Neocatecumenato
Carta do Bispo de Catânia criticando os erros do Neo Catecumenato
PERGUNTA
Nome:
Carla
Enviada em:
28/01/2002
Local:
Brasília - DF,
Religião:
Católica
Idade:
25 anos
Escolaridade:
2.o grau concluído
A paz de Cristo esteja contigo!
O senhor por acaso tem o direiro de dizer que somente os católicos podem ser salvos? infelizmente devo começar assim, pois essa foi sua resposta a pegunta da leitora, quanta heresia o senhor fala do caminho visto que nem se quer conhece o caminho. Por que ese ódio tão grande pelo caminho noecatecumenal? , por que coloca uma página para somente criticar, condenar e julgar de acordo com seu coração?. Pois saiba que a boca fala o que no coração está cheio.Lembre-se que Jesus disse: não julgueis para não ser julgado. O fato do senhor ser `padre` não lhe dar o direito de julgar a nenhum movimento da igreja. Saiba o senhor que a quem mais e dado mais será cobrado.É uma grande pena que o senhor envolva seu tempo tão precioso para julgar o que não conhece baseando-se apenas em um escrito de uma outra pessoa, eu lhe pergunto por que nunca com seu próprio coração foi sozinho tentar conhecer ou conversar com algum padre do caminho? Porque só se baseia nos escritos de Zoffoli? . É uma grande pena saber que na minha igreja o outro não ver a pessoa de Jesus Cristo na pessoa do próximo, é capaz de criar um site apenas para julgar, por que se acha um perfeito cristão a ponto de condenar o outro. Nós do caminho Neocatecumenal procuramos a Cristo e o seus ensinamentos vivendo em uma comunidade onde deve ser cultivado o amor, a obediência, a humildade, a simplicidade e o louvor a Deus nosso pai, a Jesus nosso salvador e ao Espirito Santo santificador. Termino deixando a paz de Deus e as benção de Maria nossa Mãe.
RESPOSTA
Prezada Carla, salve Maria,
Inicialmente devo adverti-la de que não sou padre. Sou um professor secundário, leigo e casado.
Devo dizer-lhe ainda que não fiz o site Montfort para "somente criticar, condenar e julgar de acordo com seu coração?", como você escreveu.
Minha opinião não interessa. O que importa é a verdade.
Minha finalidade é a de defender a Igreja Católica e sua doutrina dos ataques que ela sofre continuamente. Além disso procuro ensinar o pouco que sei, aos que sabem ainda menos, para que tenhamos uma fé mais esclarecida.
Por exemplo, explicando o dogma católico de que fora da Igreja não há salvação, isto é, que, para salvar-se, a pessoa precisa pertencer pelo menos à alma da Igreja, praticando a lei natural, caso ela esteja na impossibilidade absoluta de conhecer a verdadeira fé.
Não escrevi sobre o Neo Catecumenato baseado apenas nos textos do Padre Zoffoli. Citei textos de Kiko e de erros do Neo catecumenato confessados por Dona Margarida Hulschof. Agora, já tenho várias das apostilas de Kiko, e nelas são confirmados os erros que Padre Zoffoli criticou.
Mando-lhe, abaixo, um documento do Bispo de Catânia, na Sicilia, criticando o Neo Catecumenato. É interessante. E não é o primeiro Bispo, nem o único, que critica os erros do Neo Catecumenato. Que Deus lhe abra os olhos e a conserve em boa intenção é o que lhe desejo,
in Corde Jesu, semper,
Orlando Fedeli.
(Unofficial English Translation)
Archdiocese of Catania, Sicily, Italy
His Excellency Luigi Bommarito Archbishop of Catania
To the brothers and sisters of the Neocatecumenical Community of the Church which is in Catania
For the acknowledgement of the Priests of the Archdiocese
Dearest brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus,
During my episcopla service, undertaken through nearly 14 years for the Holy Church which is in Catania, I have never ceased to thank the Lord for the riches, the variety, and the pastoral liveliness which I have encountered not only in the parish communities and in the religious life but also in the associations, in the movements and in the various ecclesial groups in which our catanian Diocese is rich.
