These are "Christ Renews His Parish" retreats that are held in the parish halls as something like adult pajama parties. They are for either women or men. The invitations that are passed out to the parish include a request for a half dozen or so phone numbers of your friends and family who will be called by volunteers while you are in the retreat. They will be invited to pray for you.

These retreats are not run by the Catholic Church. They are run by an independent group out of Ohio and are very decentralized, with no real oversight, from what I have been able to find out. Parish priests generally have to approve them but they run off their own network of enthusiasts.

Here is a post from a discussion thread over in the moderated "Catholic Answers" forum, (a forum which many more traditional Catholics consider to be too cult-friendly) Outside of this very good summation of what makes CRHP a cult, most of the Catholic-Answers posts praise the program. (The forum has terrible design, but is extremely full of material. Just scroll down past the register box and you can start reading the thread.)

[forums.catholic.com]

I attended a weekend 8 years ago. It was life changing. At the time, I was reverting to the faith and my dh had recently converted. We were on an absolute high for several years as we learned more and more about our shared faith. When, after Mass one Sunday, they announced there would be a crhp weekend held in the parish. I opened myself to the Spirit and went for it! The women giving the retreat were so accommadating, even making an exception to allow me to bring my newborn along. I was thrilled! My mother ended up joining me for the weekend. Awesome, I thought. As the first day came to a close I was wiped out. So much emotion!! The stories these woman shared!!! I was blown away!!!! I felt called to share my story. I was thinking I might be able to give my witness the next go round.
I went back to the follow up meeting. It was held in the church, in the sanctuary, by candle light, in front of the tabernacle. One of the organizers was there, who had not been able to attend the weekend, and was small talking with some of the others. She mentioned the recent marriage of her son and how beautiful it was. She was so proud that they had 'rearranged the scripture' wink, wink, to make it more fitting. "hmm", I thought. "can you do that? Maybe things have really changed since I've been away?" She went on to mention how, during Mass when we are to respond, "Lord, I am not worthy...", she proudly, with head held high, proclaims, "Lord, I AM worthy....". It was at that point I realized I had had too much koolaid, or magic pixie dust, or whatever it was that drew me to be any part of this group. The spell was shattered!
I recently had a conversation with a friend about crhp. I expressed my thoughts about my experience after all these years of reflection and how I felt caution should be used or other means sought for those women who feel compelled to spill their guts to complete strangers or possibly, in my mom's case, someone she knew well WITHOUT THEIR(the receivers) KNOWING THAT IT"S COMING. The gut wrenching stories that were shared of abuse of every kind, of abortions and tragedy I will take to my grave, but I would rather not be carrying them around.
Since I've already been long winded, I will sufice to say she told me," get over yourself, this is a healing ministry and you just didn't understand, it was not all about what you got out of it and excuse me, I have to plan for the next crhp weekend coming up in 2 wks"...... oopsMaybe the manual was diverted from? We didn't have reconciliation, or adoration that I recall. One Mass at the end of the weekend. I don't know that I'll ever go again. Part of me wants to know if it's the program, or the poorly catechised individuals leading it, or both. Going through this weekend opened my eyes for sure. I am thankful I attended, albeit, probably not for the reasons intended

GET OVER YOURSELF, THIS IS A HEALING MINISTRY? ****ROLL-EYES***

That should be on a T-Shirt!!!! **LOL**



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2010 02:05PM by dsm.

When I read about stuff like that I am sure glad that I walked away from the Church. It sounds like things are just getting nuttier and nuttier. To be fair it is not just Catholics. I have Lutheran friends and they tell me the same kind of nonsense is going on in their church.

I am not trying to promote or advertise a particular point of view; my decision to leave was a strictly personal one. It did not come easy and did involve some gut-wrenching. But basically, I was not happy, and the older I get I believe that life is too short to remain in an unhappy situation unless there are compelling reasons to do so.

My question is: why stay in a religion at all if you are unhappy with the direction it is going and you are powerless to do anything about it? Why butt heads with these culties? Warn others, by all means, but stop butting heads and go elsewhere. Life is too short. I don't know about anyone else, but I see the things raised on these forums as a sort of continuing indictment of the whole religious mindset. I would say that most of the groups and individuals warned about have some kind of "religious" connection. That in itself should give one pause.

