The Paradox of Charismatic Catholicism

Abstract

Coupling Catholic doctrine with ‘ecstatic’ forms of worship more often associated with Pentecostal/Charismatic forms of Protestantism, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement (CCRM) has seen rapid global expansion over the past four decades, but in doing so it has been institutionally, theologically, and socially problematic for traditionally more orthodox Catholic communities. In simultaneously claiming continuity with the institutional body of the Church while evincing a radical break from normative forms of Catholic ritual practice, the CCRM likewise poses something of a conundrum for ethnographers of Christianity. Drawing on ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork with an emerging CCRM congregation in an ethnically homogeneous Q’eqchi’-Maya Catholic parish in Guatemala, this chapter examines the discursive strategies Catholic Charismatics employ to construct a position for themselves within the institutional bodies of the Church in the face of suspicion from mainstream Catholics who view the former as false Catholics. By situating CCRM groups in a local history of multiple, competing, modes of Catholic religiosity, this chapter problematizes issues of continuity and rupture suggesting that Catholicism as it is practiced today is far from monologic.