Charismania: The Truth About the Charismatic Renewal #1

Preface and Introduction

Dear friends,

The book is finally ready to go! Please enjoy the first chapter today

Preface

They say that a Preface is meant to tell readers of a book why the book was written and to what end. Given the contentious and controversial nature of the topic at hand — the Catholic Charismatic Renewal — I believe it is important to provide a bit of background before we dive in.

First, let me say to any person associated with the Charismatic Renewal — hereafter referred to as “the Renewal” — that I have no ill will toward any of you. However, you will realize in subsequent pages that I believe the Renewal to be a damnable aberration in the life of the Church, and I am certain that many of the beliefs of Renewal adherents are erroneous, if not outright heretical. Nevertheless, I am not concerned with condemning any persons in this book, especially not contemporaries. There will, of course, be persons mentioned, which is unavoidable, but this book is not an attack on individuals, even if their ideas or actions are ridiculed or dismantled. 

Also, I did spend time in the Renewal, which will be discussed in the coming pages, and  I still have great affection for wonderful Catholics who continue to be a part of it. For that reason, I have decided that I will tell no stories throughout the book that could give away the identity of any people, in any way, who once considered me a friend or who still do. That being said, the focus of this book is not my personal story or testimony of my experience in the Renewal, which was really only a brief sojourn over about two years; at the same time, I will allude to certain things I witnessed if it helps to make a point. 

Why did I write this book?

I wrote this book because I love the Catholic Church — that is why I do everything that I do. It may come off as a shock to the critics who have labelled me as a schismatic or a Pharisee — of which I am neither — but I do what I do because I love Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Holy Mother  Church. If I did what I did because of hatred or anger, I would be a terrible human being, and I try not to be one of those. I love the Church and Our Lord enough to say the things that others are not able to say or lack the courage to say. I cannot tell you how many emails I have received from scholars and apologists in the “mainstream” of Catholicism who have said that they fully support me, and wish they could publish the things that I do, but they are restricted by professional or personal constraints.

I can empathize, because I used to be in their position. I was a Catholic School teacher in a diocesan school and was slated to be a speaker at Canadian conferences, retreats, etc. I rubbed shoulders with the leaders of the Opus Dei in my area and had a bit of a rising persona. I still remember the day when I was told I was going to be cancelled from headlining a diocesan men’s conference because my opinions had become too controversial. I was never told what those opinions were, and I was, of course, never given a chance to explain myself; I was just cancelled. 

I have told my story in detail in other places, so I will not repeat it here, but suffice it to say, I bit the bullet and went off “on my own.” I resigned from teaching, gave up on ever being acceptable in the mainstream of apologetics or authoring, and decided to throw my lot in with the deplorables of the SSPX and Traditionalism writ large. If I am being honest, it was the best decision I ever made. I was free, and I found that I could simply tell the truth, and no one could fire or cancel me because I worked for myself.

For the past few years, I have concerned myself largely with apologetics for Tradition and the SSPX, but the topic of the Renewal was always at the back of my mind. I had known for some time that something was “off” in the Renewal, but I never took the time to study deeply the myriad issues with Charismatic theology or the history of the movement. As Providence would have it, in the past few months I did what I always do: I found a rabbit hole, and dove in headfirst. I found that the Renewal was not only “off,” but that the theology is based on outright heresy, and those heresies have been adopted, or at least partially adopted, by many Catholics.

To put it bluntly, the Renewal is an absolute mess of strange theology and practices, and the history of the movement is filled with unbridled chaos. The theological underpinnings are Modernist, Protestant, and even Gnostic in some instances.

So, I decided to go public with my findings, and the reaction was quite surprising; I wasn’t sure what to expect when I did my first podcast on the subject, but the response has been amazingly positive. Sure, there have been not a few malcontents who have called me names, but I have thick skin; you can’t “out yourself” as an SSPX partisan in the public eye if you have a weak constitution. More importantly, I have received a flood of testimonies and messages of support from everyone from mothers, priests, professors, theologians, and other scholars. I have been told by innumerable people how the Renewal ruined their families, ruined their time in seminary, ruined their jobs, and ultimately ruined their lives.

Now, this does not mean that testimonies and anecdotes will be the main focus of the book — the Renewal can be easily taken down by sound theology and history — but those correspondences made me realize just how necessary this book is. There are certainly articles and podcasts out there that have touched on this subject, but to my mind, it is difficult to find a single volume that explains the situation in a comprehensive way. 

So, that is ultimately why I wrote this book: to give people a single resource they could look to for the truth about the Renewal.

What is the goal of the book? 

Throughout my research, I have realized just how damaging the Renewal can be for people, both in their spiritual as well as their personal lives. Renewal adherents love to talk about all the “good fruits,” by which they mean people who have a good time at Renewal settings and events, but they rarely talk about the chaos and destruction that have damaged so many lives. There are certainly people who stay in the Renewal for the long haul, but the manic nature of the spirituality and the chaotic authority structure — almost always lay-led — has meant the shipwrecking of faith for so many. 

Frankly, while I did not spend too much time in the Renewal and certainly did not go as deep as some into the spiritual practices, I have seen not a few people experience great pain as a result of the movement, even if they stay in the Church. 

Because I love the Church, I love my fellow Catholics, even if they think poorly of me; so, I hope that this book helps people who are stuck in the Renewal to find the motivation they need to leave it behind for good, for the eternal good of their souls.

The Renewal is not the will of God, and it is not Catholic — as we will see — and this information needs to be spread far and wide so that fewer Catholics will be swept up by the emotionalism and dangerous spiritual practices of the Renewal that have harmed so many.

Introduction