I present to you a collage of 40 different men--priests and seminarians--from around the United States. All of them belong to the Neocatechumenal Way. Their pictures are all readily available online from their parishes and seminaries, so before anyone goes crying foul about posting photos of private individuals, I'm not violating anyone's privacy. I won't list their names or where they come from. Maybe you recognize some of them. I certainly do.
You might notice that all of these men all sort of look alike. Yes, they come from different countries and ethnicities, and they're of varying ages, heights, weights, etc. But there's just a certain je ne sais quoi about their physical appearance that suggests they're all going for a particular "aesthetic." Wouldn't you agree?
You may not like it, but those priests and seminarians (and many more like them, including laymen) clearly know what peak performance looks like.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of Kiko, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to this? If Kiko is for us, who is against us?
We come now to one of the most detailed and (I think) revealing sections of Graham Moorhouse's work, wherein he details various aspects of the Neocatechumenal Way's sectarian tendencies.
The Way's cultishness is on display even in their preferred moniker, says Moorhouse. They are the Way: not a Way, not the Neocatechumenal Way, but the Way (see p. 14). When you understand that both Jesus Christ and the early Church referred to themselves this way, you begin to see the striking hubris.
Of course, addressing the Way as a sect or a cult is not exactly covering new ground. We've done it explicitly here on this blog, and others have made excellent analyses, as well (such as this piece from The Thoughtful Catholic, among many others). Let us still take a look, though, at Moorhouse's perspective. There are many good quotes in this section, so we'll have to do a bit of picking and choosing to avoid writing a(nother) novella.
This section contains some of the most jarring statements in the entire piece. I will explain why they are so jarring shortly. Here is one of them:
Once the Way is established in a parish it will also in time insist on taking over all catechesis: RCIA, baptism, confirmation, marriage and anything else you like to think of. (Cult Fiction, p. 15)
The reason this short sentence hit me so hard is because I watched this phenomenon happen in real time in my own parish. When I first read Cult Fiction, I was almost entirely ignorant regarding what the Way actually was. I knew it existed in my parish, I knew it was largely mysterious, and I knew that despite being approved by Rome, it had some people suspicious. I had to do some serious searching before I came across Cult Fiction, and I was thrilled to find such an in-depth critical analysis. I was, of course, horrified at what I read up until now, but it was the kind of horrified you might feel reading a horror novel--you're being exposed to shocking and terrible things, but they're only ideas on a page, not actual realities. Once I began to recognize my own parish in Moorhouse's writing--right about at this point--I knew I really needed to start paying attention and digging deeper.
To wit, the baptism class for my first child was taken before the Neocat takeover, and was run by a very nice, very knowledgeable couple. It wasn't the most inspiring class in the world, but it was tolerable. The baptism class for my second child was run by a Neocat couple, and the difference was night and day. They were extremely ignorant, extremely unconfident and under-prepared, and had very little to say about the actual sacrament of baptism. But they were the ones the pastor designated to educate the parents and godparents about the spiritual reality awaiting their children.
A Franciscan friar...would preach and seek to lead one to a radical conversion to Christ, but the need to become a Franciscan is not part of the deal. Opus Dei can and indeed do organize splendid retreats, but it is not part of the package that you become a card-carrying member of Opus Dei. But even its proselytizing the Way reveals its institutionalized chronic lack of integrity. When they come into a parish they are forbidden to tell the truth about why they are there, i.e., they don't say we are here to try and form a cell of the Neocatechumenate Way, they deliberately hide their true intention behind the facade of feigning to offer adult catechesis. (Cult Fiction, p. 15)
Here is the second jarring passage. This one struck me not only because I immediately recognized the "recruitment program disguised as adult catechesis," which I had been told about by some unwitting attendees (and have since attended for myself), but also because I realized the lack of transparency and integrity was acutely spot on. There is no single approach to spirituality, and there are many traditions in the Church, and many practitioners of those traditions who are more than happy to share them with you for the enrichment of your relationship with our Blessed Lord. In my own life, for example, I wear the blue scapular and am a member of its confraternity. However, I also have a strong devotion to St. Thérèse and her "Little Way." I completed the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Some of my favorite spiritual reading comes from St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori. All of this amounts to a composite of different spiritual disciplines which I have found helpful in my own life, though I have never felt compelled to call myself a Marian, or an Ignatian, or a Carmelite, or anything else other than a Catholic. Equally, I am happy to embrace spiritual kinship with other Catholics whose spiritual journeys have taken them down far different paths.
