Dear Traditional Catholics, Can You See Me?

An open letter from a "Charismatic" who wants to be your friend.

When the terms “Traditional” and “Charismatic” come up in conversation, I feel suffocated by the division in the Church that has generalized my spiritual life to being “Charismatic.” I consider myself a traditional Catholic. I love daily Mass, contemplative prayer, and the Liturgy of the Hours. I pray the Rosary and do novenas (not very well, I must admit, but I try!) I love patristic texts and the writings of Saints. I am a Thomist and have spent thousands of hours and dollars on completing my undergraduate degree in Theology and Catechetics and my graduate degree in Theology. Yet, I know that by the colloquial use of the terms, “Charismatic” and “Traditional, ” I am identified by the former.

I continue to hear and read traditionalists bemoan the consequences of Vatican II and assert that traditional liturgy will save the Church. Yet, hearing this never feels congruent to my lived experience. More and more, I am left feeling very unseen by the growing “traditionalist” community. Also, the reality is that, overwhelmingly, I continue to sense a spirit among that community that I do not want to replicate.

For much of my childhood into adolescence my family and I were parishoners at the Cathedral in my hometown (pictured below). The church is beautiful, the homilies were orthodox, the priests were holy men, and the liturgy itself was filled with the sound of a pipe organ and Latin chant from a skilled and reverent choir. The Cathedral was pastored by a kind, orthodox bishop who regularly spent the evening at my family’s dinner table. Now, we weren’t attending the traditional latin Mass. But, I think by most accounts traditional Catholics would consider my liturgical upbringing to be privileged, ideal, and even blessed. In addition to this liturgical exposure with my family, I also attended Catholic school from pre-K through high school.

I am so thankful to God for my upbringing in the Catholic Church and recognize that it gave me a great foundation for receiving Jesus into my heart. However, I also recognize that my life-changing encounter with Jesus simply did not happen through these traditional Catholic avenues. The reality is that years into that exposure of Traditional Catholicism I felt like my faith was lifeless, flat… like it was just a man-made story or a code of moral norms helpful for having a good life. I heard a lot about Jesus, but I didn’t actually have a relationship with him. All of that changed when I (unknowingly) attended my first “Charismatic” event, a Steubenville Youth Conference.

At this youth conference, I radically encountered the person of Jesus and actively chose to surrender my whole life to him. I have, truly, never been the same since. That day, I experienced a taste of the glory of God and a conviction for my own sins that I will never, ever, be able to articulate in words. After years and years of hearing about Jesus, and even encountering him in his Eucharistic presence many times, I finally consciously encountered him. I finally knew him. I finally loved him. And all of this happened while I laid prostrate on a dirty, concrete, conference-center floor amongst a sea of young people praying with their arms raised and singing out lyrics to worship songs that had been written by Protestants.

Now, of course, I know that Jesus had been with me that whole time gently drawing me to himself. But, I think it’s important to consider the means by which God chose to give me that radical encounter. Why was that conference the moment that God chose to intimately reveal his love to me? Was there something about that conference that better disposed me to surrender? Did God want me to associate the intimacy of his love with that type of prayer as opposed to what I had already been experiencing? Why not fill me with holy conviction in the beautiful cathedral whilst singing Latin chant or witnessing the moment of consecration? I don’t know the answer, but I can say that God’s ways are not our ways.

Throughout the last fourteen years since I surrendered my life to God, I have been so perplexed by the polemical nature of the discussion surrounding “Charismatic Catholicism.” I have seen my share of wacky, unpastored prayer meetings, and also personally experienced very severe wounds of rejection, even trauma, from certain “Charismatic” communities (as anyone who really knows my story can tell). Nonetheless, when I read about the “dangers,” “abuses,” and “unorthodoxy” of the Charismatic Renewal, I do not find that it feels congruent to my experience. I never want to belittle the experience of those who have been wounded by something claiming to be Charismatic Catholicism. However, my experience is that throughout all the ups and downs of being an active part of numerous Charismatic communities, at the end of the day, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I have really encountered the Holy Spirit. As I continue to participate in these communities, I continue to be greatly blessed and to see the Lord move in power. I have seen miracles with my own eyes.

So often I read or hear “traditionalists” refer to Charismatic prayer as emotionalism, sensationalism, or even as modern-day Montanism.¹ The experiences of those within the Charismatic Renewal are often equated with irrational sentiment or subjectivism. In this discussion, I feel very unseen in my own experience, and I have a feeling that I’m not the only one. I often wonder if the people making such assertions realize that they are disparaging, even demonizing, an estimated 120-150 million fellow Catholics.