In harmony with the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, and with the Italian Episcopate, I reckon as a great "gift of the Lord", a true and proper "inundation of grace", the various forms of groups of faithful, both those most ancient and those more recent, which in their multiplicity are signs "of the richness and of the versitility of the resources which the Spirit of the Lord Jesus has nourished in the bosom of the Church" (Christifideles laici, 20), so much that they have been "accepted with gratitude and responsibly valued", just as the pastoral note of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), "Le aggregazioni laicali nella Chiesa", intro.), has emphasized.
In truth, in this precious context of grace, as pastor of the whole flock entrusted to me by God, whenever it is possible, I have been joyfully present to encourage, bless, stimulate and promote, but at the same time -- as was and is my pressing duty -- also to correct those aspects which, at times, in their expression have manifested themselves in a manner that is above all "problematic", sometimes by defect, sometimes by excess.
It has been and it is also the case for the Neocatecumenical Community which I have followed with esteem, affection and -- as you all know -- with some perlexity. I have had occasion to discuss this with those responsible for the "Way" within and without Diocese.
I can confirm that my perplexities, of a theological-pastoral type, which I am presently explaining to you, have been encountered most of all -- on the part of many of my fellow Bishops -- equally on the plane of ideas as on that of concrete experiences endured with a certain suffering in the ambit of many local churches of Italy, and not only of Italy.
I have been asked many times, and at the same time I think of asking even you, if it is not opportune to bring to light and give precise responses to the requests for clarification which up until today unfortunately have remained unanswered, with the risk that they may continue to foment even more perplexity and varying impatience in the midst of the people of God.
I believe that it is opportune, moreover, to list some aspects of your "Way" which seem to me lacking certain necessary, pertinent and urgent clarifications.
If I had not done this before -- I had rather hidden my perplexities even when I had united them with sentiments of admiration -- it is because I had awaited the approbation of the "Way" on the part of the Holy Father. With this approbation still delayed, I confide to you the reasons which, as always, that is from when, at Monreale, as a priest I had frequented the catechesis of the "Way", have left me perplexed.
1) One notes that in many Neocatecumenical communities there is usually acknowledged or somewhat "conceded" to the Priesthood only a liturgical and functional dimension of sacred orders, mortifying if not directly depriving it of its connatural juridical dimension -- as we well know -- is an integral and constitutive part of Orders itself. Frequently, infact, it is the catechist who appropriates to himself unduely the power of jurisdiction proper to the priestly ministry.
Here one asks himself: in what kind of harmony is this with n. 28 of Lumen Gentium, which determines that "in the individual local communities the priests render, as it were, present the Bishop, . . . by sanctifying and governing that portion of the flock of the Lord entrusted to them"?
A priest, very dear to me, has confided to me that after more than 20 years the role of the priest is not yet clear in the preparation of your catechists.
2) Along the catecetical journey of your "Way" there is rigidly and weightily developed the sense of the nothingness of man, even if baptized, and hence the incapacity of the Christian himself of opening himself -- without an openness to the Neocatecumenical community -- to the redemptive grace of Christ, as if the historic event of the Resurrection has not resulted in and called forth the benifits of the Covenant of all and of each one with God. In other words: as if the theological virtue of Holy -- a virtue infused by the Spirit in each of the baptized with Baptism -- has remained impoverished and shut-up, not having any more a role in the drama. But is not the christian faith, fostered with prayer and the Sacraments, already in itself a bearer of light, of peace, of strength, of joy, of victory over evil? To what does one reduce christianity if one comes to lack the theology of Hope?
