Sin of Omission (2): Praying for My Enemies

"Fredo, you're my older brother and I love you, but don't ever take sides with anyone against the family with anyone, ever, again."  Michael Corleone to brother Fredo in Godfather.

 I confess: I do not much pray for my enemies. 

Well, I don't have many enemies. Will Rogers famously said "I never met a man I didn't like." I don't go quite that far, but pretty close. My wife says I like people more than they like me and I think they like me more than they do. She may be right. But this is a good problem to have. I have no intention to correct it.

My enemies are intellectual: Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud. They are dead. I would do well to pray for their souls.

In this diverse American society, I have always been keenly aware of my cultural-religious tribe: Catholic. We are in competition with other tribes: mainline WASP Protestants, Evangelicals-Fundamentalists, Jews both secular and orthodox, Black Evangelicals and so forth. But raised in the harmonious, ecumenical post-war period, I see these more as competitors or benign adversaries, not enemies, like in a wholesome recreational athletic league. 

And so, I do not have a personal animus against those from other tribes: Clintons, Trumps, Obamas, Bushes, and so forth. They are what they are; they don't know better.

Rather, the enemy I despise is the Catholic who betrays our family and our values: politicians like the Bidens, Kennedys, Pelosis, Cuomos, and such who crusade for abortion, force Catholic agencies to place adoptee children with gay couples, force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraception, force our daughters to compete with biological boys. 

Worse still are the Church leaders...theologians, priests, bishops...who betray us in the Culture War by blessing gay unions, tolerating abortion, abandoning our deposit of faith to accommodate fashion: Cardinals like Fernandez, Cupich, McElroy, Parolin and others. 

These are to me what Fredo was to Michael Corleone. 

It is important that I pray for them...for a number of reasons.

First of all, for my own soul. That I grow in charity; and not surrender to contempt, resentment, hatred.

Secondly, to enhance my own witness to Truth since I will be far more effective when I speak from a heart of serenity, love and openness. 

Lastly, for the good of the Church. By speaking the truth always in love, out of prayer, humbly and open-mindedly, I contribute to the unity of the Church.

Yes...praying for my political-theological enemies within the Church is a salutary exercise: for my own heart, soul and intellect...and for the good of the Church.

 

Sin of Omission: Praying for the Souls in Purgatory

Today being the last day of November, the month of the last things and the souls in purgatory, I publicly confess: in my Catholic adulthood of 60 years I have almost never, excepting wakes and funerals, prayed for the souls in purgatory. I never confessed the sin until Friday. The priest, who is about my age, clearly resonated and seemed to almost co-confess with me.  I knew about the souls, of course. But I didn't care. Purgatory was not part of my lived world. 

It is not just me of course. I am a product of my society and age. At the time of the second Vatican Council, our society, including Catholicism, turned increasingly secular...right about 1965 as I graduated from high school. I ingested the flavor of the age and lost interest in the souls. On purgatory we Catholics for practical purposes went Protestant. No need for purification or reparation: God's mercy is all that matters. Souls pretty much go smoothly, directly to heaven: they are "in a better place." And so, we gather "to celebrate a life." Judgment, wrath, purgatory, retribution, reparation, purification...all that is SO pre-Vatican Council!

It was not always so. Medieval and Tridentine Catholicism placed great emphasis upon prayer for the souls. The Mystical Body of Christ was a sophisticated economy of grace: the saints in heaven (Triumphant) pray for us who struggle on earth (Militant) as we assist the souls in purgatory (Suffering). Prayers, masses, and sacrifices for the souls was a foundation of Catholic life. Our generation learned this from the Baltimore Catechism, but we cavalierly discarded it after the Council in our implicitly arrogant dismissal of our legacy. 

My emergent consciousness is not unrelated to my age. Born 8/20/47, I was conceived circa 11/20/46 and so have just completed 79 years alive and begun my 80th year. Life expectancy for men in the USA is around 75. So, purgatory is becoming increasingly probable and imminent!

I hope my family and friends are more diligent in prayer for my soul than I have been for those who have gone before me.

The "saint for the day" in Magnificat for November 2025 has been "saints who teach us about purgatory." This has opened my eyes. My favorite is Blessed Christina the Wonderful. She died; in the middle of her funeral mass she sat up in the casket and levitated up to the rafters of the Church. Later she explained that she had gone to heaven, hell and purgatory and seen in each people she knew. She was told she could go to heaven or return to earth to pray for sinners and the souls in purgatory. She opted to return and spent the rest of her life doing just that. 

