Charismatic Renewal

The conversion of Pope Francis

Simply, Pope Francis, while highlighting the 50th anniversary of the appearance of the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church in the United States in 1967, confided how firmly he opposed its establishment in Argentina. Pope Francis on the plane on his return from Sweden on 1 November 2016. Here are his own words spoken at his press conference on the plane that brought him back from Sweden on 1 November 2016, as reported by the Zenit agency: “The Pope mentioned the celebration of the 50 years of the Charismatic Renewal which will take place at Pentecost 2017 in Rome: “I plan – if God grants me life – to go and speak there,” he specified.”

He remembered his own hesitations at the birth of this movement: “One of the first opponents in Argentina was myself – because I was the Provincial of the Jesuits at that time (...) and I forbade the Jesuits from having any ties with them. And I said publicly that when a liturgical celebration was held, one had to do something liturgical and not a ‘samba school’ (escuela do samba). That is what I said.”

And today I think the opposite, when things are done well.” What a journey, both for the pope and for the groups of the Charismatic Renewal, which are an immense force in several countries of South America and Africa, as well as in Italy and India, among other countries, and which gave birth to communities including, in France, that of the Emmanuel (10,000 laity, priests and consecrated persons in 64 countries) and that of the Chemin Neuf (nearly 2,000 permanent members in twenty-six countries, and 12,000 people serving the missions of the community).

Pope Francis already received 50,000 Italian charismatics in Rome in June 2014, who were gathering there for their National Congress. He agreed to receive the charismatics of the whole world in 2017 for the feast of Pentecost on 4 June 2017. The international council of the Renewal, ICCRS for International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services, established in Rome, prepared a programme that can be seen by clicking on this link. The web page is in English only for the moment. It will be available in French soon.

International Charismatic Renewal

Pope Francis at the Italian ‘Convocazione nazionale’ at the Olympic Stadium in Rome on 2 June 2016. Pope Francis at the Italian ‘Convocazione nazionale’ at the Olympic Stadium in Rome on 2 June 2016. Notes on the beginnings of the Charismatic Renewal in the United States. In January 1967, two professors from Duquesne University in the United States took part in an interdenominational prayer meeting at Flo Dodge’s home in Pittsburgh. At the end of the prayer meeting, they asked to receive the outpouring of the Spirit.

The following month, namely on the 17, 18 and 19 February 1967, these two professors prepared a retreat with young people from Duquesne University. As a way of preparing, they were asked to read and meditate on the text of the first four chapters of the Acts of the Apostles as well as to read the book The Cross and the Switchblade, by David Wilkerson... During this weekend, several received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and lived what many called a new Pentecost...

One participant, Patty Gallagher Mansfield, wrote: “Most of us were baptised in the Holy Spirit kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer. Some began to pray in tongues, others prophesied or received the charisms of the discernment of spirits and the word of wisdom.” These were the beginnings of the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church, which subsequently spread throughout the world. The participants in this event met regularly. From that came the birth of the Charismatic Renewal groups.

They organised congresses at Notre-Dame University in Ann Arbor, Michigan, then there was an explosion of groups in America, Canada and Europe. Pope Paul VI appointed Cardinal Suenens, Archbishop of Brussels, to accompany these groups, which he did with prudence and wisdom while encouraging and stimulating them. He obtained that Pope Paul VI receive in 1975, in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the charismatics of the whole world for their first international congress.

Cardinal Suenens

Cardinal Suenens, together with the leaders of the time, set up an international office which, after a few years spent in Brussels, moved into a building of the Vatican in Rome and took the name ICCRS (International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services). Notes on the beginnings of the Charismatic Renewal in Quebec and on its present state, which I wrote for the 11th Francophone Congress of the Charismatic Renewal in 2014. The Charismatic Renewal has been in Quebec for over 40 years. It is easy to take as a starting point the first charismatic meetings which took place in Granby in October 1970.

But as Rev. Peter Prosser recalls, who was intimately involved in the beginnings of the Renewal, the groups sprang up in Quebec like a blossoming in which the action of a few charismatic leaders played an important role. In his master’s thesis presented at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Montreal, Rev. Peter Prosser gives an account of the beginnings of the Renewal in Quebec, which we summarise for the benefit of the internet users who visit the website of the Canadian Council of the Charismatic Renewal and that of the official review of the Renewal: Selon Sa Parole.

In 1967, Sister Flore Crête, a student at Notre-Dame University, experienced the Charismatic Renewal. She returned to Quebec in 1969 and held the first charismatic meeting among francophone Catholics in Quebec, but one had to wait for Father Regimbal in 1970 for the Charismatic Renewal to attract attention. Another leader of the beginnings is Father Joseph Kane, O.M.I., a missionary from Peru who returned to Montreal during 1970 by way of Seattle (U.S.A.). There he lived the experience of the Renewal.

