Last week a Vatican document reflected on the relationship of charismatic movements to the mainstream Church. Are they a threat to traditional order, or vital to its rejuvenation?

In March, Pope Francis sent out 250 families from the Neocatechumenal Way, accompanied by their priests and catechists, to 50 dioceses of the world. Meanwhile, the Emmanuel Community holds weekly “household” meetings via Skype, where community members, including priests, pray together and share their lives. And the Focolare has little “towns” of witness, and includes members of different Christian Churches and the major religions, along with secular people. So where exactly do these and the rest of the many Catholic ecclesial movements fit into the traditional schema of the Church?

Last week’s letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to the bishops, entitled Iuvenescit Ecclesia (“The Church rejuvenates”), seeks to explain the “relationship between the hierarchical and charismatic gifts in the life and the mission of the Church”. Fifteen years in the making, its main thrust is that hierarchical and charismatic gifts are “co-essential” in the Church. There is no “Church of the Spirit” distinct from the “hierarchical-institutional Church”, it says. By implication, neither is there a hierarchically ordered Church without the life-giving expression of the gifts of the Spirit.