3) With many Bishops whom I know -- whose interventions and testimonies, which are food for thought, I agree with -- I make the observation that towards the provocation of confusion, ill-will and pastoral difficulties, is the fact that even now on the part of the Neocatecumenical community they continue to celebrate in a private and set-apart manner the Eucharist on Saturday evening and downplay the Vigil of Easter, that tremendous event of the Love of God accomplished through His Nature to reunited together all the people of God in one great family.
This divides the people of God into two, as blocks composed of diverse categories, one of type A, the other of type B, as if they had been separated and set against one another in lines, incapable of recognizing themselves all as brothers. Are they infact confused, those who think that the Neocatecumenical community constitutes a parallel church?
Ought we not acknowledge in one unique community, even the poorest and the most weak, those at least catechistically prepared, who often, without wanting or knowing it, have been kept outside or perhaps have remained "outside" through our own fault, we who regard ourselves as closer, more practicing and devout?
Someone may think: but the Sacrament, does it not already act in beneficial manner "ex opere operato"? Why is there now such a great importance given solely to the participation of the group of those most qualitifed? Perhaps that which is "ex opere operantis" (understood also as the action of an special community) through the merit of the manner of its own "Way", and only because it is diverse from other "ways", suceeds to render more meritoriously and efficaciously the Sacrament?
4) We know from St. Paul that the Spirit entrusts His charisms to each of the baptized -- and as a consequence even to individual ecclesial groups -- for the common good (cf. 1 Cor 12:7), for example, for the common good of the whole people of God present in every parish. The Neocatecumenical community, like some other ecclesial movements, undertakes instead an exactly opposite course, comporting itself in such a manner that it reduces to an instrument the common good to guarantee its own charism, absolutizing its own choices and imposing its own method as if it were superior and uniquely respected to all the others and, in short, the only salvific one.
5) As a consequence, by not having nipped it in the bud the conflict in the parishes where the Neocatecumenical communities are present in an established manner, coexistence is not always easy, much less collaboration with the other ecclesial realities operating in the place.
With those who have accompanied me, during the pastoral Visitation, in one parish, we have encountered bitter conflict.
I think that a greater harmonization with the plan and the pastoral directions of the Shepherd of the diocese could reframe the presumed conviction that its own method is the most perfect even to the point of taking precedence to all the others, as if it had the imprimatur of the Spirit?
6) We know from the Gospel that the message of Jesus proceeds sweetly upon the free and liberating expression of "Si vis . . ." (If you will it . . .) and is evidenzed even its clear and friendly development on the plane of love, whose emblematic expression is the "parable of the prodigal son": a father who looking for his lost son, goes to meet him, embraces him, forgives him for the mistake committed, reclothes him, places a ring of gold upon his finger, sets out a feast, and even excuses him before the elder brother who does not think of him as he does!
The Neocatecumenical way at times seems instead to walk upon the intransigent expression of "you ought to", upon the thread of the "categorical imperative" of Kantian fame, with the risk of very easily falling into a sort of integralist fundamentalism destined, as unfortunately happens, to foment divisions and various exclusions, creating inevitably small ghettoes or dangerous "churchlets" in the ambit of the very Church of God born once to be the unique, great family of the Father.
7) I do not want to speak of the scrutinies which, often, scar consciences with questions which no confessor would utter. But how can this be permitted to a layman, even if he is a catechist?
I do not even want to speak of the public confessions . . . But who can authorize an approach, which the Church, in Her wisdom and maternal prudence, has abolished centuries ago?
8) I have read with attention and interest the letter that the Holy Father has recently sent (Rome, April 5, 2001) to Francis Cardinal Stafford, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity: a letter very significant and moreover important. The Supreme Pontiff asks for a definitive judgement on the "Neocatecumenical Way" proposing an attentive and accurate discernment on the part of the same Pontifical Council in the light of theological-pastoral directions of the Magisterium.
In reality, not until now having established themselves -- after decades of presence in their communities in various countries of the world -- a true and official approbation of the Statutes in the light of the norms emanating from the Holy See and from the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), those who judge of the goodness of your "Way" are not always in agreement because in fact they vary from diocese to diocese and from parish to parish, based on local habits and experiences. Much reflection is asked of you before continuing the way in a sicure and definitive manner.
