The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (Ccr) in the Americas

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Chapter 7 The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (ccr) in the Americas

Andrea Althoff and Jakob Egeris Thorsen

At the beginning of the 21st century, global Christianity is undergoing impressive transformation. Whereas church membership and attendance are declining in Europe and North America, Christianity is spreading rapidly in the so-called “Global South” where many new Christians are joining Charis- matic and Pentecostal churches. Latin America has been nominally Christian for five centuries, but here, too, an impressive awakening ties people closer to newer forms of Pentecostal Christianity; millions have left the once omni- present Catholic Church and joined Pentecostal, neo-Pentecostal, and Evan- gelical communities. A significant number are also experiencing a Pentecostal revival within the Catholic Church, as they form part of an internal Catho- lic Charismatic movement, which in the year 2000 encompassed at least 74 million Catholics in the Americas and a minimum of 120 million globally (Barrett et al. 2001: 275–278). This contribution gives an introduction to this movement in the Ameri- cas and places an emphasis on the transnational dimensions of the Catholic Charismatic movement in North, Central, and South America. Attention will be given to countries that have experienced an extraordinary growth in Cath- olic Charismatic Christianity, namely Brazil and Colombia, as well as to the country that has been a prime exporter of Latino Charismatics to the United States, Mexico. Furthermore, we portray the interface between migration and religion, and the tensions between the largest Catholic lay movement in Latin America and institutionalized Catholicism. Last but not least, we describe re- gional and cultural variations between Charismatic Catholicism and popular religion, and provide an overview of some theoretical explanations tied to the phenomenon. The research for this article is based on two different empirical-qualitative studies. Andrea Althoff, a sociologist, wrote her Ph.D. thesis on religious plural- ism and ethnicity in Guatemala: including the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, the neo-Pentecostal and Pentecostal movements, and the Maya movement. Jakob Egeris Thorsen, a theologian, wrote his doctoral thesis on the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement in Guatemala; in particular, the spread of

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Charismatic practices in Guatemalan church life. Both studies included long- term fieldwork stays; one year and six months respectively. For the purpose of this chapter, the literature and current numbers have been reviewed and updated.

1 A Short History of the Movement in the Americas

The Charismatic movement in the historic Protestant churches during the early 1960s, and the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), prepared the ground for the Catholic Charismatic movement (Balmer 2002: 118). Later, resulting from these developments, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (ccr) was founded as an officially recognized lay movement within the Roman Catholic Church.1 There are four themes that are of special significance: first, the emphasis on the Holy Spirit; second, the role of the laity in the life of the movement and the Church; third, the opening up to ecumenical activity; and fourth, the emphasis on evangelization. These themes (Holy Spirit, laity, ecumenism, and evangelization) emerged during the Second Vatican Council when the Vatican’s pro- nouncements recognized the importance of the Holy Spirit and charismatic gifts: “a stress that was championed in council sessions by the Belgian Cardinal León-Joseph Suenens who later was to provide critical support for the charismatic movement” (Thigpen 2002: 460). Furthermore, the “recognition that the Spirit could bestow graces among the “separated brethren” allowed for the pos- sibility that Protestant Pentecostals might be able to contribute to the renewal of the Catholic Church” (Thigpen 2002: 460). Many accounts of the ccr, however, state that the movement started in the U.S. in the early months of 1967 among students and lay faculty at Duquesne University in Pittsburg, a Roman Catholic school operated by the Congrega- tion of the Holy Spirit. Historian and priest Peter Hocken, nevertheless, identi- fies similar developments in Bogotá, Colombia, as an independent locale from Duquesne (Hocken 2002b: 498; Cleary 2011: 55). Charismatic splinter groups began even earlier, in 1962, including the Legion of Mary (Legio Mariae) in Kenya (Burgess: 2002: xix). In the U.S., at Duquesne, the immediate catalysts were two young theology instructors, Patrick Bourgeois and Ralph Keifer. In- fluenced by David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade (1963) and John Sherrill’s They Speak with Other Tongues (1964), they wanted to experience

1 Important to note is the hybrid form of religiosity that Catholic Charismatics characterize, at least in Latin America. As Edward L. Cleary, O.P., described it: “There is no “pure” Catholic Charismatic model” (Cleary 2011: 19).