The Way We Were

Greetings from Latte land! (from your friendly University District Tully’s!)

Over at Catholic Sensibilities, the questions about who we are and what known movement we are related to or derivative of, keep coming in:

“How are your consults and programs at parishes different/same than the good ol’ Life in the Spirit seminars from the 70’s and 80’s? Renew from the 80’s and 90’s? Neocatechumenate Way from 2000? I’m just trying to understand where CSI and your term “intentional disciple” fit it to what has been done in US parishes since VII. Just trying to put you into a context.”

The short answer: we're not related to or derived from any of the above or the emerging Church movement or any other movement, for that matter. I'm a convert and so had no knowledge or experience of the Church until the late 80's and have never attended or been part of a Renew process in any way or the Neocatechumate in any way. Nor have I ever attended a Life in the Spirit seminar although I think I was asked to give a talk once at a seminar session but it never happened. Fr. Michael Sweeney, with whom I founded the Institute had no background in any of the above either.

The Institute arose out of a personal collaboration that began at Blessed Sacrament parish in Seattle between Fr. Michael (who was pastor) and myself (parishioner and grad student) in the mid 90's. Our primary Catholic influences were intellectual with a strong Dominican slant: Vatican II, John Paul II, St. Thomas Aquinas, Yves Congar, Josef Pieper, etc.

In my case, I brought my background at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA and in the global evangelical missionary movement and the knowledge of the cutting edge stuff that passionately apostolic Christians are doing all over the world. Also, I'd created the gifts discernment process 3 1/2 years previously and had been offering it in the Seattle area and re-working and re-writing it as I went. While Fr. Michael, who is a cradle Catholic’s cradle Catholic, had been studying the theology of the laity and wrestling with the role of the parish in the mission of the Dominican order.

I can't explain it and it certainly wasn't part of anyone's plan or derived from another movement. It was just one of those spontaneous combustion God things. When Fr. Michael and I got together, intellectual and creative sparks flew. I suppose you could think of us as the theological and pastoral equivalent of Micky Rooney and Judy Garland saying "hey, gang, I know what we can do. Let's put on a show!" Or John Steed and Mrs. Peel (alas, I will never look like Diana Rigg in black leather :-\) - well, you get the idea . . .

Our purpose: To actually implement what the Second Vatican Council and the Church since has asked for in the area of the theology, evangelization, formation, and apostolic support of the laity. And to do it in the only place that 98% of lay Catholics have access to: the local parish. We weren't following any existing model because we didn't know of any that was parish-based.

The Called & Gifted process already existed and proved to be a wonderful popular vehicle to help spread the Church’s vision of the apostolic mission and authority of the laity. It also enabled us to generate the income necessary to support the hand-to-mouth lifestyle to which we had become accustomed.

Our work is a lot closer to the explorations of Lewis and Clark than to that of Mapquest. People sometimes ask me what our 5 year plan is. I laugh and say that I have a two year guess. Because educated guesses are what you work from when you are exploring something new.

If you'd like to read the story of our beginnings, go here. It was written in the summer of 1997 just as the Institute began and so you can see what we were thinking at the very beginning.