Periodically, I will alert you to ideas and practices taught as Catholic that are heretical and a danger to the precious gift of faith given to us. This week, my concern is towards those who embrace a syncretism of Catholicism and the New Age. The New Age is not new but very old. It is Gnosticism revisited which has been thoroughly condemned by the Church for over 1900 years. The danger is found in the New Age practitioners' ability to cloak its false teachings in Catholic lingo, mixing its false principles with the true. At best it causes confusion; at worst--a loss of Catholic faith. To embrace the New Age is a sin against Faith. As the Church teaches, any sin against faith is grave matter. Whether it be a mortal sin or not depends on two other components: whether the one embracing the New Age is doing it with full knowledge of its gravity and whether it is believed freely and without coercion.
A particular author whom I find very popular here in Oshkosh and in the Diocese of Green Bay is Sr. Joyce Rupp, whose popularity as an author and retreat master is second to none. And before I continue, I need you to consider what I say before you react. I mean no disrespect to Sr. Rupp, but our allegiance is only to Jesus and the full Gospel taught by the Magesterium or the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Where Sr. Rupp and the Catholic Church deviate, our responsibility is to the Church, bar none.
Sr. Rupp, who holds a Master's Degree in Religious Studies also holds a Master's Degree in Transpersonal Psychology (TP), which is troublesome when you see what a degree in TP contains. The coursework offered in this degree includes shamanism, eastern spirituality, Jungian Psychology, the goddess, and others which make for a deadly New Age concoction. For the sake of time, please read Ginger Hutton's expose of Sr. Rupp in Transpersonal Psychology in the New Oxford Review. It's vitally important that we understand the language and tactics employed by practitioners in this very popular movement.
If you want to think Catholicly about this subject, or about any topic offered by the New Age, please go to the Vatican's publication from the Pontifical Councils of Culture and Interreligious Dialogue called: Christ the Water Bearer of Life. You will understand why the Church concludes that the New Age is incompatible with Christianity. You'll never go wrong when you think like the Church.
And by all means, pray for sister Rupp and those like her who have great influence on the faithful. In desiring to do good, she is opening a Pandora's Box of dangers for those who indiscriminately heed her teachings and ideas. Please feel free to respond to this post if you have more to add, or if you have particular questions about the New Age. If you hold to the New Age along with Catholicism, you need to be made aware of this truth: you are embracing a false doctrine that is incompatible with Catholic faith. Run, dear one, run from this deadly influence.
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