The Way, however, does not introduce itself as simply one spiritual path among many - it is, after all, the Way. It recruits you to its ranks without ever explicitly telling you that's what it's doing. And then, once recruited, you begin to learn that all else is so dramatically unwelcome... which brings us once again back to the overall theme of sectarianism. Even without knowing all the details, I knew that this duplicity was a major red flag, and reading a decade-plus-old confirmation was truly both enlightening and deeply unsettling.
Moorhouse then addresses the "internal jargon" of the Neocatechumenal sect. Articles from other sources (like this one, for example) are probably more revealing in that department, but Moorhouse nonetheless highlights an interesting detail.
He reports the startling fact that, apparently, Neocatechumenal community members used to refer to "other" parishioners quite openly as pagans. This stopped - abruptly and militantly - around the year 1990, although the undergirding theology that fueled the terminology certainly did not. I have not seen or heard anything that confirms or denies this particular practice, or the date(s) associated with it, but the supporting theology is indeed still present.
I know a man who, along with his wife, very briefly was a member of a Neocatechumenal community. One Sunday after Mass (because they never fully committed to Saturdays only), the pastor gleefully pulled him aside and remarked how glad he was that they finally joined. "The rest of these" (gesturing to everyone else at Sunday Mass) "don't know what it means to be a real Catholic."
Moorhouse also reports cases he's heard of Way leadership
arguing that when a member's marriage is on the rocks as a result of their involvement with the Neocatechumenate Way, he or she should seek an annulment from their Catholic partner on the basis of the Pauline Privilege. The Pauline Privilege is the doctrine that when one party in a pagan [unbaptized] marriage becomes Catholic, if the pagan [unbaptized] party seeks to restrict their practice of their new faith, the marriage may be dissolved by the Church in favor of a marriage with a baptized person. (Cult Fiction, p. 15)
Yikes.
Moorhouse next addresses the "adulation of the Founder" as an indicator of the Way's sectarian nature.
He largely discusses, without naming it, the "New Aesthetic," wherein everything must be "Kikified" and have a distinctly Neocat flavor--from the chalice to the music to the liturgy itself. (Both we and The Thoughtful Catholic have delineated this in more detail).
He also makes this observation, which, after having sat through the baptism class mentioned above, hit yet another stunningly accurate personal chord:
Kiko's writings, while kept strictly secret from outsiders, are treated as if they were sacred texts inside the Way...
Even their catechesis is clearly by rote, carrying out Kiko's or Carmen's instructions to the letter. This is given away by the fact that their apologists, who work in small teams, frequently turn to one another for prompting and will quietly interject if someone has forgotten something that was in the script. (Cult Fiction, p. 15-16)
This small detail probably goes unnoticed by a great many people. But once you know to look for it, you see it all the time. I first read this and remembered, "Wow, that's exactly how the couple running baptism class behaved. No wonder I thought it was weird." Then, when I attended the initial catechesis, it happened countless times a night. They were always so proud to tell you, though, they weren't on any kind of script, and that the catechesis is a "spontaneous outpouring of the Spirit." I called them out on this lie to their faces. Masters of deflection that they are, they argued with me about many other things, but never actually denied my charges.
Moorhouse also reports how one ex-member related to him the experience of seeing Kiko in person:
[He] would swagger into the room dressed dramatically all in black and then rant like a demagogue. (Cult Fiction, p. 16)
There are numerous videos out there of Kiko's public appearances that illustrate this very description.
Although Moorhouse makes a passing reference Kiko's highly exalted status, comparing him to the Mormons' "latter-day prophet" Joseph Smith, that rabbit hole goes quite a bit deeper. From being explicitly called a prophet by his followers, to the messianic symbolism in his own signature, the worship (literally, the cult) of Kiko is staggering in both its breadth and its openness. It's difficult to fathom how anyone paying even a little bit of attention can't see it for what it is.
The Way offers a unique promise of salvation. They are, you see, the true Church. "Members of the Way are promised salvation by accepting the Way as a style of life that's unique and clearly for a privileged few," writes Moorhouse. The "privileged few," of course, take the form of the innermost circle of Gnosticism, as we have discussed at length in the past.
More importantly, perhaps,
Members of the Neocatechumenate often feel persecuted and they demonize those who don't belong. Sects typically demonize those who don't think like they do, because they need to create an external enemy (a scapegoat) on which they target all their individual fears and anxieties and justify their own very strange ring-fenced existence. (Cult Fiction, p. 16)
Remember, you will have your Judas. Those opposed to the Way actively want to kill you. They will do whatever they can to stop you. They are pagans. They aren't real Christians. They're potentially your idols. Outsiders are the enemy. Who else thinks like this other than paranoid cultists?