Saint Maria Assunta Pallotta prayed the "Eternal Rest" prayer 100 times a day to help the souls. This is very doable and salutary. The prayer takes about 5 seconds to say, without rushing. So, said 100 times is 500 seconds which comes to under 10 minutes a day. It is a good aspiration: short, direct, inspiring. It can be said while walking, driving, or restless in bed at night. It fruitfully occupies a mind that otherwise can become distracted, discouraged or restless.

No, this is not "salvation by works." It is a work, an act, but it is inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is not human initiative. It is a work of Christ in his Church.

Prayer for the souls is a win/win/win. It helps them to get to heaven. They help us from heaven. But in addition, like any meritorious act...prayer, act of mercy, sacrifice...it sanctifies our soul. After I pray for the souls, I am flowing with faith, hope, charity, serenity, gratitude, joy, and integrity.

I had an argument with Sister Joan Noreen, of happy memory, who insisted that the souls in purgatory pray for us and that we can pray to them, as well as for them. I resisted: insisting we pray for them, not to them. When I looked into it a little further I saw that it was unclear. Most of the earlier fathers and doctors have us praying for, not to them. They are passive; dependent upon our prayers. But more recent authorities, including a statement in the Catechism have them also praying for us. It seems to me to be something Catholics can disagree about as the teaching is not clear. But my position is "lex orandi, lex credendi." "The way we pray is the way we believe." Our traditional prayers and liturgical practices NEVER have us praying TO the souls. So why start now?

I pray daily TO those I know who lived holy lives, who are not canonizable, who had evident flaws, but lived in the state of grace and are surely in God's presence, even if serving a mild purgatory: Sister Joan Noreen herself,  my father/mother Ray and Jeanne, Aunt Grace, Betty Hopf, Fathers Joe Whelan S.J., Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J., John Wrynn S.J., Neal Doherty S.J., Paul Viale, John and Mary Rapinich, Sisters of Charity Patricia Brennan, Virginia Kean, Maria Martha Joyce, Alberta, Peggy McCarthy. 

Souls I did not know but pray TO:  Pope Benedict, Baron von Huegel, Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrandt, Maurice Blondel, Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Etienne Gilson, Fr. Schleeben, Elizabeth Anscombe, G.K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, C.S. Lewis, Fathers Delubac, Danielou, Congar, Boyer, Phillips, Cardinal Suenens, Archbishop Martinez, Popes Pius XII and John Paul I, Caryll Houselander, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Adrienne von Speyr, Madaleine del Brel, Elizabeth Leseur, Rose Hawthorne, Mother Margaret Cusak, and others I cannot recall at the moment.

My friend Tim does not the "Eternal Rest" prayer. He understands "rest" to be absence, negation, privation. I differ. I see "rest" in the context of prayer as plenitude, reception, joy, gratitude, praise, liberation from stress and striving. I see that genuine, wholesome, holy action always springs forth from deeper grounding in "rest" as abiding, reception, communion, plenitude. In God and his life, of course, the polarity of rest/action that structures our finitude is transcended in an eternal rest that is at the same time an eternal event of love.

Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls and those of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

Fierce Women: Mary Crushing the Head of the Serpent and Maccabee's Mother of Seven Sons

 Rightly, we honor Our Lady of Sorrow's in the Pieta, the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, the seven sorrows prophesized by Simeon. The heartbreak of a mother seeing her son suffer  is a staple of Catholic piety. Put perhaps there is a problem of balance: she is also the one who crushes the head of the serpent. She is Our Lady of Victories. With her son she is triumphant over sin, death, guilt, the world and the devil. She is determined, steadfast, ferocious, fearless, courageous, long-suffering, hopeful, magnanimous, longanimous, exultant and victorious. She is not pitiable. She is not a victim. She, with her son, is victor.

Recall the mother of seven sons in Maccabees. Her sons are being tortured to death, one at a time, by the gentile Greeks who insist they eat pork and adore false gods. She is free of a soft, sentimental pity. She does not seek to shield them from pain and suffering. She exhorts them to courage, perseverance, loyalty to God and their faith. 

The masterful Mel Gibson film The Passion of Christ is overheavy with pain and torture but redeemed by many scenes. The crucial one is half way through the movie: Christ falls under the cross and Mary bends down close to his face. He looks at her, his face grotesque with bleeding. Serenely, confidently, even ecstatically he says: "Mother, see, I make all things new." This was a brilliant touch by Gibson. We have, of course, no record of him saying this on his walk up Golgotha. But it is the point of the entire drama: he is making all things new by his passion and death. When he stretches out his arms, in pain, on the cross, he embraces the entire world, and every sinner, as he turns and tells his companion " this very day you will be with me in paradise." This was the ultimate moment of victory!

