Disclosure: I consider these two communities with fascination, admiration and familiarity, but a degree of critical detachment. I am fully engaged with neither, but have participated in both, as a friend or fellow-traveler, over the last 25 years. I am a conservative, charismatic, culture-warrior, boomer Catholic, theologically formed by my saint-scholar Jesuit professors Joseph Whelan and Avery Cardinal Dulles and the "Communio" theology of John Paul, Benedict and Balthasar. My son, with his wife and nine children, is passionately engaged in the Neocatechumenate while my daughter is promised to a life of communal prayer, poverty, chastity, and obedience within CL. Both communities are family to me. I have come to know them, including their flaws and vulnerabilities, with delight, affection, respect and some holy jealousy.
As a catechist, father and grandfather, I am boundlessly grateful to Kiko and Luigi as they are both magnificent responses to the challenge that has haunted my adult life: How do we transmit our faith to our children and others?
These ecclesial realities, of immense significance for Catholicism of the present and the future, are largely invisible to the theological academy and much of the presbyterate/episcopacy. This suggests a commendable anonymity and humility. It contrasts, for example, with the prominence of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in its heyday of the 1970s. In that it more resembles Opus Dei, a renewal of an entirely different Catholic flavor. But there is also time to let your light shine. And there is a time for open, honest conversation and scrutiny.
Similarities
Spanish layman Kiko Arguello and Italian Monsignor Luigi Giussani, founders respectfully of the Neocatechumenate and Communion and Liberation, are two of the greatest influences on the post-Vatican Council Church. They have striking similarities and differences.
Both are men of holiness, brilliance, immense cultural creativity and influence. Contemporaries (Luigi 1922-2005, Kiko 1939-still alive), each developed their programs in the 1960s, at the time of the Council and in the face of the exploding Cultural Revolution. Each remained the formative voice of their communities into the new millennium. Each a mystic, passionately in love with Jesus Christ, so that the entirety of their programs flow from this person, encounter and event. In their distinctive ways, each enacted the agenda of the Council and the dual-pontificate of JP/Ben: retrieval of our Catholic legacy in a fresh engagement of the Church with the contemporary world in the person/event of Jesus Christ. Each is a fervent, loyal son of the Church. Each a cultural genius, profoundly penetrating our faith and prophetically illuminating our current cultural reality. Each developed a fresh yet orthodox version of Catholicism. Each offered a novel yet traditional catechetical form: a path, a "way," a style of living in union with Christ. They contrast sharply, without contradicting each other.
Kiko and the Neocatechumenate
An accomplished artist and musician from an affluent family, young Kiko, while reading Sartre, fell into the classic European postwar existential crisis of despair, absurdity and nihilism. Reading Bergson awakened, out of his intuition of beauty, a sense and desire for God. He made a Cursillo and underwent a deep conversion to Christ. He renounced his bourgeois comfort. Emulating St. Charles de Foucauld, he took a bible, a crucifix, his guitar and about a dozen dogs (for warmth) to live with the most destitute gypsies in the slums of Madrid. Joined by Carmen Hernandez, he developed the Neocatechumenal Way, just as the Council was in session. In dialogue with the gypsies, there emerged this new "way": a long itinerary of formation in Christ centered in small intensive community, prayerful reading of Scripture, a new form of the Eucharist, and a series of communal, spiritual steps that normally take over 20 years to complete.
Out of his own personal desolation and encounter with the Risen Christ, Kiko developed a distinctive catechesis focused upon death, not just biological, but existential death. Additionally, Kiko deeply intuited the nihilism and desperation of modernity. The antidote to this was the gospel of Christ's victory over death, lived in intensive community of prayer, scripture, sharing and liturgy. His is an apocalyptic vision: the world as we know it is dying. We seek life in the body of Christ, understood as intimate companionship in discipleship.
The program offered, while lay and focused on family, is more like a religious vocation: total, demanding, all encompassing. An indifference to the broader world of culture, business and politics is cultivated as all energies go to the family and community. Families are large, often 9 or 10 or more. The community gathers for the Word, prayer and liturgy at least twice weekly and often more frequently. This leaves minimum time and energy for other activities. Career is not a primary focus or source of identity and status. This new way of life is flamingly countercultural: non-materialist, anti-careerist, non-bourgeois, centered in emulating the Holy Family in humility, simplicity, and praise.
