The New Movements by Ian Ker

 I think for now I'll put study notes on this private blog.   That seems like the best way forward.

Today I read a booklet from 2001 called The New Movements:  a Theological Introduction.   It was by Ian Ker, which is the reason I read it, because it is one of the few books of his that are available for lending at the Archive.   

I knew about Ian Ker before, and have even read his book Newman on Vatican II.   Most recently I was reading the study notes of Ralph McInerny's lectures on Newman and Kierkegaard, and he recommended Ker's work in these terms:

Father Ian Ker is the foremost Newmanian of our times and has produced a large and small biography as well as editions of key works of the great cardinal. You might wish to wallow in the large biography of Newman by Ker published by Notre Dame Press in 1988.

I'm guessing this is the book, a leisurely 762 pages, but it is currently unavailable.  

The New Movements was a quick read and rather interesting. Here is the list of movements he was specifically focused on post-Vatican-II, though he refers to others during the history of the Church: the original hermits and monastics, then the mendicant orders in the middle ages (Franciscans and Dominicans), then the Jesuits and Redemptorists in the Counter-Reformation.

His main point is that, in the words of the Catechism, the Church is Marian before it is Petrine, and since the essential attribute of the Church is its guidance by the Holy Spirit, the Church operates more essentially by charism than by its hierarchical structure. This is not to say that the clerical orders are unimportant -- obviously they are central. The Pope is the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ; the bishops are the successors of the apostles. The Church could not go on without them.

Rather, he is offering a corrective to the dichotomy of two unbalanced views. One is to perceive the Church as a pyramid -- the pope at the pinnacle, then the bishops, then the priests, then the rest of us -- with the consecrated religious probably somewhere between the priests and the rest of us. Lumen Gentium corrected this with its emphasis on the "People of God" as a whole, prior to distinctions. But people tended to simply invert the pyramid, defining the People of God as the laity simply, and reimagining the role of the clergy as a sort of public servant more or less as in modern democracies. Then there were protests about why all the power roles seemed to be in the hands of mostly white bachelor men.

This is not the way to conceptualize the Church, as Ker notes, and it is also historically skewed. The only purely human person essential to the Church was Mary. Peter was chosen as the Rock, but it was John the beloved disciple that stood by the Servant at the foot of the Cross. Ever since then, whatever list you make of the most influential figures in Church history, the Popes won't necessarily be at the top of the list, nor the bishops. If they are, it is because of their charism, not their official position per se.

Ker points to various burgeoning and lively, though not necessarily problem-free, modern movements. Chiara Lubich founded the Focolare Movement, Luigi Guissani the Communion and Liberation Movement, Jean Vanier the L'Arche Movement, Dorothy Day the Catholic Worker Movement. Three of these were laity. Others he mentions are: the Faith Movement, the Ascent Movement, the Cursillos, the Catholic Charismatic Movement. He doesn't even get to the Legion of Mary, founded by Frank Duff, probably because it was founded earlier in 1921 (and similarly he doesn't actually mention Dorothy Day). He does refer to Opus Dei, which has a more formal structure and is the only one in this list headed by a priest who has now been canonized.

He notes that Mother Teresa's vocation has been more pivotal to the Church than almost anyone's in the 20th century. The point is that the Holy Spirit moves where it wills.

I also note some of the visionaries of approved apparitions, and many other people who didn't found a movement, but did heroic work for the Church, often struggling against many misunderstandings and much opprobium. TI comes to mind -- deserted by her husband, bringing up several daughters and also starting a crisis pregnancy center. Also KL here, active in anti-abortion protests and spearheading the call for a Traditional Latin Mass in CA, while taking care of various adopted children, grandchildren and step-grandchildren.

One final note, in rather a minor or dissonant key -- several of these movements have been embroiled in controversy due to abuse in their history. In the case of Vanier, the founder himself was abusive; in other cases, the abuse involves other authority figures besides the founder. This seems to be only a recently recognized downside of these more free-flowing, charismatic movements -- they may attract and enable predators, though certainly no organization that deals with vulnerable people is exempt from the danger.