From the United States to the World, Passing through Rome: Reflections on the Catholic Charismatic Movement

The official origins of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (hereafter, CCR) can be traced to Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, PA), in 1967, when a group of Catholics was baptized in the Holy Spirit. The movement soon spread to the University of Notre Dame (South Bend, IN) and Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI), and the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), all of which became centres of the expanding renewal. While the Catholic hierarchy initially distanced itself, this approach was later superseded by the legitimization of the movement, which was achieved due to the work of Cardinal Léon Joseph Suenens’s mediation between the CCR and the Vatican, and eventually by the centralizing effort pursued by Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes and the Pontifical Council for the Laity. The aim of this paper is to reflect on what happened to the Catholic Charismatic movement from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, how it developed as it moved geographically from the United States to the world, and how it was transformed by passing through Rome.

The official origins of the Catholic Charismatic renewal can be traced to Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, PA), in 1967, when a group of Catholics was baptized in the Holy Spirit. The movement soon spread to the University of Notre Dame (South Bend, IN) and Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI), and the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), all of which became centres of the expanding renewal. While the Catholic hierarchy initially distanced itself, this approach was later superseded by the legitimization of the movement, which was achieved due to the work of Cardinal Léon Joseph Suenens’s mediation between the Catholic Charismatic renewal and the Vatican, and eventually by the centralizing effort pursued by Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes and the Pontifical Council for the Laity. The aim of this paper is to reflect on what happened to the Catholic Charismatic movement from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, how it developed as it moved geographically from the United States to the world, and how it was transformed by passing through Rome.