Submission to the judgement of the Church is the the most credible, valid, and decisive "ticket for admission".
Dearest brothers and sisters, as you see -- I have said it from the begining -- the words which I write simply call for for clarity upon some points which still remain in the shadows and as a consequence call for adequate changes in pastoral praxis, for the good of our parish communities.
I am certain that the love which binds you to listen to the Word, to the Eucharist, to the service of charity and to the judgement of the Church, will suceed to modify that which is can be modified and to correct that which is opportune and urgent to correct, for the sake of a serene living, together with all the faithful of our parishes, of that unity and that communion which wasa and which is the great desire of Jesus: "As Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, may they be one even as We are One" (John 17,21)
I can testify moreover to seeing, without the shadow of doubt, in your community, as in each one of your -- the vivifying presence of the Spirit of Jesus who has borne your and bears you to complete pastoral works worthy of admiration, since they have been realized with sacrifices of time, of affection, of money and of acts of missionary zeal even outside our Country. But now it happens that the steps taken must be re-examined and reviewed and verified -- in the light of conciliar ecclesiology, of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, of the orientations of the pastoral Plan of the Italian Episcopate and of those of your own Pastor -- how much our parish communities attend to the charism which has been entrusted to you by the Spirit by means of the approbation of the Statutes presented many years ago to the Holy See.
May the Lord Jesus and the Holy Virgin bless and assist your Way so that it may be illumined by the Holy Scripture which you meditate one and lived in strict communion with the Bishop, with the local pastors and with all the ecclesial realities which the Spirit enlivenes along the way of holiness for all the people of God.
With generous and cordial blessing for the Advent and for the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Archdiocese of Catania, Sicily, Italy
His Excellency Luigi Bommarito Archbishop of Catania
To the brothers and sisters of the Neocatecumenical Community of the Church which is in Catania
For the acknowledgement of the Priests of the Archdiocese
Dearest brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus,
During my episcopla service, undertaken through nearly 14 years for the Holy Church which is in Catania, I have never ceased to thank the Lord for the riches, the variety, and the pastoral liveliness which I have encountered not only in the parish communities and in the religious life but also in the associations, in the movements and in the various ecclesial groups in which our catanian Diocese is rich.
In harmony with the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, and with the Italian Episcopate, I reckon as a great "gift of the Lord", a true and proper "inundation of grace", the various forms of groups of faithful, both those most ancient and those more recent, which in their multiplicity are signs "of the richness and of the versitility of the resources which the Spirit of the Lord Jesus has nourished in the bosom of the Church" (Christifideles laici, 20), so much that they have been "accepted with gratitude and responsibly valued", just as the pastoral note of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), "Le aggregazioni laicali nella Chiesa", intro.), has emphasized.
In truth, in this precious context of grace, as pastor of the whole flock entrusted to me by God, whenever it is possible, I have been joyfully present to encourage, bless, stimulate and promote, but at the same time -- as was and is my pressing duty -- also to correct those aspects which, at times, in their expression have manifested themselves in a manner that is above all "problematic", sometimes by defect, sometimes by excess.
It has been and it is also the case for the Neocatecumenical Community which I have followed with esteem, affection and -- as you all know -- with some perlexity. I have had occasion to discuss this with those responsible for the "Way" within and without Diocese.
I can confirm that my perplexities, of a theological-pastoral type, which I am presently explaining to you, have been encountered most of all -- on the part of many of my fellow Bishops -- equally on the plane of ideas as on that of concrete experiences endured with a certain suffering in the ambit of many local churches of Italy, and not only of Italy.
I have been asked many times, and at the same time I think of asking even you, if it is not opportune to bring to light and give precise responses to the requests for clarification which up until today unfortunately have remained unanswered, with the risk that they may continue to foment even more perplexity and varying impatience in the midst of the people of God.