My point is not to say that being “Charismatic” is the only avenue to holiness. Rather, I want to earnestly express that God is really moving among Charismatic Catholic communities. After fourteen years of being an active member of several, I want to attest to the true activity of God within the Charismatic Renewal. At the heart of charismatic prayer is the desire for people to fall deeply in love with the person of Jesus. Over and over, I have found that true proponents of the Renewal, especially those who have been charismatic for a long time, have very rich prayer lives. Although these prayer lives usually do include some kind of “charismatic” prayer, they are primarily centered around silent contemplative prayer, sacramental participation, intercession, and fasting. While there are many zealous young people who have much to learn and grow in, there are also many zealous elders who have greatly enriched the life of the Church.

I, personally, know many Charismatic Catholics who are mature, fully orthodox, and completely devoted to the work of God. Among these includes priests and religious, doctors of theology, and multiple very well-known Catholic speakers and writers (some of whom remain discerningly private about their Charismatic bent). These people are not simply “Charismatic” in their style of prayer, but have fully embraced the Charismatic dimension of our Catholic faith. The fruits of their lives and vocations are undeniably good. I also have multiple close friends who have been extraordinarily gifted with undeniable Charismatic ministries such as physical healing or discernment of spirits. These gifts are not reflective of their personal holiness, but of God’s activity in the Church right now.

Many years ago, I started to notice a spirit surrounding traditional Catholicism. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, but I can say that it felt like a spirit of mockery, pride, classism, and bitterness. A lot of bitterness. Throughout my college career, I felt like this spirit surrounding traditional Catholicism was a snowball rolling down the top of a mountain. Now that seven years has passed, it seems that snowball has become a full-blown boulder. The reality is that I’ve seen the “traditional” Catholicism movement really wound people. It has divided my own family, and the families of numerous friends of mine, to the point of sedevacantism or other means of leaving the Church altogether.

I have earnestly tried to understand the perspective of traditional Catholics. I have asked them why they love the Latin Mass and attended it with them. I have read articles, listened to podcasts, watched YouTube videos, and read books written or created by them. I have, myself, come to a deep love and reverence for the Church’s great treasury of sacred art and music. I’ve have many close friends who love traditional liturgy and I really do understand why they love it. While my closest friends with a traditional bent have also been able to hear my experience and see my true, orthodox love for Jesus, more-often-than-not my experience with “traditional” Catholics continues to be one in which I feel terribly misunderstood. My experience is that, overwhelmingly, Charismatic Catholics have no problem understanding traditional Catholics’ perspective, but that that attitude is rarely reciprocated.

A House Divided Cannot Stand.

Our Church is bleeding. People are leaving in droves and souls are being won for the kingdom of darkness. Often I hear the questions asked: “Where did people go wrong in their liturgical expression? What is the source of all the scandals? How can we get back to what we once had during the Age of Stability?” I know there are controversies surrounding Vatican II and the current Magisterium. I know that the Latin Mass was stable for hundreds of years and that many are drawn to its beautiful and holy elements. While I have much to say experientially and academically about a lot of these things, I do not claim to know the answers to all of the questions surrounding them. However, I can’t help but notice that there is a lot of looking backwards - not just to find the truth, but to seemingly try and re-create a time in human history that has now passed.

God does not work that way. He is ever ancient and ever new. Before we ask, “how can we go back?,” I think we need to stop looking to the activity of humans and start looking to the activity of God. What has he done? What is he doing? Where is he moving in the Church right now? And why?

To ignore, even reject, the movement of God among Charismatic Catholics is to tie a tourniquet around a healthy, essential member of the body of Christ. This division cannot last. If we don’t heal and integrate, we actively contribute to the destruction of the health of the body at large. And worst of all, we will miss out on the great gift of God being offered, not to ages past, but to our age, for our culture. God is really moving among us.

So, I want to give you the opportunity now to see me, to see me in my love for God and our Mother Church. Are you willing to hear my experience? Are you able to recognize the love that Our Father has poured out on me? Are you ready to rejoice with me over the grace he is pouring out amongst Charismatic circles?

If so, let’s be friends :)

That grace is for you too. The Renewal is not a club within the Catholic Church, it’s a current of grace, a river that needs to be lost in the vast ocean of our beautiful, messy, Church.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray.

O God, who have taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that in the same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

1. Montanism was a heresy from the 2nd century which upheld the supposed, often apocalyptic, prophecies of Montanus and others as public revelation. It emphasized the movement of the Holy Spirit and imposed vigorous moral norms such as the prohibition of marriage.