Inside the People of Praise
The authors recognize that they are likely presenting a biased report since they mainly talked to people who had left the community.
My Comments on article and People of Praise
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1. The community is an ecumenical charismatic community whose members (mostly Catholics) worship at their churches on Sunday morning before joining in the charismatic service on Sunday afternoon. This tell us right away that members are involved in more than their own community.
Catholicism is a community of communities. Catholics can be involved in the diocese as well as the parish, and in schools, health care and social service communities. Catholics can be involved with communities of religious orders, and in associations run by lay people.
One of our rights as Catholics is to freely associate and found our own associations. The only caveat is that we cannot call our associations Catholic without the consent of church authorities. This group seems to conceive of itself as an ecumenical charismatic Christian community.
The article rightly comments that although there was initial skepticism about charismatic communities the Church has come to recognize the value of the charismatic movement.
(Francis in Argentina was initially very skeptical but began to go quietly to ecumenical charismatic events and eventually was accepted and "prayed over" by the leaders of the charismatic movement there.)
So just being charismatic should not raise red flags for Catholics.
2. It styles itself as a covenant community.
While I don't pretend to know what they mean by that, as a social scientist it seems to denote a life time commitment and "some" sharing of resources.
A friend of mine who was involved in the charismatic movement encountered a community in Cincinnati that sounds very similar to this. They shared housing and were involved in renewing a part of the civic community by buying houses in the area and rehabbing them. They also seemed to have some sort of bartering system by using the resources of its members, e.g. doctors, lawyers, etc.
Obviously such a community could give young people the resources to commit to marriage and child raising that are not available to most people. The disadvantage is that one is stuck to living in a certain area, and perhaps to a certain profession, or company, and to the extended group as doctors, lawyers, etc..
Most of your decisions are going to impact many in the group. Obviously this is not for everybody, and those who leave have good reasons for leaving. But those who stay may also have good reasons for staying if it works for them.
Does the Covenant community have too much influence over Amy? I suspect there are many other people and organizations that have a lot of influence upon her, and as long as these groups are evident in her life I don't think we should be concerned about this community.
Just as some families may have too much influence over some people, however as long as there are balancing influences it should not matter.
3. Entrance into the community. Those who rejected the community said they felt pressured to make a decision for the community. This concerned me.
Ignatius said that while in general it was good to promote religious life and vocations to religious life, the giver of a retreat should be very careful not interfere with the freedom of the retreatant to accept or reject religious life.
The church has always had some concern in discerning vocations to the priesthood and religious life to keep the interior process of spiritual discernment separate from the external decision making about the candidate, e.g. confessors and spiritual directors should not be involved in accepting or rejecting candidates.
4. Spiritual direction within the community. Again this concerned me.
The ones who are the community decision makers should not be involved in spiritual direction of members. It it a conflict of interest. There is always the possibility of abuse of power on the part of confessors and spiritual directors.
Unfortunately Christianity has been too influenced by the model of "pastors" who supposed to be all things: teachers, rulers, priests, counselors, prophets, etc. We are lucky if someone can do one of these let alone all of them.
5. Lay led communities.
I like the idea of lay led communities, including charismatic communities. Throughout history, communities of religious have been leaders in renewing both Church and civil life. Their pooled resources enabled them to be effective. They were able to bear Christian witness with time and energy not possible in parishes.
The Catholic model of church, and of church and civic reform, is one of a community of communities.
Now it is always possible that a reform community may become sectarian, closed off into itself rather than serving the church and the world. It is also possible that a reform community may become authoritarian and abusive of its own members. We should always be on guard about these defects.
Thanks, Jack. This sounds like a balanced critique.
ReplyDeleteHow much influence will this group have when Barett is living in Washington, D.C., and working on the Court? It's my understanding that justices have their own little clique and are pretty tight.
ReplyDeleteI don't care for charismaticism or Group Think, and I don't get the whole "full quiver" big family movement. I doubt Amy and me would be buds if she went to our local parish.
But I'm not persuaded that her membership in this group should be a deal-breaker.
Given that selection of justices is fraught with political considerations, I think court appointees should be made alternately by the most senior member of each party, with the party in power having the first pick, so, in this case, it would be Trump/Pelosi/Trump.
Yeah, I know constitutional amendment and blah blah.
Jack, Your analysis seems sound to me. I don't quite get why Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice is to be condemned but praying in tongues makes it OK, but then I am of a much older generation.
ReplyDeleteBut I was never once in love with Amy because of that Federalist Society thing. The whole purpose of that is to help judges reach decisions the Society thinks best. I never voted for Leonard Leo or Don McGahn, and neither did anybody else.