Father Joseph Takach and other diocesan priests were initiated by Father Kane, notably Paul Sauvé, Bernard MacDonald, Joseph MacKenty and Michael McKenna. They began the first English-language charismatic meetings among Catholics in Montreal. Father Jean-Paul Regimbal, for his part, received the outpouring of the Spirit in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was undergoing treatment while carrying out ministry at the parish of Ste-Thérèse of Phoenix. Sandy Winters, an Episcopalian, during a meeting shared with him her experience of the ‘baptism in the Spirit’.

Father Regimbal, who had never heard of this experience, remained sceptical. He nonetheless went through the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles of Paul and the texts of the Second Vatican Council. He met the woman in question again, went down on his knees and asked her to ‘lay hands on him.’ He received the outpouring of the Spirit, and subsequently was led to preach in California, in Denmark, Spain, France and Italy. He returned to Canada in 1970 to take charge of the retreat house of Montplaisant in Granby, where the first charismatic meetings took place in October 1970.

In March, the following year, Father Regimbal, together with charismatic Anglicans, organised a ‘Rally for Christ’ at the Forum and at St Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal. David DuPlessis was the main guest. The Renewal was now established in six regions of Montreal among the francophones and in Granby. The spread of the Renewal went well and, in 1973, every Monday in Granby, the prayer evening gathered more than 1,000 people. People came by bus from as far as Cornwall and Ottawa, from Vermont and from Trois-Rivières.

In 1972, Kevin Ranaghan, during the Labour Day weekend in September, had met several leaders at the Grand Séminaire de Montréal, and a charismatic congress took place in the summer of 1973 at Loyola University in Montreal. From that point on, the development of the Renewal grew considerably. Father Jacques Custeau, S.J., organised a central service for the Renewal groups. The leaders wished for a francophone congress to be held. It took place in June 1974 at Laval University in Quebec with the presence of Cardinal Suenens and Jean Vanier. It was a success. It gathered between 6 and 8,000 people.

Francophone Charismatic Renewal

In August 1975 was founded the Canadian Francophone Assembly of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. It took charge of organising a second national francophone charismatic congress at the Olympic Stadium in the summer of 1977, which gathered 50,000 people. That one was preceded by the first diocesan congress in the diocese of Quebec in October 1976, which revealed the momentum of the groups in that region. 5,000 people took part.

A third national francophone congress took place at the Olympic Stadium in 1979, then the Canadian Francophone Assembly of the Charismatic Renewal decided to favour diocesan congresses and discontinued the national congresses. These resumed on the initiative of the Canadian Council of the Charismatic Renewal, created in 1985 under the impetus of Abbé Hermann Giguère, then diocesan respondent of the Charismatic Renewal in the diocese of Quebec.

The 4th national congress took place at Laval University in 1990 with the participation of Bishop Paul Cordès, delegate of Pope John Paul II for the Charismatic Renewal, who had succeeded Cardinal Suenens, and Father Diego Jaramillo, a Eudist from Bogotá in Colombia, international president. More than 7,000 people filled the covered stadium of the PEPS at Laval University. The Renewal groups and communities began to experience a decline in the 90s. The national congresses followed one another: 5th in Quebec in 1994; 6th in Ottawa in 1998; 7th in Ottawa in 2000.

The 8th national congress, marking the 30th anniversary of the first one held in 1974, took place at the Verdun Arena in Montreal on the 6, 7 and 8 August 2004 and gathered about 3,000 people. It was Father Joseph-Marie Verlinde, Lent preacher at Notre-Dame de Paris in 2002, who was the main speaker. A 9th national congress was held in 2009. It took place in Quebec at the Pavillon de la jeunesse of Expo-Cité from 12 to 14 June 2009 under the theme ‘Fan into flame the gift of the Spirit’ (2 Tm 1,6). The closing celebration was presided over by Bishop Luc Cyr, responding bishop.

The 10th national congress was held in Montreal at the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste from 18 to 21 August 2011. An 11th national congress took place at Notre-Dame-du-Cap in Trois-Rivières from 6 to 9 June 2014 with the participation of the international president (ICCRS), Mrs Michelle Moran of England, and Jim Murphy, one of the pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal in the United States.

Bishop Hermann Giguère, P.H. Faculty of theology and religious sciences at Laval University. Séminaire de Québec. First president of the Canadian Council of the Charismatic Renewal from 1986 to 1996. Respondent and delegate of the bishops to the Charismatic Renewal groups from 1974 to 1992 and advisor to ICCRS from 1977 to 1990. 3 November 2016. Tags: Cardinal Suenens, ccrc, outpouring of the Spirit, Holy Spirit, evangelisation, Hermann Giguère, iccrs, Jean Vanier, Pope Francis, Charismatic Renewal, testimony, 07/11/2016, News, Comments

Pope Francis and Raniero Cantalamessa

https://youtu.be/7LrL-9ODC08