The Letter

As members of Servants of Christ the King and Sword of the Spirit, many of us since its inception, we are deeply concerned that what began in a godly direction has, in its evolution, strayed greatly from God's will and is under God's judgment. Although some of the problems can be related to personal sin and weakness, we are concerned that those who have been singled out locally have been made scapegoats, freeing other leaders, the Sword of the Spirit, and the pastoral system from blame. We believe the inherent flaws in the system must be acknowledged and eradicated before our local body can continue on in unity. Our purpose in writing this letter is not to place blame or scrutinize the weaknesses of individuals, but to attempt to evaluate the way of l if e that has been handed down to us by Sword of the Spirit and consider some of it's negative fruit. We believe this fruit is strong evidence of the need for fundamental change. This is our common conviction in submitting this letter. We are all committed to Servants of Christ the King and we desire to see it return to the vision that God gave us. The call of "Let's move ahead in the Lord" rings empty. It is empty and hollow because we believe this community cannot "move ahead" in the Lord without addressing the attitudes and practices which have caused such serious damage to a great number of people. We have gone to the leaders of our local branch. We have gone through the appropriate channels and believe that we have been listened to, but not heard. We ask that you hear the following. We have experienced and/or witnessed the practices that we are listing below as harmful and oppressive. I. Sword of the Spirit leaders created the pastoral system. We believe that its basic structure has had the concupiscence of its leaders built into its very fabric. They have assumed that its development would apparently bypass their own personalities, limitations, misconceptions, fears and sinfulness. Although the pastoral system was designed to help people grow in their Christian faith and service, by its very "shepherding and discipling nature" it has often resulted in numerous cases of abuse, control and coercion of those being pastored. The results have brought frustration and confusion to many and serious emotional damage to others. "Pastoral Care" is a system of pastoring that, in effect, expected submission and obedience on the part of those pastored, establishing a seriously unwise, hierarchical order of acquiescence to human leaders. This opened the way for multiple abuses of and unhealthy control of those pastored, often leading to a dependence upon human leaders who were often just as weak as those they pastored. This misuse of God's gift of community resulted in perversion of the concept of spiritual direction. People were made extensions of pastoral leaders' lives; their wills often being

made subject to their pastoral leader's will, resulting in adults being treated like children. It has also led to crippled relationships with God and resulted in a lack of personal ownership and responsibility because adults considered themselves inadequate to discern God's will for their own life. A. The method of "pastoral care" taught and practiced in the Sword of the Spirit was "Fulllife pastoring" which meant giving direction to a person's entire life. It made unhealthy and unrealistic demands on the pastoral leader as well as the person being pastored. How could we realistically attempt to control and direct individual lives right down to hourly schedules, married sexual relationships, child raising, tithing, etc.? It was destructive because it meant

that every area of a person's l i f e was automatically under the

scrutiny of their pastoral leader. For example, the approach regarding care for those dating has been seriously flawed. community.

Dating partners as a rule were to be found within the

Single people were often told who they should or should not date and how

much time they could spend together. Women were told that they may have to "forgo marriage" because membership in the community limited their choice of a spouse. Marriages were actually prevented from occurring. Strong direction with the expectation of submission- was given in regard to virtually every aspect of a person's lif e including dress, hairstyles, major purchases, career, lifestyle, etc. This practice has been a violation of personal freedom and an insult to the dignity of individuals. However much good will was intended on the part of the pastoral leaders, the Catholic Church herself has never presumed to dig so deeply and to violate people's rights as much as this practice of full-life pastoring has done. B. The pastoral reporting system itself was a violation of privacy and often a vehicle for simple gossip. It was assumed when an individual entered the community that he or site had accepted, based on teachings they received, the method of pastoring and resultant "reporting up the pastoral chain". Permission was not, as a rule, asked of the individual before very confidential and sensitive information was passed on to one, two, three, or more additional people. To question this was regarded as a lack of trust in the leaders. Similar violations occurred within marriages. The sacredness of the marriage bond was intruded upon by the pastoral system. Often times a wife did not know whether her intimate sharings with her husband were being passed up through the pastoral reporting system. Again, to question this was often seen as an attempt to control, a lack of trust, and the

person was often labeled as rebellious.

