JUNE 15, 2013

Errors in Divine Retreat Centre, Muringoor – 07

Hosting a preacher and his team who defy the Magisterium

THE REASONS FOR OUR CONTINUING THIS SERIES ON DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE

1. The spirituality of the Divine Retreat Centre [DRC] is “charismatic”. One gets the impression that the DRC’s “charismatics”, both preaching teams as well as regular devotees, believe that they are “superior” to other Catholics.

Since my antecedents are not known to many who visit our web site, I proudly affirm that my spirituality is charismatic.

I must add that one of my spiritual directors, a holy and orthodox French Benedictine priest, actually finds it impossible to reconcile my “conservative” ministry with my being “charismatic”. To him it’s an oxymoron. To me, it seems a natural thing.

I have attended literally dozens of retreats and special events including a Bible College and a training programme in Counselling at the DRC between 1995 and 2000. I still do, as in the past, recommend to others these retreats for the reason that the preaching of the Word of God at the DRC has led to the transformation of many lives.

However, it is generally accepted that the contents of the retreat programmes have not evolved much since their inception over two decades ago and the retreats have continued to be by and large what can only be termed as an “initiation” into the Faith. This has resulted in little growth in the spiritual lives of most regular retreatants for whom the Centre becomes a place of pilgrimage and recourse when in need. Many, lacking “solid food” which they now pursue, end up as Pentecostals.

2a. It has been my observation for a very long time that the Divine Retreat Centre, Muringoor, has been the propagator of errors and abuses, including in the liturgy of the Mass, something that, as an apologist, I now find impossible to ignore.

I admit adhering to and participating in most if not all of them at one time or another for several reasons, the chief among them being ignorance; moreover, no one objected to them and almost every charismatic priest, religious and lay leader practised them. However, circumstances — and the personal counsel of some good CCR leaders who would like to see these abuses and errors stopped — make it imperative that they be now exposed. Some teachings at the DRC are not Catholic.

2b. It has been my experience — when I have pointed out these errors and abuses from time to time — that most die-hard devotees of the Divine Retreat Centre are not very receptive to fraternal correction of any sort, or even discussion of the possibility of the Centre being in error. Their responses have ranged from indulgence to hostility. My pointing out that I am only appealing to the teaching of the Church has not saved me from being labeled “anti-Divine Retreat Centre”.

The DRC has become a holy cow for many both within and without the institution and any criticism is viewed as bordering on the sacrilegious. I can truthfully state that this attitude goes right up to the top of the administration. In case my statements appear outrageous, let the reader be assured that, in the course of this series,
I will provide the necessary evidence
to support them.

3. The focus of the first article in the series was on DRC‘s Enneagrams proponent, Sri Lankan preacher Lalith Perera; see DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE ERRORS-01,
http://ephesians-511.net/docs/DIVINE_RETREAT_CENTRE_ERRORS-01.doc.

The Enneagram is a New Age, occult personality-typing system. See ENNEAGRAMS SUMMARY
http://ephesians-511.net/docs/ENNEAGRAMS-SUMMARY.doc
for more information on Enneagrams.

Despite the evidence provided to its Director, Fr Augustine Vallooran VC and letters of protest sent to him by several Catholics, DRC continues to invite occult-tainted Lalith Perera to minister at the Centre every year sine our report in 2006.

4. The immediate reason for this series on the Divine Retreat Centre, Muringoor, was the refusal of priests at the Centre to engage in civil correspondence with us in regard to our genuine concern about their promotion of a controversial mystic, see our September 2012 report MAUREEN SWEENEY-HOLY LOVE MINISTRIES
http://ephesians-511.net/docs/MAUREEN_SWEENEY-HOLY_LOVE_MINISTRIES.doc. This resulted in the report DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE ERRORS-02, http://ephesians-511.net/docs/DIVINE_RETREAT_CENTRE_ERRORS-02.doc.

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/DIVINE_RETREAT_CENTRE_ERRORS-03.doc.

