The Way: Another Dose of Spanish Religious Fascism

Today I'd like to call attention to a very disturbing article about the Neocatechumenal Way.  This is a long article, and although I will be taking excerpts from it in the rest of this thread, I encourage you to read the full article.  

I have to admit I knew a whole lot more about Opus Dei and the Legionaires.  Somewhere in the background of Catholic neocon movements I had heard of  "The Way", and knew that in June of this year it had received Canonical status from the Vatican, after CDF approval of it's statutes.  I had also heard vague rumblings about some of it's liturgical abuses and that the Vatican had insisted those be cleaned up before it would grant Canonical status. In all honesty I tended to see "The Way" as progressive because of it's use of creative liturgies and emphasis on communities.  I couldn't have been farther from the truth.  

The lay leader of the movement is Kiko Arguello, a self proclaimed mystic and visionary, hence the shorthand name for followers of the movement are 'Kikos'. It has a world wide membership of 1.5 million with it's own seminaries, parishes, and colleges.  It's received unbelievable support from John Paul II.  Like the other high profile right wing groups it's the brain child of a Spaniard and enjoys immense support amongst the Cardinals of Spain.  It's as right wing fanatical as these things come, and not adverse to 'community organizing':

And above all, Kiko will provide Rouco (Cardinal Rouco of Madrid) with political influence. At a meeting in Rome in October 2007, during the beatification of 468 Religious assassinated in the Civil War, Arguello will propose to the Cardinal organising a great demonstration in Madrid ‘in defense of the Christian family’. There are barely three months left before the general elections. The polls predict a technical draw between the PSOE (Socialist Party of Spanish Workers) and the (right wing) Popular Party. Rouco is doubtful. It seems precipitate. Arguello reassures him, ‘Don Antonio, I will put 300,000 kikos in Columbus Place’. Rouco agrees. The demonstration takes place on October 30. Various Cardinals and 42 Bishops attend.

This supposed religious demonstration turns into a political rally against the Government of Rodriguez Zapatero and his initiatives like homosexual marriage and the school subject, Education for Citizenship. The dais rises above an icon painted by Arguello. Organisers accuse Zapatero of ‘breaking up the family’. Cardinal Garcia-Gasco goes further. ‘Radical laicism can bring about the dissolution of democracy and does not respect the constitution,’ he roars. Kiko closes the rally with his guitar. And sounds an alarm, ‘These atheistic and lay Governments want to make us believe that our life goes nowhere. But it is going to Heaven.’  (Garcia-Gasco's words could be just as easily leveled at the Neocats, but we all know in the conservative mind their thinking can only go in one direction.  That's why none of them understand "HYPOCRISY".)

Arguello really means we're all going to heaven if we do it his way.  His way involves all the usual cultic trappings:  the turning over of wealth from members, secrecy, coercive instruction in the statutes by catechetical 'overseers' and secrecy, the insistence on obedience to superiors as the prime indicator of the strength of one's faith, the practice of ostracism and secrecy, the perception that the leader is a living saint and that he stands in direct contrast to the workings of Satan and his assertions that this is true, aggressive evangelising, the subverting of clergy, the takeover of parishes, and the grooming, educating and infantilizing of it's own seminarians.

The kiko's are also heavily recognized for having large families.  Arguello has repeatedly emphasized the woman's Christian duty is to have as many babies as possible.  Kiko's have a ritual, seemingly taken directly from AA, where members identify themselves only by first name and then give the number of children they have.  The most applause goes to the person with the most children. Procreative sobriety is not the kind of sobriety Kiko's are looking for.  Neocats have the largest birthrate of any subgroup in Europe and this birthrate is one reason they are exploding in numbers.  Since The Way is in it's 45th year, we're talking generations of baby making.

Kiko Arguello is not married, and as far as anyone knows has no children, but he does have an interesting relationship with a woman name Carmen Hernandez:

In the shanties of Vallecas he was going to meet, in those first stages of his career, the woman who has been his companion, his alter ego and co-founder of the Neocatechumenal Way, through four decades, Carmen Hernandez, a nun of her generation, of a wealthy family, a Licentiate in theology, who from her girlhood had wanted to be a missionary, but had never submitted to the discipline of the religious orders. ‘We were two misfits; that everything would go well is a miracle,’ says Arguello. Kiko would bring to The Way his charisma, his interpretive gifts, his restlessness. Carmen Hernandez the doctrinal base that Arguello lacked. They would unite forces. The relationship between them is one of the great mysteries (one of the favourite terms of The Way) of the kikos. Their followers explain immediately that they are not a couple. It is certain he is the leader. But she is not disposed to remain without her moment of glory. She is the voice of his conscience. In public and in private. And she presses him conscientiously.  (Perhaps their relationship is the foundation on which JPII's notions of sexual complimentarity had their genesis.)

