New Age Hidden in Catholic Corners
I love the Catholic Church. It’s true, it’s right, it’s beautiful.
But that doesn’t stop some of its members from going astray. While the Church, founded by Christ Himself, is pure and always unsullied, this isn’t the case with all of Her members. It’s because of my deep love and reverence for Christ’s holy Church that I’m now writing about New Age corruptions within the walls of Catholic centers and even religious orders. If we don’t expose these evils, there’s no hope of reconciliation with the authentic truth the Church teaches.
For example, several years ago I was seeking spiritual guidance and came across a community of Dominican sisters who offered spiritual direction. I contacted them and met (once) with one of their directors, and was encouraged multiple times throughout the session to join their Centering Prayer group. (If you’re unfamiliar with Centering Prayer, it’s a prayer exercise that blends Eastern spirituality with Christianity—you can learn more about this dangerous practice here.)
Later, when looking more closely at this center’s website, I discovered an art therapy program with a description stating that the instructor “has found a lot of healing in Mother Earth and her creativity is heavily influenced by nature,” with further words and images indicating a definite New Age slant. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with nature, but Mother Earth as a deity (i.e. Pachamama) in the way it was presented on this site is a dangerous introduction of idolatry into the halls of the Church, confusing the faithful and opening doors that need to remain closed. Additionally, this center heavily promoted Richard Rohr, and they even included his books as required reading in their spiritual formation training.
As another example, I once visited the National Shrine of St. Thérèse of Lisieux in Darien, IL. And it was a disaster.
A shrine to such a blessed saint should be holy, devout, filled with the grace and love of the Holy Spirit. Instead, I discovered it to be hotbed of demonic New Age involvement, at least on the particular weekend I was there.
Le me give you a bit of background before I go further.
As my readers may know, I left the Church for many long, dark years. During that time I professed to be “spiritual but not religious,” and became involved in all manner of evil New Age attachments. One of these involvements included Ron Roth’s Celebrating Life Ministries program, which I thought was perfect for me. Like Fr. Keating, founder of Centering Prayer, Ron Roth had also once been a Catholic priest. I found his ministry to be filled with the familiarities of my Catholic faith, yet it was more “open-minded,” “ecumenical,” and “open” to various different spiritualities. Based on Catholicism, but at the same time, “spiritual but not religious.” This felt right up my alley at this dark and dangerous time in my life.
My mom tried to warn me about Roth and his organization but, willful grown-child that I was, I didn’t listen to her. I had blinders on my eyes. The scales had not yet been lifted. I didn’t realize that the Catholic Church has it all. The Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus Christ, God made man. What more need be added?
Nothing.
But I was too darkened by sin to realize that.
Off I went for a weekend retreat with Celebrating Life Ministries. This was supposed to be an ecumenical retreat, not strictly Christian but heavily influenced by Christianity, with a sprinkling of Buddhism, Hinduism and that trite “spiritual but not religious” influence.
I lasted one evening. The next day, I was outta there. Even though I wasn’t back in the Church and so I couldn’t see the fullness of God’s truth, I knew this retreat was very, very wrong.
The center reeked of New Age involvement. For example, one of the spaces off the main conference room was dedicated to “chakra pods,” with sections of the area partitioned off and dedicated to each chakra. Going into each cubicle, light would colorfully glow depending upon which chakra the participant was invoking, with “sacred” symbols and other Hindu references tacked on the walls. The idea was to sit in the bean bag chairs and focus on the “healing energy” of each particular chakra. When a person had sat with them all, supposedly their chakras were aligned.
And this was being hosted in a Catholic center dedicated to a saint and Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse of Lisieux! This is about as far from her beautiful “Little Way” as it gets.
I was sickened. I was appalled. Yes, I was professing to be “spiritual but not religious,” yet obviously the Holy Spirit still had His hand upon me. I couldn’t wait to shake the dust off my feet after leaving that place.
This is sad. This is evil. This is an apostasy that should never happen in a Catholic center, much less in many Catholic centers and organizations worldwide.
Years ago came across a book that claimed to be Catholic yet promoted such unorthodox authors as Anthony DeMello and Bede Griffiths, who fused Catholicism with Buddhism and Taoism. The author also advocated Centering Prayer and so-called “Celtic” Christianity, which according to the Pontifical Council for Culture is one of “the traditions which flow into New Age: ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on.”
The Church has consistently and firmly spoken out against such practices that blend our true faith with the misleading doctrines of Eastern spirituality or ancient paganism.
