Editor’s Note: Back in January, in response to a question about the Alpha program, we said all we knew was that it was a 10-week course about basic Christian teachings that claims to serve “as a refresher course for practicing Catholics and a point of re-entry for lapsed Catholics.” We said that the value of such courses would depend on the materials used and the knowledge and orthodoxy of the facilitators conducting the sessions.
In February, we published the comments of a woman who took part in the Alpha program at her Catholic parish in Michigan and who did not think it was of much help either to practicing or lapsed Catholics. She said that it was basically a Protestant program, with some Catholic teachings tacked on at the end, and that if she were to follow it as directed, “I would soon believe that I need only go to Jesus directly to confess my sins and, as long as I had a relationship with Him, I was a shoo-in for Heaven, according to the minister [leading the program] and the films. As a Catholic, if I followed this program, I would wonder what would be the need for the confessional, or an altar, a Victim, and a sacrifice.”
We have since received a lengthy letter from another Alpha participant who found it to be a very positive experience, with over 300 people going through the program in her parish, although some of them were “disappointed that it ‘wasn’t Catholic’.” She agreed with some of the objections mentioned above, but said that Alpha intentionally does not address such issues as “the need for the confessional, or an altar, a Victim, and a sacrifice.” Discussions of these issues, she said, “are not appropriate for Alpha. Alpha is baby food; it is not the exquisitely prepared red meat of the Catechism. Alpha’s purpose is to introduce people to Jesus in the most basic, non-threatening way possible.”
She said that the confessional, Victim, and sacrifice “are all very high-level concepts that some guests are not yet ready for. Those who do not know Jesus need to hear that God loved them enough to offer Himself up for their sake. That is what leads people to repentance, to conversion, and to a relationship with God. Those who run Alpha believe there is time after Alpha to learn to become a fully mature disciple of Christ and to grow into an understanding of our Faith in all its fullness.”
In summary, said this reader, “We have used this tool in our parish and God has blessed us through it. Lives are being changed; faith has been discovered, deepened, or renewed; people have been healed through prayer; they are returning to faith after a long time of estrangement from God; and many people in our parish are getting serious about being disciples of Jesus and calling others to faith. Alpha can’t do all that by itself. What is happening in our parish is a fruit of the Holy Spirit working through Alpha.”
Another reader weighed in with two critiques of Alpha. One was entitled “Is Alpha for Catholics?” It was written by William J. Cork and can be found at: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7562
Cork said this:
“Despite the commendable intent of Alpha to evangelize the unchurched by facilitating an initial encounter with Jesus Christ, we must conclude that even with a Catholic supplement, it remains deficient and cannot be recommended for Catholic use. Alpha does not fulfill the expectations for Catholic catechesis and evangelization and presents what Catholics must see as an impoverished and distorted Gospel. It is not ‘basic Christianity,’ but is Charismatic Protestantism. To tack Catholic elements on to the end, especially issues of Church and Sacrament, denies the integral nature of Christian revelation.”
The other critique is from Raymond Cardinal Burke, who said in 2015 that, having studied a program called “Alpha in a Catholic Context,” he found it deficient “both from the perspective of doctrine and methodology” and said that the program “may not be used, in any form, in the Marian Catechist Apostolate.” While “Alpha may seem to offer a more attractive and effective form of evangelization and catechesis,” he said, “it does not have the doctrinal and methodological foundations required for the teaching of the Catholic Faith.”
Referring to Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, the cardinal said that there is no need for the Church to discover “some magic formula” or invent a “new program” because “we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which He gives us: I am with you.”
He quoted the late Holy Father as having said that “the program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition; it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ Himself, who is to be known, loved, and imitated so that in Him we may live the life of the Trinity and with Him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem.”
Q. During the Communion Rite at Mass, we use the Protestant Lord’s Prayer as found in the King James Bible (“…lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”). My New American Catholic Bible reads as follows: “…do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matt. 6:13). Why the difference? — R.C., via e-mail.
A. While that latter translation appears in the NAB, that is not the way we say the Lord’s Prayer at Mass. During the Communion Rite, we are supposed to say, “… lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” That is the correct wording to be used in the Roman Rite, and a different wording should not be used in your parish.
The wording of the Our Father came up in a January TV interview with Pope Francis, who said that the translation “lead us not into temptation” is not a good translation “because it speaks of a God who induces temptation.” He suggested that the words be changed to make God’s agency passive “because I am the one who falls; it’s not Him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen. A father doesn’t do that, a father helps you to get up immediately. It’s Satan who leads us into temptation, that’s his department.”
Q. What was the Church’s hierarchy like when St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote that “the walls of Hell are lined with the skulls of bishops”? — A.M.T., Illinois.
A. We have seen this same quotation attributed to St. John Chrysostom, but have no evidence that either he or St. Alphonsus ever made such a remark. As for state of the Church’s leadership during the lifetime of St. Alphonsus (1696-1787), there were nine Popes during that time (two Innocents, four Clements, two Benedicts, and Pius VI), none of whom has been declared a saint.
Their pontificates were marked by ongoing political struggles with the secular rulers of the day since the Pope presided over the Papal States and tried to keep peace among quarreling nations and to deal with the Muslim threat to Europe.
On matters of Church and religion, Innocent XII abolished nepotism, saying that the Pope could not make more than one of his relatives a cardinal; Clement XI fought Jansenism, which taught that human nature was completely corrupted by original sin and that Christ did not die for all men, and made the Feast of the Immaculate Conception a holy day of obligation; Clement XII condemned Freemasonry as a secret society promoting a natural morality and was reported to have said, “The higher I rose, the lower I descended; I was wealthy as a mere priest, as a bishop I was comfortably off, as a cardinal I was poor, but now as Pope I am ruined.”
Benedict XIV was a man of great learning with an enormous capacity for hard work who condemned slavery in 1741. He was summed up by English author Horace Walpole as a censor without severity, a monarch without favorites, a Pope without a nephew, and “a man whom neither wit nor power could spoil.” Clement XIV is best known for his suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, which earned him the criticism of St. Alphonsus, who wrote: “Poor Pope, what could he do when all the royal courts concerted to demand this suppression?…For my part, I can say that even if there remained but one Jesuit in the world, that would be enough for the restoration of the Society.”
Pius VI was Pope during the French Revolution. When French armies invaded the Papal States in 1796, he had to flee Rome and tried to govern the Church from other cities until his death in 1799. It would be two years before he could be given a fitting burial at the Vatican.
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