Spiritual deformation and liquidation of religious
Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated life
and Societies of Apostolic life
Card. Franc Rodé, Prefect
Rome
Your Eminence,
in the previous letter “A call to repentance for religious” we reminded You of Your authority but also of
Your responsibility before God and before the Church. Now we present to You this letter as an attachment.
Introduction
Why do psychologies so systematically kill the faith? Because unto faith we attain not through our reason
but through conscience, through a confession: I have sinned. Only then can we see Jesus hanging on the cross
and only then can we hear in our soul: “All your sins are forgiven”, and get the assurance – He has received
me, I am His. This way goes through conscience, whereas psychologies, the same as Oriental meditations, kill
conscience, remove the awareness of sin and thus rob us of the most precious thing – salvation which is only in
Jesus Christ.
Formation courses
The Patriarchal Commission for Religious in Lvov in Ukraine provides so-called formation courses for
men and women religious of UGCC (Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church). In the first place these courses are
obligatory for all those religious who are engaged in formation or work with the youth.
What life principles according to the Gospel are inculcated here upon them as the basis of the formation? It
is shocking, but none at all. This spiritual formation, though provided for religious, has nothing in common
with the spirit of the Gospel. It begins with dance courses. Both men and women religious participate in these
courses together. The names of dances are for example: sun dance... (Only too strong association with the
elements of yoga, or perhaps the very initiation ritual?) But let us put aside a disguised influence of false
mysticism for the moment and let us stay on the field which one speaks about overtly – the courses are
psychological.
How could it happen that religious have been given psychology as the basis of formation? Only this very
fact is a betrayal of vocation. Religious are not to be psychical people, the less so carnal; they are to be spiritual
people. They themselves need to have the power of the Holy Spirit and then to bring it everywhere they are
sent. The power of the Spirit is to make them Jesus’ witnesses. So the basis of the formation should be a
personal receipt of Jesus as one’s personal Saviour and Lord, opening oneself to the Holy Spirit and then, as the
Scripture says, walking in the Spirit (see Gal 5:16.25). However, there is nothing like that.
In a certain stage of the fight for the salvation of souls psychology might perhaps be useful; however, it
would have to be true Christian psychology which clearly follows the aim. This aim is salvation of the soul –
that means opening the soul to the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, and unmasking various bonds that keep man
in deceit.
Psychology founded on Jung and Freud is more than misleading. Such psychology, the same as its
founders, has nothing in common with Christianity. On the contrary, it leads away from true repentance, does
not call a sin a sin and therefore does not lead to conversion – it does not direct man to Jesus. It is a means of
receiving different spirits.
Psychological elements, or rather psychological manipulation, for example through dancing, aim to deprive
man of his natural barriers and sound thinking. All that under a motto that man must feel himself “a man in
truth” – that means deprived of complexes. However, it is the other way round – by means of psychological
influence man is fettered by anxiety and fear that he should comply with all psychological parameters. For
according to these parameters he is appreciated by others. If he does not comply with them, he is mercilessly
humiliated thereby. However, the one who opens himself fully to these psychological lies becomes sovereign,
even cynical – which is evaluated positively. Where in such formation is the Spirit of Christ? What do these
practices have in common with the following of Christ? What spirit is it that forms here? The psychological
elements used rather make man disposed to unclean, neopagan or other spirits.
E.g.: Religious brothers and sisters were to close their eyes and grope around in the dark, bumping into
one another. During the dance class the stress was laid on a touch. It was explained to them that when they are
passing by one another in a circle, they are to touch one another’s palm and to feel the effect of the touch. In
the next part of dance they were to look into one another’s eyes. If someone dropped his (her) gaze, it was
judged to be a manifestation of some complex or inner crisis. From that moment such person was labelled as
someone who has a certain defect and therefore he/she was considered an object of psychological examination.
A certain religious sister after returning from the formation courses taught these dances in her religious
community. Younger sisters were told by her not to laugh, because it wasn’t a mere recreation but a meditation.
