Another catholic perspective
(Considerations on the perspective of M. Introvigne)

Preamble.

    As a catholic engaged in the pastoral of the new religiousity, I surely could not avoid to face the problem before such a perspective. For this reason I have decided to deepen the issue, going as much as I can to the possible sources of these affirmations, and I think I reached a possible conclusion.
    While I thank Dr. Introvigne for these stimulating considerations that allowed me to deepen some issues, I make my reflections public in the hope that the debate continues within the catholic world, and everybody can make an idea of their own after having examined the various points of view.
    When I started my research about "Brainwashing and supposed incompatibility with the catholic doctrine about responsibility and human freedom", I found out that this debate within the Protestant world began some years ago. Moreover, also the scholars of the Protestant confession do not find an agreement on this issue.
    Since we feel interesting to inform our readers also about the debate in the Protestant world, we have decided to publish an article of Paul R. Martin, Ph.D., Lawrence A. Pile, Ron Burks, M.a. & Stephen D. Martin, M.Div. of the Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, both in English and Italian languages.
    The article, originally published in the Cultic Studies Journal, is entitled "Overcoming the bondage of revictimization : a rational/empirical defense of thought  reform" and is a response to the article "Overcoming The Bondage Of Victimization. A Critical Evaluation of Cult Mind Control Theories" by Bob and Gretchen Passantino, published in the Cornerstone Magazine. The two authors belong to the Protestant world and support some thesis similar to those introduced by Dr. Introvigne in his essay.
    Asserting (Holy Scriptures and Treatises of moral Theology in hand) that the idea of "brainwashing" is contrary to the Biblical Revelation and/or bringing into question the idea of personal responsability would be a definitive veto for the believers who meant to take these thesis into consideration, so I think it is a serious problem for all the Christian world. In other words we would pass from the field of science (debatable) to the one of faith (dogmatic), with imaginable consequences.
    No fear, however: I think I have many good reasons to assert that things are not these way.
    Some statements found in the article of Dr. Introvigne are useful for a careful reflection. For this reason they were evidenced graphically at the beginning of each paragraph. The considerations that I'm going to point out and the following comments of mine are aimed to keep the debate alive, and to contribute to the common search for truth.

Anti-cults, Row and " Brainwashing ".

Sholars and anti-cult movements disagree...about "brainwashing"

    Actually many scholars who can not be labelled as belonging to "anti-cult movements" or to the "cult apologists" faction disagree about "brainwashing".   Scholars of a number of different disciplines who for years have been trying to characterize hypothesis and valid methods of research to further surveyings, disagree on the subject. Up to now, prominent professional associations of sociologists, psychologists and scholars of religions have clearly avoided to take definitive official side on this topic, due to the many various opinions within the associations themselves. Also in the Protestant and Catholic world the opinions on the subject are diverging. The leading characters of this debate are so various that I feel it restrictive to insert them forcibly into the two named categories.

   
    It is odd how a purely scientific issue, object of study of scientists of several disciplines, can assume a pastoral importance in an essentially catholic point of view. However, as Dr. Introvigne seems to be speaking as a catholic, first of all I would say that we do not find ourselves dipped into the row, but into a debate that sees as protagonists different persons with various ideas. I do not think this is a sign of a row, but of democracy and freedom of thought. If this is the row, then I welcome it! 
    It is true, however, than the topic has a great pastoral importance and the Catholic Church has worried about this. In particular the Pastoral Note Pastoral commitment of the church before new religious movements and cults dated May 30th, 1993, edited by the Secretariat for the ecumenism and the dialogue of the CEI [Italian Episcopal Conference]. In a number of passages this document points out the issue of the so-called "brainwashing", even if using a different terminology: "We can reasonably observe that cults and new religious movements normally seem to refuse the dialogue, outstreched as they are to the announcement, with propagandistic methods that use psychological pressure; they tend to subjugate the interlocutors in order to get their total and dogmatic adhesion, to the point that sometimes produce the "plagio" [moral subjugation] of the personality " [1].    And again: "Sometimes it happens that the cult adepts are tied up, with forms of emotional and psychological coercion, control and vigilance, to the point that they get to real limitations of their personal freedoms. In these cases we are before a success imposed and protected" [2].   The document, therefore, speaks explicitly about the fact that in some groups we can find mechanisms of psychological pressure that do not respect the person.

