En Route to a New Global Spirit and a New World Order

In previous posts (see here and here for example), I have looked at the new humanitarian religion which is anti-supernatural and which must eliminate Christianity - and especially the Catholic Church - or at least overcome it, in preparation for the Man of Sin. Throughout the Church, priests, religious and laity are working for this Future Church of the New World Order. Many are calling openly for a "global spirit" which will radically change us for this new religion. Father Thomas A. Kane, CSP, who will be leading "Awakening the Faith Series" at La Salette Attleboro this Fall [October 6th, "What is Spirituality?" and October 13th, "Who is Jesus?"] has written, "Will a global spirit ever touch us so deeply as to reform radically our spirit?...Exaggerated individualism does not work in a developing new world order that is becoming more interdependent....For theological education, globalization means sensitivity and inclusivity.." Father Kane recommends "the feminist perspective" which, he asserts, "should also be included for exegetical study as another way of interpreting the text and for planning worship that is inclusive in language* and symbol." (see: http://www.ats.edu/Resources/Publications/Documents/TE/1993TE30-1.pdf)/

* See here for why this is problematic.

The Bishops have spoken: Will Patricia Warren abide by their teaching?

The Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a document entitled "Guidelines For Evaluating Reiki As An Alternative Therapy." In this document, the Committee on Doctrine says (in part):

"Reiki lacks scientific credibility. It has not been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as an effective therapy. Reputable scientific studies attesting to the efficacy of Reiki are lacking, as is a plausible scientific explanation as to how it could possibly be efficacious. The explanation of the efficacy of Reiki depends entirely on a particular view of the world as permeated by this "universal life energy" (Reiki) that is subject to manipulation by human thought and will. Reiki practitioners claim that their training allows one to channel the "universal life energy" that is present in all things. This "universal life energy," however, is unknown to natural science. As the presence of such energy has not been observed by means of natural science, the justification for these therapies necessarily must come from something other than science.

Reiki and the Healing Power of Christ

Some people have attempted to identify Reiki with the divine healing known to
Christians. They are mistaken. The radical difference can be immediately seen in the fact that for the Reiki practitioner the healing power is at human disposal. Some teachers want to avoid this implication and argue that it is not the Reiki practitioner personally who effects the healing, but the Reiki energy directed by the divine consciousness. Nevertheless, the fact remains that for Christians the access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Savior, while the essence of Reiki is not a prayer but a technique that is passed down from the "Reiki Master" to the pupil, a technique that once mastered will reliably produce the anticipated results. Some practitioners attempt to Christianize Reiki by adding a prayer to Christ, but this does not affect the essential nature of Reiki. For these reasons, Reiki and other similar therapeutic techniques cannot be identified with what Christians call healing by divine grace.

The difference between what Christians recognize as healing by divine grace and Reiki
therapy is also evident in the basic terms used by Reiki proponents to describe what happens in
Reiki therapy, particularly that of "universal life energy." Neither the Scriptures nor the
Christian tradition as a whole speak of the natural world as based on "universal life energy" that is subject to manipulation by the natural human power of thought and will. In fact, this worldview has its origins in eastern religions and has a certain monist and pantheistic character, in that distinctions among self, world, and God tend to fall away. We have already seen that Reiki practitioners are unable to differentiate clearly between divine healing power and power that is at human disposal.

CONCLUSION

Reiki therapy finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief. For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems. In terms of caring for one's physical health or the physical health of others, to employ a technique that has no scientific support (or even plausibility) is generally not prudent. In terms of caring for one's spiritual health, there are important dangers. To use Reiki one would have to accept at least in an implicit way central elements of the worldview that undergirds Reiki theory, elements that belong neither to Christian faith nor to natural science. Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, however, a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man's-land that is neither faith nor science. Superstition corrupts one's worship of God by turning one's religious feeling and practice in a false direction. While sometimes people fall into superstition through ignorance, it is the responsibility of all who teach in the name of the Church to eliminate such
ignorance as much as possible.

Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific
evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centers, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or to provide support for Reiki therapy."