Moorhouse makes the point that one should not doubt the sincerity of those who testify that their lives have been turned around by the Way and that they have experienced a profound conversion. However, he says:
One cannot make the simplistic presumption that the grace of moral conversion equals orthodox Catholicism. (Cult Fiction, p. 16)
This is absolutely true, and it is a point which we have also covered in some depth.
He then goes on to say that while many lives may indeed be better, there are just as many, if not more lives that become deeply wounded by the Way--a fact which Neocatechumenal apologists will never mention, and would likely actually deny.
While these wounds come in many forms--indeed, most of the testimonies we and other blogs cover are those of the wounded--Moorhouse explains one aspect of this woundedness in this way:
Consider the example of a child who from an early age has been repeatedly told by authority figures and significant others in its life that it is worthless. It doesn't matter how aware in adult life they are at the conscious level that this is untrue, the wound, the "feeling" at the sub-conscious level that they are worthless, may well dog them for the rest of their lives. (Cult Fiction, p. 16)
When members of the Way are told repeatedly that they are filthy, rotten sinners; or that the world is literally out to get them; or when they are viciously set upon by those in their deepest circles of confidence, they can be left with deep psychological scars that take years, even decades to fully heal. Many testimonies we read often involve long periods of therapy and counseling to help combat the damage the Way has done. In some tragic instances, those who leave the Way end up leaving the Catholic faith and religion altogether, falsely believing that "this is just how all religion is" and justifiably conclude from that belief that they want no further part in it. Many, many individuals who have come out of cults--from Scientology, to Fundamentalist Mormonism, to the Westboro Baptist Church, to more obscure and esoteric groups--live their lives today as outspoken atheists.
In the penultimate section, we will look at why the Way is so successful in gaining new members and devotees, and see if Moorhouse's twenty-year-old assessment remains accurate for recruiting today.
Here at The American Way, we like to keep track of the Neo priests serving our parishes (see here for more details). As we near the end of Easter, we come also once again to ordination season, which means around the country new men are being consecrated to serve Christ and his Church in the ministerial priesthood.
As far as we can tell, among these are nine new faces from the Neocatechumenal Way's Redemptoris Mater seminaries, so we take what we anticipate to be a yearly opportunity to update both our roster and you, the discerning Catholic in the pew.
Ordained this past week were Fr. Patricio Chuquimarca (Denver) and Fr. Saul Araujo (Miami).
To be ordained this coming weekend are Jose Ignacio Montero Burgos (Boston), Juan Esteban Rojas (Dallas), and Wesly Taveras Medina (Philadelphia). Ricardo Batista Comim will also become the first RMS ordinand for the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The following week, they will be joined by Frenel Phanord (Newark). Then, in mid-June, the class will be rounded out by Juan Pablo Noboa and Pablo Villa, both from the Archdiocese of Washington.
Please pray for these newly ordained and soon-to-be ordained men, that the Lord will give them strength and grace in their vocation. Lord, grant us many holy priests!
If you know of any other Neocatechumenal priests in your area, whether newly ordained, long established, or anywhere in between, please let us know so we can add their names to our directory.
Very recently, I had the opportunity to attend Mass with a group of "breakaway" Catholics. I call them that because while the Mass they celebrate is valid, and is celebrated by a priest in good standing with my diocese, they are not part of any parish. To the contrary, they deliberately broke away from their old parish over 50 years ago, choosing instead to share facilities with a Presbyterian church. This same church also houses the local chapter of Dignity, a pro-gay Catholic group that has (at least in some dioceses) been forbidden due to its explicit rejection of certain Church teachings.
These breakaways are a true and living testament to all that is "Spirit of Vatican II" progressivism, and they would be very proud to tell you so themselves, as well.
Let me tell you a little bit about their Mass.
Being held in a Presbyterian church, obviously, the setup is different from a typical Catholic Mass. The pews are arranged in a very modern "peninsula" style, set up on three sides of a very centrally arranged altar. But of course, there is no altar - simply a makeshift table that is set up in the "sanctuary" space and will be broken down and removed after Mass. There is no tabernacle. For the Liturgy of the Word, a lectern is placed directly in front of the altar table and then is moved away to the side for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. There are also no kneelers. The people all stand during the typical "kneeling parts" of Mass, except for after Communion when they sit.