Consider also Jesus encounter with the women of Jerusalem, recalled in the 8th station of the cross. Falsely, it is usually called "Jesus Comforts the Women of Jerusalem." This is blatantly wrong. There is not comfort here. He flatly rejects their pity and comfort. He says: "Do not weep for me but for yourselves." He warns them of the suffering to come upon themselves and their children as a day of judgment is coming. He is calling them to repentance from sin. And to ready themselves for the imminent suffering. This is severely discomforting. It is a call to conversion, to courage and endurance. It is a word meant to sober and strengthen. There is here severity, ferocity, brutal honesty.

Contemporary Catholic, especially progressive piety, is saturated with an effete, toxic ethos of sentimental pity and victimhood. The "bleeding heart" grieves victimhood in Ukraine, Gaza, the ghetto, the "LGBTQ community." This does not spring from a genuine, holy femininity...that of Mary and the Mother of seven. Rather, from a decadent feminism. It flourishes in distance from the actual people pitied. The Ukrainians are tough, resilient people who want to fight the Russians for their sovereignty. The Palestinians in large number approve of the slaughter/rape that started the war. The gay community is now privileged, affluent and powerful. Black men are not powerless, pitiable victims of systemically racist police.

Protestants mostly avoid crucifixes with the suffering body of Jesus. Catholics glory in that image, and in the 14 stations, the 5 sorrowful mysteries, the Pieta and our Lady of Sorrows. But, Jesus suffered for three hours on the cross. It was temporary. He reigns, with his mother-virgin-queen at his side, eternally in unending Joy. 

I imagine that Jesus in carrying his cross and looking down from it, to Mary and John and the women, in his fragile, vulnerable flesh was heartened by the presence of his mother, the women, and his beloved disciple. He did not feel viewed with pity, as a victim. Rather, he was heartened by their pride in him, his courage, his fidelity, and his triumph. 

May we be just such encouragement to each other. 

Dialing Down the Temperature...in the Political and Theological Wars...in the Time of Trump and Leo

Napoleon Bonaparte: "If you want to understand a man, look at what was happening in his world in his 20s." I was 20 in 1967, exactly as the Cultural Revolution exploded in the West. That remains, for me, the defining Event of my world/time. EVERYTHING ELSE...fall of the Soviets and rise of China, immigration, global warming, internet/AI, wars in Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan/Ukraine/Gaza, Islamic terrorism, Civil Rights, gun violence...EVERYTHING ELSE is a sideshow, a subplot. What matters most is the dignity and value of the human person (especially the small, vulnerable and incompetent), of marriage, family, sexuality, gender, chastity, fidelity, tradition, the sacramental life, revelation, the Eternal. It took me a little time: I graduated college 1969 and married 1971 as a moderate liberal. But by 1975, under the influence of some holy, brilliant Jesuit theologians and Cursillo/Charismatic Renewals, I recognized the new structure of the world. I have been a culture warrior for the last 50 years. This war is only intensifying.

I am not retiring from the conflict. But I am drawn to dial down the heat: to be serene, confident, gracious, open-minded, 

Perhaps I am old, tired, mellow? A "made man" who has nothing to prove? Who is less anxious, threatened, indignant, angry?

Perhaps I am returning to the more innocent, positive world of my youth, the early 1960s, the robust American Catholicism at the time of the Council, serene, confident and ecstatic in urgency to engage and embrace everything, in the world beyond the Church, that is Good, True and Beautiful. 

It has to do with the amygdala! We know this is the primary cerebral location of the emotions: fear, anger, anxiety, hatred, indignation. If the passions here are raging furiously it is difficult for the intellect, largely located in the prefrontal cortex, to function well: soberly, perceptively, intuitively, empathetically, wisely. Rather, disordered emotions of anxiety, rage and indignation distort the intellectual apprehension. 

In this age of Trump, everyone's amygdala seems to be aflame. The underclass and we moral conservatives are enraged at the progressive, overclass hegemony and have rallied around Trump as our champion. Our feelings of vulnerability, threat, rage and indignation can be so overwhelming that we lack sobriety and clarity. Progressives, on the other extreme, are apoplectic. And so, Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), as inflamed amygdala, is epidemic on both sides of the political divide.

