Word: cursillos
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...practicing their faith to a deeper intensity," he says. Now there are new Charismatic and other prayer groups, new adult Bible classes, and special spiritual weekends like Marriage Encounter (TIME, April 7, 1975) in which couples examine their marriages and learn to communicate with each other more honestly; the Cursillo, which seeks to inspire personal religious renewal and the similar Christian Awakening for teenagers. Such movements "ask of me a greater degree of faith than the old organizations," says one laywoman. Mass attendance is down, but two-thirds of those who attend receive Communion, compared with one-third a decade...
Some men Cursillistas have jeopardized their marriages by losing interest in their wives and homes. Not all bishops will even permit Cursillos in their dioceses. Critics of the movement also charge that the Cursillo relies on simplist theology and a fundamentalist approach to Scripture, tends to create prudish zealots who are convinced, like Moral Re-Armers, that they alone possess the real key to spiritual living...
After each lecture, the Cursillistas divide into smaller groups to discuss its application to their lives, draw pictures that illustrate the sermon's main points. To relieve spiritual tension, the Cursillo schedule provides moments of respite in which the students tell jokes and sing songs, notably a jaunty little Spanish folk tune called De Colores (Of Colors) that has become the unofficial theme of the Cursillo. Sample verse...
...Cursillo candidates are screened to exclude neurotics, include a cross section of active Catholic laymen, usually between 25 and 50 in age, with leadership potential. Separate Cursillos are held for women, but wives are not eligible unless their husbands have taken the little course. Unlike the retreat, which emphasizes individual meditation and passive attention to sermons, the Cursillo requires active, cooperative participation by all candidates. Thus each course includes one or two "auxiliaries" -veteran Cursillistas who pretend to be there for the first time. They keep discussions going, alert the rector and priest if someone is not entering into...
...little course as a turning point in their lives. Parish priests cite thousands of Sunday-Mass Catholics who became daily communicants and gave countless leisure hours to work for the church. Some clerics who distrusted the "Spanish" intensity of the course have changed their minds after undergoing a Cursillo. Says the Rev. Francis Norris, a theologian at San Francisco's diocesan seminary: "I must confess that my deepest experience of our common life in Christ took place during the Cursillo...