From the Philadelphia Free Press, City Safari, Thom Nickels
In 2018 the online Catholic Philly.com published a piece on the Catholic Charismatic movement. “Some traditional Catholics might be turned off by the highly emotional exuberance of a Charismatic meeting, which can demonstrate such gifts of the Holy Spirit as prophecy, faith healing and speaking in tongues. Advocates believe this is simply the workings of the Holy Spirit,” the article began.
Catholic Philly also carried advertisements for the 2019 Philadelphia Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference. Those ads had the look of an old time southern revival. A traditionalist Catholic may have had to look twice to see if what he/she was seeing was really real. The ad was printed in big bold letters in the style of Big Tent evangelism. The following passages from Scripture were arranged around information surrounding the event.
“Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the Glory of God’” John 11:40. Other bold letters followed. The event would take place at the Clarion Hotel Conference, Essington, Delaware County, PA. There would be a guest, Bishop Sam Jacobs, Chairman of the National Service Committee for the Charismatic Renewal. A beautiful woman showing off her bright shiny dental veneers was the guest speaker. She wasn’t just anybody but she was someone who was “baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1957.” The woman’s million dollar suntan gave this event an even bigger biblical punch. The woman, the ad stated, “is committed to making Jesus known to the Nations by the preaching of the Gospel in the Power of the Holy Spirit.”
Not only is all this not the way that Catholics have traditionally talked, I couldn’t get over the fact that the event wasn’t criticized by the normally staid, Catholic Philly.
Karl Keating, in a 2017 piece for Catholic Answers, Ever Heard of the Catholic Charismatic Movement?, wrote:
“The Catholic variant of charismaticism dates from 1967. It began at Duquesne University, spread to Notre Dame, and then went viral, as the current saying has it. A Belgian cardinal, Leo Suenens, was an early patron. Pope Paul VI, while a charismatic event was in progress in Rome, said some positive things about the movement’s emphasis on “communion of souls” and its promotion of prayer. Later, John Paul II encouraged Catholic charismatics to defend the Christian notion of social life against inroads by secularism.”
“The popes,” Keating continues, “never endorsed the notion of a “Baptism in the Spirit,” nor did they speak in favor of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues.” After all, so called speaking in tongues was a one event at Pentecost. It had everything to do with ‘gifting’ the early apostles and disciples with a knowledge of foreign languages so they could go out into the world, and nothing to do with rolling around on the floor in a fever. In fact, the modern concept of “speaking in tongues” (or shaking your booty with upraised hands) was virtually unknown throughout most of Christianity until 1830 when a certain excitable Scottish Presbyterian minister, Edward Irving, manufactured its appearance “through his enthusiastic preaching.” Keating concludes: “After that, speaking in tongues died down until the turn of the twentieth century with the rise of the modern Pentecostal movement. There were no Catholic examples of it until two-thirds of a century later.”
Keating’s views were challenged in a Catholic forum by a pro-charismatic apologist:
“At the heart of the Charismatic Renewal is a call to a personal encounter with Jesus and ongoing discipleship through the power of the Holy Spirit. I think that we can all agree that those are worthy pursuits. Although our faith is rational, it must also transcend mere intellectual assent.”
I grew up on the outskirts of Philadelphia’s Main Line in Frazer, Pennsylvania, where an infamous landmark on Lancaster Pike attracted the attention of passing drivers. The landmark was a huge billboard with the words Jesus Saves in gargantuan block letters. The billboard was twice the size of any other billboard in the area, and missing it while driving on Lancaster Pike was impossible. The billboard’s design included a rising sun with rays of light extending outward in massive bold strokes. There was a short Bible quote in smaller print underneath the main message. A longer quote, perhaps, might have been distracting and caused an accident. The “Jesus Saves” billboard was the subject of family conversations for years. A trip to the supermarket, to the Devon horse show, to my Boy Scout cabin in the forest, even while riding the school bus every day, it was always this billboard that caught my eye and got me thinking about the holy roller evangelicals in the area: the praise dancers, the polite Frazer Mennonites in their white bonnets and all the innumerable summer vacation Bible Schools, all decidedly un-Catholic.
We Catholics, secure in our knowledge that our Church was the original apostolic Church founded by Christ himself, didn’t have to stoop to making cartoon billboards in order to win followers. Jesus was not a commercial product like Ipanna toothpaste or A&P coffee. He was far too serious to trivialize on a billboard along a highway.
However in the years following the Second Vatican Council the Jesus Saves billboard became less of a freak display for Catholics. Suddenly area priests were referring to it during sermons.
In Philadelphia, a Redemptorist brother, Brother Pancratius (Panky) Boudreau (Joseph Andrew Boudreau) is credited for starting the Catholic Charismatic Movement. This was in the 1970s when Brother Panky was transferred to Philadelphia from Washington, D.C., where he had already kick started the movement in the late 1960s. Brother Panky was stationed at Saint Boniface Church at the time where he started a prayer group that later grew to more than 160 prayer groups around the Delaware Valley.
