all copillage will be pursued before the courts
00036468
TESTIMONY OF AN EX - NÉOCATÉCHUMÈNE "NOSTALGIQUE"
Translation in French of Dennis Dumas of the testimony of which the original in Italian himself trouve : http://www.cesap.net/la_tela_del_ragno.htm
Dear Élio grant I thank you for the patience that you always had to listen to me on the phone, and for help and strength that you gave us to me and to my wife as we were going to leave of the Path, and for the support that you continue to give us because we don't have anymore to feel us only! Your book made us understand a lot of things. Now I would like to appear what haunts me again when I remember life lived in the Path.
I would like to begin as recalling me the question that I believe reveals the true goals of the Path very well and that one asked us for every time that we had to make a passage. The question was: "In the beginning of the Path, how were you? Of the concrete facts! According to me this question wanted to make believe that the CN had to be the center of the life of the supporter or the adept. Obviously the message that one wanted to make pass was: There was "to beginning the obscurity. There is now light, thanks to us catechists and to our catéchèses!". When we answered, to this question and to other counterparts, we thought with transportation and exaltation about her 'dirty trick' that we were.., and to all this 'disaster' that we had made our life. The catechists expressed themselves thus and they made us believe that it was a big grace of them to have met.., and of have been illuminated by the Community.
Of so many last years in Community, what comes back the more to the mind is the dirty trick, the sense of the contempt and numerous other negative words that was repeated us with a lot of exaggeration until exasperation. Elated by the communal experience that is stayed living, we have all been ratified according to a project centralized in the catechist's character. This project achieved itself in the life plain of the Path and in the different passages, when one analyzed the grants and the graces, in order to make light on our life and to see indeed clear on what we were. These grants and these graces were unveiled us by these same catechists who judged our to act according to spiritual criterias pre-established by the Path and that were underestimated us. With the passage of the years one identified more and more with the advice that was given us by catechists who invited us to scrutinize more and more deeply in our life and they invited us to welcome God's Speech that would unveil us our pains and the negative that lived us, latent with the demon, of it.
According to the Path one must not be shocked by our life, or of what we add, or of what says itself of us. Very often the same catechists, with a prophetic mind, repeated us the idea that the experience of the salute, sometimes, pass by the experience of the sin, because thereafter God's grace raises us comfortably.
According to me inside the NC has something also good: indoctrination by the evangelical readings; the historic research on the biblical faces; the mind of prayer that must penetrate our life. It helped us to grow in the faith and made us become aware of the religious aspect of our life.
But all it was directed completely by a catéchèse of constraint and by a pedagogy that standardized us all, while making us to obey blindly and to answer the catechist's questions that touched the conscience and the intimate life more and more. It arrived as in a takes inquisition operated in light of some Speech taken in the gospel. The catechists scrutinized and dug in us in the domestic relations or interpersonnelles. On our turn, then we had to be introspective, and to analyze the most intimate actions, committed in the name of our idolatry that had conditioned our life or the life of the other. The answers, then, had to be written on a leaf. Some answers were read in public, sometimes also in presence of a priest. He/it came to give an authoritative message and us to us had to welcome it all with a lot of reverence. In these moments the catechists had a behavior similar to the one of a psychologist or a spiritual guide. Their direction shaved and modified the prophetic mandate. They felt and presented themselves like messengers by the church and they bragged about this investiture and this mandate.
It is not my intention to polemize, but I recall than sometimes, during the votes, someone was nearly submitted to a torment. The thing that surprised the more was the priest's silence that didn't intervene either in these moments. These are not all priests who attended these votes that behaved thus. Someone had courage to denounce something overtly, but he/it has been criticized and discredited. The catechists, then, conditioned the brothers of the Community while making them believe that the one that doesn't push this reality, cannot understand the mind of the Path and they added that the CN was approved of the Pope and the church whom soon would also approve the Statute while recognizing this type of religious Movement completely. Sometimes they invited some priests not being part of the NC, but it was only to preside to the liturgies eucharistiques, to the Speech or to the penitential Liturgies. All this in the goal to give a sacred picture and, at the same time, to give a credibility in the Path and to sound. uvre in the middle of the men.
A thing hurt me: the isolation! At one time I began to express some doubts opposite the Path and to signal the things that seemed very questionable to me. Other brothers also shared my doubts, but when after my doubts came me the idea to abandon the Community, around me is made itself the emptiness. These same 'brothers' with which we had shared a lot of communal experiences, a lot of strong moments, a lot of preparations and liturgical feasts, a lot of birthdays and of walks., all turned me the back. They didn't call me anymore, as they sometimes made, even to take my news. In actual fact someone called me, but only to invite me to a convivence in presence of the catechists, so that I had the possibility to compare with them my doubts.
I think that in our life, we must have courage rightly to take our own responsibilities. It is just that we chose, while only giving account to God and to our confessor. He/it is not written to nowhere that it is necessary to confide us to a layman and to make itself/themselves guide blindly by him without having the least doubt to his/her/its consideration and opposite what he/it says. How can a layman require that I say the things concerning my intimate, domestic sphere, or my conscience? I don't write it by chance. Whereas the time passed, it seemed me that in the Community the only important, sure and reassuring thing was the one that said the catechists. The courage to judge with his/her/its own head was judged like a rebellion or like a demoniac temptation that stood before our life. But rebellion towards whom, of what? I wondered.