Although the Church has spoken clearly and warned of the dangers associated with Reiki, Ms. Patricia Warren, a Reiki instructor who has conducted healing lectures/retreats at La Salette Attleboro, has left a comment at this Blog in which she says: "I am writing because I see that you have used my name in your comment/letter. I have been teaching Reiki for over 20 years, and yes I have studied with many teachers throughout the world. I have an open mind, and open heart....and I am not afraid to "experience" things for myself rather than be told what to believe. Ironically you leave out the part of my spiritual path that talks about how Reiki brought me back to my Christian roots. Reiki brought me back to the 'church'. I was so overjoyed that I developed a specific workshop for Christians who wanted to learn more about assisting the process of healing. A Roman Catholic priest sat next to me the first time I taught this workshop and encouraged me to bring it out into the world. There is nothing "occult' about it. There are many ways to praise Jesus, I saw that first hand when I traveled through the Holy Land gathering more information on healing. I have taught many, many Roman Catholic priests and nuns as well as Episcopal priests and monks Reiki....it has only helped them not hurt them.There seems to be more outrage in a simple healing method used mostly by lay women to help people when they are in pain, then during the many years of the Church Sex Abuse Scandal....talk about 'dangerous'"

In another comment which I have saved but have decided not to publish, Ms. Warren says that she was "Born and raised Catholic" and that her "great uncle was a monsignor in Boston." I don't doubt that for a moment. She then proceeds to tell me that she is not "a religious fanatic or zealot" (I never said she was so I suppose Ms. Warren is implying that I am) and writes, "I can see I'm in the wrong place to have balanced conversation with an adult."

If Ms. Warren wants to view me as a "fanatic," a "zealot," or as being somehow less than adult for accepting the teaching of the Bishops regarding Reiki, that's her affair. One has to wonder if Ms. Warren views the Bishops who crafted "Guidelines For Evaluating Reiki As An Alternative Therapy" as "fanatics" and "zealots." Will Ms. Warren abide by the Church's teaching? Her statement that she is not to afraid to "experience" things for herself rather than be told what to believe would seem to suggest that she has every intention of ignoring the guidelines prepared by the Committee on Doctrine of the USCCB.

How sad.

La Salette Attleboro: The Fallout Spreads...

There has been much fallout since my Blog post exposing the emergence of New Age spirituality at the La Salette Shrine in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Michael Brown carried the piece at his website Spirit Daily and the Medjugorje Forum initiated a discussion thread. A Catholic woman posed a question for the experts at EWTN which may be found here.

For a little more background on Joyce Rupp from Donna Steichen (the author of Ungodly Rage, a favorite of mine which is published by Ignatius Press), go here. Ms. Steichen, writing about New Age influences upon St. Andrew's Parish in Fort Myers, Florida, notes how:

"...it was the school principal, Sister Elizabeth Dunn, who did most to reveal how deeply alien feminist theology had penetrated into St. Andrew's when, for Christmas in 1994, she gave each school staff member a copy of Sister Joyce Rupp's little book of self-centered feminist mediation, The Star in My Heart: Experiencing Sophia, Inner Wisdom. Rupp's bibliography cites notorious feminist authors from Merlin Stone (When God Was a Woman) through New Age pioneer Jean Houston to Rianne Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade) and Elizabeth Dodson Gray, keynote speaker at the annual Massachusetts WomenChurch meeting a few years ago.

Like many current feminist writers, Rupp personifies the figure of Divine Wisdom in the Old Testament Wisdom books as 'Sophia,' a name used because it is the Greek word for wisdom. Rupp echoes standard feminist rhetoric when she says:. . . it seems evident that Sophia is the feminine face of God. This aspect was eventually lost due to a highly male-dominated culture and a church that was very fearful of the goddess traditions of the past. That feminists seek to make a goddess of Divine Wisdom is ironic, since they have so noticeably failed to acquire even mere human wisdom, for which their need is clearly desperate. Surely some feminist scholars must know that the use of the feminine pronoun in Scriptural references to Wisdom is a matter of grammatical gender; in Hebrew and Greek, all abstract nouns are feminine. Divine Wisdom is not a Person but a perfection of the Holy Trinity, traditionally attributed to the Son because He is the Word of God."

