Conversion of Catholics to Pentecostal faith alarms Vatican

The Catholic Church is alarmed over the growing conversion of its flock to Pentecostal churches and charismatic movements but wants to reach out to them, a Vatican official who is holding a seminar for Asian bishops in the country admitted yesterday.

"We have to face this reality. These churches take away many faithful from our parishes. But we don’t want to deal with it in a confrontational manner, which is why we are pushing for ecumenism," Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of Pontifical Council for Promotion of Christian Unity, said at a news conference at the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila.

The conversion of Catholics all over the world has become a "serious challenge for the Church," and also a "reason to make ecumenical movement a main concern in our council," said Kasper.

The cardinal revealed the Vatican has opted not to try to win back the converts, but instead deal with the phenomenon through dialogues with Pentecostal churches.

Kasper stressed: "We are conducting this seminar on ecumenism all over the world precisely for this reason. We want the bishops conferences to come up with concrete action plan to deal with the issue. Our main objective is to promote unity among Christians."

The cardinal said Pentecostal and charismatic churches worldwide now have over 600 million members. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has some one billion followers.

Most local "Born-Again" Christian churches are under the Pentecostal order. The most popular Catholic charismatic church in the Philippines is the El Shaddai Movement of Mariano "Bro. Mike" Velarde, which reportedly has two million followers.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), host of the seminar attended by 44 bishops from eight Asian countries and three Vatican officials, vowed to pursue the ecumenical movement.

Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias, chairman of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Ecumenical Affairs, said the Church considers Pentecostals as "companions in spreading the Good News – not competitors."

"We are hoping to come up with non-combatant ways to deal with the Pentecostals. We hope to learn how to relate with them better," Tobias said.

He said the CBCP has been hosting interfaith dialogues in the past years "and we’re happy because the atmosphere has been very congenial so far."

Imus Bishop Luis Tagle, member of International Theological Commission of Vatican, said the move of the Church to push for unity among all Christians is "a response to the call of God and would certainly benefit the whole world which is now full of divisiveness."

But Tagle clarified that the Church does not desire to convince other Christian churches to accept Catholic doctrines and beliefs since "unity is not the same as uniformity."

"Before we dwell on our differences, we should first look on points of agreement and convergence," the bishop appealed.