Suddenly Archdiocese of Philadelphia Catholics were hooting and hollering. The era of staid, quiet rosary saying was seen as retrograde and Protestant-unfriendly. Although creeping Pentecostalism existed in mostly isolated parishes with special Masses and events, elements of the Charismatic movement began to seep into heretofore dignified parishes. Suddenly one saw people at Mass praying the Lord’ Prayer in the Orans fashion while others took to holding hands with their neighbors in the pews, a few degrees away from swaying like those Big Tent hysterics. Other lay people, convinced that they had special spiritual gifts, would lay their hands on the heads of fellow parishioners. The only thing missing was outright dancing although that would come later when middle aged women, filled with something they called ‘The Spirit,’ would don chiffon capes and sashay around the altar in what would come to be known as liturgical dancing.
On the heels of the charismatic movement came the Cursillo movement, founded in Spain in 1944 as a way to bring Spanish men back to the Church. The Cursillo retreat was really the Catholic version of an EST or Lifespring retreat. The Cursillo 3-day retreat emphasized non-stop group activity with little or no solitude. Criticisms of the Cursillo movement by traditionalists pointed to “in group secrets” and instructions. Some former Cursillo devotees have even compared it to a cult.
The two founders of Cursillo in Spain, Eduardo Bonnin and Bishop Juan Hervas, saw their movement transported to the United States in 1957 although Cursillo hit its stride in the states in the 1970s in conjunction with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement. The two movements might be said to have produced a “new” type of Catholicism: the “Jesus Saves” hand clapping “let it be emotional” school and the so called Masonic “secret society” of Cursillo, which started out as a movement exclusively for men but which, falling victim to secular culture, went co-ed.
The confusing state of American Catholicism at this time can be seen in the 1969 Elvis Presley movie, “Change of Habit,” which also stars Mary Tyler Moore who plays a nun.
This Presley Mass is what many considered to be “relevant” during the late 1960s. As Dr. Taylor Marshall commented, “I find it interesting how the presumably secular director prophetically captured the problem by showing the vocational angst of Mary Tyler Moore while interchanging scenes from traditional images of Catholicism (saint statue, crucifix, statue of Mary) with the novelties of the era (Elvis, guitars, dancing Gospel choir).” This is a wild mix Liturgy, so much so that one gets the feeling that all the traditionally robed nuns will soon strip off their traditional habits in exchange for a dark blue stretch pants suit.
While researching this column, I came across a rather shocking post on a SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) website:
“Seeking Fellow Adult Victims / Survivors of sexual abuse by Redemptorist Brother Pancratius (Panky) Boudreau (Joseph Andrew Boudreau) in the Saratoga Springs, NY area from 1964 1969 “
Hooting and hollering, indeed.
In 2018 the online Catholic Philly.com published a piece on the Catholic Charismatic movement. “Some traditional Catholics might be turned off by the highly emotional exuberance of a Charismatic meeting, which can demonstrate such gifts of the Holy Spirit as prophecy, faith healing and speaking in tongues. Advocates believe this is simply the workings of the Holy Spirit,” the article began.
Catholic Philly also carried advertisements for the 2019 Philadelphia Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference. Those ads had the look of an old time southern revival. A traditionalist Catholic may have had to look twice to see if what he/she was seeing was really real. The ad was printed in big bold letters in the style of Big Tent evangelism. The following passages from Scripture were arranged around information surrounding the event.
“Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the Glory of God’” John 11:40. Other bold letters followed. The event would take place at the Clarion Hotel Conference, Essington, Delaware County, PA. There would be a guest, Bishop Sam Jacobs, Chairman of the National Service Committee for the Charismatic Renewal. A beautiful woman showing off her bright shiny dental veneers was the guest speaker. She wasn’t just anybody but she was someone who was “baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1957.” The woman’s million dollar suntan gave this event an even bigger biblical punch. The woman, the ad stated, “is committed to making Jesus known to the Nations by the preaching of the Gospel in the Power of the Holy Spirit.”
Not only is all this not the way that Catholics have traditionally talked, I couldn’t get over the fact that the event wasn’t criticized by the normally staid, Catholic Philly.
Karl Keating, in a 2017 piece for Catholic Answers, Ever Heard of the Catholic Charismatic Movement?, wrote:
“The Catholic variant of charismaticism dates from 1967. It began at Duquesne University, spread to Notre Dame, and then went viral, as the current saying has it. A Belgian cardinal, Leo Suenens, was an early patron. Pope Paul VI, while a charismatic event was in progress in Rome, said some positive things about the movement’s emphasis on “communion of souls” and its promotion of prayer. Later, John Paul II encouraged Catholic charismatics to defend the Christian notion of social life against inroads by secularism.”
“The popes,” Keating continues, “never endorsed the notion of a “Baptism in the Spirit,” nor did they speak in favor of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues.” After all, so called speaking in tongues was a one event at Pentecost. It had everything to do with ‘gifting’ the early apostles and disciples with a knowledge of foreign languages so they could go out into the world, and nothing to do with rolling around on the floor in a fever. In fact, the modern concept of “speaking in tongues” (or shaking your booty with upraised hands) was virtually unknown throughout most of Christianity until 1830 when a certain excitable Scottish Presbyterian minister, Edward Irving, manufactured its appearance “through his enthusiastic preaching.” Keating concludes: “After that, speaking in tongues died down until the turn of the twentieth century with the rise of the modern Pentecostal movement. There were no Catholic examples of it until two-thirds of a century later.”
