Sneaking The Sword Of The Spirit Into The Catholic Church

SNEAKING THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT INTO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Fr Michael Scanlan TOR gave this prophetic direction in 1977 to the 40 or so members of the Community of God's Love (later known as the Servants of Christ the King, or SOCK). The directive is given via the Charismatic gift of “Prophecy” (in the first person -as if being spoken by Jesus Christ.) The Prophecy is reproduced in the following pages of this document. Using God’s Name and Voice, Fr. Scanlan orders the community to come under the Word of God Covenant Community (soon to be the Sword of the Spirit, or SOS) for "formation and training". This action is to protect the Word of God/SOS, "...so they will not be vulnerable to those who accuse them of being out of my Church." While claiming to be "fully submitted" to Bishop Albert Ottenweller in public, Fr Scanlan would withhold critical information from the Bishop about the role of the Sword of the Spirit in pastoring Catholics in the Diocese of Steubenville. Far more than just “protecting” the SOS, Fr Scanlan enabled Sword of the Spirit theology and pastoral practices to be quietly and secretly implanted in a Catholic parish and at the College of Steubenville, later Franciscan University. He did this without fully explaining to the Bishop what he was doing. Tom Kneier explains how this was done in the document “Doomed from the Start.”1 He would personally attest to the SOS’s involvement in the parish and the University in his 1986 autobiography, “Let The Fire Fall.” "Most of the people who work in Campus Ministry and Student Life are members of the [Sword of the Spirit branch] Servants of Christ the King, a group of 300 Christians in Steubenville area who made a covenant commitment to live their lives together... The Community contributes invaluable services to the University. Members of the [Sword of the Spirit] community moderate every household on campus; their responsibilities include giving direction, teaching, counseling, and acting as general overseers. The [Sword of the Spirit] community also provides the recruitment pool for entrance level administrators, provides the staff for the conference office, and is a great asset in recruiting faculty who want to be associated with a Christian Community." After Bishop Ottenweller intervened and tossed the SOS out of his Diocese, Fr Scanlan would remove all references to the Covenant Community and the Sword of the Spirit from the second edition of his autobiography, reprinted in 1997. In the document “OTTENWELLER SHREDS SWORD OF THE SPIRIT COVENANT”2 Bishop Ottenweller called the Sword of the Spirit an, "evil system" within the hearing of this and other witnesses. The Sword of the Spirit influence at Franciscan University via the Covenant Community Servants of Christ the King is further discussed and explained in the document, “Franciscan University 1987: Four Articles by Religious News Service.”3 It contains a memo from a SOCK coordinator on how to strategically recruit students as well as a copy of the “Schematic”, a document created by SOCK Coordinators to explain to membership the work the SOS Covenant Community was doing through Franciscan University. John Flaherty, Grand Island, NE October 1, 2009

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(Revised June 29, 2012.)

http://www.pdfcoke.com/doc/19695258/Doomed-from-the-Start-Tom-Kneier-re-The-Sword-of-the-Spirit http://www.pdfcoke.com/doc/19274926 3 http://www.pdfcoke.com/doc/93304839 2