Photo ~ Fusion Catholicism: Priest and monstrance process while the hall is filled with loud, thumping "Christian Rock".

A Charismatic Weekend at Steubenville
by John Vennari

It was Saturday night at Franciscan University of Steubenville and all around the gymnasium, bodies were dropping to the floor.

Luis Entrialgo, a married lay-deacon from Cuba, had just concluded a Protestant-styled “healing” service, and the slain-in-the-spirit session immediately followed.

Loud music throbbed in hypnotic rhythm from the rock’n’roll “worship band”, lay-people laid hands on other lay-people, limp bodies fell backwards ending face-up on the floor, participants stepped around bodies to make their way down side aisles, a priest prayed in “tongues” over the microphone, “sha-na-la-sha-na-la-sha-na-la-sha-na-la, sha-na-la, thank You, Jesus!” It was the grand finale of the day.


The Steubenville event was a weekend of "fusion Catholicism," Cathoicism alloyed with various non-Catholic elements.

I had attended Charismatic conferences in the past; most notably the 30th Anniversary Charismatic conference in Pittsburgh, June 1997, and Celebrate Jesus 2000, a “Catholic” conference top-heavy with Protestant Preachers in St. Louis in June, 2000.

These weekends were riotous pep-rally, rock’n’roll romps that included Protestants preaching to a predominantly Catholic audience; bishops, priests, religious and laity dancing around on stage to “Christian” pop-music; and “Holy Laughter” sessions with Charismatics barking like dogs, rolling on the floor, screaming and laughing hysterically — all under the supposed operation of the Holy Ghost.

In fact, Protestant preachers from the “Holy Laughter” sect were invited speakers at the year 2000 conference.

Though there was much to see, learn and weep over at the 1997 and 2000 conferences, I knew that no study of Catholic Pentecostalism would be complete without visiting the Mecca, the Mother-Church of Catholic-Charismaticism in the United States: Franciscan University of Steubenville.

When I learned of the Charismatic weekend slated for June 2006, I knew I finally had to take the plunge. I purchased my ticket and arrived at the Steubenville campus late Friday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon found me weary and relieved the ordeal was over.

Fusion Catholicism

The Catholic Charismatic Movement is a clumsy, paint-by-numbers knock-off of Protestant Pentecostalism.

It is a movement for Catholics who wish to remain Catholic while acting as Protestant as possible.

Rooted in an unstable and embarrassing emotionalism, the Charismatic Movement displays a presumption regarding extraordinary phenomena that defies Catholicism’s 2000-year teaching on the discernment of spirits.

Any sober Catholic attending the 1997 and 2000 Charismatic conferences would recognize this at once.

But the Steubenville weekend was a bit different. This particular conference ran the Catholic saints as its theme, and much of what was said by various speakers was doctrinally sound and even edifying.

These positive aspects, however, were coupled with Pentecostal rollicks. One often felt pulled in two opposing directions at once.

In short, Steubenville has perfected a new synthesis of conservative Catholicism on the one hand, and Protestant, pep-rally Pentecostalism on the other.

It is fusion Catholicism — Catholicism alloyed with non-Catholic elements. As such, it defies the command of the Athanasian Creed to hold the Catholic Faith “integral and inviolate”. This will become clear as we proceed through the conference.

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