C. A one-dimensional, overly-ambitious, narrow view of attaining virtue in the spiritual life, ignored in practice the truth that God’s strength grows in and through weaknesses. Weaknesses were often scorned in an attempt to encourage strength. A caricature of a leader was held up: verbally zealous, never showing weakness, sharing only what he had to", was the ideal. This allowed false images of leaders to be promoted, facilitating a compelling tendency for a person to lead a double life by maintaining a false front regarding one's own shortcomings. There existed a virtual refusal to allow a gap to exist between the high ideals of the Christian lif e and one's genuine, often serious weaknesses. In many people's lives, this led to a judgmental, pharisaical approach to our personal Christian lives. People were "pegged", "judged" and/or "evaluated" by their pastoral leader. Yet what the leader saw was sadly often a projection of his own weaknesses. A deep shame and harmful, unnecessary guilt resulted in people's lives. Effectively we created a level of second-class citizens who were at the mercy of a pastoral leader's evaluation. D. An overly developed, incapacious kind of macho personality (not just masculine) was promoted in men to the exclusion (and often scorn) of individual expression and any elements commonly attributed to women (i.e. sensitivity, gentleness, etc.). Women were often seen and treated as weak, overly-emotional, and incapable of having significant input into leadership decisions. Often even in family decisions wives weren't seriously consulted since this was considered to be the territory of a woman's husband and his pastoral leader. II. The Sword of the Spirit operates as a closed system. It was supposed to be "our family" and was encouraged to be seen as such, often to the exclusion of our family of origin. It was clearly implied that Sword of the Spirit could be "everything" for everyone, it pastored. The often repeated statement, "We are not the only work God is doing, there are others", betrayed a subtle, but strongly embedded pride. The Sword of the Spirit form of community was inherently assumed to be superior to all others — our view of the world was clearly the "correct" one. A.

An in-house development of all teaching that we were exposed to led to a conditioned

world view. We were given specific direction regarding many aspects of our life including Men's and Women's Roles, Manly and Womanly Character, Dating and Marriage, Family Life, How to Receive Pastoral Care, Understanding our Emotions, etc. A prejudicial attitude towards experts in general encouraged members to seek guidance only within the Sword of the

Spirit. In particular, an anti-therapeutic mentality was fostered and taught by leaders who had inadequate training and experience in the counseling field. Some people with serious problems were specifically directed not to seek professional help. Ironically, things that were belittled (the very act of going to a psychologist, expressing anger in therapeutic ways, involvement in programs to help hurting people) are now providing the very paths of healing needed by many. B.

Those chosen to lead were those who "performed well" within the system. All

training of the pastoral leaders was done by Sword of the Spirit alone. There has been no training developed in an official way in Catholic pastoral theology or practice. No one outside the closed system of Sword of the Spirit has ever taught at pastoral leaders meetings. For example, when the issue of Twelve-Step Groups came up, we didn't go to the experts in these areas. Who did we look to? We looked to the leaders in the Sword of the Spirit, one of whom stated "proudly" that we were going to be "on the cutting edge of what is happening in the Twelve-Step movement". Local community leaders spoke on this and related issues and gave pasto ral directio n rega rding them when the y clearl y had l i t t l e experience or knowledge about them. Reading a few books and a few discussions with people do not qualify one to speak authoritatively about such deeply sensitive and painful matters. C. The communication of information within the Sword of the Spirit is very controlled. T he g en e ral rul e ha s b ee n to com m u ni ca te o nl y "inf orm ation that is necessary to know". T his app roach has led to man y seri ous m isinte rpreta tions as well as a spirit of mistrust . For instance in Ma y, af te r the Swo rd of the Spirit council m eeting, the coordinators presented the information from the significant two-week s ess io n t o th e dis t ri ct h ea ds wh o th e n de ci de d wh a t wa s a pp ro p ri a t e to communicate to the res t of the bod y. Comm unit y m em bers never seem ed to be trusted to receive the whole truth. Const ructive input to the leaders was not onl y not solicite d, bu t was ex pe rie n ce d b y s om e t o be f ro wne d up o n. M an y wh o di d g iv e suggestions for change most of ten did not receive responses or even an acknowledgement. Anothe r abuse of communicatio n has occu rred wh en repo rtin g "changes" in areas that had been held as norms or ideals. Instead of adm it ti n g e rro r a nd th e n re p en t in g f or a n y s uff e ri n g th a t t h e o ld practice may have caused an yone, it was common for the leaders to inform us of a different direction without any acknowledgm ent that it was ne w. A recen t