Similarly, in the Church, the theological civil war rages on undiminished. John Paul and Benedict gave the definitive, lucid response to theological progressivism. But the more recent dual-pontificate has taken a different direction. They have not directly contradicted the Catholic legacy on the nature of the human person, but have downplayed it, diverted attention to political issues (environment, immigration) and sought to appease the progressives. 

Our Catholic civil war of over half a century continues under Leo. He leans to appease the left. But, in contrast to Francis, he embodies a sincere intent to listen to both sides, to maintain harmony, to steady the bark of Peter. He intends to minimize conflict. To do this he will, in my opinion, compromise on fundamentals of our heritage. But the underlying pastoral intent has value. 

And so, in American politics and the Church we do well to lower the temperature, to diminish the anxiety and rage, to relax a little.

This is also good for the soul. My own sense is that God is drawing me into his peace, to a relaxation, to cessation of anger and anxiety, to "abide, thrive and bear fruit in Him." With regard to Trump and MAGA we all do well to lighten up. With regard to Pope Leo, we do well to emulate his tranquility, his pastoral compassion, his stability, his desire for unity and harmony. 

This does not mean we compromise on the truth. Rather, with charity, patience, serenity and graciousness emergent, our witness to the truth will become more gentle, confident, and appealing.

Above all: we invoke the Holy Spirit...to inflame...not our amygdala...but our souls ...with simple praise and thanks, with liberation from resentment and fear, with supernatural charity, with quiet zeal,

Be Still My Soul!

Come Holy Spirit! 

In Praise of In-Laws

In-Laws: underrated. Underappreciated. Rarely discussed, considered, studied. 

They are TERRIFIC! I know because I have a ton. Oldest of nine, happily married, father of seven...I am "well connected." In the "social capital" that counts...spiritual, moral, cultural, intellectual...I am more wealthy than the Trumps, the Russian oligarchs, and the Saudi princes all together!

They are family, not by blood, by covenant. How marvelous: every marriage is a unique, unprecedented "creation from nothing" whereby God gives life to a new family, which combines two distinct families, and promises an entirely novel legacy going forward.

When I look at my grandchildren I swell with amazement: they belong to me, the are "mine," but they are so much more, they are also "other," as they come from the other side as well, and they move into a novel, new, promised future largely obscure to me, in God's good Providence.

There is a mutual belonging, a bond, a covenant with in-laws. In ancient societies we would come to fight for each other when attacked. Royal families married to form alliances. 

That doesn't happen now, but there abides a deep, unspoken connection. In  this era of isolation, loneliness and individualism we do well to appreciate our in-laws!

Last week I attended the wake-funeral-repast of my brother's wife's brother. I got to know the family. I was deeply touched and impressed. Their flaws and gifts are so different from those of my family; but so fascinating, impressive, talented, and charming! I am thrilled that my brother married into this family; that my niece and two nephews belong also to this family; and I and mine are well connected.

There is a deep Catholic intuition in the appreciation of the in-laws. Some societies allow and even prefer, for example, marriage of 1st cousins. This may help explain some of the fierce, tribal militancy of some Muslim groups. The Church forbids (with dispensation possible) marriage of 1st cousins and so urges us to move beyond boundaries of blood to bond with other families. This expresses the "catholic" passion to move outward, to share our faith, to unite with all peoples to the ends of the earth.

Beyond family, a similar, analogous bond unites us with other groups. There are many to which I do not fully belong but am connected. As a charismatic Catholic, I am bonded with all Evangelicals and Pentecostals. As a non-MAGA Republican, I am part of the broad, diverse conservative movement. My daughter "married into" (as a professed participant) the Memores Domini of Communion and Liberation and my son and his family into the Neocatchumenal Way. My son-in -law works in Jesuit secondary education and my granddaughter now for America magazine. I am close to the Jesuits, Maryknoll, CFRs and some Salesians as I have worked closely with religious women Dominicans, Felicians and Charities.  I am friend of Catholic Worker, the Latin Mass and the  Bruderhof.

I am proud member of the Fox Family (with Brett, Martha, Shannon), the CNN Family (Erin, Anderson), the NY Times (Ross, Maureen, Bret, Nicholas, Ezra, Thomas), and (as non-subscriber) the Wall Street Journal  (Peggy, Kimberly, Daniel, Jason, Allysia) but moreso of Communio, Crisis, The Catholic Thing, EWTN, and National Catholic Register.

