Catholic Charismatic Renewal

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal was a hyper-spiritual renewal movement within late 20th century Catholicism that promised Catholics a more fruitful relationship with the Holy Ghost. The CCR taught that Jesus had sent the Holy Ghost to earth to make converts, but that for whatever reason, Christians had failed to fully endorse the third person of the Trinity into their lives. By accepting a 'Baptism in the Spirit,' Christians could be empowered spiritually to be more effective evangelists and live a more morale life.

In reality, the CCR was the Catholic-adopted version of Protestant 'Pentecostal' spirituality. This, in turn, was the byproduct of earlier Protestant hyper-spiritual practices, particularly in American Methodism or Baptist services. These Protestant preachers taught their followers to experience God in a hyper-emotional state, leading to subjective phenomena which the participates felt was the action of God.

Examples include feelings of love from God, the idea of being 'touched' or chosen or singled out by God in some way, communication from God in the form of (normally vague) omens, dreams, visions or 'feelings,' supposed affirmations of healing, wealth, prosperity, etc. All of these phenomena shared primarily two traits in common: that they were the product of highly emotional (and therefore highly reactionary) minds and that it gave people a sense of closeness to God. This, in turn, would make them avid churchgoers, and thus increase the wealth and influence of the church itself.

Curiously, despite some possible accounts of miraculous healings, CCR ministries never set up healing services for victims of major trauma like amputee victims or those dying of cancer? Also, if these supposed gifts of the Holy Spirit were true, why did they occur across denominations of such vastly different teachings? Even non-Christian religions have reported similar 'miracles' or behavior in their followers?

Links

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=2673