Before Mass began, a laywoman from the community got up to give everyone a summary of the day's readings and a very brief exhortation on how to live them out.
Despite all coming from a CD (they don't have any live music), the hymns were very peppy. The recessional hymn even included a couple of lively sax solos! They made sure to play each track to its completion, as well--no stopping in the middle, even if the Mass is clearly ready to proceed.
There was no Creed at this Mass, neither Apostles nor Nicene. Instead, as frequently occurs during Easter season Masses in the Novus Ordo, the profession of faith was made as a renewal of baptismal promises accompanied by a sprinkling rite. Only, with this particular community, those baptismal promises don't take the form of rejecting Satan and all his works and empty promises, believing in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or anything else you might consider "credal." Instead, the profession of their Christian faith sounded like this:
"As a people called to life and peace, we reject all that causes human hurt and destruction to self and others, physically, mentally, and spiritually. As a people called to community and love, we reject making idols of class, wealth, power or position. As a people called to reconciliation and unity, we reject imposing our ways on others, as individuals, as church, and as nation. As a people called to live in Christ, we reject all that leads to the indifferences and injustices in our world. We accept the responsibility an challenges of our faith to create a world of love, of respect, and support for all."
I'll let you judge for yourselves how worthy a replacement that is for the norm.
The priest celebrating Mass was a retired Jesuit. His homily largely centered around how before Vatican II, the mission of the Church was entirely entrusted to priests and nuns. They knew everything, they did everything, and all the laity was expected to do was shut up, listen, and do as instructed. Drawing from the day's reading from Peter, he said the "spiritual house" built only by the "stones" of priests and nuns was pretty small and uninspiring. Then, the beautiful miracle of Vatican II came along and said "No, no, the mission of the Church is for everyone." And a lot of old frumpy traditionalists didn't like that, but the young people totally embraced it and got with the new program right away. And now, thanks to people like those in this community, the Church is much bigger and better thanks to the mission of the laity. And he, as a priest, is delighted that basically, all he has to do now is "show up."
After the prayers of the faithful were read, everyone was given the opportunity to shout out their own prayers and intentions. One very enlightened woman prayed that the Church will finally see fit to ordain women deacons.
In response to the Orate Fratres, the people do not reply "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands," but rather "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at our hands." Only fitting, you see. Remember, all the priest has to do is show up. We're all priests, after all. (Amazing how so many people are well-versed in the first part of Lumen Gentium 10, but conveniently ignore the second part.)
For the Ecce Agnus Dei, the priest and the three women serving as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion elevated the consecrated species! Then they all took turns breaking the bread (a large, leavened homemade loaf, by the way).
The people self-communicate. I'm not even sure the priest says "the Body of Christ." He just holds a paten (made of glass) out like a serving tray and people come along and help themselves to a Morsel. Then, the Precious Blood has been divided into individual shot glasses (again made of glass) which are again held on a serving tray with no remark about "the Blood of Christ." The people down their shots, and then deposit their used glassware into a nearby bucket of ice water. What ultimately becomes of these glasses, the water, and the buckets (one for each side of the church, mind you), and anything else to which lingering droplets of Precious Blood may still be clinging? Your guess is as good as mine.
Mass concludes, after the sax-heavy recessional hymn mentioned above, with a warm round of applause.
Now, why am I telling you all this?
This kind of modernist dreck is lifted straight from the 60s and 70s and hasn't really changed much since then. It's boring, it's asinine, it's horizontal, it's navel-gazing, and it has nothing to do with actual Catholicism and the worship due to Almighty God.
And except for the direction of the political leanings, it's pretty much exactly what the Neocatechumenal Way does.
Consider: no altar, no tabernacle, no kneelers, a priesthood of believers with merely a "celebrant" or "figurehead," and Mass more or less in the round.
Consider: loud, peppy music that is played and full, regardless of the needs of the liturgy.
Consider: a rejection of the Nicene Creed, whether outright or simply doctrinally softened.
Consider: a sneering rejection of the pre-conciliar Church, and a celebration of how much more "real" and "authentic" the Church has become since the Council.
Consider: Self-communion with homemade leavened bread, with little or no thought given to stray Particles or Droplets.
Consider: a community that comes together to celebrate itself, its values, and its activities; a community that believes it has done right by separating itself from the parish(es) to which it formerly belonged.
Consider: if a born-and-raised Neocat were to leave his community and, for the first time in his life attend a Mass other than his usual Saturday evening Eucharist: do you suppose he'd feel more at home at a "regular" Novus Ordo at the local Catholic church, or at the Mass which I just described?
