Sacred Heart's Dr. Martin addresses Charismatic conference in Rome

Pope Francis joins 52,000 attendees, saying, I feel at home!

Sacred Heart professor Dr. Ralph Martin presented an address, The Gift of the Spirit: Pentecost Today, at the Thirty-seventh National Convocation of Renewal in the Holy Spirit at Olympic Stadium in Rome, June 1-2. This annual meeting of Charismatic renewal movement in Italy featured a special guest: Pope Francis. In a presentation to the 52,000 convocation attendees from fifty-five countries, the pope called the movement a current of grace. He said that hearing one of his favorite songs, The Lord Jesus Lives, being sung at the event made him feel at home since the song reminded him of celebrating Mass with renewal members in his home city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Dr. Martin is associate professor of theology at Sacred Heart and director of graduate programs in the New Evangelization. He is one of the early participants of the Catholic Charismatic Movement, which began at a prayer meeting at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in 1967. Alongside teaching at Sacred Heart, he is president of Renewal Ministries, a media and missionary outreach of spiritual renewal that is present in thirty countries.

In a recent interview with Catholic journalist John Allen Jr. of the Boston Globe, Dr. Martin says he believes Pope Francis' vision for the Church is to bring together the reality of a New Pentecost with the urgency of a New Evangelization. He hopes the pope's presence at the convocation will encourage Catholic charismatics to come out of the closet and be more public about their participation in the movement.

Dr. Martin also said he hopes the Holy Father's attendance will contribute to a growing realization that an action of God' [such as a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit] may be the only thing that can equip the Church for the challenges facing it today.

To read Pope Francis address to participants of the 37th National Convocation of the Renewal in the Holy Spirt, please click here.