed again and said, “Oh speaking in tongues is easy. You could do it right now if you wanted.”

I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

I would call her back if I needed any more information for my committee report. When I hung up the phone it seemed like the room I was in was filled with a light that I could feel but couldn’t see. I remember smiling and singing hymns and feeling like an idiot. I went to my room and knelt down by my bedside to pray, a practice I had long ago abandoned, and only gibberish came out of my mouth. I calmed down, decided I had lost my mind and went to sleep. I was never again the same.

This was January of 1968, I think the 24th. The subsequent 45 years of my life have been indescribable. Baptism is a Greek word that simply means immersion, and that is exactly what I experienced, an Immersion in God’s Holy Spirit.
Reverend Know-it-all: Is Charismatic Renewal for real? part 2

He continues:

I figured I should make up my mind about this priesthood thing one way or another. I went on a retreat at a Trappist Monastery and there I found a bunch of monks who led a charismatic prayer group and, having softened on the issue, I sat in. Four hours later, I was again a convinced Pentecostal or whatever we were calling ourselves at the time. I started work at an orphanage where there two Charismatic nuns who stuck to me like white on rice.

...
I was distraught at the thought that I was not to be ordained. I remember how sad I was at the First Mass of a friend who had just been ordained, but a rather frightened looking woman came up to me and said, ”I don’t know why I am doing this. I don’t really know anything about the Holy Spirit. I’ve just started going to the prayer meetings, but the Lord told me to come over here and tell you that you are going to be a priest. They will ordain you, but whatever is happening to you now will happen to you the rest of you life.”
Reverend Know-it-all: Is Charismatic Renewal for real? part 3

It sounds like Charismatics were making major inroads in the Catholic Church already in the late 1960's then, and people were getting "messages" of prophecy like this lady did about the author's ordination.

 

[rakovsky]

Later on, Fr. Simon says that he wouldn't call his experience "Baptism in the Holy Spirit", because he was already baptized in the Spirit when he became Catholic, and instead he sees it as an added pouring of the Spirit:

[Protestant Pentecostals] brought inaccurate uses of Biblical terms such as “gifts of the Holy Spirit” and “Baptism in the Holy Spirit.” ... The exact phrase “baptism with the Holy Spirit” is not found in the New Testament, the verb from baptize in the Holy spirit occurs twice, both in reference to the same words of John the Baptist (Mt 3:11 and Lk 3:16). ... There are a lot of other references to an encounter with the Holy Spirit such “poured out upon”, “falling upon”... Protestant Pentecostal theology makes the assumption that these are all the same thing and that they constitute a quasi-sacramental, initiation that demands evidence for veracity.

If by [“baptism with the Holy Spirit”] you mean that night in 1964 that altered my life’s course irrevocably why are you using a non-biblical phrase to describe it? Why not call it an encounter with the Holy Spirit? Or a pouring out? Or a clothing with power? The best I can make of it was that it was an encounter with the Third Person of the Trinity in which I found myself in the Holy Spirit who had been in me most of my life. It was the difference between taking a life giving drink of water and falling into a swimming pool. I felt quite literally in the Holy Spirit, the way one might be in a room. It was external, more than internal.
Reverend Know-it-all: Is Charismatic Renewal for real? part 6

So Fr. Simon comes away disagreeing with the Charismatics' terminology about Baptism in the Spirit, but he still thinks what they call their "Spirit Baptism" experience is real and paranormal.


Another priest describes how as a youth he went to a 12 week Charismatic seminar in his essay "Traditional Catholicism and the Charismatic Movement":

At the end they prayed over me to receive the gift of tongues (Glossolaly). Nothing happened and I was told to start babbling. That would help it begin. In those days I was a real people pleaser so I tried but nothing happened. In preparation for the last day of the seminar we were told to go to confession which helped me think of sin as being sin.
Traditional Catholicism and the Charismatic Movement | Traditional Catholic Priest

This brings up an interesting issue. There are other accounts of Charismatics beginning their practice of "tongues" by starting deliberately to babble nonsensically. Typically any reasonable person can, if he/she wishes, babble nonsense. That raises the question of whether the tongues are a real paranormal experience where the Spirit as an external force made the person speak in tongues, or if the tongues is a path that Charismatics commonly embark on intentionally. That is, they start out deliberately babbling a little bit, and after they get used to it, the feeling and practice of babbling takes over, kind of like riding a bike, swimming, or some other activity that a person gets used to doing to the point where they don't think much while they perform it; and instead think of as a "gift" (actually a skill) that they have.

