NÉOCATÉCHUMÈNES

http://www.adista.it/numeri/adista03/adi27/adi27-cammino.htm

31805. CATANIA-ADISTA. Niess ermine (but in Italy all call Marina), is an Austrian woman of 61 years. Since 1972 she/it is married with Concetto Bonaccorso, that today is 57 years old. Of their marriage three children are born: Raffaella, Elisabetta and Alfredo. Concetto and Marina were part of the Path néocatéchuménal during 15 years: they had the opportunity therefore to know it in depth, becoming even catechists of the movement. Then, after one period of difficult sufferings, they decided to close this experience, rereading in a critical way their choices and the enormous contradictions that they crossed during this experience discussed of Christian life, that received some months ago (it was June 29, 2002) the papal approval. They wrote a narration retailed of their last years in the Path, published in the last number of "Him cristiano fedele", weekly leaflet of the parish Blissful Virgin Marie of the Mount Carmel, parish where is cleaned grant Hélio Marighetto, priest who studies the movement founded by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernandez for years, lately. We interviewed them, while asking them to tell us the Path seen "of the inside."

M: Above all I want to say first that with my testimony I want to help an in the church, not to disparage it. I like the church. My intention is only to make light on a reality that betrays the evangelical ideals. I believe that in the Path néocatéchuménal he/it is necessary to make. uvre of truth. When I left from it, thereafter, my life became more serene. I would like that the same thing can also arrive for other people, who are maybe again, among one thousand conflicts inside this experience. Numerous live situations of doubts, conflicts or resignation indeed inside the movement, in a state vassalage without hope of delivery.

How long were you in the Path?

M: We entered in the Path in 1984 and we left from it in 1999. I knew the Path néocatéchuménal by my physiotherapist's profession. It was a little girl's mother of which I took care that made me know us this reality. I wanted to try to make a passionate experience to the human and religious level for a long time; I received his/her/its invitation therefore to participate in the meetings.

What role had yourselves inside the Path?

M: We have been named catechists, even though we never exercised effectively this function. Inside the Path there is a rigid hierarchy by which the people who have lower loads always return count what they make and of what follows in their groups to people of superior degree, until the Kikos and Carmen who are at the summit of this pyramid. There are "chiefs catechists" in every diocese, who relate directly in Kiko. The decisions taken in this seat are transmitted, through the Convivence of Plotting, to the regional catechists. These communicate it to the provincial catechists and to those of the every community.

From where does your community come?

M: In the parish Crocifisso di Miracoli dei, in Catania. Our community was formed initially of thirty forty people. There is not however now nearly more no one of this group: they are all outlays or in crisis. When the communities become too small they are merged with another community that is in the same stage of the path: it is what also arrived to ours. These fusions often create big tensions, because every community is accustomed to live in a detached manner with special dynamics. When several communities come to contact the thing he/it is not easy.

Why did you leave?

M: The fundamental reason is that we perceived that there was an incredible pressure exercised of the outside on our personal life, summon, that it was exposed before all. My matrimonial life, my economic situation, all was submitted to the judgment. He/it was often asked us of counts them because we didn't pay regularly for the tithe on everything that we won, or that the introverted money was not sufficient to the survival of the community.

C: We had to give money. If someone didn't give all the asked money he/it was considered a greedy, a coward, someone attached to the idols. We had to put money in a black bag. There was not a control then theoretically on the money that one gave. However one knew what type of income could have every of us. Then, at the end of the collection, the catechists knew how much, more or less, there was in the bag. If the number didn't correspond to their calculations, we were reprimanded bitingly.

To what moment of the Path did they begin to ask for the tithe?

C: Since the moment of the prayer that corresponds to the second passage, after 3-4 years about.

How and when the votes take place them?