Some people claim that questions about Amy Barrett's suitability for the court is anti-Catholic. I don't think it is - the questions arise from the lack of transparency about what sort of commitment she has made to her "director" in the PofP group. Also it seems legitimate to ask about whether or not she agrees that men are to be the final authorities in the family. If she agrees with the notion of complementarity that relegates women to a subservient role in the family, the church, etc, that could influence her judgments on issues impacting women - birth control coverage, job discrimination, sexual harassment - a whole lot of stuff beyond abortion. I think her views could also raise a lot of concern for gays.
ReplyDeleteI am also curious to know why the PofP website removed photos and mention of her in 2017, and also hid a lot of other information about the group. The lack of transparency is very cult-like, and questions about this group, what it believes, what her commitment is now to its program etc are not due to anti-Catholicism, but due to concern to elevating someone who is a member of a cult to be a SC justice, with tremendous power over the people of the US in judicial decisions.
I assume that whoever is chosen (if its trump's rule), will be very conservative in general. It's the membership in a secretive group with some questionable practices that concerns me. I don't care one whit about whether or not she prays in tongues.
Jack, thanks for this. In case I haven't made my views clear on this: I see this whole question as a big nothingburger.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the "covenant community": I guess any of us who ever have been baptized, confirmed or married (and we can ordained to that list) have made promises intended to bind us - we have, in effect, entered into a covenant. I suppose, if this is an area of concern, what should be examined are the specific covenantal promises that Barrett made (if any).
Regarding "spiritual direction": I suppose the word "director" in the term "spiritual director" could be (mis)understood as some third party making mandatory, controlling decisions about substantive things in a person's life. In my experience, that's not how spiritual direction works. The spiritual director is more like a spiritual guide; the only "direction" takes place when the director points the directee (ugh, what a word) to available spiritual resources. For example, if the directee is having a hard time forgiving people who have hurt her, the director could point her to biblical passages, or spiritual writings by a saint, which provide wisdom on the virtue of forgiveness. Terms like "spiritual adviser" or "spiritual mentor" probably would be as accurate as (or even more accurate than) "spiritual director".
"Community of communities" sounds to me like just the way to think about this: this group is a community within larger circles of communities: parish, neighborhood, town, etc. There is something a little hippy-dippy about this particular group, with their instances of communal living, which wouldn't set off alarm bells with liberals, and might even be thought admirable, if it was, say, an agricultural commune or a women's commune.
As a matter of fact, in that vein: what would set off big alarm bells with me would be if membership in the group required un-associating with one's parish, family members and social network/safety net. That would make it a good deal more cult-like. So the fact that this group encourages its members to go to mass in their own parish is a big consideration for how I evaluate it.
I've observed that, on college campuses in the US, some Newman Centers and other Catholic chapels have housing available for Catholic students who wish to live in a Catholic environment. Even at my alma mater, Loyola, which was an entire Catholic university, there was a house, sort of like a frat house (called Bellarmine House or some such) run by a Jesuit priest which was for Catholic students who wanted to live in an intensively Catholic living environment. Even at the land-grant universities my kids have gone to at various times, there are "communities of interest" or some such, where engineering students can all live together, or gamers, or environmental activists, or whatever the unifying thread might be.
On the whole, I believe this group, if it influenced Barrett at all, was a pretty benign influence on her. I'm supposing she stuck with them as long as she did because she liked them and they had some important interests in common.
I wrote this post because of my interest as a social scientist in Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality has to do with the living of Christian life. Within Christianity there are different spiritualities such as charismatic and Pentecostal spirituality. They often cross denominational boundaries.
ReplyDeleteWithin Catholicism, there are also a great variety of spiritualities, especially those of the religious orders which invite people to live very different lifestyles, as a hermit, or as community, as missionaries, as teachers, etc. Spiritualities are optional, not everyone should be a hermit, or a charismatic.
The Code of Canon Law even recognizes the right of Catholics to their own spirituality as long as it is among those approved by the Church. Charismatic spirituality is among those spiritualities that Church authorities have supported; many dioceses including my own have an office of charismatic ministry.
Labeling the People of Praise as a cult is simply wrong from a social science viewpoint. “Cults” have been very well studied, and much of the stereotypes of the media about “brain-washing, etc” have been shown to be wrong. Conversion to “cults” like that of mainstream churches occurs through personal relationship. People hang out and become friends with cult members long before they adopt any of the "cult" beliefs or practices. It is very much like a person in a mixed marriage who meets people of the spouse’s religion and over the years comes to accept their beliefs and practices.
Some social scientists distinguish between cults and sects. Cults are groups that have new revelations. The Mormon Church began as a cult. Protestant Churches usually begin as sects that have a new interpretation or emphasis. Within this typology, charismatic groups are sectarian, i.e. they emphasis certain practices that set them apart from other Christians.
