Good and faithful Catholics are often woefully ignorant of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal - some have never even heard of it. I’m often asked if it’s really Catholic, and people are surprised that I still believe in its importance and haven’t moved on to something more “normal”. It’s far from easy to convince some people that walking day by day in the love and power of the Holy Spirit is the way we are meant to live our Christian lives. So in this article I want to try to make clear what the hierarchy really thinks about the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the new communities and movements that have become so important in the life of the Church. To do this simply I am limiting myself to quotations from Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. But please don’t let the thought of lots of Papal quotes deter you from reading on – some wonderful phrases follow which will help you to banish ignorance and explain things clearly. Perhaps you’d like to sit down comfortably with a pen and paper...

Birthday greetings

A very good friend to all of us recently celebrated his 75th birthday in Rome – one Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, the President of the Pontifical Council, Cor Unum. “But I don’t even know who Cardinal Cordes is!” I hear you cry. That may be true, but even so we all owe him an immense debt of gratitude, and Pope Benedict’s birthday greetings to him express it in these words: “The Charismatic Movement, Communion and Liberation, and the Neocatechumenal Way have many reasons to be grateful to you. While at the beginning, the organisers and planners in the Church had many reservations in regard to the movements,” Benedict XVI stated, “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 recognised the Pentecostal character of these movements and you worked passionately so that they would be welcomed by the Church’s pastors.” The Pope went on to acknowledge the Cardinal’s ability to see “what is organic is more important than what is organised” and affirmed the Cardinal’s vision that “here were men who were deeply touched by the Spirit of God in such a way that there grew new forms of authentic Christian life and authentic ways of being Church.” He concluded: “It is no longer possible to think of the life of the Church of our time without including these gifts of God within it.”

A body for the promotion of the CCR

The words of Pope Benedict quoted above are very important, and from personal experience I know the vital role Cardinal Cordes played in ensuring that the Church embraced the new communities and the ecclesial movements, including the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR). I first met Paul Cordes in 1989 when I was elected a member of the International Council for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. At that time he was still a Bishop, the assistant to Cardinal Pironio at the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Recognising his gifts, Pope John Paul had appointed Bishop Cordes the Ecclesial Advisor to the CCR, and I was asked by my Council to travel to meet him in Rome every month to talk about how to improve our contacts with the Vatican offices. For his part, he was keen to ensure that the charismatic gifts continued to be used in the life of the Church, and to work out how to safeguard them for the future. He was totally committed to promoting the CCR but concerned to find the best way to fully integrate us into the life of the Church, and the first big decision we made was to ask for Statutes for the International CCR Council as a sign of official Church approval. The process for this meant working with canon lawyers, and it also involved one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who proved to be very understanding and supportive.

Everything was completed in September1993, and the official Decree introducing the Statutes concluded with these words: “The Pontifical Council for the Laity decrees the recognition of International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services (ICCRS) as a body for the promotion of the CCR, with a juridical personality according to Canon 116”. Paul Cordes was later asked by Pope John Paul to head up Cor Unum, but we have remained friends, and on a 24 hour visit to England in 2008, he made time to come to our home for breakfast on his way from London to address the Bishops’ Conference in Leeds. He’s a faithful friend of the CCR, and has earned the generous tribute paid to him by Pope Benedict on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

Pope Benedict’s words to Cardinal Cordes also contain an interesting phrase that positions the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the new movements at the very heart of the life of the Church: “what is organic is more important than what is organised”. What does he mean? Simply this – that which springs from the life of the Spirit within the Church is more important than the plans and programmes devised by the people in the Church. In order to better understand this thought, let me now quote Pope John Paul II, speaking outside St. Peter’s during the feast of Pentecost 1998, to almost half a million representatives of the renewal movements of the Church.

