Rogge, Louis P.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 42 | Number 1 Article 82-1-1975Book Review ofHealing by Francis MacNuttLouis P. RoggeFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqPart of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, and the Medicine and Health SciencesCommonsRecommended CitationRogge, Louis P. (1975) "Book Review of Healing by Francis MacNutt," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 42 : No. 1 , Article 8.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol42/iss1/8alternative to those seeking to fulfill their parental responsibility and will assist them in success-fully pursuing their decisions within the confines of an informed conscience. Of special importance to the new Federation is a Research Center being developed in Pitts-burgh, Pennsylvania under the leadership of John J . McCarthy, M.D., board certified obstetrician and gynecologist. The Center has developed a prototype computer model which will provide an ac-curate identification of the day of ovulation. Preliminary experi-ments with this model have shown the computer to be very accurate. The Federation incorporators met early in October to chart out the work of the organization. Be-cause the demand for Natural Family Planning services have come from many groups which represent the whole spectrum of religious an·d medical persuasions, the Board asserted the need for the corporation to be nonsec-tarian and confirmed the appoint-ment of a Protestant minister, Robert J. Carlson, to be Execu-tive Vice-President of the new organization. The Incorporators Board has as its present membership: Most Reverend Vincent M. Leonard, D.D., Bishop of Pittsburgh; the Honorable Genevieve Blatt, Har-risburg, Pennsylvania; Mr. John B a 11 , Newington, Connecticut; John J. Brennan, M.D., Milwau-kee, Wisconsin; Mrs. Isabelle Collora, Dallas, Texas; Rev. Msgr. Robert Deegan, Los Angeles, Cali-68 fornia; Mrs. David Ek, St. loud, Minnesota; Hanna Klaus J.D., St. Louis, Missouri; and v1sgr. Dino Lorenzetti, Buffak New York. To accomplish its bas pur-poses, the Natural· Famil. Plan-ning Federation has estab' hed a national headquarters in Vash-ington, D.C. This office v vide the focal point of leac guidance and education field of Natural Family P' The .Federation will prom encourage the acceptance ural Family Planning by l pro-rship, 1 the ming. e and ,! Nat-divid-uals as well as the genera iJublic and promote governmen l sup-port for the provision of atural Family Planning services. The Federation will ek to make available Natural 'amily Planning services to all ersons who desire them by mean• Ji both public and private ager es. It will sponsor and condut scien-tific research aimed at im1 ~ment­ing and improving met Jds of Natural Family Planning nd the delivery of Natural Faro ; Plan-ning services. In carryin out its work, the Federation wil , ooper-ate and work with other rencies and organizations, bot} ~public and private, national and 1terna· tional in teres ted in "''atural Famil~ Planning. These c.. tivities of the Federation will be l mduc~­ed so as to act as a servir• organl· zation to its members an .i to as-sist them to develop and expand Natural Family Planning servi_ces in local regions as well as to st~rn­ulate and facilitate commumca· tion between the various members· Linacre QuarterlY Book Review Healing by Francis MacNutt, O .P. Ave Mario Press, 197 4 Man of the '70's may be grow-ing less sure of himself and of his ability to pick himself up by his own bootstraps, but for the most part he tends to greet re-ports of "miraculous" healing with a knowing contempt. Still such reports do persist and there is a growing awarene~ that not all of them originate among the economically deprived, t he intel-l~tually benighted, the emo-tionally unstable, nor even from adherents of "far out" or esoteric religious sects. One might expect that, in a cul-tural environment based on em-pirical science, those scholars who actively dedicate themselves to bettering the human condition ~uld least afford an aprioristic ~udgment that such healings are Impossible. As Dr. Morton Kelsey rHealing and Christianity, p. 307) has pointed out: "Either ~re is a pla~e for Christian heal-lllg in today's world or there is not, and this can only be decided on facts." It is a strange com-lllentary on modern thought, but February, 1975 it is nevertheless true that the pure scientist is at least as likely to admit the failure of the scien-tific method to provide an answer to man's deepest needs as is the rationalistic