Obviously, I cannot endorse all the positions of all these groups. Every family has its flaws as well as its gifts, charisms and charms. The problems and sins do not stop us from loving them.

You can see my Catholicity urges me to engage even my intellectual adversaries: to draw close, to listen, to embrace what is good. I cannot retreat into a culture war silo or tribe. I cannot shrivel up in the bunker in rage, anxiety and indignation. Rather, I learn from my enemy; I pray for him; I delight in what is good and true; and I assist him, by my affection-respect-prayer, as I am myself assisted, to overcome the errors that entrap. 

To the Catholic sensibility, the "otherness" ... of the in-laws, of the theological or political adversary...is not something to be feared, but to be cherished.  And that is why it is such a blessing to have in-laws! 

The Charism and Charm of the Fat Guy

I got thinking about "fatness" after reading my friend Stephen Adubatto's provocative Substack (Cracks in Postmodernity)  on priests fat, skinny, weight-lifting and so forth. 

My mother and her mother did not like fat. I think that is common among the Irish. Our society is relentless in its distaste for it as ugly and unhealthy. "Diet and exercise" we hear endlessly. Okay! But lets be honest: when it comes to the body you are pretty much stuck with what you are given...short/tall, skinny/muscular/fat. There's not a lot you can do. You know: genetics, metabolism, etc. The implicit moral judgment that the heavy person is somehow indulgent and lazy is a vile rash judgement. (By the way: rash judgment is by far the most prevalent sin! It is a sin of the intellect but rooted in an uncharitable and lazy will.) Fear and loathing of fatness is widely prevalent, especially among our young women. 

What is true is that oftentimes the fat guy/girl is the most fun, funny, humble, self-effacing, intuitive, generous, ironic, eccentric, warm, intelligent and holy person in the group. 

Consider:

St. Pope John XXIII

St. Thomas Aquinas

Monsignor Lorenzo Albicette

Servant of God Catherine Doherty

Winston Churchill

G.K. Chesterton

Chris Farley

Oprah Winfry

Jackie Gleason

Lou Costello

Luciano Pavarotti

Oliver Hardy

Burl Ives

John Goodman

Rush Limbaugh

Obesity is a serious suffering, a cross, physically-socially-psychologically. But spiritually, there is possible a profound irony, a la Flannery O'Connor type insight: when suffered graciously it yields fruit in compassion, humility, comedy, intuition, and wisdom. By a strange paradox, the "dis-appeal" of the heavy body comes to manifest as a startling temple of the Holy Spirit. 

So, fatness becomes a sacramental of the transcendent and the eschatological. Our appearance, here and now, in time and history, in the flesh...is not the ultimate. What is ultimate is the life of the soul, in union with God, starting now and going forward into eternity. 

PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE...Do not tell me "If you have health, you have everything!" That is so so so so wrong. People lack or lose health...do they have nothing? That may the the stupidest statement I have ever heard.

Fatness is similar to vowed poverty, chastity and obedience. Gratefully, generously, humbly accepted it points beyond to the deepest meaning of life, under the appearance of the appealing and the healthy...to the soul in communion with God. 

I think with gratitude and respect of my father-in-law, Al, a big man who danced like Fred Astaire, was smart and funny and humble and a good husband and father to my bride.

I think of our classmate, friend John: undisputed leader of our class, mature, hilarious, fatherly, generous, super-fun, gifted. Recovering from alcoholism, he embraced 12-step spirituality, and went on to do superb work for the addicted, homeless and mentally ill. Always a Joy to be with.

Another college roommate and friend, George. Italian, he was the first one to point out to me the Irish bias against the fat. He was a two-pointer. He was also homosexual. That, like fatness, is an affliction of suffering that is often accompanied by interior charisms like empathy, intuition, intelligence, charity, wisdom, creativity. George, of happy memory, was also a Joy to be with.

I honor the memory of Al and George by gratitude for those we love who free us from our fear, shame and loathing and bring light and levity into our lives.

Grieving the Charismatic Movement while Riding the Pentecostal Current

 'The Charismatic Renewal is not a movement, but a current of the Holy Spirit."

