The new sectarianism

I was looking through my latest issue of The Latin Mass magazine today. There was an insightful article by Edwin Faust called "Sects Appeal." I thought a few quotes were worth sharing, for every church is in a similar situation in regards to a new sectarian spirit.

"Now, when we look at the legacy of these past 40 years, we have to take into account, along with the cor­ruption of morals and doctrine, the balkanization of the Church. There has arisen, almost without notice and certainly without much com­ment, a collection of churches within the Church. Sects, if you will. We have the Charismatic Renewal, the Neo-Catechumenal Way, Foccolare, New Ways Ministry, WomenChurch, Call to Action, Tradition, Family and Property, the devotees of Bayside and Medjugorje and of other seers and apparitions. The Church is also awash in healers, many of whom travel the parish circuit laying on hands and stirring up emotions. And EWTN has provided us with televangelists, most of them "converted" Protestant ministers who somehow failed to leave the pulpit." . . .

"Every sect, whether it finds its provenance in the Catholic Church or in a Protestant setting, is always marked at the beginning by the desire of its members to know God in as intimate a way as possible, and it is this very com­mendable desire that tends to separate them from the main body of believ­ers who are content with a less vivid experience of religion." . . .

"The most prominent and universal mark of the sectarian is what Monsignor Ronald Knox in his monumental work Enthusiasm calls ultrasupernaturalism. It is possible for a man to think too much about God and too little about himself. The sectarian is prone to become impatient with the foibles of human nature and to distrust his own faculties of intellect and will. His desire for Divine instruc­tion often leads him to believe that he is in receipt of special communications and directives that come from God without the aid of any intermediary, such as the Church, its hierar­chy and its sacraments, or even his own God-given reason. He may begin to value his private inspirations more than codified morality and prescribed worship, and should there be a conflict, his prejudice is with the inner light, which is not his, but God's. Ironically, in trying to bypass human intermediaries, he has in effect deified what may well be only his own thoughts and impulses." . . .

"Some years ago, I wrote a little essay titled, 'The Pope as Guru' in which I cautioned against what appeared to me a personality cult forming around the late John Paul II. There seemed to me a danger of transferring to an individual the charism of the Holy Ghost that protects, within certain strictures, the Petrine office." [For us, it has become the General Convention instead of the Petrine office, though we have no doctrinal basis to support the power and authority that many have attributed to it.]

"The sectarian also tends to develop certain shibboleths, the most common of which is a vocabulary studded with certain words invested with special meanings known only to the initi­ates. This is the verbal equivalent of a secret handshake. It may be seen in some of the groups presently operat­ing within the precincts of the Church. And along with a special vocabulary, special practices are developed: liturgical customs, attitudes for receiving the sacraments, postures of devotion, etc. The most bizarre I ever encountered was a small sect of Catholics, devoted to a local seer, who received communion by passing the wafer from tongue to tongue. How do such vagaries get started? The inner light, of course." . . .

"Now, the animus of such sects may at their inception be an admirable desire to know, love and serve God in a more perfect way than is normal among the greater body of the Church, but pride is ever at our elbow, ready to whisper in pious accents that we are chosen to rise above our brothers in wisdom and sanctity. The sectarian at heart believes he has a special calling that transcends formal structures. If he remains within the Church, it is to reshape the Church in the image impressed upon his soul by the inner light." . . .

"We do, however, know this much: that every crisis in the Church has been resolved by an appeal to tradition."