In relation to the broader Catholic Church Kiko is impeccably loyal to the magisterium, to authorities, and to our moral and dogmatic legacy. Relations on the local, diocesan and parish, level have often been contentious. The root cause of this is that this "way" self-defines as neither a movement nor an association within the Church. It presents itself as "an itinerary of formation." In truth, it is an alternative ecclesial form: it replaces the parish with the small community as the definitive Church unit. In the tradition of so many reformers, Kiko intends a return to the early Church, before Constantine. This was the Church of small communities, persecuted by a hostile world. Kiko sees that we have entered just such an adversarial, now-post-Christian world. Therefore, he circles the wagons in the well known "Benedict option" of detachment from the broader culture. Implicitly, but not explicitly, his view of the current Church is that it is structurally or systemically weak in its opposition to a world now gone dark. Paradoxically, while cultivating strong relations with the Vatican, on the local level this program is so demanding that it in fact isolates from other Church activities. And so, it becomes a Catholic subculture, flaming assertive of aspects of Catholicism that contradict secular fashion (large families) while (perhaps not deliberately, but inexorably) detaching in many ways from the broader Church.
Kiko is a Spanish mystic, reminiscent of St. John of the Cross and St. Ignatius of Loyola, of El Cid of the war against the Moors and the Reconquista: militant, virile, fierce, courageous, fearless.
This "way" is a perfect fit for my son and his wife who share an extraordinary spiritual seriousness and depth. They crave a strong, radical Catholicism. Previously they reacted favorably to a charismatic pastor, the Latin mass, and home schooling. If they were not in this community, they would be in some non-bourgeois Benedict-option-like counterculture like a Catholic Worker farm.
Servant of God Monsignor Luigi Giussani and Communion and Liberation
Son of an artist-anarchist father and a devout mother, Luigi was to marry Italian culture and faith in an iconic Renaissance fashion. After teaching in the seminary as a young priest (a sign he was esteemed even then) he asked in 1954 to teach religion in high school as he sensed the deep alienation of modern youth from the faith. His charisma, charm, warmth, cultural intuitiveness and obvious intimacy with Christ drew young people to him. He developed a Socratic catechetical method that engaged the young to explore their own deepest yearnings and strongest experiences and bring them into dialogue with Christ and his Church. This was and is an intellectual endeavor based upon a deep, classical understanding of the intellect as a hunger for meaning and truth. In the chaos of the Italian Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, his students recognized that they were receiving through him a true "Communion and Liberation" and so the movement was formally born.
The movement grew to become a strong cultural and even political presence in Italy and expanded internationally. It appeals to educated, professionals in search of a living faith. He assumes in his person and movement a deep rootedness in the person of Christ and Catholicism, without being didactic, polemic or proselytic. Above all there radiates a serene confidence and an intensive positivity that welcomes all that is good, even beyond the Church in the broader community.
It organizes itself in organic, fluid, creative institutions: school of community (conversations around his writings), relaxed fraternities, many charitable works for the suffering, communal vacations, annual Good Friday stations of the cross in major cities, and eventually a fraternity of priests, an order of consecrated sisters, and "Memores Dominini" (those who remember the Lord), communities of lay people promised to communal prayer, poverty, chastity and obedience.
An annual event which attracts my own family is the NY Encounter in the middle of the cold Manhattan winter. It is radiant with the energies of enthusiastic, educated, quietly religious, largely Italian young adults. In accord with its charism of positivity, it avoids political and cultural conflict, but focuses upon charitable initiatives, cultural-artistic-intellectual enrichments, and an ambience of friendship and joy. It exerts a wonderful influence upon my own family. For example, my older grandchildren happily invite even sophisticated NY friends who are impressed by the energy and intelligence.
It has been a perfect fit for my daughter and my oldest granddaughter who are both blessed with positivity of spirit, curiosity of intellect and generosity of heart.