He also makes a good point

that the charismatic movement was never part of the Catholic faith before 1967. The gift of tongues as explained in the Bible was a unique gift for the beginning of conversion only in places where many languages were spoken. Look this up in the Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent under Gift of Tongues and see what it says. A few saints had this gift like St. Francis Xavier and St. Vincent Ferrer.
...
I have done many charismatic masses... Many times they pray over people... so that they will fall down and be slain in the spirit. I once was pushed and pushed so hard to fall over. I resisted a long time than just to get them to stop I went down. Again pleasing people rather than God.
Traditional Catholicism and the Charismatic Movement | Traditional Catholic Priest

So sometimes when Charismatics fall down they do so because they want to or are being psychologically persuaded to do so, consciously or unconsciously.

 

[Rajni]

This might be a great topic to bring up in the Charismatic Catholic Renewal board here on CF. I'm sure there's someone there who can shed light on it from a first-hand perspective.


-

 

[RDKirk]

The first problem of your idea is listing all the extremes of people who call themselves "Charismatic" and asserting those extremes as though they are norms. Like most things, the "Charismatic Movement" crosses a spectrum.

The "Charismatic Movement" is a reaction against Cessationism in Protestantism, and a denial that spiritual gifts still exist and that the Holy Spirit is still active are the only consistent characteristics of people who consider themselves "Charismatic."

Catholics have never been Cessationists--Catholics have, theologically, always been "Charismatic." Some Catholics even practice glossolalia, and that has not been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. The RCC has never denied that spiritual gifts still occur, or that the Holy Spirit is still as active now as in the first century, that miracles and visions still occur, or that demons are real.

 

[rakovsky]

This might be a great topic to bring up in the Charismatic Catholic Renewal board here on CF. I'm sure there's someone there who can shed light on it from a first-hand perspective.

Chaela!
That would be a good place, except for one thing I started a thread there on a related topic a long time ago and got zero replies:
How Traditional Christianity views apparent similarities between Charismatics and Early Christians

 

[rakovsky]

The first problem of your idea is listing all the extremes of people who call themselves "Charismatic" and asserting those extremes as though they are norms. Like most things, the "Charismatic Movement" crosses a spectrum.

The "Charismatic Movement" is a reaction against Cessationism in Protestantism, and a denial that spiritual gifts still exist and that the Holy Spirit is still active are the only consistent characteristics of people who consider themselves "Charismatic."

Catholics have never been Cessationists--Catholics have, theologically, always been "Charismatic." Some Catholics even practice glossolalia, and that has not been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. The RCC has never denied that spiritual gifts still occur, or that the Holy Spirit is still as active now as in the first century, that miracles and visions still occur, or that demons are real.

These are great points by you and there is truth in one you say.
I think that the mainstream Catholic church in some major ways is on a midway point between Calvinists/Evangelicals/the Baptist Church and the Charismatics on this topic.
So, like the Charismatics, the Catholics have always practiced ritual expulsion of demons, a practice that became pretty fringe or done away with in conservative Calvinism. On the other hand, unlike the Charismatics, the Catholics were pretty strict and orderly about their casting out of demons. They had set ritual prayers for it and had official demon-expellers. It wasn't typical for just any lay Catholic in medieval times or up to the time of the Charismatic movement to go and perform those kinds of casting-out.

