Note: New Religious Movements is abbreviated as NRMs.
Document prepared by:
The Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity,
the Secretariat for Non-Christians, the Secretariat
for Non-Believers, and the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Vatican, May 3, 1986.
FOREWORD
NOTE: We publish here the main section of the document, omitting what completes it: the invitation to renewal of the Church from the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops 1985; the list of themes for further study and research; and the bibliography.
In response to the concern expressed by episcopal conferences throughout the world, a study on the presence and activity of sects, new religious movements, and cults has been undertaken by the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, the Secretariat for Non-Christians, the Secretariat for Non-Believers and the Pontifical Council for Culhure. These departments, along with the Secretariat of State. have shared this concern for quite some time.
As a first step in this study project, a questionnaire was sent out in February 1984 to episcopal conferences and similar bodies by the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity in the name of the forementioned departments of the Holy See, with the aim of gathering reliable information and indications for pastoral action and exploring further lines of research. To date (October 1985) many replies have been received from episcopal conferences on all continents as well as from regional episcopal bodies. Some replies included detailed information from particular dioceses and were accompanied by copies of pastoral letters, booklets, articles and booklets.
It is clearly not possible to summarize the vast documentation received, and which will need to be constantly updated as a basis for a constructive pastoral response to the challenge presented by the sects, new religious movements and groups. The present report can only attempt to give a first overall picture, and is based on the replies and documentation received.
1 . INTRODUCTiON
1.1 What Are Sects? What Does One Mean by Cults?
It is important to realize that there exist difficulties in concepts, definitions, and terminology. The terms sect and cult are somewhat derogatory and seem to imply a rather negative value judgment. One might prefer more neutral terms such as new religious movements, new religious groups. The question of the definition of those new movements or groups as distinct from church or legitimate movements within a church is a contentious matter.
It will help to distinguish sects that find their origin in the Christian religion from those that come from another religious or humanitarian source. The matter becomes quite delicate when these groups are of Christian origin. Nevertheless, it is important to make this distinction. Indeed, certain sectarian mentalities and attitudes (i.e., attitudes of intolerance and aggressive proselytism) do not necessarily constitute a sect, nor do they suffice to characterize a sect. One also finds these attitudes in groups of Christian believers within the churches and ecclesial communities. However, those groups can change positively through a deepening of their Christian formation and through the contact with other fellow Christians. In this way they can grow into an increasingly ecclesial mind and attitude.
The criterion for distinguishing between sects of Christian origin, on the one hand, and churches and ecclesial communities, on the other hand, might be found in the sources of the teaching of these groups. For instance, sects could be those groups that, apart from the Bible, have other revealed books or prophetic messages; or groups that exclude from the Bible certain proto canonical books, or radically change their content. In answer to question I of the questionnaire, one of the replies states:
For practical reasons a cult or sect is sometimes defined as "any religious group with a distinctive worldview of its own derived from, but not identical with, the teachings of a major world religion." As we are speaking here of special groups that usually pose a threat to people's freedom and to society in general, cults and sects have also been characterized as possessing a number of distinctive features. These often are that they are authoritarian in structure, that they exercise forms of brainwashing and mind control, that they cultivate group pressure and instill feelings of guilt and fear, etc. The basic work on these characteristic marks was published by an American, Dave Breese, Know the Marks of Cults (Victor Books, Wheaton, III., 1985).
Whatever the difficulties with regard to distinguishing between sects of Christian origin and churches, ecclesial communities or Christian movements, the responses to the questionnaire reveal at times a serious lack of understanding and knowledge of other Christian churches and ecclesial communities. Some include among sects churches and ecclesial communities that are not in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Also adherents of major world religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) may find themselves classified as belonging to a sect.
1.2 Emergence of New Religious Movements
However, and apart from the difficulties mentioned, almost all the local churches do see the emergence and rapid proliferation of all kinds of new religious or pseudoreligious movements, groups and practices. The phenomenon is considered by almost all the respondents as a serious matter, by some as an alarming matter; in only a very few countries there does not seem to exist any problem (e.g., in predominantly Islamic countries).
In some cases the phenomenon appears within the mainline churches themselves (sectarian attitudes). In other cases it occurs outside the churches (independent or free churches; messianic or prophetic movements), or against the churches (sects, cults), often establishing for themselves churchlike patterns. However, not all are religious in their real content or ultimate purpose.
1.3 Pastoral Problems
The phenomenon develops fast, and often quite successfully, and poses pastoral problems. The most immediate pastoral problem is that of knowing how to deal with a member of a Catholic family who has become involved in a sect. The parish priest or local pastoral worker or adviser usually has to deal first and foremost with the relatives and friends of such a person. Often the person involved can be approached only indirectly. In those cases when the person can be approached directly in order to give him or her guidance, or to advise an ex-member on how to reintegrate into society and the Church, psychological skill and expertise is required.
1.4 The Groups That Are Most Affected
The most vulnerable groups in the Church, especially the youth, seem to be the most affected. When they are footloose, unemployed, not active in parish life or voluntary parish work, or come from an unstable family background, or belong to ethnic minority groups, or live in places that are rather far from the Church's reach, etc., they are a more likely target for the new movements and sects. Some sects seem to attract mainly people in the middle-age group. Others thrive on membership from well-to-do and highly educated families. In this context, mention must be made of university campuses that are often favorable breeding grounds for sects or places of recruitment. Moreover, difficult relations with the clergy or an irregular marriage situation can lead one to break with the Church and join a new group.
Very few people seem to join a sect for evil reasons. Perhaps the greatest opportunity of the sects is to attract good people and good motivation in those people. In fact, they usually succeed best when society or Church has failed to touch this good motivation.
1.5 Reasons for Success
The reasons for the success among Catholics are indeed manifold and can be identified on several levels. They are primarily related to the needs and aspirations that are seemingly not being met in the mainline churches. They are also related to the recruitment and training techniques of the sects. They can be external either to the mainline churches or to the new groups: economic advantages, political interest or pressure, mere curiosity, etc.
An assessment of these reasons can be adequately done only from within the very particular context in which they emerge. However, the results of a general assessment (and this is what this report is about) can, and in this case do, reveal a whole range of particular reasons that as a matter of fact turn out to be almost universal. A growing interdependence in today's world might provide us with an explanation for this.
The phenomenon seems to be symptomatic of the depersonalizing structures of contemporary society, largely produced in the West and widely exported to the rest of the world, which create multiple crisis situations on the individual as well as on the social level. These crisis situations reveal various needs, aspirations, and questions that, in turn, call for psychological and spiritual responses. The sects claim to have, and to give, these responses. They do this on both the affective and the cognitive level, often responding to the affective needs in a way that deadens the cognitive faculties.
These basic needs and aspirations can be described as so many expressions of the human search for wholeness and harmony, participation and realization, on all the levels of human existence and experience; as so many attempts to meet the human quest for truth and meaning, for those constitutive values that at certain times in collective as well as individual history seem to be hidden, broken, or lost, especially in the case of people who are upset by rapid change, acute stress, fear, etc.
1.6 Attitude
The responses to the questionnaire show that the phenomenon is to be seen not so much as a threat to the Church (although many respondents do consider the aggressive proselytism of some sects a major problem), but rather as a pastoral challenge. Some respondents emphasize that, while at all times preserving our own integrity and honesty, we should remember that each religious group has the right to profess its own faith and to live according to its own conscience. They stress that in dealing with individual groups we have the duty to proceed according to the principles of religious dialogue that have been laid down by the Second Vatican C
Last updated August 19, 2000 23:57