Like most of feminist theology, this exercise is simply a propaganda campaign, exhibiting less intellectual honesty and scholarly objectivity than one might find in a public-relations campaign by the advertising council. The rising tide of feminist spirituality at St. Andrew's crested with an Earth Week observance in late April. All-school events are not routine at St. Andrew's. No services were held during Holy Week, for example, nor after Easter in celebration of the Resurrection. There was no all-school May crowning of the statue of the Blessed Virgin. The school does not assemble for May rosary devotions. Yet the faculty pulled out all the stops for Earth Week, a purely secular media event invented by members of the 1960s counter-culture to draw attention to their environmental concerns. Classroom teachers were urged to implement specific activities for each day of the week, and two major all-school 'prayer services' were scheduled.

La Salette Attleboro: The Pax Christi/COR Connection

As I mentioned in a previous post, the La Salette Center for Christian Living in Attleboro, Massachusetts will be offering a Lenten Series of discussions led by Father John Sullivan, M.S., and members of Pax Christi. This is particularly troubling since Pax Christi is a member organization of Catholic Organizations for Renewal (COR).

COR offers the following Mission Statement at its website: "Catholic Organizations for Renewal is a coalition of Catholic groups, inspired by Vatican II, to further the reform and renewal of the Catholic Church, and to bring about a world of justice and peace, reflecting the sacredness of all creation." Sounds pretty harmless right? Until one scrolls down a little further and reads that COR held "alternative events" to World Youth Day (Denver, August of 1993) and boasts, "The COR/Denver initiative enabled the national media not only to cover the papal events but to report responsible Catholic disagreement with the pope on many issues, including women's ordination, gay/lesbian rights, and sexual morality." (See here).

And so we can see that COR's idea of justice and peace is in fact nothing more than rebellion from the teaching of the Church. The great Cardinal Newman spoke of the shadows of the Antichrist which are created within the Church by such traitors to Holy Mother Church:

"It is a miserable time when a man's Catholic profession is no voucher for his orthodoxy, and when a teacher of religion may be within the Church's pale, yet external to her truth. Such has been for a season the trial of her children at various eras of her history. It was the state of things during the dreadful Arian ascendency, when the flock had to keep aloof from the shepherd, and the unsuspicious Fathers of the Western Councils trusted and followed some consecrated sophist from Greece or Syria. It was the case in those passages of medieval history when simony resisted the Supreme Pontiff or when heresy lurked in the universities. It was a longer and more tedious trial while the controversies lasted with the Monophysites of old and with the Jansenists of modern times. A great scandal it is and a perplexity to the little ones of Christ to have to choose between rival claimants upon their allegiance, or to find a condemnation at length pronounced upon one whom in their simplicity they have admired. We, too, in this age have our scandals, for scandals must be. It is a great gain when error and false teachers are exposed, for then they cease to deceive the simple." (The Idea of a University, pp. 360-361).

Any Catholic retreat center which allows professors, lecturers or retreat leaders (or whatever title they might happen to go by) to attack and or undermine the authentic teachings of the Catholic Church, is not really concerned about promoting justice and peace. You see, Catholics have a right in justice to Catholic doctrine in its purity and integrity (read Veritatis Splendor, No. 113). Such rebellion from the teaching of Christ's Church does nothing to promote peace. On the contrary, dissent from Church teaching only serves to promote discord and division within the Church.

COR supports the Women's Ordination Conference: See here.

Related reading here.

La Salette Attleboro: The Spiritual Sickness Continues...

The La Salette Shrine in Attleboro, Massachusetts will be offering a Lenten Series led by Fr. John Sullivan, M.S. and members of the dissent group Pax Christi*. Pax Christi seems to have found a home at this La Salette Shrine. Even more disturbing, however, is that the shrine will be conducting a series of book discussions on "Open the Doors" by Joyce Rupp.

