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Monday, April 3, 2023

"Cult Fiction," Part 2: On Doctrine

 


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.

In Part 1, we covered the first few introductory pages. In this second part, we cover the section that Moorhouse titles "Some Doctrinal Specifics." We cover doctrine quite a bit on this site (see here and here for just two examples), so this shouldn't be covering much new ground for well-versed readers.


In the first paragraph, Moorhouse says: "A more clear statement of Lutheran doctrine, as opposed to Catholic doctrine, it would be difficult to find." He precedes this statement with more (uncited) Kiko quotes. Let's try to place them.

  • "Man is not saved by good works." While this does not appear to be a direct quote, we do see several examples in the Catechetical Guide of "good works" being spoken of disparagingly. For example, from the approved English edition: "...people have mistaken ideas about Christianity. We need to give them a true Word, a living Christianity, stripped of the moralism we carry around with us: everything is based on our strength, on our efforts, our good works..." (p. 381). Good works (or rather, our sheer lack thereof) also appear conflated with the "heart of stone" which God desires to remove from you: "...God is powerful enough to change your heart that is barren of good works into a heart of flesh able to give your life for your enemy..." (p. 397); "...God is the one who can draw life from the dead womb which is you, who are barren of good works."
  • "Jesus Christ did not come to give us a model of life, an example." This is almost a direct quote. Again from the approved edition: "Many people think that Jesus Christ came only to give us a more perfect law than the earlier one and, with his life and his death (especially his sufferings) to give us an example so that we can do the same. For these people, Jesus Christ is only an ideal, a model of life, an example. This is not the case" (p. 119).
  • "The Holy Spirit doesn't lead us to perfection." No mention of the Holy Spirit here, but this quote is illustrative: "For there is a kind of Christianity...in which what is most important is to be in a state of grace and to try not to lose this grace, to persevere, but all of this is understood in a static sense... This type of Christianity, in which one presents himself as perfect and sublime, turns people off. In fact, it is the opposite of Christianity, because Christians are not perfect...they know that they really are sinners... Deep down what are we all? Sinners and wretches" (p. 201).
  • "Christianism doesn't require anything from us." While I couldn't find any quotes in the Catechetical Guide itself, I can offer this revealing quote from one of the catechists I listened to on Night 4 of the initial catechesis: "You don't have to stop cheating on your wife. Your encounter with Christ will do it for you. He doesn't require you to change."
  • "God forgives freely the sins of those who believe that Jesus is the Savior." Almost a direct quote: "So, what great news can we announce? God forgives our sins and with his Holy Spirit makes us saints, children of God! And this gratis for anyone who recognizes and believes that Jesus is the One sent by the Father as his Savior" (p. 218).

So once again, a bit of cherry-picking on Moorhouse's part, but the core ideas he mentions are indeed all present. And all of the quotes I found are from the approved edition!


I believe that one of the most obvious signs of the children of light is their irrepressible merriment. I know many dear priests in the traditional movement who appear most of the time as if they are struggling to suppress a giggle that just keeps tenaciously refusing to be contained. These men are such a contrast to the apologists of the Way, who look for much of the time as if they have cod liver oil swilling round their back teeth. (Cult Fiction, p. 3)

Well, I've never met any priests like that, although most habited nuns I've met most certainly match that description. More than anything though, the Neocats I've met definitely match Moorhouse's delightful imagery of a grade-A sourpuss. Christian joy does not emanate from these people, and I recognized his assessment immediately. They can't contain their testimonies not because they're so elated about the saving power of God, but because they want to brag to you about how deplorable their lives were (are?).


The next few paragraphs deal with the Way's rejection of the Catholic doctrine of redemption, and subsequent others like Christ's sacrifice on the Cross and the sacrifice of the Mass. "Because we were not sufficiently catechized and had a very juridical theology," writes Kiko, "the Council responded by renewing theology. There was no more talk of the dogma of Redemption" (p. 67; in the approved edition [p. 61], this quote has been heavily watered down to read "the Second Vatican Council has renewed the theological approach to the dogma of Redemption...")