The above was spoken by Cardinal Suenens half a century ago and more recently by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamesa. These are the only two charismatic Catholic cardinals that I know. They have impeccable credentials. Suenens was one of the presiders at the Vatican Council, a prelate of immense prestige and influence at the time, and the ecclesiastical godfather of the Catholic charismatic renewal. Cantalamesa was papal preacher for 44 years, in service of John Paul, Benedict and Francis. That these three distinctive popes would all surrender to his influence is extraordinary. To disagree with such authorities takes a lot of chutzpah. Fleckinstein does not hesitate: With due respect, your Eminences, but, as in most things Catholic, this is not an either/or. This renewal was a movement, as it continues as a Pentecostal current. But first, a confession.

Craving the Renewal of the 70s

Nostalgia is at least a near occasion of, if not an actual sin: a disordered attachment to an idealized past and thereby a disconnect from the actual graces of the present as they move us into the promises of God for the future. I stand guilty as charged: I have been longing for the Renewal of the 70s.

They were the best years of my life...in regard to zeal for God and the things of the spirit.

Spring 1973, we were happily married for two years when we made Cursillo and joined a charismatic prayer group. Our lives changed drastically. We entered into intimacy with Jesus as our Lord and Savior and then received the "baptism of the Holy Spirit," an internal surge of the Spirit, within a community of prayer, and a defining sense of God's powerful, loving presence and guidance. We filled up with praise of God, prayed in tongues, experientially received clear guidance, and surged with Joy and Hope. For the remaining 7 years of that decade, we participated fervently in the prayer group and life took on a steady ecstatic tone. From joy to joy!

We received our first three children. My wife, fully engaged with me in this new life (at once, and miraculously, Pentecostal and Catholic), stayed home with the children. I made just enough money to get by. I taught religion in a tough Jersey City Catholic high school and fought the good fight to maintain discipline and share the faith in a time largely disinterested in the things of the spirit. I was employed by a local parish to connect with Spanish-speaking families in a housing project and to teach summer bible camp. For 18 months  I was without a steady job, bounding from one thing to another: painting homes of friends, loading trucks, teaching school, riveting trucks at the Ford plant, going to job interviews. We always received, providentially, just enough money, just in time, to meet our needs. I was blissfully unconcerned, although our parents were not so fortunate. My serenity was in part my temperamental positivity, in part the result of coming of age in a thriving economy in which I always found a job, and largely our intense trust in God's perfect providential plan and guidance. Things like career planning and financial security were nowhere on my horizon. Why worry about such trivia when every day brought a fresh encounter or revelation...spiritual, intellectual, dramatic. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you."  And so, November 1977 I had no work and went to UPS which was hiring seasonal help; they hired me for my typing skills as a clerk at $9,000 annual, almost enough to support us with some raises and overtime. That became a 25 career, mostly in supervision. Praise the Lord!

The Charismatic MOVEMENT

My son reminds me that lay leadership in the Neocatechumenate, like the Cardinals quoted above, are averse to the word "movement." Perhaps they associate it with movements of human agency: civil rights, farm workers, peace, etc. I firmly believe both are actions of the Holy Spirit, but they are also human, sociological, empirical phenomena. Cardinal Suenens said "there are no founders to the Renewal." This is accurate. But there were clear leaders who shaped it in specific directions. The foundations of the Charismatic Renewal as a movement:

1. Baptism in the Holy Spirit.  This is a very specific event, which manifested in the Pentecostal movements from 1900 and across the denominations in mid-century. It is not primarily emotional. It is the prayer, in expectant faith, to receive the Pentecostal anointing of intimacy and empowerment that the apostles, with Mary, received in the cenacle 10 days after Jesus ascended. It includes: intimacy with the powerful Holy Spirit, prayer in tongues, ongoing guidance through interior messages-scripture-communal discernment, divine healings, deliverance from demons, prophesies, and more.

2. Prayer Meetings.  In contrast to traditional formal Catholic liturgy these were informal, spontaneous, characterized primarily by praise in words, song and tongues along with attention to readings from scripture, teaching and personal witnesses. These spread all over the country in the 1970s; and largely disappeared as quickly going into the 1980s.

3. Pentecostal/Evangelical Teaching. With extraordinary efficiency and speed, a gifted elite of lay leaders, especially Ralph Martin and Steve Clark, emerged spontaneously and worked together to incorporate elements of Pentecostal and Evangelical spirituality into the Catholic Charismatic Renewal: strong sense of the supernatural, spiritual combat with demons in deliverance ministries, openness to the miraculous in healings and guidance, strong traditional gender roles, new forms of authority including in very personal direction, the emergence of covenant communities. 