Why is this so disturbing? Because, as this Blog post explains so well, Joyce Rupp can hardly be described as Catholic. We read:

Although the names have changed , the old Gods are back. There existed in antiquity a temple, it was called the Pantheon of the Gods. It is being rebuilt, the false Gods are being reawakened just as the true God is being put to sleep. This Pantheon was like a great ecumenical super dome. In it were found not just the God's of the Romans but also the deities that the Empire had aquired through it's contact with the rest of the Pagan world. All were found acceptable, all were authentic as all were real. The reason that they could co-exist was because none of these Gods claimed he was the only God. The modern political system of 'Big Tent' inclusivity follows a similar pattern where all relative philosophies are on the inside while the objective ideas of men who actually believe in anything are today relegated to the cold outside.

Jesus Christ was not crucified for claiming to be any old God, indeed the Emperor himself along with Alexander the great before him claimed that title. It was because Christ claimed to be true God that he could not be accomodated into the Pantheon. Those same dark idols are being raised again, readily worshipped and sacrificed to by a re-paganised people who again like the pagans of old see Christ as their only obstacle. Indeed this is the same motivation of the masonic New order who encourage the worship of all Gods but the one true God as manifested by our lord and saviour Jesus Christ. In their own words 'Masonry while religious is not a religion, but within it's precepts and professions are contained the truths and universal morality of all recognised creeds and religions.' Although as previously mentioned some of the names have changed, their cults are visible and the same sacrifices are being demanded and freely offered from a new generation. Athena/Ishtar is being worshipped as Goddess by an evergrowing legion of predominantly young girls drawn into the booming Wiccan earth mother religion and New-Ageism. Unfortunately a concerted attempt is being made to co-opt our blessed lady into this abomination.

Knock shrine has chosen to stock material by the self proclaimed spiritual midwife and 'nun' Joyce Rupp. Author Rupp claims to have learnt a lot from Eagle Crux a native American spiritualist and feels that she resonates with mystical islamic sufism. She tells us that everything is made of stardust including ourselves and that stones have as much right to be here as we have, infact more so because they have been here longer. Her books include how to draw sacred mandela dancing circles and even have the rites for the blessing of the sexual organs! On Ireland she says that the Irish love of learning was first fostered by the wise druids and in the same article goes on to extoll New-Ageism as valuable and that some in the church are envious of it because it draws people toward spiritual growth. Here is an exerpt from 'Cosmic Dance' which so sadly had a big promotion by the management of the bookshop a while ago. 'Different from me , thousands of them. Holding hands, kissing, arms around each other, stretching me beyond the safe world of heterosexuality. A gathering of lesbians challenging me to enter a world I never visit'"

In a previous Blog post, I made mention of the fact that the La Salette Shrine in Attleboro had offered a retreat by "Sister" Karol Jackowski, a practicing witch.

This calls for prayer.

*As explained here, Pax Christi is both a leftist organization and nationally-recognized dissent group. Pax Christi has strong ties to another well-recognized dissent group - Call to Action. As explained here, Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, has described the Call to Action movement [of which Pax Christi is part and parcel] as one which is, "..often disguised as a sincere effort to 'renew' the Catholic Church" but which masks "a hidden agenda and poison fruit which the noisier dissenters never tire of offering to their unsuspecting victims."

As Elizabeth Drennan notes in her excellent article:"The CTA [Call to Action]/lesbian pro-abortion Feminist's Prayer to the Four Great Spirits is also part of RENEW 2000 materials (Called to Lead, book 2). In this prayer/exercise, participants stand in a circle, arms outstretched, and pray to the "Great Spirits of the Four Directions, North, South, East, and West" and "to the Great Spirit of All That Is Below" — which is actually in the text of RENEW 2000, along with its author's name: Diann Neu, the lesbian-feminist CTA speaker. Alarmingly, the idea of prayer to the "four directions" which Neu teaches RENEW 2000 participants is also an intrinsic part of WICCA (witchcraft) worship of the goddess, Gaia, according to WICCA web sites."