She arranged candles around the room, turned off the light and switched on strange music. She explained to
them that it was important that they might perceive the music (New Age) profoundly, that they might as if enter
it and then in that so-called prayer of unity feel one another and subsequently even the overall harmony of all
of them (elements of New Age).
One of the religious sisters present in the courses later expressed herself that the fruit these meditative
dances bore was by no means harmony of the community but in practical everyday life quite the contrary. And
regarding the individual influence, it created a disposition to impure thoughts and feelings. However, what is
even worse is the fact that to come into the chapel after such a dancing-meditative evening and to want to be
with God is simply impossible. One is not able even in minimal measure to enter into relationship with God.
The sister ended off her evaluation by expressing sad experience: “Psychologies, even connected with this
false mysticism of New Age, have destroyed our faith and our relationship with God in the first place.”
Nevertheless, the Patriarchal Commission headed by sr. Dia Stasiuk OSBM still obliges all religious
communities of UGCC to take part in these “formation” courses. These courses are carried out by a psychologist
and employee of the organization “Faith and light”. This organization, which is also in cooperation with the
Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), is engaged in the work with mentally handicapped people. The paradox
is that at the same time it forms practically all religious. In this way the spirituality of New Age is covertly
taking root. The psychologist, who has replaced the spiritual father, applies the same parameters to religious as
to mentally handicapped people.
The psychological formation courses also take place in the monastery of Redemptorists in Lvov. There is
an atmosphere of such importance of psychology evoked as if without it it was impossible even to admit anyone
into the monastery. A religious sister who forms novices then believes in psychological pigeon-holes and
cannot perceive the substance of spiritual life. The Spirit of God is pushed aside and the approach to the other
person is reduced just to some scrutiny of the reactions of an object. Such religious life has lost its sense. It is
liquidated from within.
The present Holy Father in his book “On the Faith Nowadays” (An Interview with V. Messori) states: “A
serious crisis can be seen in the orders and congregations of active life... One encounters here even uncritical
enthusiasm about hitherto unchecked values of modern secularized society and an unfiltrated flow of
psychologies and psychoanalyses from various directions into the monasterial walls. All this gave cause for
acute problems of identity with many sisters and for the loss of sufficient motivation for the religious life...
Religious books were substituted by wide-spread psychoanalytical guides. Theology often gives place to
psychology, most often to the very modern one... Yes, there is great confidence in those profane confessors, in
those ‘experts on souls’, who are supposed to be psychologists and psychoanalysts... Experimenting, where one
often confides in self-appointed ‘experts’, frequently led to a not negligible burden on human mind, at any rate
only too heavy in the case of religious sisters, and that as in the case of those who remained so of those who left
the institute.”
Statistics of the last year show that the number of men and women religious dropped by 7230 persons.
Likewise catechetic seminars are carried out in the same spirit as the formation courses for religious. Their
content is dances and various games, too. Not only that young people who participate in them are not led to
conversion but, moreover, by means of these catechetic seminars they become disposed to open themselves for
the New Age spirituality and for unclean spirits.
For example, the Salesian fathers along with the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate organized a youth
march in a small town of the Lvov region. The procession was divided into different groups whereof each
chanted a slogan, a peculiar word the meaning of which the participants could not understand. At the end all
danced together so-called “bansy” in a circle in front of the church. People turned to the religious sisters with
amazed questions. The sisters themselves felt ashamed; however, they could do nothing about that, such was
the programme of the so-called catechization seminar. After more activities of this kind the feeling of
embarrassment disappears. If the youth marched through the town chanting slogans like e.g. “Jesus is the
Victor!”, many Church representatives would comment that it is fanaticism and the organizers would probably
be rebuked or punished by them.
Another dance for the catechization seminar looked as follows: The boys and girls, among whom there
were also religious sisters and women catechists, stood in two circles – an outer and inner one. The participants
stand face to face, again the condition is to look into one another’s eyes and to touch one another’s palms. They
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sing a song about a blessing, then lay their hands one on another and at the end make the sign of the cross on
one another’s forehead. Thereafter the circle moves forward by one person and the whole procedure is repeated.