exam ple of this was the announcem ent that we wo uld no w conside r Patt erns of Christia n Comm unit y as a resource rathe r

than a rule book. Why this change"? The reason was not stated, nor was there any public recognition on the part of the coordinators that in the past we had been urged to purchase, read and live by this book. In fact, it was presented to the community when it first came out as "the best thing since the Rule or St. Benedict”. D. The people of the community have not been involved in the decision making process. Outreach has been and still is controlled by the leaders, stifling creativity and ownership by individuals. How can we "own" community when we do not participate in any way in decisions? Avenues for full participation and full involvement have been totally directed by the leaders in the past. The community has truly become the leaders' community.

III. The overall Sword of the Spirit approach to pastoring has been far too conditioned by an evangelicallyoriented theology that has hurt our appropriation of and commitment to a Catholic way of life: A. The official series of pastoral teachings of the Sword of the Spirit have often reflected a rigid, literalist interpretation of Scripture in terms of content as well as being directly applied to our lives. Papal encyclicals, church documents and classic Catholic works on spirituality are not a formal part of community teaching. The wisdom of centuries of Catholic spiritual practice has not been the filter through which leaders have interpreted the Scriptures. In other words, the community teachings, even in this totally Catholic branch were not mediated by Catholic tradition. A very clear example of this omission and it's far-reaching result is the Sword of the Spirit teaching and practice that pastoral leaders should have authority over people's lives.. If the practice and teaching of Catholic tradition had been consulted, it would have been crystal clear that Catholic laity should never be under such an obligation. This is reserved for the religious life. (See the "Decree on the Up-To-Date Renewal of Religious Life" No. 1; See Lay People, No. 25; The Church in the Modern World, No. 17). Further, the amount of control that was taught and practiced in the Sword of the Spirit was a violation of personal privacy and individual dignity. Sword of the Spirit pastoral leaders have dug into and reported upon the intimate lives of individuals, married couples, and families, where the Catholic Church, in her wisdom, has dared not to violate such sacred privacy. Many of us who have been abused emotionally and psychologically in this way have described it as an experience that must be similar to physical abuse - a violation of personal dignity. "...that which is truly freedom is an exceptional sign of the image of God in man. For God willed that man should "be left in the hand of his own counsel" so that he might of his own accord seek his creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him. Man's dignity, therefore, requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as

moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint." (The Church in the Modern World, No. 17) This statement forms a startling contrast with the following quotes: "Submission is based on a willingness to receive direction from others. In order to achieve genuine submission, Christians have to take a position of humility so that they can genuinely place themselves under others and obey them. In order to achieve true humility, they have to put aside their rebelliousness, their independence, their selfimportance, their desire for power, their desire to have their own way, their attachment to their personal preferences, and pleasures, and their self-concern and self-protectiveness. They must put aside, in short, all self-will and all that leads to willfulness. Submission demands a freedom from self that is part of the character of Jesus.” (Patterns of Christian Community, p.59) "We ought to expect obedience because we are pastoral leaders not because we are riqht. Sometimes our decisions will be wrong. If your subordinates will only follow you if they're convinced that you're right, you don't have them in a place of submission. God will “help pastoral leaders to make on—course decisions." (Teaching from NAME OMITTED to pastoral leaders 9/28/86} “’He who does not love his brother cannot love God.’ If anyone says he submits to god but does not submit to his pastoral leader he is a liar.” (Teaching from NAME OMITTED to pastoral leaders 9/23/86) Because of our sincere desire to follow God, we have had our dignity violated and our wills restrained in the name of godly submission. This has had a devastating impact on many of our lives and for some has significantly contributed to emotional breakdowns - being hurt to the point of being unable to function in a healthy or consistent manner either temporarily or to some degree, for the rest of our lives without direct healing from the Lord. The depth of this pain has been both trivialized and ignored. B. The Sword of the Spirit adopted a Protestant approach to grace rather than one based primarily on a sacramental and Catholic view. The traditional Catholic teaching on grace emphasizes the indwelling of the Trinity through the Holy Spirit and the direct fruit of that indwelling: sanctifying grace. The effects of the Sword of the Spirit’s overly evangelical, Pentecostal approach are evident in the over-emphasis on the charismatic gifts (or “gratia gratis data” as defined by scholastic theology and Trent – free gifts of grace) are instances of actual grace. This grace is understood to have a specific function for evangelization. In an audience with renewal leaders, Pope John Paul II urged them not to overemphasize the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit. The charismatic gifts are only one small aspect of God’s total gift of grace – His very own self-communication. This approach has been focused upon to the exclusion of a fuller Catholic, Christian way of life. For example," there was an over-emphasis on a charismatic way of worshipping. For some time the community gatherings were given more emphasis than the Eucharist, in terms of "not missing the special grace" of the gatherings. The gathering was where "the Lord spoke to us".