 

[RDKirk]

These are great points by you and there is truth in one you say.
I think that the mainstream Catholic church in some major ways is on a midway point between Calvinists/Evangelicals/the Baptist Church and the Charismatics on this topic.
So, like the Charismatics, the Catholics have always practiced ritual expulsion of demons, a practice that became pretty fringe or done away with in conservative Calvinism. On the other hand, unlike the Charismatics, the Catholics were pretty strict and orderly about their casting out of demons. They had set ritual prayers for it and had official demon-expellers. It wasn't typical for just any lay Catholic in medieval times or up to the time of the Charismatic movement to go and perform those kinds of casting-out.

You're presuming that all Charismatic churches and all Charismatics operate at the extremes.

 

[rakovsky]

You're presuming that all Charismatic churches and all Charismatics operate at the extremes.

No, because I understand that some Charismatics won't be involved in these activities, like casting out demons. But I am presuming that certain features do set Charismatic Catholics apart from the rest of Catholicism. And I am presuming that one of the kinds of traits that helps to identify Charismatics is lay people casting out demons without following the rituals and orders set down for that purpose by the older generations of Catholic practice.

 

[Toneri Otsutsuki]

Too much.

 

[rakovsky]

Broadly speaking, I can see several main developments in Christian history related to views about supernatural phenomena:

• 
  
• In prehistoric times, it looks like the Abrahamic tribes worshiped numerous divine beings or gods. In the story of Abraham getting visited by God, God came in three persons.
• In the era of the Torah up to the first century, there was a strong focus on ritual observances, including the festivals, sacrifices, and ritual purity.
• The belief in the Davidic Messiah came about 1000 BC, and from then on the prophets elucidated a lot of teachings like the future resurrection and angels that might be found but were not explained as much in the earlier writings.
  
• In the advent of Christianity, there were some big resemblances to the Charismatics today, like expectations of the End Times coming upon them and frequency of visions and miracle claims.
• About the middle of the 2nd century up to 200 AD, the Christian community generally moved away from the supernatural frequency claims. A good example of this was the Church's rejection of the Montanist movement whose followers claimed ecstatic visions and had female prophets playing a key role. The Church also stopped using the paranormal "tongues" in this era. The Church was becoming mainstream.
• In the 16th c., the Protestant Reformation came around, and especially in the case of Calvinism there was even more rejection of supernatural claims. One of Calvin's Catholic critics asked him if he could do any miracles to back up his claims (Catholic saints were still claimed at least to do miracles and have some visions), and Calvin told him that these kinds of things ended in the 2nd c. Calvin took a more naturalistic-based skeptical approach to criticising previous generations of claims. He said Jesus' body was up in heaven, and so it couldn't be in thousands of pieces of communion bread on earth like the Lutherans and Calvin's Christian predecessors taught. These developments typically most affected the Germanic speaking countries like the US, UK, Holland, Switzerland, Scandinavia, the Baltics countries, and Germany.

 

[rakovsky]

When did the gift of prophecy fade in the early Church? How late into its history are we no longer talking about the apostolic period, or the period when people would say that the Church's teachings must inherently be Christianity's?

It seems that the last of the 12 disciples died with John the Evangelist, in about 100 AD. There were at least 70 apostles however (Seventy disciples - Wikipedia). When did the last one die? An apostle who was 20 in 30 AD would have been 90 in 100 AD.

Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch for decades in the 1st c. and died in the early second cent. said that bishops like himself had the gift of prophecy, speaking with divine inspiration, although some legitimate bishops didn't have that gift, he noted. Those who knew John the Evangelist when they were 20 would have been born about 80 AD. Such a person would be 70 years old in 150 AD and 90 in 170 AD. It seems then that the second generation of Christians, including those who knew the apostles, took over the helm for the first half of the second century AD.