    Truly new this objection that "catholic environments", having for the occasion made themselves megaphone of the anti-cult tendencies, would bring up to Dr. Introvigne and CESNUR.   We wonder who the exponents of these "catholic environments" can be. Their objection, if it were as it was offered, would be fruit of a great confusion between two different things: the "brainwashing" on one side, and cults ideas on the other. To be clear: ideas are one thing, the psychological processes of indoctrination are another thing. While usually CESNUR and its Director are very explicit, clear and exhaustive about the incompatibility of the doctrines of the new cults with the catholic faith, on the other issue, the one of psychical processes of indoctrination, there are sound disagreements between CESNUR and catholic and non-catholic environments (that I would not define, however, anti-cult).

Let the one of you  is sinless be the first  to throw a stone.

"... I would want to emphasize the risk that the catholic takes in accepting the idea of brainwashing. He ends up to maintain that ideas are divided into free ones (freely accepted) and not free ones (accepted because someone forces you, using the brainwashing). The Christianity has donated freedom to the world, and it also involves responsibility: choices are free. Nobody forces us to choose the evil. If we freely choose the evil, we sin”.

   To accept the idea of "brainwashing" (pure metaforic notion that refers to processes of psychological conditioning that have been present in the scientific literature since ever), would be therefore "risky" for the catholics. It seems nearly an appeal to the unity of the faith, particularly odd since we’re not talking of the truth of the faith brought into question, or of moral choices in contrast with the teachings of the Church. We are argueing a topic discussed in the scientific field that has nothing in common with the faith. It seems we are going back to that dark and dangerous union between science and faith that great evil has caused in the past. There is also a dangerous distinction between good and bad, good and evil like only the two ends of the continuum existed. Nobody denies that the man who sins does it freely, misusing the gift of freedom that God gave us, but it’s also true that many factors play a role in the choices that the man makes, and sometimes choices that seem free infact are not.
    "If we freely choose the evil, we sin".  Since I share this affirmation totally, basing on it I would like to make an example: a person leaves the Catholic Church to join a new cult whose doctrines and praxis are in total contradiction with his/her previous faith. If we truly put ourselves into a pastoral perspective we must admit that this person did sin. After having acknoledged his/her objective guilt we must also ask ourselves: the adhesion to the new cult by the former catholic was based on a truly free choice? Only if it was a free choice we can attribute that person the full responsibility of his/her apostasy. Our Shepherds (and I think they cannot be accused to assume anti-cult positions), in their sensibility and pastoral experience show us the right way to solve this fundamental problem: "Some recruiting and training techniques and some indoctrination procedures used by many sects and cults, are often very sophisticated and are at the base of their success. In most cases cults, by means of these techniques, lure individuals who in the first place are unaware of the fact that such an approach is often a trick and, in the second place, are unaware of the nature of the plot aimed at converting them and of the training methods (social and psychological manipulation) they will undergo. Cults impose their particular way of thinking, of feeling and behaving, unlike the Church’s approach which implies aware and responsible consent". [3].
    Moreover, it’s true that "nobody forces us to choose the evil", but it is equally true that inside a cult the "constriction" is not easily recognizable, just like the "evil" does not appear like such, but it seems the "good". If there is deceit on the part of the "recruiter", to what point has the person made a free choice? And to what point is he/she responsible? If the new adept was informed of that deceit, would he/her have joined the cult anyway? And if he/she wasn’t informed by the ones who could inform him/her, who has the responsibility of his/her sin? Is it just his/her? Is it of the cult? Is it of his/her siblings in the catholic faith that knew and did not warned him/her? Is it of the ecclesiastical community that does not do enough to inform its own members about the dangers and deceits perpetrates by some groups? Is it of who defends also the more controversial and dangerous groups, being silent about the violations of human rights that they bring about daily?
   I believe that if we want to look for the REAL responsibilities, we must be honest enough to admit that they have to be found elsewhere, there where we would not even imagined!   I firmly believe that this is the true pastoral perspective, in the light of my experience of some years of study and counselling spent listening to the suffering people who are labeled as sinner because they embraced a cult and who, instead, first have been victims of the deceits of the cult itself and then, once escaped and realized their errors, victims of their own guilt, and then victims for the third time because judged and condemned by the court of the "freedom of choice supporters".
    All this is too easy, too hasty and above all it is too much convenient !

Needs of "public order"?