The use of religious phrases just confuses the participants and disguises the spirit that is behind it. The same is
the effect of ambiguous games. If all this took place at some entertaining party organized by secular people it
would be nothing strange. But why should this chaos be called catechization? The fact is that those who should
transmit to the youth a true knowledge of God and lead them to personal conversion are formed in the religious
orders and at UCU in such way that “they neither enter (the kingdom of God) themselves, nor allow those who
would enter to go in” (cf. Mt 23:13). And it is actually the young people, whose conscience has not yet been
deformed, who are the most able to perceive the truth and the true ideal, which is Jesus Christ and the way of
following Him. It is a crime that the Church offers them just some substitutes with a religious coating by means
of which it continues keeping them in the spirit of the world, or, what is even worse, through these activities
inconspicuously incarnates the spirit of New Age.
It is the same with young people who join the religious communities. For instance, as a certain religious
sister testifies, it was psychologically “clarified” to them what the expression “the word became flesh” means
in practice. However, such clarifications are a glaring arrogance and demonization of people. They were told:
“You say for example a word ‘frog’ and the image of its body immediately appears in your mind.” What kind
of association is this? Connecting this statement, which expresses the greatest mystery on which depends our
salvation and which moreover is the Word of God, with such a thing?! This is a grave sin and offence! This is
the way how religious sisters should learn to think?! Such a demon, hidden behind psychologies, should form
them?! The religious founders would have to turn in their grave if they saw what global “spiritual guidance”
their spiritual sons and daughters are provided through psychologies, and that all officially, even on the
authority of the Patriarchal Commission. Religious are thus made into the most faithful workers of New Age,
exactly according to the words of St. Bernard: “The servants of Christ they are but they serve antichrist.”
Whoever defies this global leadership of the Patriarchal Commission or the head of religious, sr. Dia
Stasiuk OSBM, is proclaimed a sect and covertly liquidated by way of so-called canonical visitation. Just
as it is done with the Monastery of Saint Elijah the Prophet in Bryukhovychi.
A certain Basilian father from the seminary in Bryukhovychi publicly said about the contemplative sisters
that they are a sect and added that all religious communities are already saying this and that it will soon come to
light (probably after the canonical visitation). Thus he just revealed how globally the Patriarchal Commission
has taught them to think and if they deviated only a little and thought soundly, they would be counted as a sect,
just like the sisters.
Likewise a Basilian from the seminary in Bryukhovychi ridiculed the active Basilian sisters with the
words: “You are brides of Christ? And who am I then?” The sisters would have never supposed that a monk
might have such an attitude towards Christ, so they were not even able to respond. He ought to have been told
expressly: “You are an apostle with the spirit of Judas.” This is how the concrete fruits of the formation on the
basis of HCT and modern psychologies look. It is the fruits of the spirit of death.
Religious sisters from globalized monasteries described their impression of evening recreations. In these
recreations they were involved in games the result of which was either turning a person in ridicule or some
empty joking which left behind nothing but emptiness and sadness in their souls. For example, the sisters were
to choose from among animals drawn in a picture which one of them they considered themselves to be. In
another game, to the question: “Who is the red monkey?” they were to give a choral reply: “I!” These
associations with animals likewise are not innocent. Oriental meditations and reincarnation connected with
them are the fashion nowadays. These lead to a complete liquidation of the Catholic faith, and, what is more,
this happens in monasteries and with religious persons. Psychologies and Oriental meditations belong to the
most powerful levers of New Age. The names of psychological games in the recreation were e.g.: “black
magic”, “white magic”, ... Although they did not deal with magic to all intents and purposes, only the very
frivolous use of these terms denoting deadly sins makes man dull. Whose interest is it?
In a religious community which is formed by psychologies young people cannot find a spiritual family, a
hinterland, where they would feel safe and happy, because there is not the Spirit of Christ there. The monastery
is thus only an alien environment where the individual must always try to meet a so-called standard, otherwise
he/she is turned in ridicule. This is the fruit of psychological formation.