Contrast
Using Richard Niebuhr's famous Christ/Culture binary, we will see that these two could hardly be more different. They are two extremes. Giussani exemplifies Christ-in-Culture and Christ-above-Culture in a way that recalls the great Italian Renaissance. For him, the natural and the cultural orders are luminous with the Good/True/Beautiful as they come from and point towards the heavenly, the supernatural, the eternal. By contrast, Kiko's personal immersion in despair leads him to see the world as darkened by death, anxiety, emptiness and the satanic. And so, his is a radical Gospel of the crucified/Risen Christ as a victory over death and the world. His is the agonistic, combative spirit of the 750 year Reconquista, of the Spanish mystics (Ignatius, Theresa, John) and of the bloody Spanish Civil War. Both are doctrinally, morally, mystically Catholic. But Luigi embraces the contemporary world in the affirmative spirit of the Vatican Council; Kiko confronts, realistically and agonistically, the darkness that overcame the West right after that Council.
Catechetical Form
Giussani's catechesis is dialogic, Socratic, and experiential. It is high-brow, appealing to the educated, the intellectual, the discursive, the searching. It does not focus intensely upon the Scriptures or Catholic teaching. Rather, it moves from his own religious/poetic/philosophical reflections to an introspective consideration of one's own life in the light of Christ. It is free, spontaneous, fluid...guided only by the shared reading and the local leadership. It is a soft, not a hard form. It is a relaxed, loose program, an ambience of friendship and conviviality. As such, it depends heavily upon the maturity and wisdom of the leaders.
Kiko's catechesis is authoritative, even apostolic. His teaching, emerging from his own mystical communion with Christ and his brilliant retrieval of random elements of our faith legacy, is conveyed by "the catechists" to the participants in a didactic, authoritative manner. The teaching is given as defined and inspired, to be received in trust and docility. This is not an intellectual process; rather, an exercise in obedience, faith, and trust. The primary focus however is weekly immersion in the Word of God. Groups gather to prepare and then present and finally to reflect upon life experience in the light of the Scripture. And so, it is not an intellectual quest but a spiritual/emotional scrutiny of ones own behavior, thoughts, and experience. It becomes quite personal and intimate, rather than philosophical and intellectual. The catechesis as received from Kiko and the rigorous weekly encounter with Scripture together are a hard form, in contrast to that of CL.
Leadership
The charismatic authority of both founders is powerful. They are in the Catholic tradition of figures like Benedict, Francis, Dominic, Ignatius, Lubich and Escriva. Their styles are at two extremes. Kiko gives a specific, exact, rigorous, martial program. Luigi exemplifies an attitude, an openness to life rooted in Christ, a spontaneity, a trust, a freedom of spirit, an interior serenity.
And so, the Catechists, under General Kiko, exercise a military-type discipline over their communities. I say this respectfully: it is not oppressive, but demanding like that of a good coach. I am sure it can be abused. What I have observed is wholesome and fruitful. I think this is because the ethos of the community is built upon extreme transparency, honesty, and accountability, as well as immersion in the sacramental economy of confession and Eucharist.
By contrast, leadership in CL is soft, easy, free. There is an assumption that all participants are mature adults, equal in status, worthy of respect. This weaker authority seems to have worked to date. It is questionable if it can carry the movement into the future without some strengthening.
What is it? A Movement? A Way? An Itinerary? A Community? A Reconstructed Catholicism?
CL serenely identifies as a movement within the Church. It accepts the Church as it is: a mystery, a sacrament of God, a legacy, our spiritual Mother. It flourishes happily as a contemporary branch upon the vine, bearing cultural and spiritual fruit. It does not ambition to reform the Church. It is at the same time a catechetical form, an "itinerary" of fraternity in the faith, a community of joy and love. It lives within and alongside of the hierarchical, parochial Church free of any tension. With the official Church, as with the broader world, it is amiable.
NC is far, far more complicated. To those outside, it is another "lay renewal movement." But they insist they are NOT a movement. Carmen Hernandez, cofounder with Kiko, famously corrected John Paul in public fashion when he referred to it as a movement. She, boldly, interrupted him: "No, not a movement, but a way." He responded spontaneously: "It is a movement; it moves; it is alive!"
It describes itself as "the Neocatechumenal Way" as it reprises the early, extended catechumenate which initiated the earliest Christians into the Church. As such it is an extended program of formation in Christ for the baptized who have really not entered deeply, authentically into the life of Christ.
