A preferential option for the spirit: The Catholic charismatic renewal in Latin America's new religious economy

Latin American Politics and Society, Spring 2003 by Chesnut, R Andrew

Through baptism in the Holy Spirit, individual Charismatics believe that they are endowed with gifts of the Spirit, such as glossolalia and faith healing. For Charismatics and Pentecostals alike, these charismata are powerful and palpable proof of the presence of the Spirit in their lives. In addition to pneumacentrism, Charismatics tend to share, though to a lesser degree, the biblical fundamentalism and asceticism of their Pentecostal progenitors. Of course, what most distinguishes Charismatics from other Catholics is their special emphasis on the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

Separating Charismatics from Pentecostals, particularly in Latin America, are the former's continued fealty to the pontiff and the Virgin Mary. As the CCR has expanded in Latin America, the Virgin has moved from an initially peripheral position in the movement to the center, where she now constitutes, more than any other element, the dividing line that separates Charismatics from Pentecostals. In the 1990s, the CCR not only was the largest and most vibrant Catholic lay movement in Latin America but also was thriving in parts of Asia and Africa, unsurprisingly in the same regions where Pentecostalism has grown rapidly since the 1950s.

The most recent figures from the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services (ICCRS), the CCR's international headquarters at the Vatican, estimate that some 70 million Catholics belong to the movement in almost two hundred countries (ICCRS 2000). Latin American Charismatics probably number between 22 million and 25 million, accounting for approximately one-third of the global total (Comunicado Mensal 1997). With a Charismatic community of between 8 and 10 million, Brazil constitutes the center of gravity of the Latin American CCR. Since less than 10 percent of Brazil's 122 million self-proclaimed Catholics actively participate in church life, it is very likely that at least half of all active Catholics in Brazil are Charismatics. Data for other Latin American countries are lacking, but the CCR is the largest and most active Catholic lay movement in most nations.

Like Pentecostalism, its Protestant forbear, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is an imported religious product from the United States. In the late 1960s, the same charismatic spirituality that had given birth to Pentecostalism in the first decade of the twentieth century and had led to the formation of charismatic communities among mainline Protestants, such as Episcopalians and Presbyterians, in the 1950s and 1960s finally penetrated the U.S. Catholic Church. The CCR specifically traces its genesis to the "Duquesne Weekend" in February 1967, when some 25 students at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh (a Catholic institution that, appropriately, was founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost) gathered for a spiritual retreat with two professors who had already been baptized under the direction of Presbyterian charismatics. Many of the students were baptized in the Holy Spirit and received charismata, marking the first event in which a group of Catholics experienced Pentecostal spirituality.