I think the answer is obvious.
The two communities are liturgical stepsisters, cut from the same heretical modernist cloth. But the Way encourages large families and shows up at pro-life rallies, while members of this other community are rabid pro-choice feminists. The Way aggressively recruits (excuse me, "evangelizes") while the other community is very content in its self-containment. Members of the Way will bemoan the waywardness of the German bishops (as a priest privately did in one conversation I had with him), while the other community likely celebrates them as heroes. Et cetera.
And because of all that, the Way is celebrated and embraced as a beautiful movement in the springtime of the New Evangelization, and communities like this other one are sidelined, privately shunned, and largely ignored. The Way opens seminaries all over the world and ordains hundreds of priests, and this other community scrounges for whatever retired boomer priest can make time in his schedule. The Way is given a free pass for endless liturgical shenanigans, while practically the exact same abuses are being committed behind the closed doors of Protestant churches because they're no longer welcome in the Catholic ones.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but votes pro-life, is it a chicken?
In this section of Cult Fiction, we look at a brief synopsis of four particular elements of the Neocatechumenal Way's methodology.
The first of these elements is the convivence. "Convivence" is an English Neocat neologism that comes from the Spanish "convivencia," itself derived from the verb "convivir," which means to live together, cohabitate, or coexist. Convivences are actually a regular part of life in the Way, but in this section, Moorhouse is drawing attention specifically to the initial convivence. This occurs over a weekend (usually Friday evening to Sunday evening) following the fifteen sessions of introductory catechesis. At the end of this weekend, attendees will be divided up to form new small communities. Moorhouse calls this experience:
...a crescendo of feelings and new experiences that is designed to trigger something in you to become very deeply and incisively involved, not in your parish, nor in the Church, but in the Way. (Cult Fiction, p. 13)
While I did personally attend the initial catechesis, I was unable to attend the convivence due to a scheduling conflict. A friend of mine attempted to attend - signed up, showed up at the hotel suitcase in hand, totally ready to go - but was ultimately turned away. He was told he was not welcome. And here he had been told that God had a word for him and absolutely needed him to clear his schedule to come on this retreat! I guess God changed his mind. Or lied.
In the catechesis sessions leading up to the convivence, we were told that the estimated cost for the weekend would be about $300. For a two-night hotel stay with included meals, that's actually not horrible. However, we were also encouraged not to let money get in the way of God's call (it begins early, you see), so even if we couldn't afford it, we should still make an effort to come. I have heard (but cannot confirm) that the money to actually pay for these people does not necessarily come from the Way's own coffers, but will be guilted out of other paying attendees. "This is your brother in Christ, you need to look out for him!" Or some such drivel. I have also heard that the Way has a notorious habit of welching on their hotel bills at large, and are often horrible guests. Thus, they rarely will use the same hotel for consecutive events.
The entire "script" for the convivence weekend can be found in the Catechetical Guide, pages 297-404 in the approved English edition.
The next methodological step Moorhouse looks at is the First Scrutiny. This is another convivence weekend that occurs about two years into one's journey on the Way.
The First Scrutiny, including a full weekend itinerary, is also splendidly covered in a two-part series over on The Thoughtful Catholic (Part 1, Part 2).
One detail about the Scrutiny experience that Moorhouse mentions that The Thoughtful Catholic does not is this:
The catechists "invite" you to donate something personal, something you are particularly attached to, to someone who would neither know who donated it or where it came from. (Cult Fiction, p. 13)
This invitation (which Moorhouse rightly puts in scare quotes, because it is much more likely a thinly veiled command) likely comes as part of the Questionnaire on Idols, which puts a large focus on material wealth (as well as personal relationships, but you can learn more about that element from The Thoughtful Catholic).
Now, of course there is nothing wrong with anonymous charity. Our Lord, in fact, expressly encourages it. Freeing oneself from earthly attachments is also of paramount importance to the Christian life. Great saints (such as St. Anthony) have been moved to rigorous asceticism after hearing Christ's exhortation to the rich young man in the Gospel of Matthew. Superficially, then, there is nothing at all untoward about this invitation from the Way's catechists.
The problems ultimately stem from the Way's understanding of what constitutes "idolatry" and what one is to do to root it out. Again, we encourage you to check out The Thoughtful Catholic's treatment on the First Scrutiny linked above to see more precisely what this means.
