Twenty years ago, Graham Moorhouse published "Cult Fiction: The Protestant Cuckoo in the Catholic Nest." This short work, the full PDF of which is linked on our home page under "Other Helpful Sites," was absolutely pivotal in my education about the Neocatechumenal Way. It was the disturbing similarity between Moorhouse's years-old and continents-away experience and my own which made me realize the truth of it all. It has since become one of the first things I recommend people read when inquiring about the Way.
I think it is often the "years old" factor that turns many people off sources of information. "Oh, this was published when? It must be completely outdated and irrelevant by now." With our modern glut of information and facts seemingly changing daily, this is certainly understandable.
So, since this was such a foundational and go-to document for me, and because it is now two decades old, I thought it would be helpful to do a bit of a "retrospective breakdown/compendium" of Moorhouse's work to see how it has withstood the test of time. While the articles may not all run consecutively, my plan is to run a series in 9 parts on this subject.
Moorhouse begins with an epigraph from the (pre-approved, unedited) Catechetical Directory. His translation is terse and shockingly direct:
Traditional Christianism, with Baptism, First Communion, Sunday Mass, Commandments of God, was not Christianism. It was dirt. We were pre-Christians. (…) God called us now to found a catechumen movement turned towards rebirth (of real Christianism).
Whether this was the literal text sitting in front of Moorhouse, or whether he did his own editing for effect, I do not know. Based on the unedited Italian edition in my possession, however, the text reads like this:
...deep down we feel we are people vaccinated by a traditional Christianity, and we believe that we are all children of God, that we are all Christians because we have been baptized and made our first communion, we go to Mass on Sundays, we do not steal and we don't kill, so all is well. Thank God that fortunately today things are changing: there are Marxists who do not confess themselves Christian because nothing good has been achieved with this Christianity...
The important thing, brothers, is that something is really changing: we weren't Christians, we didn't know anything about Christianity, we are pre-Christians... we did not bear fruit and our Christianity was disgusting...
God has called us together to begin a catechumenate, that is, a journey towards this encounter, towards a rebirth. (p. 283)
A near-identical version of this passage (conveniently missing the bit about "disgusting Christianity") can be found on page 304 of the Vatican-approved English edition. It comes from an admonition early in the evening of the first night of the initial convivence.
So, while Moorhouse presents a very condensed and slightly edited version of Kiko's words, the message remains essentially the same: what most people believe to be Christianity is in fact disgusting nonsense that turns people into Marxist atheists, and now, thank God, the Way has arrived to lead people to a rebirth of real Christianity.
I am not one of those traditional Catholics who believe that everything I disagree with should be suppressed. However, I passionately believe that the dignity of my fellow man is such that when one is asking people or groups to make important decisions about their lives, particularly their spiritual lives, one has an obligation to be honest, everything up front and out in the open, with all one's cards on the table. (Cult Fiction, p. 1)
I absolutely agree with this sentiment. (Although I personally tend to reject the "trad" label in favor of "orthodox.") My initial experiences of the Neocatechumenal Way gave me absolutely no delusion about them being "out in the open," which certainly bothered me, but I was at least willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Many people, including perhaps you reading this, have similar reactions. That's a big part of why this blog exists: naivete is dangerous.
[The Way has] patrons in high places, including the Holy Father, and Rome has recently given them its formal approval... However, the faithful may be excused in these confusing times for taking such ecclesial approval with a very large pinch of salt... This recognition of their movement by Rome is shamelessly exploited by the Neocatechumenate's apologists... Their purpose is to plant in your subconscious the thought that if these come from the Pope they must be okay. (Cult Fiction, p. 1)
Pinch of salt indeed. Moorhouse includes the example of Marie-Paule Giguère and the Army of Mary, which was condemned as heretical by the Church after having previously receiving formal approval. (You can read the 2001 Doctrinal Note of the Canadian Bishops Conference regarding that movement here. I particularly like the part of the closing statement which reads: "It should be obvious that a group can no longer represent itself as truly Catholic when its leaders teach a doctrine that is contrary to that of the Catholic Church." Indeed.)
In our own times, of course, we see pagan goddesses being welcomed with open arms into the Vatican, and German bishops are seemingly allowed to operate in open contempt of Mother Church with no sign of a forthcoming formal correction. If the Neocats carry on their various activities with Church approval, that certainly appears to mean very little regarding their adherence to orthodoxy, despite their vague and baseless claims to the contrary.
The biggest difficulty in coming to a balanced opinion about the Way is their institutionalized secrecy. Nothing is written down for public consumption. Their apologists are evasive. Public questions from those attending their introductory meeting are not invited. Questions are deflected ... There is no true dialogue with enquirers. You are expected for the most part to just sit and listen. (Cult Fiction, p. 1)
All 100% true.