C: These are the catechist who decides when the community is ready to pass to a following phase of the path. The members of the community are interrogated then only by the catechists who ask some questions concerning the personal life, to probe the level of conversion of each to the faith. The votes take place inside parochial rooms or in some lounge of the hotels where take place the convivences. They usually take place in the evening, after 21 hours (and they continue, sometimes, until 1.30). Every member of the community comes on his/her/its turn to sit down before the crucifix and the team of catechists and arrive the cross-examination before all others brothers. The cross serves to make see, as the prescribed Kiko that the candidates are before the Christ, so of any manner one cannot lie or can be reticent. The questions are on all the lands, and the catechists don't have any considerations for some type of intimacy. They never ask questions of transcendent character, but they always stop to question our conjugal, familiar, sexual, social reports, or that concern our work etc.

Of whom that accomplishes the vote is the team composed?

C: Entirely of laymen, to exception of a member that is the priest. His/her/its role is however entirely marginal: our votes were always guided by the laymen. If the priest intervenes that is always to confirm everything that by the catechists have been said. Finished the vote, the catechists retired to decide between them if the candidate was or non capable to be admitted to the following stage. Often the contents the cross-examination was dramatic and it followed himself/itself of it that the desperate people started crying. In presence of theirs own children, parents, spouse, one came to know the intimate particularities as the conjugal disloyalties. I remember that a couple, before all, learned by the girl that it had had premarital reports with the fiancé. In another opportunity a woman told the husband's sexual desires to his/her/its consideration, to defend itself/themselves of the accusations of the catechists that believed the couple "closed" to life.

What means closed to life?

C: The néocatéchumènes sustains that in the church no contraceptive method is admitted, nor even those natural. So whoever had some sexual intercourse had to avoid any shape of control, was even the simple calculation of the days of bigger or of less big fertility. We attended amazed the cross-examinations of the votes; the most often this type of situations created the gossip and slanders even among us, especially on these people that, before collapsing before the catechists, had always kept to our eyes an aura of holiness. To listen to these things one becomes progressively cynical, insensible to the suffering of others. But intervention in life deprived of people doesn't arrive only during the votes. If there was someone that was not again married in the community for example, he/it was taken for target: did they tell to him "but that you do look for?", "because you don't get married", "if you are even unmarried it wants to say that you masturbate, that you don't live a chaste manner", etc. for them to a certain age it was necessary Finally, by force or to get married or to undertake the religious life, otherwise he/it was in the sin. Absurd. With regard to the feminine religious life, for the néocatéchumènes they exist the s.urs of fence then, only. The other s.urs for them is not useful.

Were you always forced or did you confess your make a mistake even in the absence of an explicit solicitation?

C: Often people were captivated so by these dynamics that they confessed some things summon even when for them were not asked explicitly. It arrived for example when someone of us offered a "testimony" of his/her/its own path in the faith: in a regional assembly, a member of another community says about 300 people to have united to his/her/its wife during the day gone by the hotel. Sometimes they admitted to being of the mistakes either invented enlarged, not to run the risk to be called before all false or ambiguous. To make all see to be sinners was nearly a motive of pride, parce the one that didn't have anything to tell was seen by us like a pharisien.

If one refused to tell?

C: He/it was not in communion with the community and with God.

And is it that to the passage it happened to him the same thing?

C: No, he/it was refused.

Did it arrive?

C: Sometimes if.

Who led the votes of your community?

C: The catechists of the parish of S. Leone Vescovo, in Catania,; but of where came little our catechists account: the votes are made all over the world of the same way.

Didn't you have the catechists being part of your parochial community?

C: The first time we had the catechists of our parish crocifisso Miracoli dei; after the Shema (a stage of the Path) we made the fusion with another community that had catechists of more elevated level, who came from the first community of S. Leone, who is here in Catania the parish of reference for the néocatéchumènes of the whole city; a few as the one of the Martyrs Canadians in Rome.

During the Redditio the confession is returned not only before the community néocatéchuménale, but before all the assembly united in Church. Is this truth?

M: It was another motive for which I left. I had testified before one thousand, two thousand people. I had enough. The Redditio is the first time where in the Path we recite the creed. Before reciting it, with the hand pushed to the cross, us tell how our life was and how it became after having known the Path. By this transformation arrived in our life us affirm: "I believe in God the almighty Father, etc." For the opportunity they ask us to invite to the church friends, knowledge, neighbors. And we tell all, without being reticent on no aspect, even most intimate, of our life.