Moorhouse concludes by saying:
Many quit at this point. But the catechists reassure the ones who stay by pandering to their egos, "not everyone is called to be salt and light. The Lord has invited you." One thus takes on the identity of a saved one, one of their Gnostic elite, who feels special to be one who is on a mission for the Church, to which not everyone is called. Subtly, the noose has begun to tighten. (Cult Fiction, p. 13)
Following the First Scrutiny, we then proceed to look at the Second Scrutiny.
Again, The Thoughtful Catholic covers this same topic in much more depth, this time in a six-part series. Reading through both accounts--one written in the UK in the early 2000s, the other written in Guam over a decade later--really gives an eye-opening perspective to the truth of it all.
It should be noted in passing that secular psychologists have been using similar techniques of group psycho-babble for thirty years. But such techniques in the secular world have been largely abandoned, even by those who pioneered them, because they have had the integrity to face up to the appalling and lasting damage that can be done to people by such methods and group dynamics. (Cult Fiction, p. 14)
The Way, very much a product of the 60s and 70s, continues unapologetically in psychological trends that have since been abandoned, even by the pioneers of those trends. Now, I'm certainly no expert in psychology, especially trends and passing fads in pop psychology. So I can't really confirm or deny the claim that secular psychology has largely abandoned and denounced the kind of methods and tactics still employed by the Way. However, the Second Scrutiny is meant to serve a very particular purpose that has absolutely nothing to do with personal improvement or salvation, so it's not like Kiko & Company care, regardless.
Finally, Moorhouse discusses tithing. Tithing, of course, is a very noble practice and Canon 222 even obliges the faithful to "assist with the needs of the Church." Of course, this assistance comes in more forms than simply financial, and a strict tithe of 10% of one's income has never been mandated by the Church. (For a couple additional perspectives on tithing, see here and here.)
Tithing in the Way, of course, looks different.
Note that one is not instructed to give ten percent of one's income to charity, or to the Church, but direct to the Way... The Way publishes no accounts, so you have no means of knowing what happens to your money. Any enquiry will be met with the objection that clearly money is for you yet another of those (you've guessed it) "idols." (Cult Fiction, p. 14)
All money directly to the Way, with the demanded trust that you simply let them handle it. No financial transparency whatsoever; and if such is requested, you'll just be accused of idolizing money.
Moorhouse goes on to describe a particularly odious financial scam. I have not heard this particular scam detailed anywhere else but in this account, but it in no way seems out of character for the types of individuals running it.
Say just for argument that you are among thirty new members at a Neocatechumenal gathering. The leaders announce a collection for some ostensibly worthy cause and urge you to be generous. You put a ten pound note in the collection. Feeling that you may have been a little more generous than most, you anticipate that when the collection is counted it will have raised between £200 and £300. Imagine your surprise then when the final sum is announced and that it is in excess of £3000! Everyone in the room assumes that he must have been exceptionally mean as everyone else must have contributed an average of at least £100! The effect of this is to put enormous pressure on you next time there is a collection to contribute a good deal more than that "miserly" £10.
However, what has actually happened is that the leaders have drawn some £3000 out of some central fund and covertly added it to the collection...
That this scam is ordered from the top cannot be doubted. How else account for reports of it from ex-members as geographically dispersed as the West Country of England and Rome! One ex-member in Rome recounted how the first time she realized what was going on was when she herself was asked to help organize this scam... She protested to a Neocatechumenal priest (sorry "presbyter") present. His advice to this scandalized soul was not to be so judgmental! (Cult Fiction, p. 14)
More generally, his point about the geographical diversity of common stories has proven in my own experience to be exceptionally proving. I have seen stories from Guam, the UK, Italy, Spain, Peru, Japan, Denmark, Australia, the United States, and other places, and the same common threads return every time. With something that widespread, you can't just dismiss stories as community anomalies or individual abuses. It's clearly an institutional thing. Not only that, but these stories are distributed across the course of many years, as well as miles. So the problems are also consistent, and do not get dealt with and go away.
The biggest focus of this section of Cult Fiction is the two scrutinies, which admittedly are the two sections we spent the least amount of time looking at in this article. This is because the analysis of these two events has already been done elsewhere with both depth and quality. By directing you to those other places (as much as we appreciate the clicks), we hope to better illustrate the truth behind Moorhouse's writing, which has been the primary objective behind this current series.
In the next section, we look at the intriguing and often-controversial "Charge of Sectarianism."
The following is an adapted translation of a recent Osservatorio article. Be sure to check out the original for additional links and endnotes.
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Who among us that have walked the Way does not remember the instructions of the catechists on how to continue the Way, once the community is born after the initial catechesis?