4. Countercultural, Anti-Progressive.  These Pentecostal/Evangelical elements were entirely contradictory of the broader cultural-sexual liberalization and specifically theological progressivism dominant in academia and clerical/hierarchical circles. This included opposition to abortion and homosexuality, emphasis on supernatural, more literal (but not fundamentalist) reading of scripture, traditional family patterns and other. Predictably, this led to conflicts with more liberal bishops.

5. Strong form Catholicism. Along with the movement into Pentecostalism, in tension with but not complete contradiction, was the move into stronger forms of Catholicism: Marian devotion (Medjugorje), Divine Mercy practices from St. Faustina, sacramental life (especially Eucharist and Penance), and fidelity to the magisterium. 

6. Vast Theological Literature.  A large, comprehensive body of practical, theological literature surged, largely from Martin, Clark and other lay leaders. These were lay in two senses:  non-clergy and non-credentialed academically. Martin and Clark had walked together away from doctoral programs in philosophy, Martin at Princeton and Clark at Yale, to serve the Lord in Cursillo and then Charismatic. They stand out as among the most dynamic, talented and influential partnerships in Catholic history. They were also assisted by a cadre of outstanding Catholic academic theologians who combined holiness of life, solid scholarship, and pastoral sensibility: Francis Martin, Killian McDonald, George Montague, Edward O'Connor...all clergy and credentialed academics. 

7. Huge Rallies and Conferences.  Thousands of people would convene (in NJ in Atlantic City) to hear inspired teaching in a charged atmosphere of ecstatic, expressive praise. These were markedly ecumenical, deliberately including gifted preachers from other denominations. 

What Happened in the 1980s?

Our own prayer meeting, sponsored by the People of Hope Community in Christ the King Parish, Jersey City, disbanded around 1980. Strangely, the same happened across the country. All these prayer meetings disappeared instantaneously as they had appeared, like the annuals of early Spring. Rallies that had drawn 30-40,0000 were getting a few thousand.

It did not completely disappear. But the flourishing revival among white, middle class Catholics diminished greatly. The movement is powerful in Africa and parts of Latin America and Asia. It remains among Hispanics and Philippinos in the USA. It  consolidated into small, intense covenant communities; as the broader movement merged into the Evangelical Catholicism of John Paul/Benedict. This later was zealously Evangelical in its focus on the person/event of Jesus Christ, as it interpreted Vatican II positively, in continuity with tradition, with strong sense of the centrality of family, sexual chastity and marital fidelity in opposition to progressive theology's embrace of the sexual revolution. 

Paradigmatic for the broader movement was the split between Ralph Martin and Steve Clark. Martin reveals how painful that was in his recent memoir. He spent the early 80s in Brussels and Rome, working on the international renewal with Cardinal Suenens. He aligned himself closely to the New Evangelization of John Paul and threw himself into study of the Catholic saints and mystics. He deepened his Catholicism, although retaining a sharp Evangelical edge.

Meanwhile, Steve Clark had guided a new coalition of covenant communities into an even more pronounced Pentecostalism, stridently countercultural on gender roles and authority structures and micromanaged into a detailed, monastic-like rule of life for families. The two parted ways. They did reconcile years later before Clark's passing. 

Martin's journey was typical of most of the Catholic Renewal. It blended into more mainstream Catholic currents, including the New Evangelization of John Paul. Martin maintained an amazing zeal in this effort, worked with EWTN, continued to preach and write, gained a doctorate in theology at the Angelicum, and taught at Sacred Heart Seminary in Michigan. The specifically charismatic elements (tongues, healings, extreme gender and authority views) were downplayed; communion with the broader sacramental Church emphasized; and focus remained on the salvific person/event of Jesus Christ. 

My own path was similar: I was simply enamored of the theology of John Paul, Benedict and their colleagues. Like many charismatics, I was encouraged by the revelations on the Divine Mercy of Saint Faustina, the messages of our Lady at Medjugore, and the entire John Paul/Benedict agenda. 

This pattern seemed to be across the Church. Evangelical crusades like N.E.T. and FOCUS had immense influence as an energized, appealing Evangelical Catholicism without much attention to the extraordinary charismatic gifts. Franciscan University thrives as a center of hardcore Catholicism, retaining a strong, but not overwhelming charismatic charism.

The Sword of the Spirit, with its own alternative hierarchy had problems with the American episcopacy, notably in Newark and Steubenville. But they seemed to have weathered the storms. In NJ, the People of Hope, after a long quarrel with the Archdiocese, is back in good graces and manifesting good fruit. They sponsor a thriving school, Koinonia Academy, and a dynamic summer camp which has had a strong impact on our own family. For instance, one granddaughter is studying at Franciscan University and a number of great-nephews are planning to go there.  