The charismatic dimension is essential to the Church’s identity

In his catechesis, Pope John Paul brought together the teaching of Scripture and of the Second Vatican Council in these words: “The Spirit is always awesome whenever he intervenes. He arouses astonishing new events, he radically changes people and history. This was the unforgettable experience of the Second Vatican Council, during which, guided by the same Spirit, the Church rediscovered the charismatic dimension as being essential to her identity”. After quoting from Lumen Gentium and 1 Corinthians 12:11, he continued: “The institutional and charismatic aspects are almost co-essential to the configuration of the Church, and they co-operate, although in different ways, towards its life, its renewal, and the sanctification of the People of God. It is from this providential rediscovery of the Church’s charismatic dimension that before and after the Council there has been a remarkable development of ecclesial movements and new communities.” He clearly saw the charismatic dimension as an essential part of the life of the Church.

“Be open to the gifts of the Spirit !”

Then speaking specifically of the charisms, the Pope continued: “Today, to all of you gathered here in St Peter’s Square and to all Christians I want to cry out: be open and docile to the gifts of the Spirit! Accept with gratitude and obedience the charisms that the Spirit never ceases to bestow! Do not forget that each charism is given for the common good, that is, for the benefit of the whole Church!” “What a need there is today for mature Christian personalities who are aware of their own baptismal identity, of their own vocation and mission in the Church and in the world! What a need there is for living Christian communities! Here then are the movements and the new communities; they are an answer, stirred up by the Holy Spirit, to answer this dramatic challenge at the end of the millennium”. Here again comes a ringing endorsement of both the charismatic gifts and the new movements.

“Come, Holy Spirit……….”

His final words were an impassioned prayer “ Come, Holy Spirit and make the charisms you have bestowed ever more fruitful! Give new strength and missionary zeal to these sons and daughters of yours who are gathered here. Enlarge their hearts, enliven their Christian commitment in the world. Make them courageous messengers of the Gospel, witnesses of the risen Jesus Christ...”

The translation from the Italian I have used above is the one I was given that same Pentecost afternoon, just after I had formally responded to the Pope on behalf of all the representatives of the movements gathered in the Piazza. In a very public and direct way, Pope John Paul had given a clear public endorsement of the movements, and of the importance of the charismatic gifts in the life of the Church.

“The Spirit is once more stronger than our programmes”

On numerous other occasions Pope Benedict has also spoken warmly of the CCR, using words like these from The Ratzinger Report in 1985: “I find it marvellous that the Spirit is once again stronger than our programmes, and brings himself into play in an altogether different way than we had imagined. Our task – the task of the office-holders in the Church and of theologians – is to keep the door open for them (the Charismatic Renewal, the Cursillos, the Focolare, the Neocatechumenal communities, Communion and Liberation etc.). The joy of the faith that one senses here has something contagious about it”. On September 5th 2003 in an interview with EWTN, Cardinal Ratzinger said: “I am really a friend of movements and the Charismatic Renewal. I think this is a sign of the springtime and the presence of the Holy Spirit, who today will give us new charisms. This is for me a really great hope, that not with organisation from the authorities but really it is the force of the Holy Spirit present in the people.” On June 18th 2009 he wrote a letter to all priests containing these words: “I would like to invite all priests, during this year dedicated to them, to welcome the new springtime which the Spirit is now bringing about in the Church, not least through the ecclesial movements and the new communities.” He went on to quote from the Decree “Presbyterorum Ordinis” about the gifts of the Spirit: “While testing the spirits to discover if they be of God, priests must discover with faith, recognise with joy, and foster diligently the many and varied charismatic gifts of the laity, whether these be of a humble or more exalted kind.”

I hope I have written enough to show how important the Charismatic Renewal and the charismatic gifts are to the Church. But of course not even every bishop and priest sees things as clearly as Popes John Paul and Benedict - not to mention the good Catholics I referred to earlier. So I hope that some phrases quoted here from these two great men of God will stay in your minds, and help you to answer the ignorant, foolish, or upsetting things people may say about this amazing gift of God to his Church - the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

© CharlesWhitehead

Charles Whitehead, former ICCRS president, is a life member of the English NSC. He is an international speaker and writer.