    This seems another appeal, this time not to the unity of Catholics, but to the one of the ordinary man or the good citizens who should fear the theory of "brainwashing". Accepting it would mean being threatened by the worse delinquents which, with the excuse of having been conditioned by the gang or the mafia clan they were part of, could remain unpunished. Did we get to the point of denying the existence of "brainwashing" for reasons of public order? Who knows, maybe the scholars who in a minimal measure share the opinion that some forms of exercised undue pressure exists will one day be accused of abetting!
    Also this time, however, I think there’s nothing to worry about: courts admit the possibility that a crime can be punished with the benefit of mitigation, that can be attributed for a number of reasons.
    In their article, P. Martin, L. Pile, R. Burks and S. Martin mention, as an example, the case of a boy from Illinois, Danny Kraft member of a cult headed by the leader Jeffrey Lundgren, who took part into the murder of a mother, a father and three children 13, 11 and 8 years old. The boy’s defense maintained that, although he was guilty, "there were mitigating circumstances¾ namely, that Kraft was under the influence of Lundgren through a process of mind-control. Therefore, Kraft was not acting entirely as a free, moral agent because he was suffering from a mental disorder. In other words, Kraft was made to believe something that was not true, namely, that Lundgren was the prophet of God, and, thus, whatever he said was divinely inspired. The court unequivocally concurred that the techniques used by Lundgren were those of mind-control. The court agreed that Kraft did indeed suffer a dissociative disorder, identified by the DSM-III-R and DSM-IV as scientific. Kraft was sentenced to many years in prison, but his sentence was lighter than it would have been had mind-control not been seen as a mitigating circumstance."  [4].
    Also interesting is the fact that the judge who presided the judgment of Danny Kraft, claimed that: "I hope this tragedy and resulting sentence serves as a warning to all parents and families on the destructive nature of religious cults. That we, as a society, are mindful of the ease with which it can destroy, just as we recognize the destructive capacity of alcohol and drugs."   (Case N. 90CR 012, Court of Common Pleas, Lake County, Ohio) [5].
   This is just one case among many that testifies the fact that courts as well take into account the circumstances in which crimes happen, without leaving the murders unpunished.
    What can be added, just to keep the debate alive, is that for the administration of the justice the danger doesn’t lie in the idea of "brainwashing" but rather in the defence to the bitter end of a supposed religious freedom that often really prevents courts to work properly.  The recent Swiss Report entitled "'Cults' or the indoctrinating movements in Switzerland. The need of a State intervention or: towards a federal policy in matter of 'cults'", at point 434 "Limits of the State power" asserts: "Even when abuses are recognized and laws in force are applied, the state intervention and protective measures are often impossible, or it happens that the ordered measures can not be accomplished. The reasons are to be found firstly in the prejudices concerning the private sphere, that escapes the control or the external infuence, in particular the one of the State. Moreover, in compliance with the fundamental rights granted by the Constitution, for example the freedom of expression and religion, possible abuses can be fought only if they exceed a certain degree, that is for example if they violate remarkably or endanger other fundamental rights. The possibility to apply the measures and their effectiveness are mined by certain indocrtrinating groups from the beginning, by the fact, among other reasons, that the "group doctrine" refuses the authority of the State, or considers it at least subordinated to the authority of the group. Developing coherently this tendency, the group reaches its inner legitimation towards the civil disobedience, to the point of negation the respect of the rules of the State. Moreover, the groups organized at an international level are able to escape the state measures submitting themselves to the laws of foreign countries."
   To conclude, just ask ourselves: why "sentencing is impossible" so many times?  Who are the ones that more easily get away with it?  The criminal who offended or the instigator who shields himself with the "religious freedom"?

Let’s leave the confessional to the priests.

"I fear for the courts, but I fear even more that these theories will make the operation of the confessional impossible. If bad choices are not free, sin and also the confessional will fall”

    Are the scholars debating the complex problematic of "brainwashing" aware that they constitute a danger for confessors?  Concerning this aspect, they even would have brought into question the chance to administer the Sacrament of confession. Admitting the theory of "brainwashing" would be an undue interference in typically spiritual matters! Perhaps it is a bit too much for a polite and serene debate that, like many others, is carried out and should remain within the scientific world.
    However, the ones in contact with the tragedies of the people involved in cults know very well that who leaves a cult realizing to have been deceived, and wishes to be converted or to go back to the Catholic faith, doesn’t approach the confessional with the arrogant conviction of being innocent because the group "brainwashed" him/her, but with humility and the awarness of the numberless sins made during his/her affiliation. These persons generally accuse first of all themselves and undertake their own responsibilities.  On the contrary, if penitents did not feel guilty they would not approach the confessional to ask the forgiveness.
     Therefore priests have nothing to fear. On the contrary, it often happens that the confessor reassures the faithfuls and comfort them, making them understand that the responsability of the mistakes and sins they made  in the cult are due to  theirs partly, and that also the ones who tricked and conditioned them are responsible for what happened.
    I think, however, than one of the most delicate aspects of the confession is the ability of the priest to discern a case from another. Establishing the "degree of guiltiness" of a person is a difficult task.  Only God has the capability to perfectly judge, for the simple reason that He’s the only one who can watch into the heart of the man and read his intentions. There are persons who act wrongly because they are well-meaning, and others who make good actions but are ill-meaning. Things being like these, we can not establish a "court" of good and evil, and submit the conscience of people to a strict as well as unfair scrutiny!  "The law is made for the man, not the man for the law".   Perhaps someone wants to go back to the slavery of the Law St. Paul warned us of?   We thank the Lord because He welcomed us as sinners, and loved us despite of this. The words of that Innocent sentenced to die on the cross are echoing again. He, aware of the evilness of His judges and jailors, said  "Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing!".  I think that if the man were not aware of his being a sinner before the immense mercy of God, for a believer there could not be other solution than falling into desperation for his own salvation!

