As a former member of the NCW, I can assure one of Kiko's strategies of deception is related with the use of numbers. Kiko reigns in his Kingdom of Quantity, obsessed with the translation into figures of the value of "his" fruits of faith. He uses numbers as a magician, at his own convenience.
Some time ago he made a prophecy saying "after baptizing 100 muslims, I will be assassinated". He is still alive and very likely he will die of old. But why 100 muslims and not 23 or 76? Kiko loves round numbers. I am convinced he uses round numbers to pull down psychological barriers in his followers.
For example, think on 100 young boys who arise in a vocational meeting in Murcia, Spain, where he uses to stay for his summer vacations and -maybe in gratitude- he celebrates an evening of preaching each year before the begining of a new course. Kiko makes them to assist the convivence in Porto San Giorgio, where he will ask again for vocations. Imagine 50 new boys arise in Porto San Giorgio, but we have the 100 who came from the previous vocational meeting in Murcia...Now they are now 150 boys for priesthood.
Imagine now Kiko will celebrate a new meeting with young people in Rome next February, where he will ask for vocations. Then, those 150 young boys from the convivence of Porto San Giorgio (100+50) will have to travel there again and stand up when Kiko'll ask for vocations. This time 60 new vocations will be 150+60=210 young candidates for priesthood. And the same process again and again and again to inflate the figures.
That is why it's better to question the numbers Kiko Argüello gives each time. His numbers are to impress the outsider of the NWC, for example bishops who assist his meetings in Domus Galilaeae. I suppose they arrive with all their innocence wanting to know with their open ears everything this new prophet has to reveal, over all because they "have been paid" for free.
Once I was talking about cults/sects with one of my teenager daughters, who is very rational and loves science. Of course she considers she is so brilliant she would never be deceived or captured by a guru or a group. I told her: "you are the best candidate for it, do you know why?" -she opened her eyes with great surprise and a little arrogance- "because you are so concentrated defending yourself with your head that you leave your heart unprotected, and cults do enter by the heart and not by the head". She inmediately grasped the idea and recognized it was true.
And bishops who arrive Domus probably carry their heads with a battery of arguments they have read or heard about the NCW, but they succumb after three days with their well ordered arguments intact, unused, because Kiko's charm does not need to enter through the door of their rationality, but through their ears with the repetitive and envolving songs, through their sense of taste with the wonderful fresh flowers in celebrations, the solemnity of incense, the best wines...through the coloured simbolyc elements and the nuances of light everywhere...They do not find a little moment of neutrality to analyze with some mental coldness and distance what the NCW is.
In the other hand, Kiko and Carmen have always shown another different didactic use of numbers to convince their public: some kind of sacred numerology based on jewish sources they have studied. Example: the anecdote of how they chose their 12 Cephas: Virgin Mary told them twelve is the number of evangelization (?).
They were fishing in a lake near the place where a convivence was going to start and they catched a specie of fish named "cefas" by the locals. Cefas=cephas, Saint Peter was called "Cephas" by JesusChrist, from Kephas, stone in Greek and Aramaic. Kiko and Carmen, then, needed to have twelve top selected disciples around them to take care of purity of the NCW charism, fullfilling the desire of Virgin Mary with the number of evangelization.
After their fishing day and their election of 12 Cefas, they asked JesusChrist to confirm them and Kiko asked for an applause in His honour. Then, suddenly, an earth quake took place. Nice. Miracles a la carte!
It is known Kiko and Carmen's tendency to sacramentalize all the jewish things they have attached to the catholic liturgy. During my last years on the Way, I remember how many jewish songs were being introduced more and more during the Paschal Vigil at the same level in the catholic liturgy as any reponsorial psalm.
When I started walking we only had the jewish children song of "the four questions", which marked one of the highest points of the Vigil. The children ask their parents and old brothers and sisters in faith why this night, Paschal, is different from all other nights. The song is based on Haggada, the remaining of the Exodus when the israelites left Egypt. Over the years there were also the jewish song of "the four nights" (Creation, Abraham and Isaac, Exodus/Sedder and the coming of the Messiah) and "the numbers song".
By the way, I think this boy is from Mexico, he sings quite well. This is the song of "the four questions" in Spanish.
Below Kiko singing the same song with Italian children during the Paschal Vigil, 1975. Where all these boys and girls would be now? Still in the NCW? Still belivers? Still into the Church?
Here in English, I think they are in United States.
Let's go back to their loved big round numbers. Which could be their mission in the neocatechumenal individual and colective mind?
Being a neocatechumenal causes some kind of loneliness in each follower in front of the rest of non neocatechumenal catholics, which inmediatly is translated into feelings of being missunderstood, critized and persecuted by them, as your catechists and their catechists and upper, until Kiko teach you. In the end, it is a forced loneliness, but for many years every neocatechumen is unable to realize it.
From time to time Kiko organizes collective meetings (announcements of liturgical season, convivences of the year, WYD) and then he emphatise the message that neocatechumenals are a silent army, knowing the feeling of forced loneliness I told before and constrasting it with the large numbers of neocatechumenal successes. He plays permanently with very extreme contrasts. What a joke, he is a neurotic person (he always uses the term neurosis to describe the others).