I believe that it is opportune, moreover, to list some aspects of your "Way" which seem to me lacking certain necessary, pertinent and urgent clarifications.
If I had not done this before -- I had rather hidden my perplexities even when I had united them with sentiments of admiration -- it is because I had awaited the approbation of the "Way" on the part of the Holy Father. With this approbation still delayed, I confide to you the reasons which, as always, that is from when, at Monreale, as a priest I had frequented the catechesis of the "Way", have left me perplexed.
1) One notes that in many Neocatecumenical communities there is usually acknowledged or somewhat "conceded" to the Priesthood only a liturgical and functional dimension of sacred orders, mortifying if not directly depriving it of its connatural juridical dimension -- as we well know -- is an integral and constitutive part of Orders itself. Frequently, infact, it is the catechist who appropriates to himself unduely the power of jurisdiction proper to the priestly ministry.
Here one asks himself: in what kind of harmony is this with n. 28 of Lumen Gentium, which determines that "in the individual local communities the priests render, as it were, present the Bishop, . . . by sanctifying and governing that portion of the flock of the Lord entrusted to them"?
A priest, very dear to me, has confided to me that after more than 20 years the role of the priest is not yet clear in the preparation of your catechists.
2) Along the catecetical journey of your "Way" there is rigidly and weightily developed the sense of the nothingness of man, even if baptized, and hence the incapacity of the Christian himself of opening himself -- without an openness to the Neocatecumenical community -- to the redemptive grace of Christ, as if the historic event of the Resurrection has not resulted in and called forth the benifits of the Covenant of all and of each one with God. In other words: as if the theological virtue of Holy -- a virtue infused by the Spirit in each of the baptized with Baptism -- has remained impoverished and shut-up, not having any more a role in the drama. But is not the christian faith, fostered with prayer and the Sacraments, already in itself a bearer of light, of peace, of strength, of joy, of victory over evil? To what does one reduce christianity if one comes to lack the theology of Hope?
3) With many Bishops whom I know -- whose interventions and testimonies, which are food for thought, I agree with -- I make the observation that towards the provocation of confusion, ill-will and pastoral difficulties, is the fact that even now on the part of the Neocatecumenical community they continue to celebrate in a private and set-apart manner the Eucharist on Saturday evening and downplay the Vigil of Easter, that tremendous event of the Love of God accomplished through His Nature to reunited together all the people of God in one great family.
This divides the people of God into two, as blocks composed of diverse categories, one of type A, the other of type B, as if they had been separated and set against one another in lines, incapable of recognizing themselves all as brothers. Are they infact confused, those who think that the Neocatecumenical community constitutes a parallel church?
Ought we not acknowledge in one unique community, even the poorest and the most weak, those at least catechistically prepared, who often, without wanting or knowing it, have been kept outside or perhaps have remained "outside" through our own fault, we who regard ourselves as closer, more practicing and devout?
Someone may think: but the Sacrament, does it not already act in beneficial manner "ex opere operato"? Why is there now such a great importance given solely to the participation of the group of those most qualitifed? Perhaps that which is "ex opere operantis" (understood also as the action of an special community) through the merit of the manner of its own "Way", and only because it is diverse from other "ways", suceeds to render more meritoriously and efficaciously the Sacrament?
4) We know from St. Paul that the Spirit entrusts His charisms to each of the baptized -- and as a consequence even to individual ecclesial groups -- for the common good (cf. 1 Cor 12:7), for example, for the common good of the whole people of God present in every parish. The Neocatecumenical community, like some other ecclesial movements, undertakes instead an exactly opposite course, comporting itself in such a manner that it reduces to an instrument the common good to guarantee its own charism, absolutizing its own choices and imposing its own method as if it were superior and uniquely respected to all the others and, in short, the only salvific one.
5) As a consequence, by not having nipped it in the bud the conflict in the parishes where the Neocatecumenical communities are present in an established manner, coexistence is not always easy, much less collaboration with the other ecclesial realities operating in the place.
