Lay movements move past earlier criticisms, into mainstream

Catholic News Service (CNS)
Friday, January 14, 2005

By Cindy Wooden


Enthusiasm and exaggeration have marked the development of Catholic lay movements and the opinions of the movements' critics in the 40 years since the Second Vatican Council.

The exaggerations and failures that Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, now president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, described in a 1999 council meeting as "childhood diseases" even have led to some of the groups being labeled "cults."

Exclusivity, adulation of the movement's founder, dedication to the group to the exclusion of one's family or work, and excessive control are among the common criticisms.

Addressing the same 1999 meeting, Pope John Paul II acknowledged the criticisms, but said "every human work needs time and patience for its required and indispensable purification."

In 1994 the pope dedicated dozens of his general audience talks to the topic of lay people in the church, and he highlighted the right of Catholic laity to form associations for their own spiritual good, for evangelization and to coordinate their charitable work.

Working with parish priests, local bishops and the Vatican, he said, were necessary signs that a group or movement was serious about "ecclesial harmony and cooperation" and that it recognized the legitimate and necessary role of pastors in helping the groups discern what is proper, healthy and Catholic.

The groups, he said, "must always maintain a concern for unity, avoiding rivalry, tensions, tendencies to monopolize the apostolate or to claim a primacy of place that the Gospel itself excludes."

Guzman Carriquiry, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, told Catholic News Service that when members find growth, support and fellowship in a group "you cannot ask members of a movement not to be grateful for that movement and not to love the founder."

"At the same time, they cannot deny the gifts present in other movements," he said. "None of the charisms found in any movement have value unless they lead to the same place: holiness."

In the modern world, many people have a hard time understanding why anyone would give up some of his or her individual freedom to accommodate someone else or to pursue a specific goal, Carriquiry said.

"But freedom does not mean breaking every bond," he said. "My ties to my friends, my family and my community help me exercise my freedom in a way that recognizes I am dependent on God."

Several of the movements have been accused of forcing members to confess their sins in public, a practice all of the groups say is misunderstood.

Many of them have adopted practices based on the monastic tradition - called "emendatio" - of periodically acknowledging one's faults and shortcomings in a gathering of the community.

But it is not sacramental confession, and group leaders are obliged to exercise control to ensure that the practice - meant to encourage humility, to recognize that everyone struggles to live holy lives and to provide support - does not lead to humiliation, a violation of privacy or scandal.

Members of the personal prelature of Opus Dei - lay people and priests - generally have an opportunity for the "emendatio" once each week.

Msgr. Joaquin Llobell, an Opus Dei priest and professor of canon law, said the practice always must be voluntary and must never be exaggerated.

"Humility and sincerity are one thing, but they cannot be allowed to be separated from common sense," he said.

An individual confession of sins to a priest with a guarantee of secrecy and the possibility of anonymity "is the church's preference" for the sacrament, he said.

The Opus Dei "emendatio," he said, does not take the place of sacramental confession, which members are encouraged to seek once every week.

The things shared in the small groups are not sins, he said, but struggles and failures.

"For example, I may say, 'This week I never managed to say my afternoon prayers on time. I'm so disorganized. Please pray for me.' But I do not recount those sins which belong in a confessional," he said.

Msgr. Llobell said he would not recommend the practice to any group that includes children or teenagers and, he said, it is imperative that the group leader be mature and prepared. "There is a risk that sharing spirals out of control with a recounting of more and more serious things, things that should be kept private," he said.

The moderator also must ensure that no one feels forced to share. Although the practice has long been part of the weekly Opus Dei gatherings, no one is forced to share and many do not, the Spanish monsignor said.

"In my community, some people have not shared in 20 years - especially the Anglo-Saxons. We Latins are so much more open," he said. "As a part of the church, we are like a family, and like a family, we share many things. But there are some things you just don't share with the whole family."

Measures to ensure that group sharing did not become group confession were written into the Neocatechumenal Way's statutes, which were approved by the Vatican in 2002.

The Way, as it is known, does not consider itself a lay movement, but rather a parish-based process of faith formation. The statutes said that the members periodically celebrate the sacrament of penance "according to the rite of reconciliation for several penitents with individual confession and absolution."

As for the group sharing, the statutes said, "people share freely the experience of what God's grace is accomplishing in their life and the difficulties which may have occurred are expressed, respecting the freedom of a person's conscience."

Giuseppe Gennarini, responsible for the Neocatechumenal communities in the United States, told CNS that participants "confess only to a priest." The group sharing, he said, is not sacramental but rather serves to build community and provide support.

Gennarini said that sometimes visitors, who do not know the history of an individual group, have been shocked at what they heard people sharing.

"I have been involved in a community for almost 35 years, and naturally we share the experiences of our lives. The members of the group are very dear friends," he said. "What is appropriate to share after 10 years together might not be appropriate after just 10 weeks."

But in every group the sharing is voluntary, he said. "There is no gun pointed at anyone's head."

-CNS