The influence of the movement is broad: music, healing prayer, deliverance ministry, focus on Scripture, an ecumenical awareness. Many moved on to more normal parish life and ministry with greater depth and passion.

Going Forward in the Holy Spirit

We cannot replicate the fervor of the 70s. We know the Holy Spirit remains with the Church of Christ, if in a quieter mode. Yet, I personally ambition to retrieve the fire, the zeal of that time.

1. Primacy of Praise. Recently, Cardinal Cantalamessa exhorted charismatics to rekindle the fire of praise that inflamed all those prayer meetings and conferences. In our own small prayer group, one woman seemed to especially exercise the gift of prophesy. She was a simple, humble, charming, local Afro-American woman, Harriet, and she tirelessly repeated the same prophesy: "Ma people: Continue to praise me!" Every time she said that, in her modest, straightforward manner, it seemed to be words directly from heaven. I believe that message was from the Holy Spirit and meant for us then, now and into the future. I have been trying to inflame my life with thanksgiving and praise, even as I yearn for more communal ways to do so.

2. Ecumenical. Cardinal Suenens had said that the heart of the renewal is the reunion of Christians in the love of Christ. That surely is correct. Many of us leaned more deeply into our Catholicism. This is good. But the Holy Spirit surely is urging us to union with others, especially Evangelicals, Pentecostals and Orthodox. My wife and I are volunteer chaplains in our local hospital and enjoy the opportunity to pray often with non-Catholics. This is a great blessing. It was the Renewal that prepared us to pray with them.

3. Closeness to the Poor. Pope Francis encouraged the Renewal, especially to be close to the poor. This was a message that was heard in the Renewal, but not very powerfully. The two covenant communities in our area of north NJ seemed to be suburban, bourgeois, middle class, career and security focused. Our encounter with the People of Hope was in our prayer group in a  poor area of Jersey City: we benefited from engagement with the Renewal and also with the poor.

4. Deepening, Intensifying of our Catholic Faith.  As noted, the ordinary itinerary of the charismatic Catholic post-1980, strikingly exemplified  by Ralph Martin, has been deeper engagement with Christ and his Church in prayer, liturgy/sacraments, charity, morality, theology and all arenas of life. 

5. Covenant Communities? I have not followed developments within the Sword of the Spirit. They have been quiet. This is a good sign. Good fruit is evident. Consider our Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. And, as noted, after a rupture with the Archdiocese, the People of Hope are positively impacting our Church, specifically in their school and summer camp. Praise the Lord!

6. The Young? My own primary concern has always been the passing of our faith to the young. Working a variety of jobs, my professional vocation is  catechist, one who "echoes" our faith. The singular Joy I share with my wife is that our seven children, along with their spouses and families, all live our Catholic faith with vigor and enthusiasm. They received our Catholic faith, but not in its specifically charismatic dimensions.   Realizing the toxicity of our culture, our philosophy in raising our family was that Catholic family/school/parish was insufficient so we methodically exposed them, especially summers during high school, to a variety of intense encounters with Catholicism: Youth 2000, NET retreats, service trips, Friars of the Renewal, Magdalllen College summer programs, Scranton Charismatic Conference. These were not fully Pentecostal, but surely charismatic-adjacent in their evangelical fervor. And so our children received a charismatically-flavored Catholic faith.

So my big question: how have the covenant communities done in passing on the faith? How many of their children and now grandchildren practice Catholicism? How many are charismatic? Are any charismatic but not Catholic? I have been told that the People of Hope, under the Sword of the Spirit, is a stronger, bigger community and more successful than the smaller, unattached Community of God's Love. 

This is the same question I bring to the other lay renewal groups: especially the Neocatechumenate and Communion and Liberation.

The Holy Spirit continues to breathe in many ways in the Church. Ours has been the age of the lay renewal movements. As the religious orders have declined, we have seen surges of zealous, lay spirituality. The currents of renewal are many: all moving us into the Kingdom. The charismatic renewal remains an important one.

I myself am eager to inflame the gift of praise that burned brightly in the 1970s. Out of that foundational praise, including tongues, personal and communal, the Holy Spirit moves us deeper into the Church, into communion with our Evangelical/Pentecostal brothers and sisters, and companionship with the poor and suffering. 

Above all, we pray for our young:  COME HOLY SPIRIT1