New Age influence.

The following is a summary of two articles which appeared in the Priests for Life Bulletin, fall of 2003: Fr. Jim Whalen, "Assessment of the New Age Movement" and Fr. Paul Burchat, "New Age and Christian Faith in Contrast." The summary is by Catholic Insight staff. --Editor

Father Whaleri describes the New Age Movement as a subtle but real danger to the Catholic faith, following the document published by the Vatican in April 2003 (see "Vatican on New Age", C.I., June 2003, p.17). "The time is sure to.come," said St. Paul in 2 Tim., "when people will not be content with sound teaching but will turn to the latest novelty."

New Age is an almost indefinable movement, which adheres to myths rather than objective truth; it teaches ethical relativism, which allows each person to choose from different alternatives, so that ethics becomes a matter of personal opinion. If someone wants to be pro-contraception and pro-abortion, his decision is regarded as right for him.

Gnosticism

Pope John Paul says that New Age is only a new way of practising Gnosticism and ancient heresies which replace God's Word with purely human words. Gnosticism suggested that individuals should tune in to a universal consciousness using any method that works, from crystal balls to drugs and dream therapy. It taught that enquiry into spiritual truth was more important than faith, that salvation was attainable only by the few whose faith enabled them to transcend matter, and that Christ was non-corporeal. New Age ideas may influence even practising Catholics, who may not see the incompatibility of these ideas with Church doctrine. It preaches that "As long as what you do is done with love, and don't harm anyone, then it's O.K."--implying tolerance of immoral sexual relationships and undermining marriage and family life. In fact, Cardinal Poupard has said that Catholics would be better off believing in "encounters with aliens" than in the New Age Movement.

Whalen writes that New Age incorporates beliefs and practices from many different sources. It involves a complete break with traditions, however. Archbishop Norberto Rivera points out how it "depersonalizes the God of Christian revelation ... disfigures the person of Jesus Christ, devalues His mission, and ridicules His redeeming sacrifice.... It discards the human person's moral responsibility and denies the existence of sin."

What the New Age Movement attempts to do, Fr. Whalen writes, "runs counter to Christian revelation. Christians must root themselves evermore firmly in the fundamentals of faith and ... understand the often silent cry in people's hearts, which leads them elsewhere if they are not satisfied by the Church.'"

Christian faith

Father Whalen's "Assessment" is followed by one by Father Paul Burchat on "New Age and Christian Faith in Contrast." In this system, he writes, "God loses His transcendence and His unique personality and now everyone and everything becomes God. Ultimately, God is what I want Him to be and I control God and not vice versa." Jesus becomes one among many wise men and not the Son of God.

New Age claims that through various techniques we should be able to reproduce mystical states at will, re-invent the core of our being, achieve a state of union with the cosmos which denies our separation from it as distinct entities, and so on. In New Age thought, we save ourselves. This notion is at the heart of such catch phrases as "self-fulfillment", "self-realization," and "self-redemption." And New Age truth is a matter of finding one's own truth in accordance with the "feel-good" factor.

Jungian influences

Father Whalen concludes with an article on "Deceptive mythic perspectives?" Carl Jung believed that his knowledge of the psyche (the collective unconscious and its archetypes) unlocked the real meaning of religion and personality. States another writer: "Jung, indeed ... not only psychologized esotericism but he also sacralized psychology, by filling it with the contents of esoteric speculation.

"The result was a body of theories, which enabled people to talk about God while really meaning their own psyche, and about their psyche while really meaning the divine."

Jung thought that "psychology is the modern myth and only in terms of the current myth can we understand faith."

Jung's thought is subtle and difficult. However, his God is not the Christian God--for one thing, he is a being in whom both good and evil meet.

Father Jim Whalen is an Ottawa parish priests for Life Canada. Fr. Paul Burchat is associated with Madonna House, Combermere, ON.