What is this strange, fascinating, powerful thing? It is unlike anything we have seen in our Church. It is not a parish, not a religious order, not monastic or mendicant, not the Knights of Columbus. It self describes as "an itinerary of formation" imitating the original catechumenate. This is accurate, but not complete.
A Movement?
Famously, Carmen Hernandez interrupted and corrected Pope John Paul when he described them as a movement: "We are not a movement, we are a Way!" The Pope responded: "You are a movement. You move. You are living. You are a movement." Carmen may have had a point! I would define a social or religious movement as the organized activities of various actors to influence society in accord with a coherent set of values and beliefs. Coming of age in the 60s, these were the very air we breathed: civil rights, peace, women, labor, farmworkers, the hippie counterculture. Even more so in the Church! Vatican II, the defining Catholic event of our age, was fed by a symphony of movements: ecumenical, biblical, liturgical, social justice, return to the sources, and the entire dialogue with modernity. The Council itself bore fruit in a rich collage of new religious orders and movement, including that of Kiko and Carmen.
Such movements have two dimensions lacking in this Way: they spring from disparate actors rather than a central, authoritative source; and they seek to influence the broader society rather than build an alternate community. So, this Way flowered from a singular source: the catechesis and communities of Kiko and Carmen. Furthermore, their objective was not to influence the broader society but to create within it a counter, alternative, even a competing society based upon the Gospel. If social/religious movements are centrifugal by intention, pushing out to change the world, then this Way is centripetal, pulling others into the orbit of their alternate world. The one is pushing outward, although from many points; the other is pulling inward, into a new society. If movements spring from a diversity of sources; this Way sprang from a single one. Carmen is right: they are not a movement in that sense.
The Way? A Way?
Internal to the community, participation is described as "walking in the Way." This probably refers to the pilgrimage walk or "Camino" to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. But it also resonates with the early Christian reference to their new life in Christ as "the Way." This usage is offensive to non-participating Catholics and tends to confirm the worst suspicion of their critics. That suspicion is: that this is superior form of Catholicism, a return to Church's pristine apostolic origins, in contrast to an inferior religion fundamentally corrupted by the Constantinian compromise.
A Catholic sees "the Way" as communion with Christ in the Church. However there are many ways to live this: a banquet of orders, associations, spiritualities. From this viewpoint, the Neocatechumenate is "a way"...indeed a very powerful and privileged way...but not for everyone and hardly "THE way."
An Itinerary of Formation?
As self-described in its statutes, it is indeed an "itinerary of formation" recalling the ancient, primitive catechumenate. It is a remarkable journey: long, patient, detailed, arduous. It can take around 25 years for the community, together, to pass all the steps. It is a creative, novel protocol even as it draws deeply from Christian roots. The entire process has about it the mark of grace and genius. It is not merely an itinerary, however, since that suggests the end is deeper immersion in one's baptism and participation in the contemporary, actual Church. A mere itinerary suggests a temporary and terminal process, however long, which returns the participant to ordinary Church life with enriched, deepened faith. But that is not what happens. The actual end game is more than that: it is to create a new association which will eventually effect an institutional revolution of the parish and Church.
Association?
The statues are insistent that this is an itinerary, a Way, and NOT an association. Yet, it clearly is, in common sense terms, an association. It is not clear to me why they so resist this word. It is understandable that they would resist being juridically identified as a formal association of the faithful as that would entail ecclesiastical regulation and supervision. They prefer their independence as well as an informal, organic, natural and non-institutionalized style. An association is merely the organization of people for a common purpose. Here we clearly see such. And the goal includes such an itinerary but goes well beyond that. The goal is to create permanent communities, or associations, in a shared life of faith around the tripod of Word, Eucharist and fellowship. This is decidedly not a temporary, terminal period of education or formation as in a school or internship. It is perpetual. The participant remain in association with each other in their shared religious practices for their lifetimes.
It is a distinct, but dependent organization with its own form, goals, and leadership. It is distinct from the broader Church, but enclosed within its sacramental economy and theological self-understanding.
Contrast: Spanish and Italian Associations/Movements
Compare it with two other important Spanish (one by way of Mexico) associations: Opus Dei and the Legionnaires of Christ. All three show identical traits of Spanish spirituality. They are militantly reactionary against a broader culture viewed as hostile to the Gospel. They spring from charismatic founders. They are deeply conservative and orthodox theologically. They display an exceptional vigor, energy and passion. They are centripetal rather than centrifugal: not seeking to change the world as much as to develop and expand their own alternate society.
This Way contrasts sharply from the other two which very closely resemble each other. Demographically it draws from people on the margins, the poor, those in crisis. By contrast the other two appeal to more affluent, educated and well-socialized Catholics. More significantly, the other two are basically rearrangements of entirely standard, mainline Tridentine Catholicism. The Way is something different: a novel, creative gestalt of various Catholic elements into something deeply Catholic but quite distinctive.
Nevertheless, the three share the intensity, fire, passion, and rigor that we know from Ignatius, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, the Inquisition, and the fratricidal war.
Let us contrast them, with a broad brush, the influential movement/associations our of Italy. Communion and Liberation, Focolare and differ among themselves but share an Italian quality different from their Spanish cousins. Far from being defensive, adverse, suspicious of the broader culture, they radiate a Renaissance-like confidence, even superiority, in regard to culture, art and morals. Recall: Italy gave us Dante, Michelangelo, the Vatican itself. These Italians are comfortable in the world, openminded, permeable, dialogic, trusting. Their energies are largely centrifugal, reaching out to those beyond their boundaries. This contrasts with the centripetal, counter-culture, Christ-against-culture dynamics of the Spanish associations.
Institutional Revolution
It's Spanish siblings, Opus Dei and the Legionnaires, construct an association within the Church but along the side of the ordinary parish/diocese paradigm. They do not directly challenge that model, but operate separately in their own realm. This Way is quite different. It works only with the permission and collaboration of the bishop and pastor so it is not a separate organization. But its end game is breath-takingly radical even if concealed: the creation of a new institutional Church as a "community of small communities." Implicit in its practice is a new, disestablished, fluid, prophetic Church of small communities like the pre-Constantinian Church. It does not, of course, state this publicly. It deliberately disguises itself as no more than an itinerary of formation as if it were preparing active laymen to serve the current Church. But it is really revolutionary. Our mainline clergy are not stupid: they sense that this is an emergent Church in competition with the establishment that they serve and so they understandably resent it.
Flawlessly orthodox theologically and deferential to episcopal authority, this Way is arguably the most revolutionary movement in the Church. It anticipates a post-Christendom society, a Church that could function and flourish, resiliently, in poverty and persecution, in a dystopian world like Communist China or pagan Rome.
Conclusion
This powerful, promising, fascinating phenomenon is not a movement as its dynamics are centripetal rather than centrifugal. It is a Way, but not THE Way. It is an impressive, patient, profound itinerary of formation and yet so much more. It clearly is an association, in the common sense of the term, if it resists a canonical, juridical definition as such. It is a radical, new model of Church as small and counter-cultural, preparing for a world gone dystopian. It lives in tense, troubled union with the Church it hopes to renew and redeem if our world continues on its road to peridition.
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