The only way to find out much about the Neocatechumenate Way is to question people who have come out of the movement... The only other source of information is that provided by high placed moles within the movement. Fortunately a number of such people in recent years have been prepared to photostat and leak copies of Kiko's and Carmen's teachings... Principal among these leaked documents is the Neocatechumenate Orientation Guide... which is their instruction course for their leaders. This revealing document would not normally be seen by the ordinary rank and file member, let alone the general public. (Cult Fiction, p. 2)
We here at this blog are proud to feature both a former Neocat on the writing team, as well as multiple editions in multiple languages of the aforementioned catechetical guide for primary-source referencing. When I first read Moorhouse, of course, I had access to neither and was just taking his word for it. But coming to rely on both of these sources in later years has proven invaluable.
The "sales pitch" to induce you to enter... is all very inoffensive and even attractive to orthodox Catholics - much about the love of God and implementing the reform of Vatican II. You will be beguiled by many personal testimonies from earnest people along the lines, "My life was an utter mess until the Way turned round my life and brought me back to to God and the Church and joy everlasting." (Cult Fiction, p. 2)
Also all 100% true. I can't tell you many times I've heard some variation of that exact testimony. But that also made me suspicious--why does everyone seem to have the exact same testimony? How is it that Christ seems to be working in these peoples' lives in the exact same ways for the exact same problems?
This "orthodox Catholic" was never attracted by it, though. Benefit of the doubt or not, the secrecy and lack of publicly available materials bothered me from the beginning.
Many of them are good earnest people and the Church certainly desperately needs the sort of radical re-commitment to Christ, the faith of His Church and orthodoxy that at first they appear to be preaching, for there will be and can be no new evangelisation without it. (Cult Fiction, p. 2)
Yes, absolutely. This blog has nothing but contempt for the Way's leadership, from Kiko all the way down to his brutish and narcissistic catechists in local parishes, be they laymen or clerics. But the members themselves are often very good people who genuinely desire to love and serve our Lord more deeply. That the leadership takes advantage of this only fuels our contempt.
This short paragraph is also a picture-perfect representation of why so many otherwise good, godly prelates accept and promote the Way seemingly unquestioningly and unhesitatingly (We tend to use Pell, Aquila, and Chaput as the most frequent examples on this site, but there are certainly many others--most especially the two late pontiffs Benedict and St. John Paul).
Gordon Urquhart, an ex-member of Focolare (another of the modern movements) wrote a book entitled The Pope's Armada. This book has become the "Bible" of the opponents of the Way. However, Gordon Urquhart is a self-confessed homosexual who also abandoned his wife and three children. Such witnesses are obviously radically disaffected and have a great number of large axes to grind, so need to be treated with a considerable degree of circumspection. (Cult Fiction, p. 3)
To this day, I have not read Urquhart's book (you can find it here, though), nor do I know of anyone who has. In all my research, I have never (knowingly) seen it quoted, cited, referenced, or even recommended. So perhaps it has lost a considerable degree of favor in the last twenty years--because his biases proved too unreliable, or for other reasons.
Bishop Mervyn Alexander famously banned the Way from his Clifton [England] diocese and set up some sort of counselling service for those damaged by the Way. However, Bishop Mervyn Alexander is regarded by many Catholics as a modernist who Protestantised his Clifton diocese with the help of his liberal underlings. His successor, Bishop Declan Lang, a true thoroughbred modernist... has kept these measures in place... Nevertheless, to be fair to both these bishops, the divisions, trouble and indeed widespread anger caused in three parishes in the Clifton diocese by the Neocatechumenate are well-documented matters of public record. (Cult Fiction, p. 3)
I really appreciate what Moorhouse is saying with his points about Urquhart and the liberal Clifton bishops.
With Urquhart, the point is that just because someone may share your critical viewpoint doesn't mean that their information (or their assessment of that information) is good. We should always seek to avoid confirmation bias in our research. For instance, I have come across numerous unflattering articles about the Way in my time. One blog even made some salacious insinuations about Kiko. That blog's author, though, proved to be very much in the "axe to grind" category (about Catholicism more broadly, not the Way specifically) and was almost assuredly writing titillating gossip content for clicks rather than doing any kind of real reporting. You may find that article or its contents reposted elsewhere, but you'll never see it here.
Conversely, just because a piece of information comes from someone we might consider to be an "ideological opponent" doesn't automatically mean it's bad information. Urquhart may have untold numbers of grudges and may be a terrible moral example, but if what he says about the Way is true, who he is as a person makes that information no less true. Bishops Alexander and Lang may be flagrant modernists, but this does not make it impossible for them to render genuine pastoral service (such as expelling the Way and offering counseling for those it traumatized). Credit where credit is due.
Finally, Moorhouse makes the point that many of the Way's opponents at the time of his writing seemed to come largely from the Church's ideological left. This is not a phenomenon I have widely observed in today's Church. I don't think I've ever heard a Jimmy Martin or a Thomas Reese or an Austen Ivereigh or whoever else say word one about the Way, good, bad, or indifferent. In fact, more and more it's exactly the opposite: it's the conservatives and the traditionalists speaking out, such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider. And our friends at The Thoughtful Catholic and the Osservatorio certainly aren't modernists, judging by their content. Your mileage may vary, but I think this is a promising shift, if indeed it is a real shift and not just a few isolated observations.
Join us next time for Part 2 on Doctrine.
And, to read other articles in this series, check out: Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9.