More interesting and apt than his analysis of the doctrines themselves, however, is Moorhouse's take on why Kiko rejects them, and why rejecting other doctrines naturally stems from the one:

As an ex-Protestant my ear may be better tuned than some cradle Catholics to spot these thought patterns. This depressing pessimistic view of man ("zero plus sin") was the starting point for Luther's neurotic creed. If you believe that man is so damaged by original sin that he is beyond all possibility and hope of reform, and that the very best therefore that God can do is "impute" holiness to him by throwing a veil over him, then of course you must reject the Catholic doctrine of redemption; you can't redeem that which is essentially ontologically unredeemable, i.e. "zero plus sin"! (Cult Fiction, p. 4)

Pessimistic misanthropy is not Catholic, plain and simple.


The next section is all about the Way's "False Tradition" and their incredibly skewed timeline of Church history. I learned more about this later on, for example from The Thoughtful Catholic, but this served as a good introduction.

There is much similarity between the Way's false concept of tradition and that of the Protestant reformers... The line of thinking goes something like this: the Holy Spirit was in the early Church, but somehow disappeared from the scene at some time. The Church then became corrupt or at least spiritually dead for centuries. However, fortuitously the Holy Spirit turned up again on my birthday, or at Vatican II, or on some other momentous occasion involving me, or with which I am personally empathetic, and now all can be restored to it [sic] original purity. (Cult Fiction, p. 4-5)

My mind was immediately drawn to Joseph Smith and the Mormons after reading that description, but really any "reformer" (or even better, "restorer") will do. And hey, they do call Carmen the "restorer of the Church"!

Moorhouse also makes the point that it's very easy to refute false tradition narratives like the Way's because, for instance, the canon of Scripture as we know it was finalized after the Pax Constantina (when the Way believes the lapse began). How can you be Bible-believing Christians when your Bible was compiled by a corrupt, paganized Church the Holy Spirit had (at least temporarily) abandoned?

I even asked my old Neocat pastor why his stupid little timeline (ok, I didn't phrase it that way at the time) left out entire centuries of Church history, like the Synod of Hippo or the Council of Carthage, which worked on the canon of Scripture. "Oh, well even at Trent they were discussing Scripture, you see, you can't be so narrow-minded." Well, there's no Trent on that timeline either. "We certainly don't have time to talk about everything!" So cavalier and dismissive. And so obviously without a leg to stand on.


The next section covers idolatry, again covered in more depth later by The Thoughtful Catholic. Of particular note here is Moorhouse's description of marriages:

The break up of marriages is a recurring theme in complaints against the Way. Because the Way mandates such a heavy commitment of time and energy this inescapably puts stress on many marriages, especially where one partner is involved with the Way and the other not. Any attempt to reduce one's time commitment to the Way to ease the strain on one's marriage will be met by the objection that you are making your marriage an "idol" by allowing it to come between you and God - whose will is always equated with the Way. (Cult Fiction, p. 5)

We know of marriages in our own lives and experiences that have been burdened in this way, and far more recently than twenty years ago.

Moorhouse contrasts this attitude with the example of St. Josemaría Escrivá and what he had to say about marriages, particularly within his own movement, Opus Dei. While Moorhouse does not provide any exact examples, we shall:

For the married members of Opus Dei, human love and marriage duties are part of their divine vocation... The purpose of marriage is to help married people sanctify themselves and others. For this reason, they receive a special grace in the sacrament which Jesus Christ instituted. Those who are called to the married state will, with the grace of God, find within their state everything they need to be holy, to identify themselves each day more with Jesus Christ, and to lead those with whom they live to God... Christian couples should be aware that...they are called to be apostles and that their first apostolate is in the home. They should understand that founding a family, educating their children, and exercising a Christian influence in society, are supernatural tasks. The effectiveness and the success of their life - their happiness - depends to a great extent on their awareness of their specific mission. But they mustn't forget that the secret of married happiness lies...in finding the hidden joy of coming home in the evening, in affectionate relations with their children, in the everyday work in which the whole family cooperates. (Conversations with St. Josemaría Escrivá, no. 91)

It's hard to imagine a deeper divide between "get to heaven by loving your wife and children" and "you won't get to heaven because you spend too much time with your wife and children."


