Introduction
When I entered the theater I was blown away. I cried and I laughed and I thought ‘this was it!’
The prayer group became my family. After prayer meetings we used to fellowship in some coffee shop. I spent all my available time and some more with charismatics. Nobody else understood me. My marriage suffered. My husband could not be brought into it – so a wall went up between us. But I didn’t need him; I had a hot line to Jesus. I was listening to an interior voice and I passed it around like divine proclamations. I went to the Bible several times a day. I opened it up at random to seek God’s answer for every situation. I sneak read the Bible at work. I began to go to daily mass. When I could manage I went to two masses on Saturdays. The evening mass was the Sunday mass. But then I went on Sunday anyway. I even went to the Italian Mass once, but the people were looking at me funny. There I was at the Italian mass not being Italian… But what I really craved was charismatic masses, modern hymns, emotional sermons, praying in tongues and above else; prophecy! I was elated when a certain lady showed up at the prayer meeting, because it meant that there was going to be "great prophecy" for the night. I developed non-Catholic attitudes. I stopped using holy water and used blessed salt and ‘holy oil’ instead. I read Pentecostal paperbacks. I listened to Mike Warneke for entertainment. Prayer felt good, all I had to do was start off with tongues. When I felt low, I had people pray over me and everything was well again. I stopped praying the rosary. I remember someone brought a visitor to the prayer meeting once. When the lady whipped out a rosary during the praise people were scandalized. Someone said “WHAT is she doing?!!! I trusted the Renewal priests and nuns for guidance... I shouldn't have done that. They led me astray.
In this chaotic, divided and much confused Church there are people who insist that the Charismatic Movement is the "work of the Holy Spirit". They forget the Holy Spirit would not have brought discord to the Church. These same people claim there is 'truth by numbers' and that the Charismatic Renewal brought significant conversions and vocations for the Church. But so do false apparitions and false movements, these also boost conversions and vocations... at the same time undermining the Faith through a serious of errors. Now if we look at the origins, beliefs, methodologies and fruits of the Charismatic Renewal and objectively assess the so called charisms they brought into the Church it is easy to see we are dealing with a heretic Protestant movement; not a Catholic one.
Charismatic Heresy is one woman’s response - to forty years of charismatic battery upon the Body of Christ. This site is dedicated to St. Paul who relentlessly pursued and defended the truth.
Hello, my name is Muriel Goat. It has been several years since I had anything to do with the Charismatic Renewal. It pains me I wasted so many precious years, when I could have grown in knowledge of my faith and in holiness. I wasted the best years of my life going to prayer meetings and to every charismatic conference within a five hundred mile radius. I was blinded with pride and in my arrogance I fancied that I could possess God and use him for my whims. I was certain I had a direct link to Jesus, and He was at my disposal; all I had to do is ask. I squandered the gifts God gave me, and replaced them with counterfeit “charismatic gifts”.
The charismatic experience is immediate, powerful and satisfying. So much so that little else seems to matter. It also produces a huge desire to bring others into the renewal. It is hard to imagine how anyone would not want to be part of this great thing. I led many others into the renewal, including some family members. I take responsibility for them, but in turn I cannot blame others. It was my desire to be special; to be part of something extraordinary; it was my own carnality that led me into the renewal. I went to that first conference, I had that first “anointing”, and I babbled in tongues, because I wanted to. Nobody else is responsible for that, except me.
Who is Muriel?
Muriel is a goat who represents the minority of people who can think and often find critical and hypocritical problems with the leadership. Muriel noticed that the left wing and right wing pigs tend to wear the same uniform. Pigs on the right branded her liberal and pigs on the left marked her a traddie. The truth is Muriel is just a simple goat trying to be loyal to the farmer in the Rome House in perilous times. Unfortunately, for the other animals, Muriel is not inspired to take real action to oppose Napoleon and his pigs. Muriel does not follow politically correct barnyard politics either. Muriel is not looking to make friends or to make money in Catholic cyberspace. What Muriel wants is to cart away some of the dung the pigs deposited around the barnyard... one paragraph at a time. Still don't know who Muriel is? Check out George Orwell's Animal Farm.