Around the turn of the 20th century there was a bishop of a small denomination in Dayton, Ohio, who spent his life energy trying to steer his unwilling church in the direction he thought it should go. Most people have probably never heard of him, his congregation, or his denomination. But the whole world knows about his sons. Instead of investing their energy in futile religious battles, they turned to tinkering in their bike shop and changed the way we travel. Yes, Wilbur and Orville Wright. As far as I know, they never said one word about religion, pro or con. They just went out and did their thing.

Church councils and pastors have a responsiblity to monitor persons and groups desiring access to the building--and those who trustfully worship there.

The kind of sensitive material (eg abuse issues, trauma, addiction in the family)--that is meant to be discussed in a protected and confidential setting, not in public.

And persons who elicit that kind of high voltage information need to tell prospective participants up front, that the meetings are going to be intense.

What if someone has a panic attack, or an asthma attack?

What if a participant who is genetically loaded for bipolar affective disorder gets stressed out, runs short and sleep and goes hypomanic during a weekend of the kind described?

And, who is to prevent people from gossipping afterward?

Lack of protection for confidentiality is at least one red flag I see in this situation.

It also links the meeting with the tabernacle and the Blessed Sacrament, linking those meetings with the most important part of the Catholic church sanctuary.

I advise if one is Roman Catholic, write a careful description of what you are concerned about, no longer than two pages. Stay in the margins. Describe, factually what you witnessed then send it to the chancellor of the diocese or archdiocese.

A sample of literature would be useful.

If you practice as a Lutheran, discuss with your pastor and congregations governing body, and if you run into a brick wall, write your concerns to the governing body for your synod (ELCA, etc)

Sacraments and are not rewards for ego.

Thank you for your support, corboy: you bring out all the points that our pastoral staff need to review every single morning when they start work!

Our bishops are indeed getting on top of this in the Church and letters like what you describe are being heeded, FINALLY!

One of my reasons for deciding to start posting about Catholic cult problems is that each time a bishop announces that a particular group or practice is discouraged, there will be tons of individual Catholics hitting the google search, and we are in a good position to help them put the bishops' announcements in context. The cults, of course, will be circulating "poor us!" flyers all over the place each time they take a hit.

Since you mention Lutherans, let me mention that I went to a "DeColores" retreat once when I was a "lapsed" Catholic and it used all the same tactics as CRHP and the leaders actually said they got a lot of it from another Catholic retreat system: "Road To Emmaus". Since I was alert to cult practice, I was able to ride through the weekend but I left the little Lutheran group after that and then I faced the malicious whisper campaigns that are standard for all these retreat systems.

A lot of this stuff gets passed denomination-to-denomination because of the ecumenical system. But it all comes out the same in practice: huggie-feely-gossip-mobthink...

"Our bishops are indeed getting on top of this in the Church."

I am very, very glad to hear that. I am sure that they will handle it with the same expertise and decisiveness that they have shown in the ongoing clerical sexual abuse scandal. I have every confidence in our bishops and Pope--NOT!!!!

Well, you have a point, but it is related to many events that are being dealt with. Much of that scandal happened during the same period we could not stop the government from funding art shows of photographs of little boys being raped, if you recall, remember Mapplethorpe? Those families who faced ineffective Bishops also faced ineffective secular authorities, too, and so the hush-hush atmosphere prevailed. But change has been happening and a lot of it is due to discussion boards, for example: [www.bishopaccountability.org]

Laity are a lot more outspoken now and are much more aggressively informing each other about these problems with less fear of repercussions. The church is not as monolithic as it appears to outsiders. The present pope has been one of the strongest opponents of permissiveness and he is supporting investigations instead of discouraging them. And to be fair, if you google "sexual molestation" or a related term and any professional title besides "priest", for example, "sheriff" or "social worker" you will see a ton of cases that also have been hidden, shoved aside, etc. Just look at the Texas Youth Service scandal. Nothing has really changed there, either, and it is not any different from what goes on in so many of the youth rehab and residential school centers outside the Church. It is a universal issue. Look at some of the threads opened up recently on Muslim boy-rape culture, for example.

This discussion of cults inside the church is just exactly what helps clean up these things, just like the other discussions of cults inside the commercial world, jesus-commune world or the new-age spirituality world also involve lots of discussions of abuse of families and their children.

The cults are the channels through which these abuses are covered up and perpetuated. If we can cut through the cult-fog, we can ensure a more abuse-free environment.

Yes, it is true that other professions have problems with their members sexually molesting people, and yes, it is true about Mapplethorpe, but the big difference here is that the perpetuators took PUBLIC VOWS OF CHASTITY. Moreover, they belong to an organization that claims to have the authority to tell people how to live their sexual lives.

