The Pentecostal Movement
A THREAT TO THE FAITH
R. Saverino
CO” NSD
Come Holy Ghost
fill all hearts!The Pentecostal
Movement
A Threat to the Faith
Prontecostaiia is a new heresy
which has infiltrated the Church in
order to destroy it from within. It is
the companion and supporter of
Modernism. The two movements
go hand in hand and assist each
other in the work of demolition.
Modernism is undermining the
Church at the level of doctrine.
Pentecostalism at the level of wor-
ship. Both are well covered with
the sheep’s skin. They have
enough of Catholic terminology;
pious phrases and external de-
meanor to deceive even most cau-
tious people. It is therefore neces-
Sary to tear the skin off their bodies
in order to expose the ravenous
wolves within. Pentecostalism is a
subversive movement, controlled
and adroitly guided by hidden ene-
mies of the Church in order to un-
dermine it in view of its total de-
struction.
ITS CLAIMS
Pentecostalism promises its adher-
ents the same plenitude and expe-
rience of the Holy Spirit which the
Apostles had on Pentecost Day,
along with at least some of the ex-
ternal gifts they then received,
principal among them, the gifts of
tongues, healing and prophesy.
This extraordinary experience is
brought about by the “Baptism of
the Spirit”, which they claim
through the imposition of hands.
The adjectives “Pentecostal” and
“Charismatic” perfectly describe its
claims. “Pentecostal” refers to the
plenitude of the Holy Spirit received
on the first Pentecost sunday
while “Charismatic” refers to
charisms or extraordinary sup,
natural gifts which accompanied
the reception of the Holy Spirit on
that day.
Many people are deceived here.
They think the movement wants
merely to offer special prayers and
intensify devotion to the Third Per-
son of the Blessed Trinity. It is not
so. Its claims are much greater and |
its effects, if true, by far surpass
any of the effects produced by the
other seven Sacraments institu
by Christ.
The contention here is that the
Charismatic Movement and the
Catholic Church cannot go to-
gether. if the Church is true, then
Pentecostalism is false, and vice
versa, if Pentecostalism is true, the
Catholic Church is false. But since
the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic”
and Roman Church cannot be false,
it follows that Pentecostalism is
false and must be rejected. {
W. shall look at the movement
from various angles. In so doing it
will not be possible to avoid a cer-
tain amount of repetition, which
however will help the reader to form
as complete a picture as possible
of a movement which touches the
very roots of Christian piety.
1. BASED ON SHIFTING SANDS
Doctrinally the movement is based
on shifting sands. Anyone, in fact,
who would attempt to analyze it in
the light of the infallible teaching of
the Church and its authentic tradi.
tion is faced with something that
eludes his grasp. The Movement
claims to be based on personal
Jexperience and direct inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, two things which no
one can check. It is, they say, bub-
bling with life that it is incapable of
being defined and circumscribed
within the boundaries of set doc-
trinal formulas. As a result, the
Charismatic Movement has no firm
body of doctrine, but only elusive
affirmations, flimsy references to
the New Testament, tentative and
provisional formulations. It is an
evanescent shadow!
a leaders themselves admit
this: “Theological and Pastoral
Orientations on the Catholic Char-
ismatic Renewal” is one of the most
important documents of the Move-
ment. It was prepared at Malines
(Belgium), May 21-26, 1974, by a
few international “experts” under
the guidance of Cardinal Leo Sue-
nens of Malines, who, the docu-
ment informs us, “took an active
part in the discussion and formula-
tion of the text”. (Preface v). We
are told that the document “is not
exhaustive and that further studies
are required. The present state-
ment represents one of the main
streams of thought. The text is of-
fered as a tentative answer to the
main problems raised by the Char-
ismatic Renewal.” (Pref. V). In
other words, the authors do not
know what they are about, “the
blind leading the blind”!
When we turn to the text itself, we
meet with a mass of elusive state-
ments and semi-statements, tenta-
tive answers and opinions. Hardly
any distinctions are ever made. Yet
distinctions are the very web and
fabric of any theological argument.
Without them it is impossible to sift
truth from falsehood, opinion or
hypothesis from firm doctrine.