If someone of you differed on the manner in which the catechists managed the community or on the contents catéchèses?

C: We agreed always. When there was some problem they told us that they were the announcers of the kérigme, the angels sent to our help, people chosen by God to guide us, that we had to remain to our place. If we persevered in the contestation, they told us to say that we were taken by the demon.

M: To beginning some, even my husband, wanted to express some doubts, sometimes to polemize with no choice: he/it was told to him that he/it had to limit himself/itself to listen, as if it was not capable to hear and to want, and that we could only be guided. One day a catechist told us that between us there would be a friendship never.

What did he/it hear?

M: That their duty was this to be our guides, not d 'être of the friends. I remember that during the convivences the catechists ate detached of the other members of the community, and they never gave some friendly slaps towards the other. They were detached of us, as if we were the topics towards which a gesture of conviviality could decrease their authority. When, in the last Convivence in which we participated, during the Penitence, whereas to this moment I was already also full of agonizing, due doubts to the reading of one book on the Path, I spoke of these things with a priest, he/it answered me that I had to remain in the Path and, with a resolute tone, he/it ordered me to burn this book. On the other hand the catechists said to make all in the name of the church for which we trusted one way or the other blindly, stuffy our doubts and our reluctances. When then the catechists spoke us, me the first, we were panicked literally. By the emotion I felt the need once to go to the bathroom.

Are the catechists rich?

M: I didn't have the possibility to verify it personally. Certainly, as economic condition nearly all catechists are comfortable: physicians, professional. However when there was their convivences they never paid for the hotel, these were "the brothers" to pay for them. It I know it with certainty because, having been named catechist, in a convivence of monitoring I have been exempted to pay.

Besides the tithe was what other demand of money made you?

M: For the seminaries Redemptoris Mater, for the journeys of the missionary catechists When there was some passage that asked maybe well for their presence, their return, for three days, in their city. The most aged of their source parish sustained their journeys. There were the harvests then for the Mount of the Beatitudes, in Earth Holy, where is the center of spirituality néocatéchuménal, the expenses to pay the sitter that the evenings where there are the meetings keep the small children of the members of the community. I tell you an emblematic fact: the collections are made with a black bag, inside of which each deposits its offering. Each is thus free to put what he/it feels. Better, one told us that in the bag, if we had need of it, we could appropriate money freely also. But the bags for the collections were of enormous measurements, therefore money was always at the bottom and to collect it to plunge the arm in depth was necessary. Thus, if someone wanted to take and not to pour any money, all himself in perceived!

Did money ask you the part one also of other gifts?

M: They never asked expressly us for the gifts to personal title but to give up the material attachment. During the Shemà (a special catéchèse to scrutinize his/her/its own attachment to the idols, in preparation of the ^2ième passage) the catechists ask the candidates to detach itself/themselves of their idols of mammon. They told us that we were idolatrous. To reveal our repudiation of the tangible assets they asked us for the concrete acts, of the solid donations also. Someone happened to from it to give some real estates also like lands or apartments. On an occasion I remember that I gave a ring with brightness that I had received my husband. In this collection, that was destined to the financing the Redemptorises Mater the number made of silver had not been sufficiently in money; then, to reach it, the catechists told us that we could even offer the valuable articles that we possessed. Before arriving to the wanted number had three or four towers also with the black bag. This continuous demand of money was one of the reasons that has me

settled to leave. I often came back home no more than that a lira.

How many times per year these collections had them place?

C: When there was the general convivence, once per year, in the beginning of the fall, for lives regional convivences, then each time that there was a convivence for the passage to another stage of the Path. After the second passage for the tithe was asked, what took place once per month. Until this moment, anyway, every week had free collections, to face the expenses for the care of the room where met the community, for the sacred furniture, etc.

Did you celebrate the eucharistie separately of the rest of the parochial community?

M: Yes, even though it was difficult to find a lot of available priests Saturday evening. Because every famous community separately of the other.

Is it that he/it didn't seem strange to you to make the Mass in this manner?