Let’s start to clear the "rafters".

   I do not know whom the lecturer is referring to when he talks of "screamers" propagandizing the relativism. One thing is for sure, we Catholics should accept also the idea to make a self-criticism to have sometimes understimated the problem of the affiliation to new sects, and to have not wanted to see the deviation also present within some pseudo-Catholic environments. Deviations took place and are coming true even today, both in the doctrinal sphere and in the praxis one. This fact is under everybody’s eyes and unfortunately many Bishops were forced to take measures of different degree and gravity to face the deviations of priests, religious people and even Bishops themselves. I do not think, however, that its admission must be seen as a danger for the Church. It simply evidences the fact that the Truth revealed and embodied in the Son of God is transmitted through fallible men and women who are subjected to different types of weakness. It could also mean that within some Catholic groups something must be reviewed, some attitudes must be fraternally corrected in the spirit of the "fraternal correction". All this is completely lined up with the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, and it cannot be seen as a threat. The ones who see it this way are maybe thinking that their Catholicism is a form of elite, a special club whose membership is granted to few people.
    Thanks God the Church founded by Christ is not this. I’m not the one in charge to confirm it. Once again our Shepherds who, in spite of the ones who deny the existence of the"cultistic" problem within the Church itself, with their spirit of truth and honesty claim: "It must also be stated that the ‘sectarian spirit’, i.e. the intolerant behavior united to aggressive proselytism, is not necessarily the constitutive element of a ‘cult’ and is not sufficient to characterize it. A spirit of this kind can also be found in groups of believers belonging to churches or church communities " [6] . This threat was already stigmatized in the interim Report where it suggests that "These Christian groups with sectarian spirit can evolve thanks to the enrichment of their cultural background and by establishing contacts with other Christians, hence assuming a more ‘ecclesiastical’ behavior."  [7].
    While our Shepherds ask all Catholics to promote the ecclesial spirit [8], in some spheres (also in newsgroups attended by Catholics) someone is still confusing the normal and common process of religious conversion and the massive and manipulative indoctrination performed by some organizations. Sometimes this confusion comes from ignorance, some other times it comes from the opportunistic and not so clear intention to defend their own ‘little kitchen garden" from the threats of a not clearly identified aggressive secularism, whose aim seems to be the promotion of the "brainwashing theory" in order to accuse also the Catholic Church to practice it. The final goal of this "campaign" would be the closing down of Catholic schools and seminaries, as they would practice the "brainwashing". And here is the final result of the great conspiracy plotted by crowds of evil psychiatrists-Communists-atheists-anticults: the definitive and total elimination of whichever residual of Catholicism [9].
    This kind of terrorism on the Internet, together with the other form of alarmism concerning the ill-famed "brainwashing", is surely very well devised and its obvious target is to influence the Catholic world. Infact, once convinced of such a danger, the Catholics would rightly feel threatened in their exercise of freedom of religion, and would consider the theories of "brainwashing" as absolutely unacceptable from a Catholic point of view. All this, of course, would also have the advantage to allow someone to go on undisturbed and damage people, to exploit their good faith hiding behind the usual "religious freedom".
    I ask myself: is all this honest? Is it fair, for a Catholic, to deny a reality of abuses to shelter one’s mistakes? Which is the Biblical passage or the ecclesial document that says to be silent about our mistakes, to hide them and, trying to avoid their exposition, being silent also about other people’s mistakes? This way, aren’t we risking to scandalize the fellow men, especially those more spiritual needy, that is the non-believers?
    Maybe we very much need to think about these words of Jesus: "It is unavoidable that causes for stumbling should come. Nevertheless, woe to the one through whom they come! It woul be of nore advantage to him if a millstone were suspended from his neck and he were  thrown into the sea than for  him to stumble one of these little ones. Pay attention to yourselves! "(Lc 17, 1-3).