There are descriptions of their public ceremonial interchanges in which she sits on the altar with him and corrects his thinking or uses sarcasm to get him to rethink what he says, or just ridicules him.  It's a strange relationship, but this repartee has been part and parcel of what makes their leadership of the movement so powerful.  Functioning as Arguello's alter ego she seems to humanize and humble him.  Seems to, is probably the operative word.  This couple had a very very close relationship with JPII:

 When Karol Woytila arrived at the Vatican in 1978 the churches and the seminaries were empty, the traditional orders (Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans) flirting with the Theology of Liberation and the diocesan clergy old and in confusion. Woytila was the result of the Cold War; he conceived of a church of resistance to Communism. ‘And from the first moment, his idea is to re-evangelize Europe. He sees that he can not count on the old orders’ explains a Spanish priest. ‘He finds himself alone. There is a spiritual vacuum and providentially the new neocon groups appear (Opus Dei, Focolares, Communion and Liberation, Saint Egidio, and the kikos) formed by lay people with a conception of the Church similar to his own, and he draws on them. They not only fill stadiums for him, but they are an antidote to the Theology of Liberation and the proliferation of evangelical sects in Latin America. They are ready to preach in the old Communist countries. And they profess a dog-like fidelity to him.

Kiko and Woytila are twin souls. They both want to re-evangelize Christianity. And they are two old enthusiasts of the theatre. They know the importance of image. As one monsignor relates, Carmen and Kiko cultivate John Paul conscientiously. They are masters in the art of flattery. As often as the Pope opens his window, rain or snow, there is a group of kikos with guitars, singing in honour of him. Kikos will sing for Woytila in every mass celebration at which he’s present in any corner of the world. Every Sunday Carmen Hernandez is with the Pope while he visits the parishes of Rome as bishop of his diocese. She becomes a habitual presence. Kiko and Carmen eventually penetrate the intimacy of the Pope and share private meals with him. They will talk with him with their habitual harshness of the state of the Church. They will give him reports about the fidelity of the bishops. Previously, the pair had won over to their cause the powerful secretary of the Pope, the Polish priest, Stanislaw Dziwisz. When he is made cardinal in 2006, they will be in the front rank, and the new cardinal will fraternally put his arm round Carmen’s shoulders. She confirms that they are still good friends: ‘He has invited us to Cracow, and he treats me like a queen. He invites me to seafood.’

In 1990, against the judgment of certain bishops who are suspicious of the practices of The Way, Woytila publishes a letter of recognition which conveys his good regard for the kikos. In the document he exhorts bishops to value and to support the work of The Way. In other words he orders them to open the doors of their parishes. One follower suspects that the letter was drawn up by Arguello, who gave it to the Pope to sign. It was the great recognition.

Although it appears that Benedict is not nearly so personally taken with Arguello and Hernandez, he never the less did approve the Canonical status of The Way.  When I think about it, it's amazing how right wing Spanish fascism has infiltrated the Vatican and the Hierarchy.  Opus Dei, the Legionaires, and Neocatechumenal Way are all products of ego driven Spanish fascists.  They are groups which have evolved around personality cults and embody the same slavish devotion as the fascist dictatorships from whose ashes they have risen.  It looks as if they are using the Roman Catholic Church to reach political ascendancy in concert with Biblical Envangelicals in the United States.  I'm sure Arguello and Hernandez would list GW Bush as one of their favorite politicians.  Scary stuff.

In light of all this, I know with a sinking certainty that this US election season will degenerate into the same kinds of Madrid pro family political rhetoric which the Neo Cats engaged in previous to the Spanish election.  The attack semantics of the last two days of the Republican convention seemed to be designed to pander to the American version of Neo Catechumenates. Sarah Palin would fit right in with this group and I know we'll continue to hear the same kinds of attack rhetoric she engaged in from the RNC podium--or should I say RNC pulpit.

Speaking of palin:  The Greek word for "again" or "backward" is palin.  Frequent readers of this blog will remember that I've been told to pay attention to the irony in names.  It doesn't get any better than this.  I also take great hope from the election results in Spain.  It looks to me like the majority of us have no desire to go "backwards" or try Fascism "again".