Given his obsession with numbers, I was laughing today while reading some numbers on Charismatic Renewal, with its 50th anniversary and Pope Francis' speech during Pentecost Vigil celebrated with them in Maximus Circus in Rome. Here is in English:
"Brothers and Sisters:
Thank you for the testimony you give here today. It does us all good, it does me good too.
Today we are here as in an upper room but open air. Because we are not afraid of the open sky. And also with a heart open to the promise of the Father. We have gathered, all of us believers, all who profess that Jesus is Lord. Many have come from different parts of the world and the Holy Spirit has gathered us together to establish bonds of fraternal friendship that do not give strength on the path to unity. Unit for the mission not to stay still. No, united for the mission of proclaiming that Jesus is Lord!
To proclaim together the love of the Father for all his children. To announce the Good News to all peoples, to show that Peace is possible.
It is not easy to prove that Peace in this world is possible, but with the power of Jesus we can prove it. But that is possible if among us we are also in Peace. If we ignite differences and are at war between us, we can not announce Peace. Peace is possible from our confession that Jesus is Lord. It is the Holy Spirit who creates unity among us.
The coming of the Holy Spirit transforms fear-stricken men into courageous testimonies of Jesus. Peter, who denied Jesus three times, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, proclaims that he may know with certainty the whole house of Israel that God has made in the Lord to that Jesus whom they crucified. And this is the profession of faith of every Christian: God has constituted the Lordship of Jesus.
Today, we have chosen to gather here in this place, because here during the persecutions many Christians were martyred for the amusement of those who saw Him. There are more martyrs today than ever before. Those who kill Christians do so without distinction. It is the Ecumenism of the Blood, of so many martyrs.
Today, unity among Christians is more urgent than ever. Walk together, work together. To love each other. And together we seek to explain our differences, to agree, but on the way. If we stand still without walking, we will never agree. Because the Spirit wants us on the way.
50 Years of the Renewal of the Catholic Charismatic Movement. A stream of grace from the Spirit. And why of grace? Because it has no founder, no statutes, no government. Clearly, in this way many expressions have been born which are certainly human works inspired by the Spirit, with various charisms and all in the service of the Church. But the stream can not be put a "dam", nor enclose the Holy Spirit in a cage.
Joy and courage. That gives the Holy Spirit. The Christian ... or experiences the joy of the Spirit of God in his heart or there is something that does not work well.
Dear brothers and sisters, I wish you a time of reflection, of memory of the origins. A time to take from behind all those things that we have been adding with our "I", and transform it into listening and joyful welcome of the Holy Spirit who acts where and how he wants.
I thank everyone for the organization of this Golden Jubilee, for this vigil and thank each of the volunteers who have made it possible, many of which are here. I also greet the young people from so many parts of the world.
Thank you Catholic Charismatic Renewal for all that you have given to the Church in these 50 years. The Church counts on you, with your fidelity to the Word, your availability to service, and the testimonies of lives transformed by the Holy Spirit. Thank you". (Pope Francis, Source of the original in Spanish here, Revistaeccesia.com).
I wish Kiko could listen it, since he sells the NCW as the navel of the world, as the only salvation of the Catholic Church. Hey, Kiko: The Catholic Charismatic Renewal has touched 120.000.000 of catholics around the world in 50 years! Courage, Kiko!
Postdata: Kiko, Francis Pope looks very happy with Charismatics, doesn't he?
excerpts from Pope Francis, Pentecost Sunday
ReplyDeleteThe Holy Spirit creates diversity in unity, Pope Francis said June 4, because in every time and place he gives and nurtures different charisms and graces. And he does so in a way that “effects true union, according to God’s will, a union that is not uniformity, but unity in difference.”
But there are two temptations we must avoid in order to receive these graces, he warned. One is the temptation to seek diversity without unity, which is what happens when we take sides or get locked in our own way of doing things, perhaps even thinking that we are better than other people or always in the right.
“When this happens, we choose the part over the whole, belonging to this or that group before belonging to the Church,” he said. “We become avid supporters for one side, rather than brothers and sisters in the one Spirit. We become Christians of the ‘right’ or the ‘left,’ before being on the side of Jesus.”
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He explained that another common temptation people can fall into is the opposite: to seek unity without diversity. This makes unity into uniformity: “everyone has to do everything together and in the same way, always thinking alike.”
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“So the prayer we make to the Holy Spirit is for the grace to receive his unity, a glance that, leaving personal preferences aside, embraces and loves his Church, our Church,” he continued.
Making this prayer, then we can “accept responsibility for unity among all, to wipe out the gossip that sows the darnel of discord and the poison of envy, since to be men and women of the Church means being men and women of communion.”
We should also pray, he went on, “to ask for a heart that feels that the Church is our Mother and our home, an open and welcoming home where the manifold joy of the Holy Spirit is shared.”
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To each he gives a gift, and then gathers them all into unity,” the Pope said.
Since the Catholic Charismatic Movement managed to thrive with no founder (human founder), no statutes, no government, maybe if the NCW want to thrive they should do these:
ReplyDelete1) no founder - get rid of Kiko the heretic.
2) no statutes - get rid of the statutes, all you need is to be a member of the one holy Catholic church.
3) no government - sell off all the properties that the NCW has “acquired” - "go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)
Like all personality cults, the NCW has a limited shelf life.....
Ignorance is purely diabolical
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