More problematically, they speak of "the Way" as in "Is he still walking in the Way?" For Catholics traditionally "the Way" is Jesus himself. Additionally we understand the Church to be "the way" to live in Christ. Clearly, NC is a way, an extraordinary way, but not THE Way. So this usage is offensive. At some point I hope it is discontinued as it is easily received as arrogant and condescending.
Canonically it is now accepted in the Church as an "itinerary of formation." This is accurate: it is an extended program of formation in the faith. It includes a series of sophisticated steps and takes normally at least 20 years. Interestingly, it is the community, not the individual that follows this path. So it is intrinsically communal, deeply ecclesial, in the face of the isolation and individualism that plagues our society.
But it is in fact more than an "itinerary" and is, as Carmen said, far more than a movement. It is the creation of a new community that aspires eventually to be an institutional RECONSTRUCTION of Catholicism. More like a religious community than lay life as traditionally understood, it creates an intensive subculture supporting large families by small intensive communities. The final goal is clear if not articulated: the parish will become a community of smaller communities. This is a vision widely discussed since the Council but this way is really doing it. Intuitively, diocesan clergy resent it because they sense it as a competitor: the standard parish system is threatened by eventual takeover by this new model. I recall, at the turn of the century, I was walking in the way, catechizing in my parish, working and raising 7 children. Something had to give. I walked away from community and remained active in the parish. If she shared my aspirations, I may well have left the parish for the community.
Kiko has been adept diplomatically in cultivating the approval of the Vatican. His lieutenants work always and only where welcomed by bishop and pastor. Locally, however, there is frequent, inevitable tension as it is in reality an alternative Catholic subculture which competes with the ordinary parish. In my area, I see that their outreach is largely to the unchurched, including those in crisis; in that sense it can live harmoniously with the parish and its steady, middle class clientele.
Liturgy
CL gratefully receives the liturgy as it is from the Church. There is no agenda. The Novus Ordo is fine.
NC is a different story. Here we face a Great Drama. This dense issue requires more attention than can be given here. But this is the defining problem for this Way. It presents an entirely distinct ritual of the Eucharist. It was developed at the time of the Council and perfectly represents elements strong in the liturgical renewal of the time: shift to "Passover meal model" from the Tridentine paradigm of solemnity and sacrifice, emphasis upon the Resurrection more than Calvary, a spirit of joy, spontaneity and praise. Apparently it was Carmen, who studied theology and liturgy at the time, not Kiko who developed this liturgy. If the Tridentine, pre-Council Eucharist characterized the temple-solemn-Calvary-silent nature of the Eucharist; and the NC the meal, celebrative, communal aspect; the Novus Ordo might be seen as a compromise between the two.
The NC ritual is a sharper rupture from the Novus Ordo than the Latin mass, which has the status of centuries of usage. It has, however, been approved by the Vatican. It is reverent. It elicits stronger personal participation. Aside from a weakened theology of sacrifice, it is deeply Catholic. It is, in my view, an enrichment of the Church as we benefit from a diversity of rites. There is a blandness to the ordinary parish mass: we benefit from time to time with something more spontaneous or solemn. I also favor charismatic masses as well as the mariachi mass I enjoyed in my youth in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
The problem: their program requires total immersion and therefore distance from the normal, parish mass. This takes a pronounced form for the Easter Vigil. Much like the Latin Mass, this is celebrated in the NC in long ceremony as the high point of the liturgical year. Parish priests understandably resent the disunity they perceive as these groups prefer their own to the shared, ordinary parish celebration. A large urban parish might have three separate Easter vigils, a blatant divisiveness from his point of view at the highpoint of liturgical unity.
Liturgically, NC like TLM tends to be a total, alternate Catholicism. Pope Benedict addressed this about 20 years ago by directing participants to participate once weekly in the regular parish mass. This clear directive has been, as far as I can tell, entirely ignored by NC leadership. This is a problem that will not go away until it is resolved authoritatively by the Vatican.
Class and Ethnicity
As mentioned, CL remains strongly Italian in flavor. For example, my daughter's household of one native Italian and six Americans dines religiously at 8PM, on gourmet, often Italian cuisine but always with a bottle of wine. In terms of social/economic class it is overwhelmingly educated, professional and economically comfortable. Many enjoy thriving, meaningful careers in medicine, education, engineering, psychology, research, and non-profit work. Participants are culturally confident, serene and assertive.