Take for instance this passage on
page 21 entitled, Religious Experi-
ence Belongs to the New Testament
Witness — “The experience of The
Holy Spirit was a mark of a Chris-
tian by which the early Christians in
part defined themselves in relation
to others who were not Christians.
They thought of themselves as rep-
resentatives not of a new teaching,
but of a new reality, the Holy Spirit.
This Spirit was a living, experi-
enced fact which they could not
deny without denying that they
were Christians. The Spirit was
poured out on them and was expe-
rienced by them individually and
communally as a oo reality. Re-
ligious experience, " it must be ad-
mitted, belongs to the New Testa-
ment witness; if one simply re-
moved from the life of the Church
its dimension, one has to that de-
gree impoverished the Church”.
It would be difficult to compress
within one paragraph so much
truth, untruth and half-truth. The
reading is smooth, it sounds pious,
and, to the unwary, also convinc-
ing, but it is actually false!
It is false to say that “the early
Christians thought of themselves
as representatives not of a new
teaching, but of a new reality, the
Holy Spirit”. The fact is that Christ
ordered the Apostles to go and
teach all nations. Now to teach is
first, foremost and above all, to ac-
cept and impart a body of doctrine,
not to “experience” it, a thing which
is very subjective and therefore
very much liable to self-deception.
“The Experience and Faith Thesis”
is the thesis of Luther, not of
Christ, who came to “give witness
to the Truth and taught us a very
definite body of doctrine with re-
gard to the Father, Himself, theHoly Spirit, His Church, the Sacra-
ments, etc. He exacted that his
teaching should be accepted with
blind faith and not “experienced”.
“He who believes and is baptized
will be saved; he who does not be-
lieve will be condemned”. (Mk.
16:16.) St. Paul wrote some very
hard things to the Galatians be-
cause, they had lapsed from his
first teaching and told them that
even if he himself or an angel were
to preach to them a doctrine differ-
ent from what he had preached to
them at the beginning, he should be
considered anathema. The Apos-
tles and the first Christians were
very much concerned with doctrine,
and very little with feeling and ex-
perience.
Ts rest of the paragraph, and
indeed the whole chapter dealing
with “Faith and Experience”, is a
masterpiece of confusion. Take
this, for instance, “The Spirit was
poured out on them and was expe-
rienced by them individually and
communally as a new reality”. This
would imply, but the authors are
very careful not to expose them-
selves with a categorical statement,
that all the Christians of the Apos-
tolic Age received the effusion of
the Holy Spirit and experienced Him
in the same way and with the same
mystical and miraculous phenom-
ena of the Apostles on Pentecost
Day. But this is false. There is
nothing in the New Testament, in
the writings of the Fathers, or any-
where in the official teaching of the
Church, that this was the case. The
New Testament indeed mentions
‘some cases when the Holy Spirit
did come down in a marvelous
manner on the new Christians, but
these were few and isolated cases.
Even on the very first day, when
3000 people were baptized and be-
came the Church’s first converts,
there is no mention of any miracu-
lous manifestation of the Holy Spirit
in them.
aR. the words quoted above
‘mix up two different things, on
the one the intimate peace and joy
which is the happy fortune of every
true Christian, peace and joy which
surpasses every sense and human
understanding and which no one
can take away from him; and on the
other, the extraordinary mystical
experience and some other wonder-
ful charisms granted to the Apos-
tles on Pentecost Day —and to cer-
tain privileged souls down the cen-
turies God does occasionally be-
stow such divine things to the chil-
dren of men, but they are in no way
due to man, they have not been
promised to every Christian and
they are not necessary for one’s
sanctification.
2. FORERUNNERS OF
PENTECOSTALISM
Today the Church is being riddled
with what people think to be “new”
insights and “new” doctrines. Ac-
tually they are not new, but merely
old errors dressed in new clothes,
new only to those people, and they
are legion, who have forgotten or
have never known what the past
was like. The inspired Wise Man
affirms that “There is nothing new
under the sun". No, not even Pen-
tecostalism!
It would be interesting to trace the
origin, development and character
of heresies, but that would take us
too far. However, there is one thing
common to them all. Their found.
ers gnd their followers claimed