Pax Christi: Preparation for a New Age

Pax Christi, which is now being introduced to parishes throughout the Worcester Diocese, has long been a vessel for promoting dissent from Church teaching and New Age occultism. As explained by the Wanderer Forum Foundation:

"Pax Christi has been a conduit for New Age for some time, featuring its messengers and filtering its message via its publications and annual meetings. In 1983, the year Mary Lou Kownacki, O.S.B., wrote about the meditation expert Eknath Easwaran (see above) she edited for Pax Christi a Reflection Guide on the U. S. Bishops ' Pastoral, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response. Still available and quoted frequently in Pax Christi pamphlets, it is related to this evaluation on two points: 1) it offers as a source for "reflection" a poem The Hundredth Monkey about nuclear disarmament with a notation: "(Vision books) - no copyright. Author wants everyone to read and distribute freely." It is written by Ken Keyes, Jr., without further identification. But who is he? - briefly, Keyes is the founder of Ken Keyes College, Coos Bay, Ore., that specializes in New Age workshops on the "Science of Happiness." His "Living Love Books," and they are numerous and best-sellers in New Age bookstores, are based on transformation and higher consciousness. And, 2) it recommends Global Education Associates for anyone "working for a new world order."

In 1985, Global Education Associates' co-founder Patricia Mische delivered the keynote address, "Disarming the Heart/Disarming the Nations" at the Pax Christi national assembly. She and her husband, Gerald, are GEA cofounders and also co-authors of the book, Toward a Human World Order, Beyond the National Security' Straitjacket, which advances the whys and wherefores for a new world order. The Misches are endorsers of the Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose and their GEA is listed as a participatory organization.

Their book, endorsed by New Agers Robert Muller and the late Rene Dubos along with several other Planetary Citizens including Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, discloses the strategic role "consciousness raising" plays in developing a receptiveness to interdependence in contradistinction to national sovereignty. And, it discloses the role of Religious orders, especially of women in "catalyzing a consciousness of world-order priorities." These women, from many different congregations, "constitute a national network of networks as members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious." The LCWR "recognizing the planetary dimensions of today's world . . . established a Justice and Peace Commission as a step toward raising the consciousness of the 130,000 women thev represent ' ' (emphasis added). The LCWR officials." the Misches continue, "are active in many international programs, including Vatican-based operations - a strategic position from which to influence also the thinking of other Church networks around the world" (pp. 307-308).

The influence Pax Christi exercises in this consciousness raising network should not be underestimated. Its 1990 Annual Report lists 359 Religious communities as corporate sponsors. (Additional references are found in our documentation, "Consciousness Raising and the Erosion of Religious Life," $2.50 single copies.) In 1986 Patricia Mische's name appeared on the slate of candidates Pax Christi was recommending for a position on its National Council.
An interview with the New Ager Robert Muller on "Peace in Our Day" was a feature in the December, 1985 issue of Pax Christi magazine. And the 1988 spring issue carried an interview with New Ager Elise Boulding on "Imagining a World at Peace." She is an endorser of both Planetary Citizens and Planetary Initiative, and that same year was one of the keynoters at the Pax Christi national assembly devoted to "New Genesis: World Without Violence." New Genesis is the title of Robert Muller's book (see above). And in 1989s summer issue. Pax Christi included an interview with Fr. Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., on centering prayer titled, "Transforming Daily Life." Fr. Keating, as documented above was the president of "Temple of Understanding," a New Age project, in 1984.

The guidelines he offers are of the same pattern as the Eastern meditation techniques suggested by Dolores Leckey and Mary Lou Kownacki: In a straight chair with your back erect and supported, gently close your eyes and use a simple prayer, hymn or musical selection "to center yourself," then "turn your attention to the God present within." Choose a sacred word and repeat it a few times. This, he writes, is a "receptive method of prayer" that "refreshes even if it seems to be trying, or painful or boring." That is a strange admission. And his "God present within" is centered on self rather than "the love of God" which the Vatican letter to all the bishops instructs is the "sole object of Christian contemplation" (31).

Pax Christi, during its 1989 assembly on "Food for the Journey, Spiritually for the Long Haul," for the first time publicly introduced New Age spirituality practices. This assembly held at Jesuit Seattle University opened with a blessing of the four corners of the earth given by an American Indian shaman and followed by a "Sanctification of Our Space" ritual-style dance. The next day's sessions began with a "Sacred Circle Dance" in which all participated. This was presented as an ancient dance learned at a Dance Camp in Scotland "dedicated to enabling new creative patterns of evolution in consciousness." (Complete documentation is available in our report, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.) Sr. Kathleen Pruitt, C.S.J.P. (Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace), from the Seattle Archdiocese and then chairman of Pax Christ's National Council, was the principal coordinator of this assembly In 1990 she was elected vice-president of Pax Christi International, which in 1983 was listed among the original endorsers of Planetary Initiative.

For the full text of the Wanderer article, go here.

In this week's edition of The Catholic Free Press - page 7, Sue Malone and Charlotte Stanley (who serve as co-chairpersons of Pax Christi Central Mass), describe the dissenting organization - which has deep ties to Call To Action - as merely a "peace and justice" organization: "The nonviolent work of Pax Christi is done through a process of prayer, study and action at the personal, local, national and international levels with an emphasis on addressing the root causes of violence." Sounds innocuous enough. Until you dig a little deeper:

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."

And 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."

More than a hundred years ago, John Henry Cardinal Newman predicted the desolation of our time: "Surely there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist or whether he is still to be delayed we cannot know; but at any rate this evil apostasy and all its tokens and instruments are of the Evil One and savour of death." (John Henry Cardinal Newman, Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1888, p. 60).

Richard Bennett has said that, "The goal of the New Age Movement has consistently been to bring in the Age of Aquarius when all will recognize 'the God within themselves'. A major step towards this in the words of the New Age prophetess Alice Bailey, is 'the regeneration of the churches.' Her vision was that… 'The Christian church in its many branches can serve as a St. John the Baptist, as a voice crying in the wilderness, and as a nucleus through which world illumination may be accomplished.' In a word, she desired the time when the 'Christian churches' would embrace the New Age concepts of illumination and self-realization. The New Age plan to bring in world peace cannot fully establish the Golden Age of Aquarius until Biblical Christianity is outlawed or destroyed.

Why is it suddenly so important for Pax Christi, a dissent group which is immersed in New Age spirituality. to be introduced to parishes throughout the Worcester Diocese?

What do you think?

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."