The Catholic Encyclopedia talks about how the Church clamped down on the Montanist movement that used ecstatic utterances in the second half of the 2nd century AD:

The great point was the manner of prophesying. It was denounced as contrary to custom and to tradition. A Catholic writer, Miltiades, wrote a book to which the anonymous author refers, "How a prophet ought not to speak in ecstasy". It was urged that the phenomena were those of possession, not those of the Old Testament prophets, or of New Testament prophets like Silas, Agabus, and the daughters of Philip the Deacon; or of prophets recently known in Asia, Quadratus (Bishop of Athens) and Ammia, prophetess of Philadelphia, of whom the Montanist prophets boasted of being successors. To speak in the first person as the Father or the Paraclete appeared blasphemous. The older prophets had spoken "in the Spirit", as mouthpieces of the Spirit, but to have no free will, to be helpless in a state of madness, was not consonant with the text: "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." Montanus declared: "The Lord hath sent me as the chooser, the revealer, the interpreter of this labor, this promise, and this covenant, being forced, willingly or unwillingly, to learn the gnosis of God." The Montanists appealed to Genesis 2:21: "The Lord sent an ecstasy [ektasin] upon Adam"; Psalm 115:2: "I said in my ecstasy"; Acts 10:10: "There came upon him [Peter] an ecstasy"; but these texts proved neither that an ecstasy of excitement was proper to sanctity, nor that it was a right state in which to prophesy.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Montanists

It seems that with the end of the Montanist movement, the phenomena of widespread prophecying faded too.

 

[Biblicist]

Later on, Fr. Simon says that he wouldn't call his experience "Baptism in the Holy Spirit", because he was already baptized in the Spirit when he became Catholic, and instead he sees it as an added pouring of the Spirit:

The Roman Catholic leadership certainly endorse the Roman Catholic Charismatic movement though they certainly reject the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, not so much that denominations such as the AoG (and other classic-Pentecostals) see the BHS as being subsequent to our Salvation but simply as they deem their in-house sacraments as being the means of salvation for a Roman Catholic.

This endorsement may be based more on pragmatic grounds than they are theological, as they know that if they were to stand against the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal that they run the risk of losing many of their members, particularly those who reside within the Majority World regions such as South America.

 

[redleghunter]

Some Catholics even practice glossolalia, and that has not been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church.

Yes they do. I've been to Catholic Charismatic services and prayer groups when visiting my uncle and aunt when younger. They would continue in the glossolalia for 15-30 minutes and not one in the group could coherently interpret what they were saying. They did say the Spirit was talking but could not say what exactly until they sat around for another hour or so and shared what each person thought they heard.

Don't know. I always thought the NT gift which still is gifted is zenoglossolalia. An actual language understood by someone which is their native tongue.

I am not a cessationist. The Gospel still comes in word and power.

I can't vouch for glossolalia as edifying for the assembly or Church at large. Perhaps it is for individual edification.

 

[rakovsky]

Yes they do. I've been to Catholic Charismatic services and prayer groups when visiting my uncle and aunt when younger. They would continue in the glossolalia for 15-30 minutes and not one in the group could coherently interpret what they were saying. They did say the Spirit was talking but could not say what exactly until they sat around for another hour or so and shared what each person thought they heard.

Don't know. I always thought the NT gift which still is gifted is zenoglossolalia. An actual language understood by someone which is their native tongue.

I am not a cessationist. The Gospel still comes in word and power.

I can't vouch for glossolalia as edifying for the assembly or Church at large. Perhaps it is for individual edification.

I sympathize with your personal observations.
Human languages according to the Torah were separated at Babel so people didn't understand each other. At Pentecost, Christians needed to spread their message to the nations, so the practical purpose of the tongues gift was to do that, not to have a mindless ecstatic stream of blab blab.
I also think that the NT tries to give the reader the impression that the tongues were national languages like you write. Now, whether this was actually the case is a separate question. I think that once you answer the question by saying "Yes, based on the Bible's meaning, the apostles were speaking only real languages," then to equate the apostolic tongues with what we see in charismatics today would imply that the apostles were really doing gibberish too. Paul noted that if bystanders walked in and watched Corinthians doing tongues simultaneously, the bystanders would think they were "maniacs".

These kinds of gifts appeared to fade out of the church in the 2nd century AD, along with the frequency of ecstatic visions (eg. John's revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, apocalypse of Peter, Ascension of Isaiah, etc.)