This evil influence seems to be infecting much of Christianity, not only Catholicism. Just days ago I was wandering a Protestant bookstore and came across a book on the Enneagram, which—as Fr. Mitch Pacwa points out—makes use of numerology. Numerology is a form of divination and therefore forbidden in Sacred Scripture—see Deut. 18:9-14, 1 Sam. 28, Zech. 10:2 and Acts 19:11-20. About the Enneagram, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors state:
“The Enneagram is anti-biblical. Its theology and anthropology are in conflict with Scripture, and therefore it is an anti-Christian tool for understanding man. It leads to a non-Christian way of viewing man and understanding man’s problems. This ‘tool’ is a proverbial road to nowhere.”
The Vatican (Pontifical Counsel for Culture) also takes a firm stance against the Enneagram:
“Gnosticism has always existed side by side with Christianity, sometimes taking the shape of a philosophical movement, but more often assuming the characteristics of a religion or a para-religion in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian. An example of this can be seen in the enneagram, the nine-type tool for character analysis, which when used as a means of spiritual growth introduces an ambiguity in the doctrine and the life of the Christian Faith.”
Fr. Mitch Pacwa writes in detail about the Enneagram and its pagan roots. His information is rich and important, but too much to go into in detail here. Instead, I encourage you to read his book, Catholics and the New Age.
Despite these warnings, this practice is being used and abused even in Catholic convents. Missio Dei author Christina Sorrentino told me in a private conversation that during her formation years in a convent which she later had to leave:
“I was forced to study the Enneagram, and they formed us based on our number. The second community I was in ended up abusing the temperament test, as well. So many times I got into trouble because I wasn't acting like my results.”
In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, St. Pope John Paul II strongly cautions us against the
“return of ancient gnostic ideas under the guise of the so-called New Age: We cannot delude ourselves that this will lead toward a renewal of religion. It is only a new way of practising gnosticism – that attitude of the spirit that, in the name of a profound knowledge of God, results in distorting His Word and replacing it with purely human words. Gnosticism never completely abandoned the realm of Christianity. Instead, it has always existed side by side with Christianity, sometimes taking the shape of a philosophical movement, but more often assuming the characteristics of a religion or a para-religion in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian.”
Why is the New Age Movement So Attractive to People?
The New Age movement is all about the “whoo-whoo” of spiritual life—the excitement, the hyped-up and feel-good doses of spiritual euphoria. In other words, darkness disguised as light. St. Bernard of Clairvaux reminds us that we need to seek the God of consolation, not the consolations of God.
In his November 23, 2022 general audience, Pope Francis spoke in detail about discernment and consolation.
“But let us be careful. We have to distinguish well between the consolation that comes from God and false consolations. Something similar happens in spiritual life that also happens in human productions: there are originals and there are imitations. If authentic consolation is like a drop on a sponge — it is soft and intimate — its imitations are noisier and flashier. They are pure enthusiasm, like straw fires, lacking substance, leading us to close in on ourselves and not to take care of others. In the end, false consolation leaves us empty, far from the centre of our existence.”
The New Age is all about these false consolations, and that’s why it’s such an evil trap. It lures people in, gets them excited, gaslights them into believing they are having positive spiritual experiences when in truth they’re partnering with evil. This then opens doors to demonic influence and other infestations. Seasoned exorcist Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, in his article, “A Recipe for Possession,” states that New Age involvement “directly invites demons to enter through the wounds [of the individual] and possess the defenseless person.”
It’s time to purge the Church of all unholy associations. This evil has to stop—it has no place within the sacred institution of our Christ-centered Church. And it stops with awareness, education, and evangelization through ministries such as Missio Dei and other solid, orthodox Catholic publications.
I agree with everything you wrote. As you know, I deal a lot with combating new age and witchy ideas through my teaching on herbal medicine. My book, The History and practice of Christian Herbal Medicine is all about the very Catholic history of herbal medicine... and it is hated alike by pagans and anti-Catholics who post negative reviews. One thing I think is an issue among many modern Catholics is that they are city folk, mostly, and lack a needed connection to nature. Our ancestors could not have imagined living without, at least a small garden. God made man to till the soil and the steward nature. When Jesus healed the blind man, He did so with real mud, not just spiritual words and He always sought quiet prayer time in nature. There needs to be a focus on getting Catholics out of the cities more often, and not just for spiritual retreats, but actually getting into the woods and getting hands dirty, with an emphasis on Catholic spirituality and nature that many saints wrote about - Saint Hildegard von Bingen and such would satisfy the longing that leads many to paganism and new age stuff.
Thank you for sharing this with us, Jenny. One wonders how many demonic New Ages practices have led to the corruption of seminaries and convents, especially following the supposed "openness" after Vatican II, and if they even inspired the sex abuse crisis.