NC, flamingly Spaniard in spirit, is largely working class Hispanic, at least in our NYC area. . Many come out of lives in crisis. Even among the more accomplished, there is little association of career advancement with status. They often raise large families austerely on modest incomes.
Born Once or Born Twice?
William James famously contrasted the religiosity of those "born once" and others "born twice." The former is a more natural, spontaneous spirituality of gratitude, generosity and wonder rooted in positivity and awe, with less sense of evil and sin. The second has been reborn out of the darkness and sin of life far from God. CL more frequently includes wholesome types from intact families who find enriched meaning in the movement. NC has many stories of powerful conversions from lives of chaos, promiscuity and substance abuse into a new life in Christ. It makes sense that CL is comfortable in the culture; NC more detached.
Priestly/Religious Vocations
NC with its large families has been very fruitful with priestly vocations. Kiko famously issues a "call to the priesthood" to large gatherings of youth. In the Archdiocese of Newark, NCs have made up almost 50% of our ordinations in recent years. Looking forward, these priests will have increasing influence upon local churches. They have an unusual arrangement: they study with diocesan seminarians but undergo a distinct formation program, apparently more rigorous and developed by Kiko. They are ordained to a specific diocese and are obedient to the ordinary, but there is an understanding that the bishop will be generous in allowing special missions, as needed, beyond the diocese.
CL does not have the same number of priests as NC. But they have birthed a fraternity of (about 150) priests, two order of consecrated sisters, and the lay-consecrated community Memores Domini (about 1,600 members.)
Both lay movements are deeply Catholic in their reverence for the priestly and consecrated life.
Theology
Giusanni studied and taught theology but was not so much an academic as a gifted catechist, spiritual guide and student of culture. Kiko was an artist-musician-mystic-spiritual-genius. Each articulated an entirely novel, profound Catholic theology in modes less abstract, more dramatic and aesthetic.
CL had early on, already in the late 1960s, a close relationship with the Communio School of Theology of Balthasar/JP/Benedict. They are distinct but close and mutually influential. They share a deep penetration of culture as well as theology. Then-Cardinal-Ratzinger preached a stirring eulogy at the funeral of Giusanni. Outstanding theologians are loyal to CL as well as the Communio School and influential in both: notably Fr. Antonio Lopez (mentor to both my NC son and my CL daughter) and his friend Fr. Paolo Prosperi, brother of the current leader of CL.
NC is attached to no specific theology. My own impression is that the liturgy is primarily the work of Carmen and the catechesis overall that of Kiko. I am not aware that any theologian has yet given explicit, academic expression to Kiko's theology. Arising from a profound conversion out of angst and despair, it prophetically, radically renounces a world now gone dark. It is primitivist in its return to the original, pre-Constantinian Church. It is inspired by the extraordinary desert mystic Charles de Focauld. It has about it a Montanist-type intensity, a crusader ferocity, a militancy. It draws from the ecclesiology of Protestant Dietrick Bonhoeffer. It articulates a Barthian distance between human religion, and especially sacrifice, and the Gospel. It has an austere, iconoclastic thrust that distances it from the Renaissance style of CL. At the same time, Kiko is a gifted artist who contributes riches in music, iconography, and Church design. It is a ,dense, paradoxical, amazing vision that demands to be articulated into a coherent theology. (Perhaps my theologian son will do this when his children are raised.)
Politics
Implants from Italy and Spain, each is relatively apolitical in the American context, unconnected to party, policy or ideology, but in distinct ways.
CL is passionately centrifugal, outwardly oriented to penetrate society and culture with the Spirit of Christ. In Italy where it is strong it is a known presence. In some areas it has exerted power and been tarnished by scandal. In the context of socialism, it strongly practices and advocates a subsidiarity of free, local, concrete action. This is not to be confused with low-tax, small government American conservatism. They often associate with international NGOs in service of the poor. They support Catholic values around family, sexuality and unborn life but not with the same ferocity of the Evangelical-Catholic alliance in the USA. As educated, professional, sophisticated and cosmopolitan, they are culturally closer, in some ways, to American progressives, but not on the controversial moral issues. They would have little in common, culturally, with MAGA other than Catholic concerns for the dignity of incompetent life, sex/marriage, and religious rights. Within our current political options, many probably abstain or vote a third choice
NC, deeply centripetal, detaches entirely from macro politics and culture in a extreme monastic-type "Benedict Option." With their large family and intense Catholicism, they are fiercely pro-life. It is hardly conceivable that they would vote for the party of abortion. As largely lower working class, they would be more in sync with the economics and immigration views of the Left. Many probably voted Red in support of conservative moral views. Apparently politics is not much discussed by leaders or others.
