A defense of the Charismatics

By Peter Wolfgang ( bio - articles - email ) | May 21, 2026

I am not a Charismatic. But I am on Team Charismatic, not Team Anti-Charismatic. How about you? Which team are you on?

It’s a shame that so much of our lives as Christians are lived this way, this “Who’s team are you on?”-way. Scripture explicitly condemns it (1 Cor 1:10-17). Catholicism is supposed to prevent it (“Roma locuta; causa finita est”). Yet here we are.

The latest cause for this “purity spiraling” (as Matt Fradd calls it) is, ironically enough, a movie titled “That They May Be One.” A Fathom Entertainment film that aired in theaters earlier this week, it is a docudrama about the Charismatic and Pentecostal movement of the 20th century, the Christian unity that was found within it, and the need to return to it.

That They May Be One claims that St. Elena Guerra’s prayers for a Spirit-led Christian unity influenced Pope Leo XIII to emphasize the Holy Spirit on the first day of the 20th century, which then brought about the Protestant Pentecostal revivals in 1901 and 1906 at Topeka and Azusa Street and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in 1967 at Duquesne University. There are dramatic reenactments and interviews with leaders of the Charismatic movement from various communions, including Catholic theologians Mary Healy and Ralph Martin and former preacher to the papal household Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa.

In his high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus prayed for unity among all who believe in him, “that they may be one,” and the film argues that this unity can be found through a Charismatic spirituality which has often softened divisions between Catholics, Pentecostals, and Evangelicals. An event in Kansas City in 1977 attended by 50,000 people seemed to mark the high point of the Charismatic renewal in the 1970s in both its size and its ecumenical aspirations. The movement’s decline from that 1970s peak is alluded to but never stated explicitly. Ralph Martin comes the closest, when he references the decline of ecumenical feeling following Kansas City ‘77. Martin and the movie’s other Charismatics, Catholic and Protestant alike, want us to rediscover that unity.

To which many Catholics say, “No thanks.” I don’t agree with their demurral. We’ll get to that in a moment. But first let’s hear from the critics. The first pushback to the movie that I saw came from Janet Smith, who shared a Facebook post by Mary Healy’s Sacred Heart Seminary colleague Philip Blosser, who in turn was sharing a critique of the “historical ‘myth’ of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal” by Fr. Thomas Buffer.

Philip Blosser seems to me to overstate Fr. Buffer’s critique (which you can read here). No one is claiming that the Catholic Church “finally received the Holy Spirit” with the Charismatic Renewal. The movie’s producers should respond to Fr. Buffer’s argument that the origin story it tells, about St. Elena Guerra influencing Pope Leo XIII, only dates to 1973. But arguments about historical research do not mean the movement’s theology is false. And Fr. Buffer’s Footnote #4 about St. Elena being removed as superior of her order? Well ok, but she did get canonized, right? The Charismatic movement is more likely to receive legitimate criticisms if they seem fair and not a “throw everything and the kitchen sink at them” approach.

The other critiques I’m seeing are that the Charismatic movement is bad because it’s Protestant. But these are critics who think everything is Protestant. Popes St. Paul VI, St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis all spoke positively—sometimes very strongly—about the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, while also insisting on fidelity to Catholic doctrine, obedience to bishops, and discernment of spirits. Thinking your own private judgment is more authoritative than four Popes seems kind of, well, Protestant.

But what most shocks me is the calumny against Charismatics, Catholic or Protestant, that they don’t care about truth. I’ve known Charismatics for 35 years. How I wish that we in the rest of the Christian world cared about the truth—and showed as much love—as they do!

When I was in my 20s the Charismatics were the only orthodox Catholics I could find. The liberal Boomer priests were ascendant in the 1990s and our parishes were all about Centering Prayer, the Enneagram, Hans Kung, Call to Action conferences, dissident publications, and on and on. The only Catholics I knew that loved the Virgin Mary, the unborn child, and Pope St. John Paul II were all Charismatics. Other faithful Catholic groups showed up later. But in my lifetime, in my part of the world, the Charismatics are the grizzled old granddaddies of orthodox Catholicism. They were there when no one else was.

My experience of the Protestant world is similar. When the Family Institute of Connecticut (FIC), which I run, seeks to rouse the Christian community to defend God’s truth in the Constitution State, the Charismatics and Pentecostals are almost the only Protestants who show up. You may hear a lot from the media about the dreaded “White Evangelicals”—Southern Baptists, conservative Presbyterians, and so forth. In Connecticut, the Protestant wing of the so-called “religious right” are nearly all Charismatics, many of them black or Hispanic. They are there for the unborn, the family, and religious liberty when others aren’t. And in my nearly 20 years of running FIC, they have been there for me in more ways than I can say.

Again, this is not to deny whatever legitimate criticisms may be made of the movement. I have no sympathy for the Charismatics’ main foe within Protestantism, the cessationists. But I know that the New Apostolic Reformation, for instance, is criticized even by other Charismatics who consider it to be “Charismania.” And I know that many Protestants over a certain age are former Catholics who left the Church through the Charismatic movement. In discerning all this, Catholic Charismatic leaders like Mary Healy should be viewed as guides, not threats. Healy is a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and yet also conversant in the Charismatic worlds of Lou Engle, Chuck Pierce, Bethel Church’s Bill Johnson, and so forth.

I’m not a Charismatic. But I am haunted by something Fr. Carlos Martins, the Exorcist Files priest, said on one of his podcasts. He said that the way the Holy Spirit works in the Charismatic movement was never meant to be siloed off from the rest of the Church but was meant to be the practice of the whole Church. Reading the Acts of the Apostles, I can see why he thinks so. Speaking in tongues; prophecy; miraculous healings; falling to the ground during powerful spiritual encounters; spontaneous communal praise, worship, and prayer gatherings; direct guidance and prompting from the Holy Spirit in missionary activity; exorcism and deliverance ministry; large, intense prayer meetings marked by manifestations of the Holy Spirit, it’s all there.

Something to think about, and pray about, this upcoming Pentecost Sunday.