Another example is the narrow understanding of the gift of prophecy. Pastoral leaders with the greatest authority screened the prophecies that were to be received. A clear slant towards the leader's interpretation was evident in which prophecies were given. It has become clear to us that the word of the Lord has often been the word of the leaders. For example, why hasn't the Lord been speaking to us about the abuse of leadership and hurt lives of so many in the Sword of the Spirit? (We all hear God through a veil. Unfortunately, we members of Sword of the Spirit presumed that we have pierced that veil.) Another example in recent years was the emphasis on the New Year's Eve prophecy. All members were strongly encouraged to be present to hear this prophecy which would set the direction for the coming year. This was always given by a coordinator, and often left many who heard it living l i f e in fear of its fulfillment. The number of prophecies received at gatherings and the way they have been naively and uncritically received reveals how we have not accepted the very Catholic truth that God speaks through a veil and speaks incarnationally - that is, through human persons who have clay feet. The incarnational "voice of the people" was not only suppressed, it was scorned along with other "worldly" democratic processes. C. The Sword of the Spirit adopted a negative, pessimistic and fearful world view that led to a “siege mentality”. This is very Calvinistic. Vatican II stated clearly that the Catholic Church is “in the nature of Sacrament a sign and instrument, that is, of communion and unity among all men.” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) Both this document and “The Church in the Modern World” make clear the Church’s role in being in the world, while not of it – a sign of hope, in open dialogue with those who disagree with her. This is in stark contrast to the “training programs” of the Sword of the Spirit that combine paranoia with preparation for the “worst to come” in terms of cultural and societal breakdown. We believe that this approach strongly undermined the virtue of hope. The “hard times” message was reiterated over and over to the exclusion of the possibility of God’s grace and mercy overriding the present effect of sine and darkness in the world. We believe this to be a serious lack of discernment of the leadership. Some of us couldn’t imagine how people could leave the community and consequently not hear its future updates on the end of the world.

A serious case of koinonitis has developed. We have become too inward looking - too much with each other. We failed to share our community life with the rest of the diocese. The community is too often cut off and misunderstood by the local Catholic Church. We are much to blame for that.

IV. Certain specific attitudes have permeated the system as well as, to a greater or lesser degree, our hearts. Specifically we believe some of these to be: A. An overall disdain for weakness and emotions. B. An attitude of mistrust was conveyed in the teachings toward “subordintates” – we learned to expect the worst from them. This often resulted in enmity in relationships between pastoral leaders and those they pastured; between husbands and wives; and between parents and children. C. Weaknesses on the part of those pastured (i.e., inability to keep a budget, an “unwise” display of emotions, over-assertiveness in a woman, inconsistency in attendance at gatherings, etc.) were often raised to the level of wrongdoing; while outright sin on the part of the leaders (unrighteous anger, judgmentalism, pride, and gossip) was overlooked in order to get the job done. D. Because the “service track” became one of the sole methods of affirmation, some people realize now that they put on blinders, accepting what they otherwise would have found unacceptable in oder to remain in “good graces”. E. A tendency, because of the closed system mentality, to label those who disagreed with the leaders as rebellious, especially those who left the community. This resulted in a community turned in on itself. No one on the outside could be trusted and once you wavered from the “community line”… you were on the outside.

It is these attitudes that will remain in spite of the recent structural and personnel changes we have begun to make. We are concerned that what we have stated above may never be fully recognized and addressed. We believe that our call to live l i f e together is part of God's plan, however only full acknowledgment, repentance and willingness to change on the part of each member will, we believe, open the way for the Lord to repair what we have damaged and bring about the unity that is precious in His sight.

We the undersigned request that immediate action be taken by calling for a meeting between ourselves and the coordinators to discuss and also to make recommendations regarding these grave matters. Signed and dated this 30th day of October, 1990.

27 signatures, most of whom were pastoral leaders of the community