Gender and Sexuality
Both practice classic Catholic values, in a contemporary fashion, but again in contrasting styles.
With very large families as normative, NC accepts traditional marital gender roles, but there is not a strong didactic emphasis as one finds in some American Pentecostal/Evangelical teachings about "trad wives." Within communities, there is a strong equality in discipleship between men and women. It may be the good example of Kiko/Carmen or that they listened to John Paul and his pronounced emphasis upon mutual submission within marriage, rather than headship of the male. In my limited experience I am impressed by the confidence, assertiveness and dignity of the women as they share responsibility but serenely defer to the man as spokesperson.
CL similarly manifests a serene equality in dignity along with a femininity that is organic, confident, serene, and vigorous, if not quite as fecund as in NC. Statistics are not available but it is a good bet that the CL birthrate is well above the average (currently 1.6 in USA) but short of that of NC. Women are more often professional and highly educated and therefore relate on a more equal basis.
Monsignor Giusanni placed a strikingly positive emphasis upon the value of "preferential friendship." This may, indeed, be a key to the charism of the entire movement as "friendship open to destiny."
Traditional Catholic guidance, especially for nuns and priests, warned against "particular friendship" understood as a strong emotional, romantic or sexual bonding of two who are not married. Renouncing close, exclusive friendship, religious communities preferred a certain equality in relationships rather than the dangers of exclusivity, jealousy, lust and mutual ownership. A similar taboo applied to the married, although not always so explicitly, who would avoid close friendship with the other sex to avoid temptation, jealousy and the mere appearance of impropriety. NC, with its intense reverence for marriage and religious vows as well as its stronger anxiety about sin would endorse this caution.
With his customary positivity, Giusanni saw a more promising reality. He would not have been naive about sexual lust, covetousness, romantic and sentimental attachment. But he saw "preferential friendship" as a specific mutuality in attraction and interests that opens up to the transcendent, to "destiny." Mutually, they draw each other to the Good, to God's will, into a path drawing them and others to heaven. I am sure that Giusanni would consider the Kiko/Carmen friendship as exemplary of this.
The entire CL movement draws its participants into such friendships in diverse ways. Young adult men and women relate to each other in strikingly wholesome, spontaneous, lively and chaste fashions. There are many happy marriages and families, supported by the network of friendship and the shared practice of Catholic faith. In addition, the consecrated communities (of priest, sister and lay) live virginity, not as a deprivation, in a positive mode, as attachment in love within a detachment. It is a free possession of the beloved in a way that does not possess, does not own, does not control. A love that contemplates the inestimable worth of the friend in her destiny as God's child. And so, the marrieds and the virgins mutually enrich each other in a rich symphony of friendship. There is an unusual spontaneity, joy, innocence with maturity in the way men and women relate in this context.
Demography and Influence
The militant, intense NC is growing at a fast pace. It is estimated that a million participate globally. As they have large families they are increasing in number. Established communities then reach out to recruit and form new communities. It thus has impressive evangelistic energy but that is focused inward, to the formation of new groups, not outwardly towards the broader Church or world. As noted, it is producing large numbers of priests and so is quickly becoming influential, especially in light of the priest crisis. Particularly striking is the itinerant missionaries, including families, that volunteer to go the the most desolate places on the globe to bring the Gospel.
NC has very firm boundaries: eventually, you are in or you are out. Non-members are not welcomed. Early in the movement, before the turn of the century, I was invited by my friend to hear Kiko give a Lenten Announcement in NYC. We were uncomfortable as we saw that people sat with their communities. Later I learned that he was reprimanded for inviting us. I am an anomaly: early on I was a fellow-traveler through my best friend and his wife; later I joined and left two different communities; but retain high esteem and close connection through my son and his family.