In practice it then looks as follows: men as well as women religious either leave the monasteries, or
through the false spirituality to which they have opened themselves they liquidate both themselves and the
Church from within. Many a time they then live immorally and the religious vows are a mere mockery of the
reality. And how did all this decay begin? Through “innocent” psychologies which pushed aside the substance
of spiritual life, which is the living relation to Jesus, and introduced another spirit.
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The rule of the spirit of New Age in the Patriarchal Commission is also revealed through their persistent
propagation of occultism – homoeopathy in particular. As early as 24th – 25th January 2003 sr. Dia organized a
homoeopathic seminar called “Holistic treatment of the individual” in the monastery of the Studite sisters in
Lvov. Invitations to this seminar were officially sent out to all monasteries. In spite of the fact that sr. Dia was
long before warned even individually in writing that behind homoeopathy is magic, and thus it is a sin against
the first commandment which draws down a curse, she did not repent of this occult activity. Nowadays there is
already sufficient informational material in home as well as foreign publications, so scientific as religious ones,
which clearly show that behind homoeopathy is magic. One would expect that in consequence of this sr. Dia
will explicitly and publicly admit her error, just as it was done by many Christian doctors. However, the head of
the Patriarchal Commission ignores not only God’s commandments but also modern science. This occult
activity of hers continues to contaminate as religious so even seculars.
A certain religious sister, a qualified homoeopath, works in a monastery in Lvov, but in other places too.
Beside religious she “heals” secular people as well. Her “professional” training abroad was provided by sr. Dia
who actually opened this new service in the monastery mentioned.
The religious communities that did not let themselves be deceived but faithfully keep to God’s
commandments have been accused of disobedience and the accusers are covertly working towards their
liquidation; in an official way through Church punishments, of course. The Patriarchal Commission for
Religious under the leadership of sr. Dia is thus an undoubted instrument of New Age in UGCC. And the aims
of New Age are known to everyone – internal liquidation of Christianity.
Conclusion
Every man or woman religious who want to save their soul are obliged for the sake of their salvation to
make the following steps:
1) to renounce the spirit of death which is behind modern psychologies;
2) to renounce the spirit of death which is behind Oriental meditations;
3) to renounce the spirit of magic which is behind homoeopathy;
4) to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord, to receive the Virgin Mary like the Apostle
John under the cross and to receive the Holy Spirit like the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.
(The formula for renouncement: “X., do you renounce the spirit of death which passed on you through modern
psychologies as well as the whole spiritual background which is behind it?” “Yes, I do.”
“Do you break this spiritual bond by the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?” “Yes, I do.”)
Why do psychologies so systematically kill the faith? Because unto faith we attain not through our reason
but through conscience, through a confession: I have sinned. Only then can we see Jesus hanging on the cross
and only then can we hear in our soul: “All your sins are forgiven”, and get the assurance – He has received
me, I am His. This way goes through conscience, whereas psychologies, the same as Oriental meditations, kill
conscience, remove the awareness of sin and thus rob us of the most precious thing – salvation which is only in
Jesus Christ. That is why it is necessary to dissociate oneself from these false ways.
Your Eminence, we have warned You of the destructive influence of modern psychologies which enforce
the spirit of New Age in monasteries and liquidate true spiritual life. We have proposed to You that these
influences should be forbidden and religious should be given a sound formation, otherwise Your
Congregation is ineffective or even counter-effective and it would be better to abolish it.
In Christ,
Fr. Eliáš A. Dohnal ThD. OSBM
Fr. Metoděj R. Špiřík ThD. OSBM
Fr. Markian V. Hitiuk ThLic. OSBM
Pidhirtsi 3rd February 2008
Copies to:
- His Holiness Benedict XVI
- Cardinals and Bishops of the Catholic Church
- All representatives of the non-Catholic Churches
Address: Monastery OSBM, 80660 Pidhirtsi, Brody district, Lvov region, Ukraine
www.community.org.ua
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