To whom it may concern:

Please keep the discussion here focused on CRHP, i.e. its behavior and dynamics.

Claims that it is a "cult" or somehow "cult-like" is the focus of this thread.

If you wish to discuss clergy abuse there is another specific section for that.

See [forum.culteducation.com]

Thank you.

I think the CRHP group is using a lot of tactics that show up in the business cults. What they do is start out with a false need which they then define and to which the only solution is to join them. Their basic premise is that there is no "unity" and the only way to have "unity" is through their retreats. They train their people to sell their retreats with a vicious gossip network.

It does not matter whether a parish really is floundering or whether "unity" is a problem. What is "unity"? "Unity" is nothing but "Our Clique".

Many parishes have several different kinds of Mass to accomodate different "styles" of worship and even ethnicity. No one is stopped from going to any of these Masses by virtue of being outside the supporting group. Social committees may form within or across the boundaries of these loosely defined interest groups. So what happens when a few self-proclaimed laypeople set out to sell the idea that the parish will fail unless you go to their pajama party retreat and immerse yourself in "Christ Renews His Parish"?

What they are providing is not what the Catholic Church has historically considered a "retreat". A retreat is always supposed to be for the benefit of the individual's inner life, spiritual or emotional. The health of the parish is supposed to be in the hands of the leadership, which is more involved with deacons and other laypeople than with priests. Priests are in charge of spiritual direction and of course they have a lot of authority, but the actual running of a parish is in the hands of its accountable deacon and financial committee structure, its educational committees, etc.

The CRHP removes all accountability and uses the gossip program to influence and control the identified members of the actual governing structure of a parish.

For example, if a parishioner who is a teacher goes to a CRHP retreat, they use that as permission to call that teacher's family members for "prayer needs". Then they use old buried divorce gossip or even lies to "help" that teacher "gro3w". (think about it: do YOU want a stranger calling your drunk brother-in-law with questions about your character? Did you pay your bro back the $500 you borrowed on that trip to Las Vegas? Ooops: there goes your teaching job! )

To whom it may concern:

dsm has been banned from this message board.

Rick Ross
www.culteducation.com