“Pray Aggressively for a Higher Goal—The Unification of All Christianity”: U.S. Catholic Charismatics and Their Ecumenical Relationships in the Late 1960s and 1970s

Valentina Ciciliot

doi:10.3390/rel12050353

Abstract

In July 1977, 50,000 Christians from different backgrounds and traditions converged on Kansas City to participate in the Conference on Charismatic Renewal in the Christian Churches. Catholic charismatics played a key role in its organization, relying on all their ecumenical contacts built since the origins of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) in 1967 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh (PA). If the Kansas City conference represented the zenith of a shared unified vision for all charismatic Christianity, it also showed the emergence of the crisis which affected Catholic charismatic communities and their connection with Rome. This paper will explore U.S. Catholic charismatics’ relationships with other Christian denominations and groups in the initial development of the CCR, particularly in structuring Catholic charismatic communities, and their ecumenical perspectives in the tension between needs for legitimization (by the Vatican) and needs for self-expression.

Highlights

The Catholic charismatic renewal (CCR) officially began in February 1967, at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University (PA), when a history professor, William (Bill) Storey, and a graduate student, Ralph Kiefer, claimed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit in a charismatic prayer group of Episcopalians
It was the relationship between Catholic charismatic and Christian Growth Ministries (CGM) leaders that gave rise to the largest ecumenical event ever seen in the United States, the Kansas City Conference on the Charismatic Renewal in the Christian Churches (CCRCC), in Missouri, on 20–24
Catholic charismatic apologetic literature at the beginning diminished the role of such “crosspollination” in order to support the ongoing legitimization process of the movement within the Catholic Church, ecumenical relationships undoubtedly shaped the Catholic renewal as a whole

Summary

Introduction

The Catholic charismatic renewal (CCR) officially began in February 1967, at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University (PA), when a history professor, William (Bill) Storey, and a graduate student, Ralph Kiefer, claimed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit in a charismatic prayer group of Episcopalians. This article intends to focus on three aspects that have been less explored by historiography to demonstrate how charismatic ecumenical contacts and networks between the late 1960s and 1970s unquestionably shaped the Catholic charismatic renewal in the United States and worldwide: the role of Episcopalian pastor Graham Pulkingham and his Church of the Redeemer in Houston (Texas) in modeling the first Catholic charismatic covenant communities in the late 1960s; the relationships between Catholic charismatic and non-denominational charismatic leaders, those involved in the Shepherding movement, in the 1970s, for the sake of a pan-charismatic project; and the 1977. Kansas City Conference as the zenith and the beginning of the crisis of the panecumenical/interdenominational charismatic experience

Graham Pulkingham and the Church of the Redeemer

Non-Denominational Charismatics

The Kansas City Conference

Conclusions