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.
For other reading in this series, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 9.
(The cover image for this article features a modern Russian cult leader named "Vissarion." You can watch a short documentary about him here.)
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