C: Now yes, but then it seemed natural to us. As because during the celebrations, after the reading of the gospel, there were the resonances, where the one that wanted could say what God's Speech had communicated to his life freely, in very concrete, daily terms. In short one created a problem of discretion, even opposite the other communities; he/it seemed natural to us that they didn't come to know our things. Then, the personal problems didn't stay unfortunately, ever in the setting of the community

Let's speak of the personal confession with the priest

M: The only one no one that had a minimum of kindliness to our consideration that was the priest. Anyway he/it was important for us to confess us to him, to get a little comfort. On the other hand the priest was in our same condition: he/it was also in the Path, he/it had to even make his/her/its own confessions before us. He/it was prescribed us of ever to descend to a too personal level with him. We had to limit ourselves to tell him the sins that we had committed. To him, in the same way manner he/it was only allowed to listen to our confession and to give us the absolution. He/it could not make of any way us the spiritual direction, to give us the suggestions, of the encouragements. It was the exclusive task of the catechists. In short, some sacrament remained us the most formal aspect only.

How the confession happened?

C: One sat down in circle for the penitential liturgy. One read God's Speech, then the priests got in the middle of the circle, they confessed in a low voice with the other before us and after, standing, they waited that we also confessed. Only it was difficult, since the middle was not particularly big, that while one confessed, people around don't hear what one declared. Then to prevent to it, during the confessions the assembly began some songs, but between a song and the other there was a time of silence; then it was necessary to be attentive to lower the tone of the voice subsequently in order to not to be sensible.

Is this truth that in the Path one incites to the endogamy, does that mean to get married with people inside the movement?

M: True. It is what arrived even made with my daughter. She/it remained with a boy who was not in the Path. I told him several times to invite it to the catéchèses, but he/it didn't want. I tormented my daughter while telling to him that this boy didn't think according to Christ, that he was far from the church, I pushed it to let it. In my house there were furious disputes... it was an indescribable thing! My daughter came at the end out of the Path. On the other hand the catechists always told us that he/it was better to construct itself/themselves a true family, Christian, with those that defined themselves "the sons of Israel",: the paradox is that "the sons of Israel" were only considered as those that belonged at the Path. Of difference didn't have then not for them between an atheist, a Muslim and a Christian that didn't frequent the catéchèses.

Concerning eucharistie: what do they say?

M: Terrifying: first the Path, for the eucharistie, uses the unleavened bread that drops more easily of the crumbs. Then no one took care to collect these crumbs, that often fell on the floor. The néocatéchumènes doesn't believe in the sacrifice of the eucharistie. The dedicated bread had to be consumed during the whole celebration. And after? I am not certain that for them at the end of the Mass this Bread was again Christ's Body since they didn't take care at all of the crumbs that ended up on the floor accident. A priest of the Path who makes the military chapelain in Livorno, with decorated them of the Folgore, one day told to me,: but to what the tabernacle does serve? The first Christian didn't have it!

How did you welcome in June the approval?

M: For me that was a drama. The military chapelain that I mentioned said it to me the first one day before the news was official. I thought: but where the pope is? I felt betrayed by my Church, the one that likes me like a mother.

You were also in contact with the archbishop of Catania, mons. Bommarito.

C: It is he that contacted us because he/it wanted to have us a testimony. He/it used some when in the beginning of 2002 he/it wrote his/its letter to the néocatéchumènes.

And the successor of Bommarito, mons. Gristina, what position does he/it assume?

M: I know than at the end January he/it celebrated at the cathedral a Mass of thanks for the approval of the Path. But I don't now believe that no bishop can back out of these official celebrations.

Who remained in, how does one treat you?

M: We have been marginalized completely. Some look at us with compassion or contempt, others don't look anymore at us. Very Kiko says that in the church the Judas is necessary. I am one of those. If I didn't have the faith in the church, you must believe me, I would be desperate. There is some that even committed suicide in the Path.

Did they commit suicide?

M: I heard testimonies of people as me that affirm that some brother came out of the movement committed suicide because of the solitude and sufferings that they lived. I also know a s.ur that, abandoning the Path, tempted to kill itself/themselves.

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