6. The fourth report in the series is on the use of Hindu and superstitious marks on forehead and face by the Centre’s Catholic devotees and retreatants. See

DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE ERRORS-04

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/DIVINE_RETREAT_CENTRE_ERRORS-04.doc

7. The fifth report concerns the top echelons of the DRC‘s Vincentian administration’s dalliance with yoga.

DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE ERRORS-05

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/DIVINE_RETREAT_CENTRE_ERRORS-05.doc

8. The sixth report

DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE ERRORS-05-B

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/DIVINE_RETREAT_CENTRE_ERRORS-05B.doc

is a continuation of the above. I had written to the DRC-Muringoor priests, received a response from Fr. Augustine Vallooran VC at long last, and wrote a rebuttal.

9. The present report

DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE ERRORS-07 concerns a retreat given by Edmund Antao‘s “Crusaders for Jesus with Mary” team from Vasco, Goa at the Divine retreat Centre, Muringoor.

Edmund Antao and the Crusaders for Jesus with Mary team have conducted “pilgrimage” tours to Naju, Korea, to the site where Julia Kim claims to experience heavenly visitations and phenomena such as consecrated hosts mysteriously materializing and falling from the sky to the ground, consecrated hosts becoming flesh and blood on her tongue, etc. An Indian bishop and several priests have accompanied Edmund Antao and the Crusaders for Jesus with Mary team to Naju and celebrated Mass there. The local ordinary and the Korean Bishops’ Conference have ruled against the alleged seer and the site, advising Catholics to stay away. The
local bishop has issued a decree excommunicating all those who even visit the alleged apparition site. Despite the Korean Bishops’ condemnations and warnings, Edmund Antao and the Crusaders for Jesus with Mary team propagate the messages of Julia Kim and lead tours to Naju. This amounts to gross defiance of and disobedience to the Catholic Church.

The team also conducts charismatic retreats at different places in India, mostly at the invitation of bishops, but also at the behest of regional service teams.

During these retreats they speak about Julia Kim and their Naju experience, offering two CDs on sale, one in Konkani and the other in English, thus promoting the banned site nation-wide.

The detailed report can be accessed at

JULIA KIM-MARYS ARK OF SALVATION

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/JULIA KIM-MARYS ARK OF SALVATION.doc

I quote from my concluding statements in the above report:

“Those who propagate the alleged mystic Julia Kim and her messages, those who conduct pilgrimages to Naju, and those who argue on her behalf as well as on the behalf of her supporters in defiance of the bishops’ pronouncements, are guilty of being “not in union with magisterium“:
“… all who fail to follow the directives are to be considered as willfully opposing the magisterium, the Catholic Church’s divinely guided authority to teach true doctrine.”
In effect, they have incurred automatic excommunication.”

MY LETTER TO THE DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE:

From:
Michael Prabhu
To:
divineretreatcentre@gmail.com ; augustinevallooran@gmail.com ; fraugustine@dvnonline.org ; augustinedivine@gmail.com ; frmichaelvc@gmail.com
Cc:
divineyouthblr@gmail.com ; youthdivine@gmail.com ; marjesan@rediffmail.com ; sangeetha.maria@gmail.com ; divineyouth.drc@gmail.com ; preena.joelrodriguez@gmail.com ; divineyouth.drc@gmail. com
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:08 PM Subject: EDMUND ANTAO OF GOA PROMOTES BANNED KOREAN “MYSTIC” JULIA KIM OF NAJU, AND THE MEDJOGORJE “SEERS”

Dear Rev. Fr. Augustine Vallooran, VC, and Rev. Fr. Michael Payyapilly, VC,

Below is the reproduction of a letter that I have commenced sending to archbishops and bishops who have invited Edmund Antao to preach retreats in parishes and institutions coming under their jurisdictions.

This letter is addressed to you because Edmund Antao has been ministering at Divine Retreat Centre [see information at the bottom of this letter].

I am writing this letter to you in the matter of Edmund Antao of Goa

who leads the “Crusaders for Jesus with Mary” team.

It has been brought to my attention that he promotes and conducts pilgrimages to the centre of Julia Kim in Naju, Korea, who has been declared as false in a Decree issued by the Archbishop of Kwangju, Korea, on January 21, 2008.

