The impact of the charismatic movement on the Roman Catholic Church

Abstract

The Catholic charismatic movement (renewal) may not have fulfilled all the hopes of its adherents, but it has had more impact on the Catholic Church than many realise. The signs are that this influence will increase as the effects sink deeper into church life.

Notes

For most Pentecostals, speaking in other tongues was a necessary sign of the baptism in the Spirit.

A few Catholics had received the baptism in the Spirit before the Duquesne weekend, notably in the USA and in the Netherlands, but these isolated occurrences did not trigger a movement in the Church.

For a survey of the first four years, see James Connelly (1971), pp. 211–232.

Catholic writings on the movement often emphasize the Catholic antecedents more than the Protestant source.

The first two books on the movement, which both exercised a major influence, were O'Connor (1971) and Ranaghan and Ranaghan (1969).

New Covenant.

Interestingly, the US bishops' statement included in McDonnell's collection (see note 13) noted as early as 1969 that ‘Many would prefer to speak of it as a charismatic renewal’ (McDonnell, 1980, p. 209).

See later section on New Communities.

See Bundy, in Burgess (2002), pp. 1108–1109. Suenens first heard of CCR in 1972 and then had first‐hand experience during a visit to the USA in March 1973 (see Wilfried Brieven (2002), p. 3).

This was initially Cardinal Suenens. Since Suenens' retirement, this role was filled by the German Bishop Paul Cordes (1984–95) and then by the Polish Bishop Stanislaw Rylko (1995–2003).

The magazine, Good News, was for many years a service to CCR in England and Wales, but since Pentecost 2002 also serves CCR in Scotland and Ireland, whose own magazines had been discontinued.

‘[T]he sacred Synod forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful, especially those who live the religious life, to learn “the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3: 8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures’ (Dei Verbum, para. 25).

From the USA, The Word Among Us (from 1981) and God's Word Today (from 1983), and in UK, Bible Alive (from 1996).

See also under ‘Evangelization’ and ‘Lay Leadership’.

The letter Evangelii Nuntiandi.

For example, the Decree on Missionary Work, Ad Gentes, states: ‘The special end of this missionary activity is the evangelization and the implanting of the Church among peoples or groups in which it has not yet taken root’ (para. 6). It is true that in the concluding section, the Council states that ‘the whole Church is missionary, and the work of evangelization the fundamental work of the people of God’ (para. 35), but this is not the thrust of the whole decree.

But for developments in France, see ICCRS (1999), p. 3.

Kekako stands for Kerygma, Karisma, Koinonia [gospel proclamation, charismata, community], which together capture the thrust of these courses.

Of the registered movements participating in a congress before the mass rally, 21 were clearly charismatic out of 83. Of the delegates from these movements, 51 were charismatic with 147 from other movements (from photocopied list of participants).

‘It is from this providential rediscovery of the Church's charismatic dimension that before and after the Council, there has been a remarkable development of ecclesial movements and new communities' (Pope John Paul II (1998), p. 2).

The American layman, Ralph Martin, a leader of Word of God Community.

The Catholic terminology for monks, nuns and others, not ordained, who take vows and belong to religious communities.

Dempsey has been a member of the NSC for England and Wales, and is the founder of an annual conference, New Dawn, held at Walsingham, Norfolk, each summer.

The papers from this consultation have been published in a book, entitled Prayer for Healing (2003).

The invited participants are listed in an Appendix to Prayer for Healing (2003, pp. 299–301). The 97 participants comprised 13 bishops (11 Catholic, of whom four were from the Vatican, one Orthodox and one Anglican), 32 priests, one Lutheran pastor, four deacons, two religious sisters and 45 lay people, of whom 30 were men and 15 women.

The German‐speaking countries are quite different in this respect.

The French charismatic communities are the best documented. See Monique Hébrard, Les Nouveaux Disciples (1979) and Les Nouveaux Disciples Dix Ans Après (1987), Frédéric Lenoir, Les Communautés Nouvelles: Interviews des Fondateurs (1988) and Pascal Pingault, Renouveau de l'Eglise: les communautés nouvelles (1989). The story of some particular communities has also been told in book form, e.g. of the Emmanuel Community by Bernard Peyrous and Hervé‐Marie Catta, Le Feu et l'Espérance (1995); of the Béatitudes by Frère Ephraïm, Les pluies de l'arrière‐saison (1985); and of Réjouis‐toi in Michel Santier, Réjouis‐toi (1998). For the Pain de Vie community, see Pascal and Marie‐Annick Pingault, Le Livre de Vie de la Communauté du Pain de Vie (1993).

The two countries in English‐speaking Africa most impacted by CCR are Ghana and Uganda.

The Vienna City mission took place in May 2003. The Paris mission will follow in October 2004. Recently, Budapest has also joined the City mission programme and the Budapest mission has been scheduled for 2007.

Among CCR leaders whose charismatic initiation occurred through Protestant ministry are Charles Whitehead (England); Johannes Fichtenbauer (Austria); Urban Camenzind (Switzerland), Laurent Fabre and Bertrand Lepesant (France).

The North American Renewal Service Committee (NARSC) was begun in 1985; the International Charismatic Consultation on World Evangelization (ICCOWE) was formed in 1988, as also was the European Charismatic Consultation (ECC). ICCOWE dropped the OWE to become simply ICC in 2002.

Chemin Neuf describes itself as ‘une communauté catholique à vocation oecuménique’ [a Catholic community with an ecumenical calling], but in fact includes some Protestant members.

At the annual conferences of the Consultazione Carismatica Italiana, the music is normally provided by a combined Catholic–Pentecostal choir and music ministry.