Keating’s views were challenged in a Catholic forum by a pro-charismatic apologist:
“At the heart of the Charismatic Renewal is a call to a personal encounter with Jesus and ongoing discipleship through the power of the Holy Spirit. I think that we can all agree that those are worthy pursuits. Although our faith is rational, it must also transcend mere intellectual assent.”
I grew up on the outskirts of Philadelphia’s Main Line in Frazer, Pennsylvania, where an infamous landmark on Lancaster Pike attracted the attention of passing drivers. The landmark was a huge billboard with the words Jesus Saves in gargantuan block letters. The billboard was twice the size of any other billboard in the area, and missing it while driving on Lancaster Pike was impossible. The billboard’s design included a rising sun with rays of light extending outward in massive bold strokes. There was a short Bible quote in smaller print underneath the main message. A longer quote, perhaps, might have been distracting and caused an accident. The “Jesus Saves” billboard was the subject of family conversations for years. A trip to the supermarket, to the Devon horse show, to my Boy Scout cabin in the forest, even while riding the school bus every day, it was always this billboard that caught my eye and got me thinking about the holy roller evangelicals in the area: the praise dancers, the polite Frazer Mennonites in their white bonnets and all the innumerable summer vacation Bible Schools, all decidedly un-Catholic.
We Catholics, secure in our knowledge that our Church was the original apostolic Church founded by Christ himself, didn’t have to stoop to making cartoon billboards in order to win followers. Jesus was not a commercial product like Ipanna toothpaste or A&P coffee. He was far too serious to trivialize on a billboard along a highway.
However in the years following the Second Vatican Council the Jesus Saves billboard became less of a freak display for Catholics. Suddenly area priests were referring to it during sermons.
In Philadelphia, a Redemptorist brother, Brother Pancratius (Panky) Boudreau (Joseph Andrew Boudreau) is credited for starting the Catholic Charismatic Movement. This was in the 1970s when Brother Panky was transferred to Philadelphia from Washington, D.C., where he had already kick started the movement in the late 1960s. Brother Panky was stationed at Saint Boniface Church at the time where he started a prayer group that later grew to more than 160 prayer groups around the Delaware Valley.
Suddenly Archdiocese of Philadelphia Catholics were hooting and hollering. The era of staid, quiet rosary saying was seen as retrograde and Protestant-unfriendly. Although creeping Pentecostalism existed in mostly isolated parishes with special Masses and events, elements of the Charismatic movement began to seep into heretofore dignified parishes. Suddenly one saw people at Mass praying the Lord’ Prayer in the Orans fashion while others took to holding hands with their neighbors in the pews, a few degrees away from swaying like those Big Tent hysterics. Other lay people, convinced that they had special spiritual gifts, would lay their hands on the heads of fellow parishioners. The only thing missing was outright dancing although that would come later when middle aged women, filled with something they called ‘The Spirit,’ would don chiffon capes and sashay around the altar in what would come to be known as liturgical dancing.
On the heels of the charismatic movement came the Cursillo movement, founded in Spain in 1944 as a way to bring Spanish men back to the Church. The Cursillo retreat was really the Catholic version of an EST or Lifespring retreat. The Cursillo 3-day retreat emphasized non-stop group activity with little or no solitude. Criticisms of the Cursillo movement by traditionalists pointed to “in group secrets” and instructions. Some former Cursillo devotees have even compared it to a cult.
The two founders of Cursillo in Spain, Eduardo Bonnin and Bishop Juan Hervas, saw their movement transported to the United States in 1957 although Cursillo hit its stride in the states in the 1970s in conjunction with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement. The two movements might be said to have produced a “new” type of Catholicism: the “Jesus Saves” hand clapping “let it be emotional” school and the so called Masonic “secret society” of Cursillo, which started out as a movement exclusively for men but which, falling victim to secular culture, went co-ed.
The confusing state of American Catholicism at this time can be seen in the 1969 Elvis Presley movie, “Change of Habit,” which also stars Mary Tyler Moore who plays a nun.
This Presley Mass is what many considered to be “relevant” during the late 1960s. As Dr. Taylor Marshall commented, “I find it interesting how the presumably secular director prophetically captured the problem by showing the vocational angst of Mary Tyler Moore while interchanging scenes from traditional images of Catholicism (saint statue, crucifix, statue of Mary) with the novelties of the era (Elvis, guitars, dancing Gospel choir).” This is a wild mix Liturgy, so much so that one gets the feeling that all the traditionally robed nuns will soon strip off their traditional habits in exchange for a dark blue stretch pants suit.
While researching this column, I came across a rather shocking post on a SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) website:
“Seeking Fellow Adult Victims / Survivors of sexual abuse by Redemptorist Brother Pancratius (Panky) Boudreau (Joseph Andrew Boudreau) in the Saratoga Springs, NY area from 1964 1969 “
Hooting and hollering, indeed.