I quote from a letter written to the Pope on February 9, 2008 by Susanna Eun-Kyung Park, herself a devotee of Julia Kim/Naju:

Naju is publicly condemned as a heresy; Fr. Aloysius Hong-Bin Chang, who loves and believes in the Blessed Mother of Naju, has been reportedly excommunicated; and whoever makes pilgrimages to Naju, whether he or she is from Korea or any other country in the world is automatically excommunicated.

Edmund Antao also conducts pilgrimages to Medjugorje which once again has been declared as false by the local Ordinaries for more than twenty-five years, right from the very first reported “apparitions”. 

While preparing a report for our web site, I found several references on Edmund Antao‘s web site that document the retreats conducted by him in your diocese at your invitation, see below. Recently, he has been using the platform of his retreats to promote his tours to these two banned sites. I thought that you may be unaware of all this and so I have brought it to your kind attention.

Even if there is a possibility that the local Ordinaries have erred on the side of caution and that the manifestations and messages are genuinely of God — and not of fallen angels which is the opinion of some Catholic apologists — one is in duty bound to obey the local Bishop who speaks for Rome in matters of private revelation and not openly defy and flout his authority by leading “pilgrimages” to such places. This not only sends a wrong signal to the entire Catholic community, but it promotes disharmony in the Universal Church and a disrespect for the teachings of Rome in general.

It is a matter of utmost seriousness and an act of gross disobedience when Catholic leaders and preachers who call their retreat ministries as charismatic, collect ignorant Catholics and shepherd them to an alleged apparition site which the local bishop himself has condemned in the gravest possible way and pronounced excommunication on those who disobey him/the Church.

It is my opinion that such preachers and ministries must be banned from ministering to Catholics in all dioceses by informing a central authority in each of the Bishops’ Conferences.

I am confident that you will arrange to do the needful.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Prabhu

PROGRAMME GIVEN BY EDMUND ANTAO‘S “CRUSADERS FOR JESUS WITH MARY” TEAM AT THE DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE, MURINGOOR

http://www.crusadersforjesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/retreats_-conducted_25012013.pdf:

3 day Residential Retreat conducted for Kerala State Government employees at Divine Retreat Centre (DRC), Muringoor – Potta (September 2010)

Medjugorje is not only dismissed as a humbug by the local bishops, it is highly controversial, being enveloped in various scandals. The reports on Medjugorje presently available at this ministry’s web site are:

MEDJUGORJE

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/MEDJUGORJE.doc

MEDJUGORJE-CAREY WINTERS

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/MEDJUGORJE-CAREY_WINTERS.doc

MEDJUGORJE-JOHN LOUGHMAN

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/MEDJUGORJE-JOHN_LOUGHMAN.doc

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 02-MEDJUGORJE

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_02-MEDJUGORJE.doc

See also

NORMS REGARDING THE MANNER OF PROCEEDING IN THE DISCERNMENT OF PRESUMED APPARITIONS OR REVELATIONS
PAUL VI/CDF FEBRUARY 25, 1978 & DECEMBER 14, 2011

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/NORMS_REGARDING_THE_MANNER_OF_PROCEEDING_IN_THE_DISCERNMENT_OF_PRESUMED_APPARITIONS_OR_REVELATIONS.doc

NORMS REGARDING THE MANNER OF PROCEEDING IN THE DISCERNMENT OF PRESUMED APPARITIONS OR REVELATIONS 02
CDF MAY 29, 2012

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/NORMS_REGARDING_THE_MANNER_OF_PROCEEDING_IN_THE_DISCERNMENT_OF_PRESUMED_APPARITIONS_OR_REVELATIONS_02.doc

MARIAN APPARITIONS

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/MARIAN_APPARITIONS.doc

PRIVATE REVELATION

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/PRIVATE_REVELATION.doc

PRIVATE_REVELATION-CRITERIA_FOR_DISCERNMENT-RICHARD_SALBATO

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/PRIVATE_REVELATION-CRITERIA_FOR_DISCERNMENT-RICHARD_SALBATO.doc

PRIVATE REVELATION-RULES FOR DISCERNMENT OF PHENOMENA-FR FELIX BOURDIER

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/PRIVATE_REVELATION-RULES_FOR_DISCERNMENT_OF_PHENOMENA-FR_FELIX_BOURDIER.doc

Categories: False Mystics

Tags: Divine Retreat Centre