The catechists recommend being oneself, free from inhibitions and hypocrisy, in order to bring out the "old man" who "goes to be destroyed in the baptismal font so that the new creature can be born."
And one may think that at the beginning, that might even be true!
Especially since the catechists reiterate to you, with the words of Kiko in the First Scrutiny Convivence, about three years after the initial catechesis:
Now we are preparing you for a rite in which you are given the faith, a beginning of faith so that you can begin the Way. Up to now you have had a period of adjustment, a trial, if you want. We have not yet begun the Way seriously. We are tired of triumphalism, of saying that we are Christians. There is a need to walk more slowly. There is a need to experience this catechumenal journey after many crises - to complain about brothers who criticize you; to realize your reality, your ideals of community, of people who love each other, etc., will fall apart. (Guidelines for the First Scrutiny, 1986, p. 98-99)
And at the Traditio, after about ten years, Kiko is even more explicit and virulent:
We have to live a dull, stupid life, "How we all love each other, how good we are here listening to the Word of God, charity is exquisite..." But that's bullshit! What are you saying? Is this Christianity? "Here there is charity, there is communion!" Some after so many years have still not understood anything. (Traditio Symboli, 1982, p. 109)
Therefore we are not surprised if the testimonies tell us, and we ourselves are witnesses, that normally in all the communities of the Way - according to what we learn from the brothers in other communities in other parishes, cities, or countries, as well as our own - this state of litigiousness and loss of respect for the dignity of others and attention to others' privacy, is not limited to the first period of the Neocatechumenal small community's life cycle, during which hypocrisy and social rituals are put aside when getting to know one another. Instead, it becomes a perennial sad status.
On superficial examination, it is not really clear why the community continues to live so long that it ends up exhausted by such torment. This is certainly not the Christian community!
Nor is it what is promised from the first Neocatechumenal catecheses. In fact, in the drawing from the initial catechesis [pictured below], we see a ladder that descends (kenosis) to the waters of Baptism but then goes back up to build the new man. But, when the journey is over and beyond, in the Kikian itinerary there is no ascent. No asceticism is contemplated. No one ever goes back up.
You wait and wait in vain. And time passes... What we can say from experience is that, at a certain point, as if by magic, everything is suddenly suffocated and buried. The nail in the coffin that puts an end to the whole shebang - to so much imposed sincerity, to so many quarrels, to the rags flown together with the famous chairs of the exhausting monthly convivences of the eternal Neocatechumenal redde rationem - is the diktat: "You must NEVER judge."
This imperious command suddenly and unpredictably falls upon so much confusion, and silence falls all around, as always, when the mega-super-catechists speak (especially the itinerant ones).
Not even the shadow of a new nature (as said, asceticism is not there), amid flaying scrutinies, mud smeared on the eyes, the Redditio where you compete to see who can talk the biggest, and so much else over the years.
It's all based on eternal self-repression and violence. But then the grudges sharpen, the long training of the brothers in the community to fire the truth in each other's faces, which lasts for years and gains the upper hand, and the communities experience an eternal unease, a daily discontent. Malice spreads, even mutual distrust. Judgments are no longer expressed, but they are all there and explode in not-so-subtle jealousies and envies.
It must be said that, in this utopia of being able to truly be oneself only in interaction with the group, the Way reveals its belonging to a specific period, that of collectives, social centers, and group therapies.
However, instead of elevating the imagination to power, in the Neocatechumenal communities the design is to adhere to a predefined model, so much so that, in the end, having seen one Neocatechumenal community, you've seen them all. If truly everyone could express themselves freely, in the end they would be very different from one another, just as individual personalities are different.
Instead, the Neocatechumenal conformism is asphyxiating. The communities are seemingly left alone (in reality the catechists constantly monitor them through the manu longa of the responsibles) but in the end there is only one model that is rewarded, the pre-established one.
The first years of the Way are dedicated entirely to deconstructing what Catholics think a community of believers should be: peaceful, serene, respecting others with understanding and dialogue, etc. Valorization of individual qualities is branded as hypocrisy, Each charitable or simply recreational initiative is immediately discouraged and postponed to an indefinite future, when you will be a true Christian, "re-born" and therefore free.
Now you must not create interference or nuisances to the "spirit of the Way," which is the conversion aimed at the Neocatechumenal evangelization. Did the Way save you? You must bring this, sent by Kiko to the "distant ones," but also to the "Sunday Christians" of the parishes who want to get serious like you.
All the rest is just distraction... from the devil.