theologian. In Healing Father Francis Mac-Nutt, O.P., presents us with an account of his own experience in a ministry of Christian healing as well as with some theological considerations that both locate his ministry solidly within Ro-man Catholic tradition and at the same time call into question some values long considered as Chris-tian. A graduate of Harvard with an M.A. from the Catholi~ Uni-versity of America and a Ph.D. from the Aquinas Institute of Theology, Fr. MacNutt offers a great deal for consideration . Far from finding himself at odds with the medical and psy-chological sciences, Fr. MacNutt is at pains both to encourage col-laboration of medical science and religious practice, and to acknowl-edge that divine healing can and does take place not only through 69 / , I o o . . . ··; •J ( t!_· •• ( ··:· ·· , ··:·' . , I ,':'.~I ·.: •' . . ~ . : .'·; lo '~ • . .. • I : ' .. . :· .. ·.· .. ·.. .... .. ..... . ·. '1 . . .. ' . Y 'u ' • 0 . , •• . ,, . . o ~ t I prayer but also through the prac-tice of all the healing arts. There is here no question of a God "out there" breaking into the physical world, no question of some sort of " manipulation" of the divinity by means of magic; rather The arts of medic ine. counseling a nd psychia try a re ordina ry ways in which God ca n work to create wholeness in broken man through freeing the fo rces of nature (which h e also has created ) to move to -ward health. Unless the re is some obs tacle. nature (m a n's body. mind. emotions) m oves toward health ; the doctor or counse lor works to uncov~ r these obs tacles whethe r they be a virus o r a pa inful past. in o rde r that the patie nt might grow toward that sa me health fo r which we pray (pp. 273-4) . Healing is an integral part of the Good News; its purpose, to restore to man the wholeness God created him to enjoy, in body as well as in soul or spirit. In recent centuries, unfortunately, an over-emphasis on the doctrine of the Cross has caused many sincere Christians to reject prayer for healing as being, if not somewhat cowardly, at least far less perfect than to accept suffering as a sign of God's special love. At the same time the ancient heresy that mat-ter is evil has influenced many to go. on viewing the body as the prison of the soul, as an evil to be subdued, rather than as an inte-gral element of the human person. Suffering is basically to be un-derstood as a symptom of dis-order. As such it may indeed in-dicate a call to recognize one's share in fallen humanity and to 70 unite oneself to the pass1 death of the Crucified (1 tive suffering); but sufferi also point to our own fa , live in harmony with Go neighbor, with self. It is t ter - and probably mm mon- case that may indi area in one's life tha t nee toration to right order if to fulfill his destiny as a < God. Suffering that preve1 from doing God's will ( state of depression ste from some long forgotten hood trauma) cannot be 1 that will (pp. 75-6). 1 and lemp-' may re to with s !at-com-te an 5 res-an is ild of s one g., a -ming ·hild-trt of Jesus' own ministry ir lved not only the proclamation f the Good News by means of th( Word but also the evidence of the <ing-dom of God's having arri' d by means of his "works of p wer.'' It was this Good News in ction that expressed his missio · the restoration of wholeness t , the entire man. Jesus came no only to give new life, but also o re-move the obstacles to tha new life; the Acts of Apostles d mon· strates that the early Chur< 1 car· ried out that same minist ry of word and work; the Chur< h to-day, if it be authentic, must con· tinue to proclaim that same roes· sage and to perform those same works. Modern man is seeking and demanding that religion pro-vide him with an experience of God as well as with a doctrine about God, and that the Church recognize his need for transform· ing spiritual power as well as for Linacre Quarterly the strengthening of his will-power: if the Good N ews is tha t Ch rist came to save all men. then th e power to save has to be the re. If the power to save man extends to the whole pe rso n , part of the very message of salvation is that C h r is t came to· h eal us - spirit, m ind , emotions, and body. T o deny or minimize the h ealing ministry is to take away much of the power of the gospel and to leave in its st ead a body of truths devoid of life (p. 94). Or, as he had previously stated, a doctrine of God's salvation not actually taking place, or a con-cept of healing without the heal-ing taking place, is empty rhe-toric (p. 56). Sickness is a result