CL is more relaxed, less urgent, amiable rather than aggressive. Estimates are that 60,000 participate in the fraternities; but doubtless many more who are loosely associated benefit as boundaries are porous in a warm hospitality. The happy, welcoming NY Encounter is an example of such.
Dangers and Vulnerabilities
Here again their negatives move in opposite directions: the one too inclusive, the other too exclusive.
In the wake of Giusanni's passing, the leadership of Fr. Carron coincided with the pontificate of Francis. It saw a crisis common to such Catholic movements: confusion after the loss of the charismatic founder. A problem seems to be the assumption that Carron would fill the shoes of Giusanni. Eventually, the Vatican intervened and gave guidance to more normal, democratic processes in leadership.
In those years, it was my observation that CL under Carron mirrored the weakness and softness of the pope: a conciliatory embrace of cultural liberalism, a failure to judge sharply the dark forces in society and within Catholic progressivism. This was a rejection of the clear theological vision of Communio and a soft leaning into progressivism. Tensions seem to have arisen, tensions not always voiced but reflective of the culture war in the broader Church.
For example, in the 2021 NY Encounter, in the midst of Covid and the BLM explosion, (where I myself happily participated in a televised panel about our residence for women), a panel addressed the issue of racism in our country. Each participant was articulate, heartfelt and persuasive in witnessing to personal experience of discrimination. The effect was to basically endorse anti-racism and some form of critical race theory. This would have been enriched and balanced by an alternate view, perhaps by a leading black conservative voice, on the harm done by these views in polarization and to the black community itself.
In the 2022 Encounter, David Brooks was warmly received. He is, of course, an intelligent, moderate and respected voice generally viewed as conservative; but he is clearly pro-legal-abortion. That did not seem to matter to the organizers. Along with him, Dr. Francis Collins, famous NIH head and colleague of Dr. Anthony Fauci, was lionized as an exemplary synthesis of evangelical faith and good science. We now know that with Fauci Collins funded "gain of function research" and fiercely repressed the Wujan lab theory, which is now widely accepted, as conspiration theory. Even at that time, I felt the need for a countervailing voice.
Through these years, Austen Ivereigh, hagiographical biographer of Francis, and his kind were a strong voice at the Encounter. Catholic reverence for the Papacy is of course normal. But it is unlikely that a view critical of Pope Francis, perhaps advocating classic Catholic views (on capital punishment? homosexuality? the actual form of a Catholic synod? the Latin mass?) would be welcomed.
The strength of the NY Encounter is its appeal to progressive, cosmopolitan NYC; its weakness is its reluctance to confront that same culture.
If CL is centrifugal, welcoming, irenic, with loose boundaries and an aversion to confrontation; NC is centripetal, militant, combative, with rigid boundaries and a pronounced detachment from the broader society and Catholic Church. It is neither a schism nor a cult as it is fiercely loyal to hierarchical authority and passionately embracive of Catholic morals, dogma and sacramental life. But it has schismatic/cult tendencies due to its intensity, demands on time/energy, and negative view (explicitly) of society and (implicitly) of the normal Church.
My earliest exploration of NC was around the turn of the century with my older son. At the time we were studying the biblical theme of Egypt as the place of slavery and darkness. When I told a young woman that my son was no longer attending our gatherings, her spontaneous response was: "Oh, so he has gone back to Egypt!" In fact he was studying law, working jobs, courting his wife-to-be and going to mass every Sunday. He was doing fine, but NC was not for him. Surely the leadership of NC would not speak so simplistically. But this kind of hard, cultish, us-versus-an-evil-world binary is a vulnerability of the NC culture.
Our Popes
Both communities have been enthusiastically embraced by our popes. The bishop of Rome of course is concerned not only for maintenance of a local Church, but for the global reality and particularly evangelization to parts unfamiliar with the Gospel. And so, there is a natural sympathy between the Vatican and new, zealous, evangelical movements. It is natural for a Francis, Ignatius, Kiko or Luigi to go to Rome for support possibly not forthcoming from the local ordinary.
In the case of NC, this contrasts with the difficulties in some local Churches. For example, the communities I knew 25 years ago in lower Manhattan were basically expelled from the Archdiocese of NY. I am aware of no specific scandal or official statement. I am uncertain of the cause other than disapproval from important chancery advisers. The communities resettled across the Hudson River in NJ. I understand there are now some new sprouts of life in NYC.
