[Question:]{.underline} Does Pope Benedict XVI support the charismatic renewal?
[Answer:]{.underline} One of the clearest indications that the Holy Father does not at all support Tradition is contained in his unambiguous support of the charismatic renewal, which is the vehicle of the Protestant ideas with which it was founded and a denial of Catholic Tradition. The whole purpose of this movement is to replace the sacraments and the Mass, as the principal means of grace. They are replaced by a personal and sentimental experience, in typical modernist fashion.
On the occasion of the 13^th^ international conference of the Catholic Fraternity of Covenant Chrismatic Communities and Fellowships, the Pope reiterated his support of these charismatic groups and gifts (Zenit.org, October 31, 2008). “Young ecclesial communities are a gift from God and their contributions should be valued and welcomed with trust…The ecclesial communities which bloomed after the Second Vatican Council, are a unique gift of the Lord and a precious resource for the life of the Church…The movements and new communities are like an inrush of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in contemporary society. One of the positive elements and aspects of the communities of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is precisely the importance given by them to the charisms and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and their merit lies in having reminded the Church of the actuality (of these gifts)”.
This is nothing less than a profession of belief in the evolution of the Church. For clearly if these communities are now such a bonus to the Church, then the Church before 1967, when they first came into existence, could not have been what is now, and in fact must have been much less.
Then, On May 4, 2009 Benedict XVI sent a telegram, though Cardinal Bertone, Secretary of State, to 20,000 members of the Italian chapter of the Catholic Chrismatic Renewal, gathered in their 32^nd^ national assembly in Rimini.
Far from reproaching them for the deviations of the Charismatic Renewal, he expressed his hopes for “an abundant outpouring of the fruits of the Paraclete” on the gathering and expressed his desire that it would “enkindle a renewed adherence to the crucified and risen Christ, a deep fraternal communion and a joyous evangelical witness”. (Zenit.org). He made no mention at all of the grave dangers of sentimentalism and of the protestantizing substitution of special charismatic experiences for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments as the ordinary means of sanctification.
The same must be said of the Pope’s final approval of the Neocatechumenal Way. This is an organization of the laity that forms small communities of “renewal” within parishes. Founded during Vatican II, in 1964, it considered itself a response to the pastoral intuitions of that council for the participation of the laity in evangelization, and soon adopted the charismatic principles, especially independence from the priesthood, the Mass and the sacraments. It received its first official recognition in 1990 by Pope John Paul II as “an itinerary of Catholic formation valid for our society and for our times”, and then on June 13, 2008 it received its final approval from the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Lip service to the discernment of ecclesiastical authority does not change the reality that these groups, so positively approved and encouraged, have consistently displaced the true ordinary working of the Holy Ghost in souls through prayer and the sacraments, and replaced it with sentimental, extraordinary, exterior signs, that really amount to nothing more than group psychology and natural enthusiasm. It is no secret that these groups, as a general rule, have no appreciation for the sacredness of the Church, the Mass and the sacraments, nor for Catholic Tradition and devotion to the saints, nor for the teaching of the catechism of Christian doctrine - their “living” experience having replaced this rich inheritance of true spirituality.
More recently, Cardinal Josef Cordes was honored with a personal letter from Benedict XVI on the occasion of his 75^th^ birthday, the week before Christmas, 2009. The main purpose of the letter was to thank him for his “contribution to the genesis and the growth of the World Youth Days” and for his “commitment to (lay) movements in his role in the Pontifical Council for the Laity”. (Zenit of 12-22-09).
In fact, the Pope was very specific about the charismatic and Pentecostal nature of the movements encouraged by Cardinal Cordes, not only showing his clear approval of them as charismatic, but going so far as to say that the Church can no longer exist without them:
“The charismatic movement, Communion and Liberation and the Neocatechumenal Way have many reasons to be grateful to you. While at the beginning the organizers and planners in the Church had many reservations in regard to the movements, you immediately sensed the life that burst forth from them - the power of the Holy Spirit that gives new paths and in unpredictable ways keeps the Church young. You recognized the Pentecostal character of these movements and your worked passionately so that they would be welcomed by the Church’s pastors…Here were men who were deeply touched by the spirit of God and that in such a way there grew new forms of authentic Christian life and authentic wways of being Church…They need a guide and purification to be able to rreach the form of their true maturity. They, nevertheless, are gifts to be grateful for. [It is no longer possible to think of the life of the Church of our time without including these gifts of God within it]{.underline}.” (Ib.)
Further confirmation was found in an address given the Pope on March 7, 2010 to the new parish (since 1989) of San Giovanni della Croce in Colle Salario, in Rome, a parish specifically open to these new, charismatic, ecclesial movements from its very inception, in particular the Sant’Egidio and Caritas groups. Benedict XVI had this to say: “From the very beginning this parish was opoen to the movements and to the new ecclesial communities, thus developing a wider awareness of the Church and experiencing new forms of evangelization. I call on you to continue in this direction with courage…I was happy to hear that your community wishs to promote, in regard to the vocations and the role of consecration persons and the laity, the [co-responsibility]{.underline} of all the members of the people of God…moving from considering them ‘collaborators’ of the clergy to recognizing them as truly ‘co-responsible’ for the being and action of the Church” (Zenit.org of 3/11/2010).
In this address Benedict XVI is quite explicit about the long term result of the charismatic movement - the undermining of the importance of the clergy and of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, no longer considered by them as essential to the life of the Church. Yet he gives it all the encouragement he can!
Let no-one affirm, then, that the Pope does not support and encourage the charismatic movement, or that he believes in the traditional doctrine that it is through the Mass and the sacraments, and our traditional prayers and devotions, that the Holy Ghost is communicated to us. He has manifestly embraced the charismatic thesis that in this post-Vatican II age the spirit is given through non-structured, non-clerical, humanistic organizations, regardless of whether they practise traditional Marian and sacramental devotion.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.