The penultimate section briefly covers the Way's rejection of transubstantiation and the Real Presence. For my money, former Kikatechist Mark Alessio has one of the best brief introductions to this topic, and hopefully one day I'll be able to do a deeper dive of my own, as there's much to unpack.

Moorhouse really does not get into specifics and only touches on superficial points. The most noteworthy is probably this infamous Carmen quote that got fully removed from the approved edition of the Catechetical Guide:

Bread and wine are not meant to be displayed, because they spoil. Bread and wine are meant to be eaten and drunk... If Jesus Christ had wanted the Eucharist to stay there [in the tabernacle], he would have made himself present in a stone that doesn't go bad. (p. 329, unedited version)

Christ is not really present in the tabernacle or the monstrance, you see. Eucharistic adoration is just stupid. Jesus came as bread, not a rock, so he clearly didn't mean to be worshipped like that. (Incidentally, when I mentioned this passage to my old Neocat pastor, he laughed quite jovially and denied ever hearing such a ridiculous notion, as Carmen was well-known to attend Eucharistic adoration every day. This man was trained pre-2012, and thus pre- "approved edition," so he knew darn well what I was talking about and he almost assuredly lied straight to my face.)

It is not clear where Kiko and Carmen are getting these heretical ideas. One suspects that it is more likely to be such theologian[s] as Karl Rahner or Edward Schillebeeckx O.P. than the Protestant reformers. Or possibily lesser luminaries such as the Americans, Tad Guzie S.J. or Monika K. Hellwig, or from ex-priest Anthony Wilhelm's book, Christ Among Us. (Cult Fiction, p. 5-6)

Pedro Farnés is the modernist liturgist and theologian most closely associated with the Way. His disciple, Carmen, absorbed much of his thought into her own later teachings.

Without going down the mid-20th-century theology rabbit hole too deeply, Karl Rahner, S.J. is indeed often cited as one of the Way's major influences (along with Farnés and the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer). He even gets a very brief tangential mention by name in the Catechetical Guide, on page 379 of the approved edition. Of his Eucharistic theology, the Homiletic and Pastoral Review wrote: "It is also at least unclear in Rahner's thinking whether the Eucharist is the Real Presence of Christ, or merely a symbol or event of his presence active in the Church." This same ambiguity is abundant in the Way's teaching.

Schillebeeckx, of course, is famous for the idea of transignification, which says that the bread and wine take on the "real significance" of Christ's Body and Blood, and do not actually physically become Christ's Body and Blood. This idea was flatly rejected by Pope St. Paul VI in his 1965 encyclical, Mysterium Fidei (para. 11). Of course, transignification is not an outright rejection of the Real Presence, and you'll still see its brand of theological gymnastics on display today, such as in this piece from archmodernist Thomas Reese, S.J., where he plainly states, "I believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I just don't believe in transubstantiation."