With those who have accompanied me, during the pastoral Visitation, in one parish, we have encountered bitter conflict.
I think that a greater harmonization with the plan and the pastoral directions of the Shepherd of the diocese could reframe the presumed conviction that its own method is the most perfect even to the point of taking precedence to all the others, as if it had the imprimatur of the Spirit?
6) We know from the Gospel that the message of Jesus proceeds sweetly upon the free and liberating expression of "Si vis . . ." (If you will it . . .) and is evidenzed even its clear and friendly development on the plane of love, whose emblematic expression is the "parable of the prodigal son": a father who looking for his lost son, goes to meet him, embraces him, forgives him for the mistake committed, reclothes him, places a ring of gold upon his finger, sets out a feast, and even excuses him before the elder brother who does not think of him as he does!
The Neocatecumenical way at times seems instead to walk upon the intransigent expression of "you ought to", upon the thread of the "categorical imperative" of Kantian fame, with the risk of very easily falling into a sort of integralist fundamentalism destined, as unfortunately happens, to foment divisions and various exclusions, creating inevitably small ghettoes or dangerous "churchlets" in the ambit of the very Church of God born once to be the unique, great family of the Father.
7) I do not want to speak of the scrutinies which, often, scar consciences with questions which no confessor would utter. But how can this be permitted to a layman, even if he is a catechist?
I do not even want to speak of the public confessions . . . But who can authorize an approach, which the Church, in Her wisdom and maternal prudence, has abolished centuries ago?
8) I have read with attention and interest the letter that the Holy Father has recently sent (Rome, April 5, 2001) to Francis Cardinal Stafford, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity: a letter very significant and moreover important. The Supreme Pontiff asks for a definitive judgement on the "Neocatecumenical Way" proposing an attentive and accurate discernment on the part of the same Pontifical Council in the light of theological-pastoral directions of the Magisterium.
In reality, not until now having established themselves -- after decades of presence in their communities in various countries of the world -- a true and official approbation of the Statutes in the light of the norms emanating from the Holy See and from the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), those who judge of the goodness of your "Way" are not always in agreement because in fact they vary from diocese to diocese and from parish to parish, based on local habits and experiences. Much reflection is asked of you before continuing the way in a sicure and definitive manner.
Submission to the judgement of the Church is the the most credible, valid, and decisive "ticket for admission".
Dearest brothers and sisters, as you see -- I have said it from the begining -- the words which I write simply call for for clarity upon some points which still remain in the shadows and as a consequence call for adequate changes in pastoral praxis, for the good of our parish communities.
I am certain that the love which binds you to listen to the Word, to the Eucharist, to the service of charity and to the judgement of the Church, will suceed to modify that which is can be modified and to correct that which is opportune and urgent to correct, for the sake of a serene living, together with all the faithful of our parishes, of that unity and that communion which wasa and which is the great desire of Jesus: "As Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, may they be one even as We are One" (John 17,21)
I can testify moreover to seeing, without the shadow of doubt, in your community, as in each one of your -- the vivifying presence of the Spirit of Jesus who has borne your and bears you to complete pastoral works worthy of admiration, since they have been realized with sacrifices of time, of affection, of money and of acts of missionary zeal even outside our Country. But now it happens that the steps taken must be re-examined and reviewed and verified -- in the light of conciliar ecclesiology, of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, of the orientations of the pastoral Plan of the Italian Episcopate and of those of your own Pastor -- how much our parish communities attend to the charism which has been entrusted to you by the Spirit by means of the approbation of the Statutes presented many years ago to the Holy See.
May the Lord Jesus and the Holy Virgin bless and assist your Way so that it may be illumined by the Holy Scripture which you meditate one and lived in strict communion with the Bishop, with the local pastors and with all the ecclesial realities which the Spirit enlivenes along the way of holiness for all the people of God.
With generous and cordial blessing for the Advent and for the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Advent 2001
+ Luigi,
your archbishop