of man's fall, healing of the resur-rection. Father MacNutt is at his best when he writes of the intercon-nectedness of causes and effects in the human person: the physi-cal, the emotional, the psychologi-cal, the spiritual, each acting and reacting on the other; each neces-sary to the total well-being of the ~dividual; each capable of harm-mg, even of destroying, the whole; Yet each open to the healing pow-er of the Savior, as to but one effect of man's encounter with the risen Lord. Although he is quite explicit in stating his conviction that prayer for healing does tap " forces far beyond what our unaided hu-manity contributes~' (p. 15), Father MacNutt is careful to at-~ribute the vast majority of heal-mg to the powers bestowed on nature by the Creator, powers that can be made operative and/ February, 1975 or more effective through prayer. T h e ideal, it seems to m e, would be whe n we reach a time w h en doc-tor s, counselors and p sy chiatr is ts would - as some alr ea d y d o -p ray for the patien ts t ha t God m igh t d o what they cannot d o, or even tha t God might p e r form that same kind of cure that m edical sci-ence can p rovide, bu t i n a more pe r fect . m o re speedy, a nd less ex-pe ns ive way (p. 274) . Where psychology, for example, has been able to bring about a bet ter understanding of man's problems but is as yet una ble t o provide a completely satisfactory solution, t he Gospel can provide the clue for bringing the power of divine healing to bear (p . 271) , to a far greater extent t han is explicable by t he power of sug-gestion alone. Or in the case of physical healings, most can be explained in a va r ie ty of ways. Who can say t hat we know · a ll the factors of a case, so t hat we can sa y wit h certainty , "This re-mission of d isease took p lace fol-lowing prayer a nd there fo re p ra yer caused it to ta ke place"? But I do belie ve that anyone who would come wit h me on ret reat afte r re-trea t wo uld see so many blessed by healings t h at he would see 'a cumu-lative body of evidence a ll pointing in th e direction of an extra ordinary powe r being present, of a number of healings taking place well be-yond t he r ea lm of c:hance occur-rence (p . 3 1) . Healing, then, is understood neither as a sign of the sanctity of the "healer" nor even, at least primarily, as a "proof" of God's presence; rather it is viewed as a sign of the Fat her's compassion and love for his children. 71 I • 4 • ~ I ,' 0 .. ., · · , j .. I'.: .,··,: .. I .. . . J ••• :·; .. "' .. I ' ·. ... . ... ,. -. ,, . ,• ,, . . "' ' .. . • • :• ~ •C • •. .. '· 'w • It is regrettable that Father MacNutt was not more careful to qualify statements ( cf. e.g., pp. 62, 78) that imply that Jesus healed all the sick he encountered during his ministry (John 5:1-9 describes one such occasion when Jesus healed only one man of the many who were waiting for the waters of the Sheep Pool to be stirred) ; although it will be clear to those who read the entire book that such is not his position ( cf. for example the paragraphs on re-demptive suffering, pp. 86-87) , there will not be lacking those who will cite these statements out Are You Moving? of context in order to suppt t the contention that only t hos who lack faith must go on suf !ring. Likewise he could well ha e de-voted more space to the r ation of the Sacraments to- healin , par-ticularly the · 'Eucharist. Nevertheless all who : ·e in-volved in the care of the ck -whether in body, in soul or in spirit-can be grateful to ather MacNutt for having sha d his insights into an area too I 1g ne· glected by Catholic thou , 1t. Reviewed by: Louis P. Rogge, ( Carm. If the next issue of this journal should be delivered to a d ifer-ent address, please advise AT ONCE. The return pos·a ge and cost of remailing this publication is becoming more a nd · more costly. Your cooperation in ~eeping us up~to-date with your address will be most helpful. 72 Linacre QuarterlY ~arterly VOL. 42 MAY, 1975 ,/ , ' . . . ' • , ... . ,. ~· '. ·' • : .o;&. • • • . • • ; • I'\ t f , • • ~ . ..... · ,' ·~·'.:{' ' '•. , .. , ..... ·. ··: •J , r ~ ~ · ,. ( •.;· . ,.; ; :~=/.· ... ·.: ... I o ' ;I o o, . : ~ ·: ;. .. : .. .. . I I . ':· . ., . . . I · , ... . , .. . . . ' ... . ~ . . .... • .· . ,. .· I , . ~ ~. ·< .. . ' ··.··· ,. '" 0 'o • I ,,. I • • .·. 

Book Review of \u3cem\u3eHealing\u3c/em\u3e by Francis MacNutt

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Book Review of \u3cem\u3eHealing\u3c/em\u3e by Francis MacNutt

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