People have a right to privacy with regard to their spiritual director just as much as they have the right to privacy about any minister, lawyer, doctor, etc.
Accusations of being a member of a cult, and questions about relationships to a spiritual director are in my book religious discrimination. In the past the general public consensus was that religion was a personal matter between you, God and your minister. Once you begin to say certain groups, certain practices or certain people are questionable, you are discriminating.
When you are talking about a lifetime appointment for someone as young as Barrett is, I think as much information as possible about her, her judicial temperament, what her beliefs that would affect her rulings, etc. are ALL something that the public should know.
DeleteEarly in the 1970s I investigated a then-burgeoning charismatic movement in San Francisco. After 2 or 3 meetings I dropped out. It was obvious to me that my being gay was going to be a big no-no with them. It always obviously that the movement could be as controlling as the military that I had just left. Don't know how long it functioned in Sodom by the Sea, but I haven't heard anything about any active group in and around SF. I'm sure they exist.
ReplyDeleteIn the 80’s when I was a member of a mostly voluntary pastoral staff in a parish in Toledo, several members were in the Charismatic movement.
ReplyDeleteI looked upon my pastoral staff experience there as an ideal Christian community because of the diversity of spirituality among the staff members. We each took turns at the bi-weekly staff meetings leading the prayer and sharing our own spirituality (e.g. my interest in the Divine Office) For example our African American social justice minister shared the stories that she used in the public school system to get grade school kids to talk about values (she had won a state award as teacher of the year). That whole experience of diversity got me interested in the varieties of Catholic spirituality which I see as one of our distinct advantages.
The charismatics on staff did not press their spirituality on us, no speaking in tongues. This was partially because the pastor was not that favorable. However one summer during his vacation they scheduled the diocesan charismatic Mass at our parish, and invited me to be one of the “pray-ers” and left it up to me to do whatever I wanted.
I was impressed with the well done Mass. At the end of the Gloria, Sanctus, etc. they went off into singing in tongues. I liked it. It sounded something like a very long melodic alleluia. If I had been prepared perhaps I could have memorized something liturgical. Most people would probably have recognized a Latin, Greek, of Slavonia Gloria or Sanctus. But I might have gotten away with an Aramaic one. At the end of the service I assisted as people were “slain by the Holy Spirit’ but did not volunteer to be slain myself. (People fall backwards into the waiting arms of the assistants.).
I have gone to a couple of the diocesan charismatic Masses here at our parish; I was disappointed. Just a lot of “praise music.” The one advantage of the singing is that you can pretty much sing however you want. I was disappointed however that they spoke rather than sang the responsorial psalm. After a few repetitions of the response, I had figured out my own melody. I restrained myself from singing it. I had visions of them acclaiming me as a charismatic. While I sometimes like to break stereotypes of myself, I decided in this case I would pass.
We had a group of charismatics in our Episcopal parish. During the regular Eucharist service, they were intrusive and disruptive, extending the Prayers of the People with long extended intentions, swaying and weaving before and after receiving, singing over the other choristers in the choir, and generally doing a lot of hugging, swaying, and waving.
DeleteThe charismatics effectively shut out and shut down those of us who did not experience the Spirit their way.
The charismatics would all pile into somebody's van and take off once a month to some other parish where there was a charismatic Eucharist.
Needing a "special" Eucharist or Mass because the regular form of worship stifles them (or because they disrupt everyone else) strikes me as a problem.
There was an interesting scene in the Danish TV drama "Herrens Veje" in which a Lutheran pastor suddenly starts talking in tongues during the service and horrifies his congregation. To complicate the picture, the pastor is undergoing a period of extreme mental stress. The episode is ambiguous: Is the glossolalia a sign of grace and encouragement? Or has the pastor finally gone around the bend?
Jean, I am laughing to myself about the thought of the Lutheran pastor speaking in tongues. There are quite a few Lutherans around here, both LCMS and ELCA. I have been to a few of their events. One of the churches has a beautiful pipe organ, and I attended their Reformation Day Bach recital. They out-starch the Catholics any day. So the thought of them induging in glossolalia is a pretty amusing bit of cognitive dissonance.
DeleteYes, they are very strict, especially Wisconsin Synod.
DeleteThe response of the congregation in the show was pretty funny. The Danes seem to have a notion that just wearing bright colors is in poor taste, so being moved indecorously by the Spirit just about did them in.
The lady bishop in the show got dragged into a big hearing about whether the tongue-talking pastor was nuts. The pastor's father, also a pastor, tried to explain it as a valid charism, but his motivation wasn't exactly pure. He had more or less hectored his son into the clergy to maintain a 250-year line of pastors in the family, and he could see the end of his "dynasty" if his son was defrocked.