Copyright by Kody Sherman Jackson 2016 The Thesis Committee for Kody Sherman Jackson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Jesus, Jung, and the Charismatics: The Pecos Benedictines and Visions of Religious Renewal APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Robert Abzug Virginia Garrard-Burnett Jesus, Jung, and the Charismatics: The Pecos Benedictines and Visions of Religious Renewal by Kody Sherman Jackson, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2016 Dedication To all those who helped in the publication of this work (especially Bob Abzug and Ginny Burnett), but most especially my brother. Just like my undergraduate thesis, it will be more interesting than anything you ever write. Abstract Jesus, Jung, and the Charismatics: The Pecos Benedictines and Visions of Religious Renewal Kody Sherman Jackson, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Robert Abzug The Catholic Charismatic Renewal, though changing the face and feel of U.S. Catholicism, has received relatively little scholarly attention. Beginning in 1967 and peaking in the mid-1970s, the Renewal brought Pentecostal practices (speaking in tongues, faith healings, prophecy, etc.) into mainstream Catholicism. This thesis seeks to explore the Renewal on the national, regional, and individual level, with particular attention to lay and religious “covenant communities.” These groups of Catholics (and sometimes Protestants) devoted themselves to spreading Pentecostal practices amongst their brethren, sponsoring retreats, authoring pamphlets, and organizing conferences. With religious communities, especially, this was a controversial practice, causing tension amongst Catholic celibates and ultimately discouraging religious involvement. To promote something, however, is often to have very clear visions about what that thing should look like. The Renewal was no exception, as covenant communities like the Word of God (Ann Arbor, MI) and the People of Praise (South Bend, IN) endorsed a particularly rigid and authoritarian version of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Clerical groups, most notably the Pecos Benedictine Monastery, advanced a different vision of the Charismatic life. Their version of the Renewal, more heavily based on inner healing and (for Pecos at least) v Jungian psychology, was much looser and similar to other New Age spiritualities. At the core, those at Pecos believed in the redemption of man through Christ, whereas those in lay covenant communities tended to focus on the fall of Adam and original sin. These visions came into conflict in the structures and messages of the Renewal, which helped contribute to its decline in the 1980s and practical disappearance by the 1990s. vi Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: “IT SPLIT THE ABBEY RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE”: VATICAN II AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL ...............................1 CHANGES AND EXPERIMENTS OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL .................3 CONFLICT AND CHARISMATICS AT BENET LAKE: A BRIEF CASE STUDY .......29 CHAPTER 2: ‘AS THE SPIRIT LEADS US’: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL ...............................................................................44 “HAPPINESS MAKES PEOPLE WONDER”: CHARISMATIC PRAYER MEETINGS AND THE POWER OF PERSONAL CONNECTION ........................................................54 CHAPTER 3: “POWER AT PECOS”: THE FORMATION OF A PENTECOSTAL MONASTERY .......................................................................................................................81 OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE ABBEY: THE WORLD’S FIRST PENTECOSTAL MONASTERY ..................................................................................................83 “LIVING TOGETHER ALONE”: PERFECTAE CARITAS AND THE RE-IMAGINATION OF RELIGIOUS LIFE .............................................................................................95 CHAPTER 4: “IT WAS ALSO POSSIBLE TO LIVE AT THE SOUTH POLE”: THE RISE OF CHARISMATIC COVENANT COMMUNITIES ....................................................120 CHARISMA AND COMMITMENT: THE DEVELOPMENT OF COVENANT COMMUNITIES .....................................................................................................................126 CHAPTER 5: “YOU TELL ME YOUR DREAMS, I’LL TELL YOU YOUR SOUL”: CHARISMATIC DISCERNMENT & JUNGIAN DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY AT PECOS .154 DREAMS AND DISCIPLESHIP: THE FRIENDSHIP OF MORTON T. KELSEY AND DAVID GERAETS ......................................................................................................156 FROM DREAMS TO REALITY: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESTRUCTURING OF PECOS .....................................................................................................................169 CHAPTER 6: “BUILDING A BULWARK”: THE STRUCTURING OF CHARISMATIC COVENANT COMMUNITIES ..............................................................................................193 “GOD IS BRINGING THE WORLD TO ITS KNEES”: THE GROWING PESSIMISM OF COVENANT COMMUNITIES ...........................................................................194 vii INCREASING AUTHORITARIANISM: THE WOG “TRAINING COURSE” AND THE STRUCTURING OF COMMUNITY LIFE ............................................................203 CHAPTER 7: “THESE PEOPLE ARE ALLIES BUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY”: PECOS, COVENANT COMMUNITIES, AND THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL ....................................................................................................219 SPREADING THE RENEWAL: THE WORD OF GOD, THE PEOPLE OF PRAISE, AND THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL COORDINATION .......................................................223 “LEAV[ING] OTHERS TO THE LORD”: THE ABANDONMENT OF NATIONAL STRUCTURES AND ASSOCIATIONS OF LIKE-MINDED COMMUNITIES ............242 CHAPTER 8: DEVILRY OR DISCERNMENT: THE BATTLE FOR INFLUENCE OVER THE BROADER RENEWAL ....................................................................................248 INTRINSIC VERSUS SITUATIONAL HOLINESS: PERSPECTIVES ON TONGUES, BIBLICAL LITERALISM, AND MODERN CULTURE .........................................251 “[BETTER] THE WAY IT WAS WRITTEN”: GENDER COMPLEMENTARIANISM IN THE WOG AND AT PECOS ...................................................................................275 EPILOGUE.....................................................................................................282 BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................284 viii CHAPTER 1: “IT SPLIT THE ABBEY RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE”: VATICAN II AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL Something was stirring in the normally tranquil air of St. Benedict’s Monastery of Benet Lake, Wisconsin in the late 1960s. Perhaps it had blown in from elsewhere in the nation. The era, after all, was a time of profound conflict in the United States. High-profile assassinations had cut short the lives of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy; race riots had rocked Los Angeles and other urban areas of the country; and police and FBI activities had openly quashed demonstrations by the Black Panthers, the Students for a Democratic Society, and even average university students. The monks of Benet Lake, however, were dealing with a different sort of conflict, one based on spiritual, rather than sociopolitical, concerns. New practices had emerged within the monastic enclosure, bringing new levels of excitement and enthusiasm to some and suspicion to others. Practitioners of the new rite defended their position vigorously. Prayer had become a truly personal experience, as had their relationship with Jesus Christ, explained Fr. Daniel Scully. “You feel that you have been plunged into God,” he related. “You sense God, you are aware of God. Not only with your mind but, somehow, with your entire being and he is just a reality to you as you are to yourself. How do you experience yourself?”1 Such an 1 Fr. Dan Scully, OSB, “Charismatic Renewal Pecos Tape 2,” undated, Box 1, True House (Charismatic community) Records, University of Notre Dame Archives [hereafter referred to as UNDA], Notre Dame, IN 46556 1 experience represented the fullness of the Christian faith, he and his fellow monks believed, and it was only possible through their unique style of worship. While bringing these men to the heights of religious experience, these innovations brought some of their monastic brothers to the depths of despair. Many expressed their misgivings about what was happening within the walls of St. Benedict’s. The worship was too emotional and too insistent, they claimed, leading to excessive proselytism of visitors and openly up its practitioners to psychological instability. Some openly protested this new emphasis. The Abbey’s vocation director, Fr. Joseph, openly resigned his position in 1968. He attributed his actions to this new style of prayer, claiming that “[he] could not in good conscience advise candidates to join this monastery anymore.”2 To many in the community, therefore, these strange practices represented a perversion, and not perfection, of Christianity. Such steadfastness presented the superior of the monastery, Abbot Andrew Garber, with a difficult decision. The men tending towards the new practices were some of his most energetic and faithful followers, but they were contributing greatly to a tension running through