Tuesday, August 02, 2005
THE OTHER GOSPEL
An article at Zenit dated 7-18-05 analyzes the difficulties in Europe as being largely the fault of the invasion of New Age beliefs. The article is written by Jose Baamonde, an adviser to the Argentine bishops' conference. In the article he says:
New Age is "the great challenge of the present century for society," he added, because "it raises flags such as pacifism, universal brotherhood and ecology, which can hardly be challenged by the public of a society that increasingly lacks a true formation."
Impressionable students
Baamonde, who is a professor of psychology at Madrid's San Pablo-CEU University, also warned against "the capacity of New Age concepts to subtly impregnate even those who practice classic and traditional religions, including the Catholic" faith.
In this connection, he recalled Pope John Paul II's words to a group of U.S. bishops in 1993: "At times New Age ideas make headway in preaching, catechesis, congresses and retreats, and thus succeed in influencing even practicing Catholics, who perhaps are not aware of the incompatibility of those ideas with the faith of the Church."...
He concluded: "New Age gains followers day by day with the final objective, they say, of erasing universal borders to achieve the creation of a supra-religion where man is the alpha and omega, the beginning and end of all things, thus achieving a caricature of religion: It is no longer man who is created in the image and likeness of God but God who is created in the image and likeness of man."
This New Age supra-religion is being helped by the most unlikely Catholic sources.
It was easy to identify the left-leaning Sr. Joan Chittister, and other left-leaning folks at CTA. It is far less easy to identify as questionable the monks who are promoting meditation and contemplation as providing a trip into New Age areas of oriental philosophy. Too often in this realm which is generally free of doctrine and focuses on relationship with God, a mix and match spirituality develops.
A case in point. The Monastery of the Holy Spirit's "Special Retreats" 2005. There you can read about God becoming flesh, discover the importance of humility, ponder the mystery of Jesus' mystical Body. All of these retreats sound solidly Catholic. But there are some others focusing on centering prayer, on Yoga, and on a new silence of contemplation that appears to reinterpret the ancient spiritual practice. These, too, may be Catholic; but their Catholicity is not self-evident in the description. The topics open the doorway to the possibility of something of the other Gospel.
Fr. Basil Pennington served as Abbott of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit for two years, as his obituary explains. I would like to believe that Fr. Pennington had the best interests of the Church at heart at all times. There is a "but".
Fr. Pennington was heavily involved in interreligious dialogue, following in the footsteps of Fr. Thomas Merton. Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery is a branch of Gethsemene Abbey, known best for its former resident monk Thomas Merton.
The Monastic Interreligious Dialogue website indicates that this outreach is the work of the "North American Benedictine and Cistercian Monasteries of Men and Women". There you can see a list of Fr. Pennington's writings.
Centering prayer, the prayer technique Pennington is known for, is also the work of Fr. Thomas Keating. Both of these priests have endorsed MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT. At that link you can read in Fr. Keating's own words that:
This book in my view is the greatest contribution to date toward the rediscovery and renewal of the Christian contemplative tradition of the Fathers of the Church and the high Middle Ages. With its firm grasp of tradition, its balance, wisdom, profundity, openness to truth, and comprehensive approach to reality, it deserves to be the basis of a course in spirituality in every Christian institution of higher learning and what would be even better, the point of departure and unifying vision of the whole curriculum.
And we wonder why our children come home from a Catholic college no longer Catholic!
On the right sidebar you can see that "articles by Robert A. Powell" are linked, and Powell is credited with being the author of THE SOPHIA TEACHINGS. You can read a brief review of this book here. It is another Gospel that is being promoted by Robert Powell...the Gospel of the Pistis Sophia, of the Nag Hammadi Scrolls, of the Gnostics who were also contemplative, of Ted Meisner, of esoteric Christianity...of the Paris Occult Revival?
Here is another of Robert Powell's books, CHRISTIAN ZEN: THE ESSENTIAL TEACHINGS OF JESUS CHRIST. The obvious departure from Catholicism can be read in the brief description.
Another website, Bob & Nancy's Bookshop, has a category devoted to "Esoteric Christianity" exclusively. Titles in this list give a good overview of what esoteric Christians believe. There you will see many Rudolf Steiner works because this website is an Anthroposophical website. You will see that one of his titles is ISIS MARY SOPHIA. In the description of that book you can read the item "The Holy Spirit and the Christ in Us", the item "Mary and Mary Magdalene", "Sophia Is the Gospel Itself", "The Nature of the Virgin Sophia and of the Holy Spirit", "Sophia and Achamoth." These titles are entirely appropriate to Anthroposophy since Anthroposophy is Rosicrucian Christianity, a form of faith based on clairvoyant contact of the Akashic Record, a practice forbidden to a Catholic by the First Commandment.
If you recall some of my recent postings, you will recall that Sophia Achamoth was mentioned in the history of the Gnostic Catholic Church. This Salons Gnostiques de la Rose+Croix website mentions Sophia Achamoth:
During the bohemian revolution of the late 19th century, however, people again sought out places for stimulating conversation like cafés and Salons. Of particular interest to us, are the occult Salons that were set organized around the same time as the fledgling Theosophical Society. The most famous of these was the salon of Lady Marie Caithness and her circle, one which would later become known as the "Société Théosophique d'Orient et d'Occident." Jules Doinel, who reestablished the Gnostic Church and who had, himself, been gifted with visions throughout his life, participated in a series of séances at her Salon that were attended by many notable occultists of the time. It was during these séances that Doinel received a vision of Sophia Achamoth who charged him with reestablishing her Gnostic Church.
What is a Catholic monk doing dabbling in esoteric Christianity? The Gnostic Heresy was the most fiercely contested heresy of the Early Church.
Returning to Bob and Nancy's Bookshop you can find a long description of MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT. There are books on the Holy Grail, the Cosmic Christ, books by Joa Bolendas, one on Egyptian Myths and Mysteries, and one by Vladimir Soloviev. There is even one by Anne Catherine Emmerich. Esoteric Christianity, being centered in the occult experience of spirit contact finds compatibility with Emmerich.
The Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Gethsemani Encounter I, July 1996, speakers list gives a good indication that Christian and Buddhists attempted to find some sort of spiritual common ground. You can read the speakers list for Gethsemani Encounter II here.
The MID Author List for P lists Robert A. Powell along with Basil Pennington and Ramon Panikkar.
This is another Gospel being promoted by those who present themselves as the most holy among the Roman Catholic population. How is it that nothing is being done to curb this return to Gnosticism within the Church? Where is our Pope?
Returning briefly to Jose Baamonde's Zenit article linked at the top of this blog, you can read:
...he recalled Pope John Paul II's words to a group of U.S. bishops in 1993: "At times New Age ideas make headway in preaching, catechesis, congresses and retreats, and thus succeed in influencing even practicing Catholics, who perhaps are not aware of the incompatibility of those ideas with the faith of the Church.
Yet in spite of this red flag being raised by John Paul II, he also promoted Interreligious Dialogue strongly, as this letter at the MID website indicates. You can't have it both ways. Either we place boundaries around what we believe, or we open ourselves up to what everyone else believes and produce a mix-'n'-match faith suitable for anyone...or for no one.
War and violence in the name of God is anathema. We must not turn to that solution. But neither can we turn to this current solution which makes God unknowable and perhaps, to those who become immerced in New Age, unworthy of knowing. There must be a return to the doctrine of the Catholic faith.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