John Paul especially resonated with the zeal of the NC itinerant missionaries. He said if he was young he would join them. In an insightful piece, Giuseppe Gennarini, responsible for the USA and himself a student of philosophy, showed that John Paul and Kiko shared the same apocalyptic view of the modern world as a battle between good and evil.
On the other hand, Communio theologians, especially Ratzinger, strike a balance in the critique and embrace of modernity in its complexity. CL at its best, when it is not overly accommodating, strikes a similar balance.
Benedict, as noted, was very close to Giusanni and the entire spirit of CL. Along with John Paul, he struck a perfect balance between embrace and renunciation of contemporary world. We have seen that NC is stronger on the negative; Cl on the positive. Benedict, with his appreciation for the traditional liturgy, accepted the NC rite but directed that it be more integrated into the mainstream.
Leo has, to my knowledge, no prior history with either community. But he has already addressed both, clearly encouraging the charisms, but also wisely cautioning them. He encouraged CL to keep focused on Christ and avoid discouragement as they encounter some difficulties and divisions. He affirmed the missionary zeal of NC but strongly encouraged unity with the Church.
Going into the Future
I am thrilled that my family is engaged in both NC and CL. I have great expectations.
In CL they grow in faith, holy/wholesome friendships, and rich cultural engagement. My hope is that its institutions are hardened so as to endure over time and prevail against adversity. My hope is that it leans even more into Communio theology in a sharp, vigorous critique of progressivism. Perhaps it will extend to the cultural Catholic right (traditionalism, Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism) the welcome it gives the cultural left in the NY Encounter.
My hopes, but also my fears, are greater for NC as a stronger form. As they harbor a strong, if realistic, anxiety about the world-flesh-devil, I have a concern for the tendency to cult and schism.
Fierce, fearless, relentless, Kiko is to our world what Paul was to the first Church; Anthony and the desert fathers to the Church of Constantine; Benedict to a Roman civilization in collapse; Dominic and Francis to the Medieval world; Ignatius, John of the Cross, Theresa and a litany of founders of religious orders to the Church of Trent.
Their mission teams go into the darkest places in the world, emulating Christ in his descent into hell. I see it as the elite forces of the contemporary world. As such it is an extraordinary vocation, not normal Catholic life.
Perhaps a form of it will develop into normal Catholicity. For this to happen, it will have to be more open and integrated into the broader Church.
With the imminent death of the nonagenarian Kiko, NC will go through a new institutionalization. It is inconceivable that someone of his charisma should emerge. He is one in a century, even a millennium. His strengths will have to be made permanent, his failings diminished.
A hopeful sign is the increasing number of NC priests. This are loyal to both the diocese and their Way. Properly trained with diocesan seminarians, they are positioned to integrate the two. This pattern of priestly formation was another stroke of Kiko's spiritual genius.
Eventually, the Vatican will have to address the separate sabbath Eucharist and the Easter Vigil...hopefully in a manner that is clear, firm, gentle. Since there is, around the world, support for as well as opposition to NC, we can imagine an episcopal synod or an extraordinary consistory of cardinals. This would be a real, apostolic body, not the "le'ts share our feelings" and "let's make a mess" silliness of the so-called-synodality. I would hope to see this rite retained but integrated more modestly into the mainstream, with less centrality to their life and more interest in the parish mass, the Presence in the tabernacle, and the temple dimension of the liturgy. Such a body would require input from a strong body of theologians, liturgists and others, like the periti of the Council. It could properly situate the NC mass and the Latin mass, while addressing the progressive disorders and correcting the authoritarian oppression of Francis. Hopefully it would also overcome the banality of parish liturgy and inflame a global Eucharistic renewal, incorporating the best from various traditions and movements.
Conclusion
These have been and are exciting times to be Catholic. An entire religious world has collapsed as a new one is being aborn, even as there remains an organic, formal continuity between them.
God bless Monsignor Luigi Giusanni and Communion and Liberation!
God bless Kiko, Carmen and the Neocatechumenate!
Come Holy Spirit! Enliven, enlighten, guide, strengthen, purify, and sanctify us all!