Conclusions.

I’d like to fraternally address all the bona fides Catholics committed in the new evangelization:
    Why, instead of screaming to the "plague-spreader" denying the truth, as Catholics we do not try to remove the "beam" from our eye before watching the "straw" in the others’ eye? Why, while "denouncing" other people's sins, we do not make a "mea culpa" also for ours, praying for the others, invoking the help of the Holy Spirit on the Church to preserve it from evil?
    In this perspective, if we were really united not only in the same faith and sharing the same Holy Communion, but also in the delicate pastoral of the new forms of religiousity , we would be successful in giving the non-Catholics an example of unity much more valuable than our own words.
    Unity, however, is a fruit to be picked up at the end of a long and difficult path; I think this is the right time to begin it. With this spirit I’m addressing all the Catholics committed to the Pastoral of the new forms of religiousity (and particularly to the editors, cooperators ad friends of the Web site "Una Voce Grida!"), and invite them to an open and sincere confrontation on these issues.

Fraternally in Christ

                                      RAFFAELLA DI MARZIO

NOTES :

[1] SECRETARIAT FOR THE ECUMENISM AND THE DIALOGUE Of CEI, pastoral Note "The pastoral commitment of the church before new religious movements and sects", May 30th 1993, n.12.
[2] ibid, n.10
[3] ibid, n.2.2
[4] Paul R. Martin, Ph.D., Lawrence A. Pile Ron Burks, M.a. & Stephen D. Martin, "Overcoming the bondage of revictimization : a rational/empirical defense of thought  reform", Cultic Studies Journal, Vol.15, n.2, p. 161.
[5] ibid, p. 187.
[6] SECRETARIAT FOR THE ECUMENISM AND THE DIALOGUE Of CEI, ibid, n.13
[7] SECRETARIAT FOR THE UNION OF THE CHRISTIANS - SECRETARIAT FOR THE NON-CHRISTIANS - SECRETARIAT FOR THE NON-BELIEVERS - PAPAL COUNCIL FOR THE CULTURE, temporary Report ‘the phenomenon of cults or new religious movements’, May 7th 1986, n.1.1.
[8] We remind the reader that whichever association wants to bear the appellation "CATHOLIC" must conform to Can. 300 of the Canonical Law Code that says what follows:
Can. 300 – No association takes up the appellation of "Catholic", if not with the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority as per can. 312.
Can. 312 - § 1. The competent authority to establish public associations is:
1° the holy Seat for universal and international associations;
2° the Episcopal Conference within its territory for national associations, that is the one intended, with the establishment itself, to exercise their activity nationwide;
3° the diocesan Bishop within his territory for diocesan associations, but not the diocesan Administrator; however this excludes the associations whose establishment right is reserved to others for apostolic privileges;
§ 2. In order to validly establish an association or one of its section in a diocese, even if that happens in force of apostolic privileges, a written consent of the diocesan Bishop is requested; however the consent of the diocesan Bishop for the establishment of a house of a religious institute counts also for the establishment, in the same house or in the annexed church, of that institute own association.
[9] It is within this deformed and deforming spirit that a post to the newsgroup it.cultura.cattolica dated July 22^nd, 1999 is placed. According to the poster, GRIS (in the whole) would be an association used by politicians for their purposes, the same way some political parties like the Christian Democracy exploited the Church for their own goals in the past. GRIS, therefore, denouncing the violations of human rights performed by some groups, warning people against the techniques of undue infuence they use, is doing nothing else than helping certain politicians to achieve their goals.
        Our commitment of volunteers within the Church, who daily work for free in this difficult, delicate and controversial field of the new religiousity, brought us to get used to many kinds of attacks reaching us by telephone and via the Internet (i.e. insults, curses, threats, provocations, ill-meaning flatteries). We offer also this to the Lord together with prayers for the authors of these "kind missives". But what surprises us the most and grieve us is when gratuitous provocations and insults arrive from self-proclaimed "Catholic" spheres. In this case we really are not able to see the provocative ones as tricked and conditioned siblings who look at us as persecutors, and who, in their opinion, have good reasons "to accuse us". We are rather led to see this people as those pharisees "vipers race" and "whited sepulchres" of which Jesus talks about.
    However, we do not bear them a grudge: we pray also for them, and try to converse with everyone aware that also Judas, if he wanted to, could have change his mind avoiding his betray.
    While we were going online with this article, on July 26^th, 1999, together with other friends of GRIS I read with pleasure, in it.cultura.cattolica, a partial but meaningful correction to the post dated July 22th, 1999. I’m cheering up.

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