I remember with sadness that the one that let the Community, and it always arrived during the passages, was pitied for his/her/its choice and judged a weak and watched with mercy. When someone wanted to come out of the Community, the catechists, with a prophetic mind, exposed him what would become his/her/its life if he/it didn't follow the Path anymore and they told to him that he/it had to follow their advice because they were just and truthful. They presented themselves as angels, as prophets sent by God. So then someone abandoned the Community without believing in their menacing admonitions, then they tried to give a sense of security to those that remained and they showed like a renegade, as (to say in bulk) someone that abjured his/her/its own faith, the one that abandoned the Community.
Here is why one has if fear to let the Community!
I wonder what happens in the head of a faithful orthodox Néocatéchumène, that is in good faith in the NC. I believe, first of all, that he/it must remember and must consider with a lot of seriousness, what one told him in some passages, and that is to say, that had had place an alliance that we had punished between us and God while putting our signing on a leaf that had been placed the Bible of the Community above. Everything that had occurred in the passage and the ritual of the second vote. One treated a pact there makes directly with God, by the catechists, as prophets. And in presence of the priest.
It is only one of the points of conditioning. Others have been indicated in the expressions proclaimed with strength, of the type,: "outside of the Community a religious truth doesn't exist that as ours speaks you directly about your life! One path that carries you to live God's Speech that is embodied in your history doesn't exist! So however you decide to go of it, brother, due to a lack of courage, to you! raise you and go some! Remind you however of a chose : the Lord today passed and you didn't receive it! Today open your c.ur! Convert you! Courage! We came for you. We came to carry the kérigme that the Lord died but, for you, for me, it is revived.
He/it is not true that your life is disgusting: today you can change! To push you on this cross! Don't watch to the insufficiency of your catechists! We are only sent by the church to bring you a message: that you can arrive there, you can stand up! If today you decide to go of it to you of the Community, know a thing, and we must tell it to you, that now you are salt in your family, between your colleagues. Outside you risk to become flavorless, downtrodden by your history, downtrodden by all!".
Not to make too long, these are here and there some sentences of the taken catéchèses and of admonitions made not the catechists to some brothers. I wanted to transcribe them to give an idea of the psychological climate and the presumption of some affirmations.
A something else made me feel a lot of pain. During the meetings that always took late in the evening place, in the different questioning there were questions of the type: do "you pray? How do you pray? Of the tithe every month? Why don't you give the tithe?". All it was for insane! There was not a sprig of respect of the liberty of others. Now, while I am writing this testimony, he/it seems me to exaggerate, but it is indeed what I lived and that I heard during all these years!
Another troubling aspect made me think a lot. If some brother made notice obvious contradictions between what the catechist said and what the spiritual director said, the poor was reprimanded severely. I remember of a s.ur that while exposing a problem of familiar nature, made notice a clean discordance between the advice that he gave the catechist and those of the confessor. Then the catechist recalled some things of the past that the s.ur had revealed in the famous secret votes, while throwing him anathemas of the type: "You cannot speak because you stir up ill-feeling in the church! Know that your manner to make door only to question the mind Saint because he/it defends the church! Therefore I reprimand you while telling to you: Make what we tell to you! And if you don't make like that it will happen to you this one... and it...!". Become mad and desperate, the dear s.ur entered in crisis for some weeks, but she came back to ask unfortunately for forgiveness the catechist, confirming it, so, prophet of his/her/its life.
When I think about this episode he/it comes me to the mind that in the Path the catechist is like a father and the Community like a protective mother. Every adherent remains bound always to his/her/its umbilical cord, well anchored to the father catechist.
Sometimes they come me to the mind a tragi-comic situation which I attended: (proselytism) between the parents of a same family; hierarchical fanaticism overwhelming given by the catechists to some brothers. In some moments of détente lived with some 'brothers' confirmed catechists it happened to me to speak of God or the Community. All went well so much that one agreed, but not as soon as the speech touched the Path and the opinions diverged, then this brother changed tone of voice and personified the catechist, as much in to speak it as in the way to give itself/themselves of airs.
I also noticed a diffuse depersonalization. The vocabulary makes sentences and affirmations typical of the Path hit me a lot. With the passage of the time, through a long process, all brothers conformed nearly to the manner to speak typical of the Path. It is not my intention to throw the discredit on the Path because I also saw a lot of good things and I don't have any valid instrument of theological type to be able to riposte to some heresies of bottom. I want to hope while the brothers having courage to doubt, won't make themselves condition, himself re will appropriate their life, while choosing according to their moral conscience.
I realize that I miss a lot today of a group, of a community, to be able to continue to have a religious formation. Now however I see in my family a big communal formation opportunity. Here I consult with my wife, with the sons and with God's grace. The experience that I lived in the Path certainly conditioned me. I understood that the Community Néocatéchuménaleses (or of other religious realities that have the tendency to make some groups) should have the intention sincere to open up more and more: they should tackle with other realities and should be always in dialogue. In the case of the Néocatéchumèneses, besides, they should not continue more to analyze, to see some shortcomingses only, while aggravating them. They should cultivate and should nourish the optimism. They should have the capacity not to take itself/themselves too seriously, to calm down, to look for the peace and serenity in the group.
In synthesis, he/it seems me to have found in the Community a lot of pessimism. The brother catéchumène life for twenty years an experience in state of confusion that makes him center his/her/its life on the catechist, who forms it, makes it fragile, destitute of insurance, requiring a security, that only the catéchèses of Kiko transmitted by the catechists with authority and consistent blindly, can give to him.
The Path Néocatéchuménal is an experience: really mortifying!
Dear Elio grant, there is what I felt the need to write you so that you understand my mood, and to have you, one speech of direction and comfort!
Thank you for everything that made for us and for the illuminating words that you will want to address us again!
I ask for your blessing for me and for my family..
								T.M.