Many of us took NO VOWS of chastity, yet managed to remain faithful to the Church's teaching on sex, often at great personal cost. Now we are being confronted with the spectacle of not just a handful, but hundreds, who broke their vows in the most heineous way possible, while their superiors looked the other way. So the present Pope is supporting investigations? That is nice, but what does he intend to do afterwards? Will he continue to protect and make excuses or will these men wind up behind bars where they belong?

As far as I am concerned, it no longer matters whether the Church's stand on sexual morality is right or wrong. As far as I am concerned, the Church has lost the right to speak about these matters. The Church has ZERO credibility.

The Church needs to apologize, loudly and publicly, not only to the victims, but to every one of her members who have remained faithful to her teaching that sex is reserved for marriage. This apology needs to be read out in every diocese, every parish. It needs to be printed in the papers. Then, she needs to step aside and let the secular authorities proceed without interference. Then, and only then, will she regain the right to speak to the rest of us.

This is not about common crimes of adults against children which are just as much committed by secular as well as religious people and I don't see what your problem with someone else's "vow of chastity" has to do with the problem of cults in the church or anywhere else. The fact that a man or a woman took a vow of chastity has nothing to do with the crime. It is completely irrelevant. If you look into the personal profiles of any other sexual criminals, you'll find all kinds of promises they may have made and did not keep because they did not have the strength of character to keep those promises, but so what? A crime is a crime.

And BTW, the Pope does not operate the prison system or the court system in any country. The government in each and every one of these cases has full power to go right in and investigate and arrest, WHO is responsible for that? YOU, the secular public. Most of the world, which is non-Catholic has widspread and wide-open child slavery and prostitution. Those are not Catholic priests running those cultures. So please stop the off-topic stuff which is no different than if I went into any of the new age threads and told those users that they have no right to discuss guru cults because the abuse of children in Asian and African cultures is so commonplace.

And BTW, the Pope does not operate the prison system or the court system in any country.


No, but he is not above using the wealth and power accumulated over centuries by the Vatican from the faithful to ensure that he himself does not have to answer for his actions:

[www.thestranger.com]

In September 2005, former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—who'd just become the pope—asked the justice department of the Bush administration to grant him immunity from prosecution in sex-abuse cases in the United States. Ratzinger, the onetime head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was accused of "conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian" in Texas, according to the Associated Press. Ratzinger had "written in Latin to bishops around the world, explaining that 'grave' crimes such as the sexual abuse of minors would be handled by his congregation. The proceedings of special church tribunals handling the cases were subject to 'pontifical secret,'" Ratzinger's letter said. The Bush administration granted Ratzinger the immunity.

For those non-catholics, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition and is the body responsible for catholic doctrine and discipline. The Pope in his former role was directly responsible for the decisions to cover up and deny the widespread abuses. The Pope may not operate the prison or court system in any country but he is active in using his influence to circumvent those systems for his own benefit.

From the same well researched article as above, the conclusion of the researcher, who was formerly a monk tasked with making the evidence of widespread abuse disappear, as to the reasons that such cover-up and denial was deemed so necessary:

Why does the church keep sending these priests, who have come to be such a major liability, back into ministry? "It's all about keeping the stores open, keeping the revenue rolling," Wall says. The Alaskan provinces in particular, Wall says, were a source of revenue—not from the Native population living there, but from parishioners in the lower 48 who were encouraged to donate for the Native ministry up north. "You could raise thousands to fund a mission that cost very little to run," Wall says. "The profit margin is huge."

[www.thestranger.com]

I don't doubt that there are countless cults springing up within the catholic church but from where do they take their example? The Infallible Pope? The profit margin is indeed huge.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2010 04:37PM by Stoic.

This is off topic for this particular thread but this sudden influx of topics regarding cults targeting the catholic faithful strikes me as analogous to an old-skool Scientologist turning up on this forum to highlight off-shoot cults targeting members of the Co$, and providing an apologia for the 'true doctrine' of L Ron.

In that case there would be few readers of the thread who would fail to see that the apologist was more concerned with falling revenue and loss of members (thus loss of clout) for the Co$ than with the welfare of the faithful. How is this finger-pointing smoke-screen of an apology for the endemic corruption in the catholic church any different?

I have no objection to anybody's personal beliefs, I do object to apologists trawling for obscure 'cults' to post in this forum to scare any wavering catholics back into the arms and filling the coffers of Mother Church.