Regarding the other three names, Moorhouse is right in calling them "lesser luminaries," as they're not ones that frequently come up in conversation. I honestly cannot speak to Kiko and Carmen's familiarity or lack thereof with these individuals. But, just for kicks, let's take a quick sampling at some of their thoughts on the Eucharist:

Guzie's notion of the Eucharist is best described as warmed-over Calvinism... For Guzie, the Eucharistic symbolism is thus a general statement about death, an ideal tied to no particular event or even ritual, but ever emergent in man's ongoing self-interpretation: all meals, if one will have it so, are Eucharists. (Donald Keefe, S.J., commenting on Tad Guzie's 1974 work, Jesus and the Eucharist)

Many of [Hellwig's] assertions are couched in studied ambiguity, but even under the guise of continued questioning and speculation, her views cannot fail to disturb Catholics... She states baldly, "What Jesus taught was in no way a code of behavior..." Giving vent to the more radical forms of liberation theology, she expresses far more concern for "the transubstantiation of the world about us" than for the Church's effort to maintain orthodox belief in the Eucharist via the doctrine of transubstantation. (James Likoudis, commenting on and quoting from Monika Hellwig's 1992 work, What Are the Theologians Saying Now?)

When we say that the bread and wine "become Christ," we are not saying that bread and wine are Christ... What we mean is that the bread and wine are a sign of Christ present, here and now, in a special way - not in a mere physical way, as if condensed into a wafer. (Anthony Wilhelm, from his 1967 work, Christ Among Us)

[For further reading, Regis Scanlon, O.F.M. Cap., even sums up Guzie, Hellwig, and Wilhelm in one cozy little paragraph (including the above Wilhelm quote) in this article on Eucharistic misconceptions.]

Obviously, all of the aforementioned individuals have problematic (or at best ambiguous) views about the Eucharist, and Moorhouse is superbly right in drawing their names to our attention, regardless of any explicit connections they may or may not have to the foundational theology of the Way.

So there you have it. All those canonised saints, all those thousands of holy monks and religious women, all those millions of faithful Catholics, who have spent hours on their knees every week for centuries adoring the Blessed Sacrament. They are all heretics adoring cookies! So much for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. (Cult Fiction, p. 6)

Poignant sarcasm at its finest.


The final brief section is on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Having personally sat through fourteen (some twenty-one hours) of the lectures of their catechists, I can personally testify that conspicuous by its complete absence was one single reference to the Catechism of the Catholic Church! (Cult Fiction, p. 6)

Oh, come now, Mr. Moorhouse. I sat through all those hours of catechesis, too, and I can testify there most certainly was one reference to the Catechism!

A current member has since written to assure me that the Catechism is now widely referred to within the movement and that the new constitution being forced on the movement by Rome has many references to the Catechism... Yet as late as 2002, over a decade after the Catechism was published, there was not one single reference to it in their lectures directed at outsiders. Even the occasional reference to it would of course still fall far short of the Holy Father's wish that future catechesis should be based upon it. (Cult Fiction, p. 6)

Are there many CCC references in the Way's approved catechetical guide? Yes, there are. That source was correct about that. Is it widely referred to within the movement? I seriously doubt it.

As I jested above, I did hear more references to the Catechism in the sessions I attended than Moorhouse did. But I don't remember hearing the first one until 12 sessions in (out of 15), and any more after that were passing mentions so rare and insignificant I don't even remember them. As Moorhouse says, even these few are not good enough. Even if the approved Catechetical Guide is now liberally sprinkled with CCC cross-references and footnotes, remember: nobody but the catechists see those! They can ignore every single reference the Vatican dropped in there, and absolutely no one will be the wiser. And after experiencing both, I can assure you this is exactly what happens.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is Kiko and Carmen's Achilles' heel. Bishops and priests would only need to mandate that they use it as the basis of their so-called catechesis, both in and outside their movement, and enforce that mandate strictly for them to either change beyond recognition or implode like a popped balloon. (Cult Fiction, p. 6)

Not a bad idea, but how exactly would such a thing be strictly enforced? What priests or bishops have the time and energy to devote to such a project - especially when there are Latin Masses to suppress? Even if such an attempt was made, the Neos are famously duplicitous, promising obedience and feigning deference with the full intention of going back into their "private Mass hidey-hole" and doing whatever the absolute hell they want anyway. So, I find this solution overly simplistic, despite its earnestness.


In Part 3, we'll look at the Liturgy.

For further reading in this series, see also Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9.

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