Meanwhile, the quarrels and the settling of accounts in front of everyone are even institutionalized. In the end, the result is always the same: because there isn't a confrontation of opinions from which something new, positive, and constructive can arise (and even the resonances are an example of how, on the Way, we always talk to ourselves and don't look for comparison), there are only emotional storms, ends in themselves.
Since the catechists (ever-present, like the directors in the Big Brother House) reward the personalities and ideas that adhere to Kiko's model, as well as obviously making blatant nepotism for their own children compared to the others, after some time whoever has different ideas changes them or learns to keep them to himself, and whoever persists in manifesting them openly (and it takes a lot of courage) will sooner or later leave or be kicked out.
They also give you the illusion, with the election of the catechists of your community, that something depends on you (this election is preceded by a "monition" in which they tell you that you must take into account the "degree of conversion" of the brother you want to become a catechist: "degree of conversion," they will make you understand clearly, commensurate with "fidelity to the Way" and the "spirit of the Way" given in the teachings, and total alignment to "obedience to Kiko and Carmen"). The truth is that these "elected" catechists - when proven facts do not fall within the given canons - can, at any time, be removed by your own catechists, who are the leaders of the Way in your parish.
Yet they make you invoke the Holy Spirit before the vote, a farce within a farce! Therefore, the most loved responsibles, those who have been voted by the brothers because they are objectively better and more adept people, are replaced by yes men, or by those who are more conformist, more rigid, and less sympathetic. The community crystallizes and shrivels up, becoming what was always wanted from the beginning, that is, an obedient cell of Kiko's body.
In a terrifying WhatsApp message, the catechists stigmatized the fact that, in times of lockdown due to a certain virus, one could participate in meetings on digital platforms with communities that are not one's own, or even that one could meet to pray within the same community outside the established "celebrations" and preparation groups. Why? Because nothing must escape the predetermined ritual, so that nothing new is established, not even if it is positive and appreciated - indeed, especially if it is positive and appreciated! Likewise, in normal times, excursions and social activities that do not lead to convivences and pilgrimages foreseen and organized from above are prohibited, or in any case strongly discouraged.
In the long run, this "educational system," in addition to promoting depression and a drop in self-esteem, shapes aggressive, illogical, and imposing personalities, untrained in self-criticism; it forms them and, as long as they are on the Way, somehow justifies and supports them.
This is why for some, it is impossible to get out - not so much from the Way itself, but from what, learned in the Way, now seems to be part of one's personality: the typical cases to which one can say, "you are proof that a person can get out of the Way, but you can't get the Way out of the person."
To obtain these "beautiful" results there is a need to maintain a climate of pressure in the community: pressure of the tithe; of visits from catechists; of multiple commitments, meetings, and a thousand obligations toward the brothers; to which is added this continual internal conflict, foreseen and fueled by the catechists, according to the ancient strategy of divide et impera.
Without this division between members of the community due to extrinsic causes - i.e., the pressure from outside, the mini-hierarchy within the same community that continually creates disagreements, the impossibility of having clarity on financial management - the community group would find its own internal harmony, but above all its own autonomy from the catechists.
Here, this blessed balance is seen as a misfortune, and we are actively working to undermine it. Kiko himself always devotes a portion of his invectives to thundering against being bourgeois and settled, and every year there is some initiative to bring 'movement,' which usually translates to anxiety, which then generates insecurity and internal conflict.
An example of this was the thought of the "communities in mission" in Rome, which involved the uprooting of the older communities (therefore also of the oldest people) from their own parishes to move to others. We have no evidence of how this migration ended up - perhaps in nothing - but in the meantime it has had the desired effects: big buzzwords outside and big annoyances inside, with divisions between the more and less Taliban, between those who say yes and then find all the loopholes, and those who harbor grudges for the usual hypocritical top class, etc., and the re-emergence of old grudges.
Absurdly, the forced blocking of all community activities due to lockdowns had favorable implications for the serenity of souls and also for the horizontal union between brothers: the real tyrant was represented by the emergency legislation, and it is completely useless to bombard people asking them for proto-Christian heroism! Many in that period rediscovered the peace and balance they had been denied for years, and the Way's pot, for a while, had mercifully stopped boiling.
In short, these dynamics are well represented by the pot that boils and simmers and always risks overflowing; this ensures that the small Neocatechumenal community can never be freed from catechists, guarantors, censors, godfathers, didactics, responsibles - from that long chain, that is, with which the controlled are their own controllers, according to the model of the "best" detention camps.
