The Trappist monks who created Centering Prayer were no doubt well-meaning. It is nothing like my presentation of Catholic Mindfulness. Centering Prayer very easily became part of that. As a Catholic Psychologist, I work against the errors that came post-Vatican II to lead people away from Christ- including the kind of “self actualization” that has always lead people away from Truth. One can speak of the practice of psychology in the same way (rightfully so). Centering Prayer as a movement arose during a time of total chaos in the church and there is a lot of negativity that came with its practice. There is an appropriate emotional response to the Centering Prayer/Transcendental Meditation movement because of how much it has lead people astray, but that is not appropriately equated with Catholic Mindfulness. Today I have an opportunity to stop history from repeating itself with another New Age meditation form being “married” to Catholic spirituality. So many people have been led astray! I am too young to have spoken up about the practice in the 1980s. Centering Prayer is now practiced at parishes throughout the nation and the world. I am concerned that the “Catholic mindfulness” movement is today where the Centering Prayer movement was thirty years ago. It is often difficult to find people to give me critical feedback and so I am authentically grateful for her work here. In all of my classes, through all of my work, I am constantly asking my students (and patients) for critical feedback so that I can continue to grow in my own way of understanding and teaching. I also appreciate the opportunity to tweak my work in the ways that I have fallen short. I appreciate her attempt to look critically at some of my actual work. The author of this blog, however, does comment directly on a short ebook that I wrote to introduce the idea of Catholic Mindfulness. The most concerning thing is that the theologian who is so publicly speaking out about my work, as well as the author of this blog (whom I assume to be in contact with him based on her points below), have both admittedly not actually taken the course on Catholic Mindfulness! They go on equating my work with the dangerously destructive era of “Centering Prayer,” which taps into a whole epoch of recent Church history that involves gross disobedience to Church authority, without having done the due diligence of actually researching my work. In a spirit of charity I reached out directly to him and still have not, to date, written anything naming him publicly. He also published quite publicly his “concerns” about my work. I happen to know the one detractor who voiced his concern to Ascension. I work closely with Ascension, they are (still) one of the most reliably sound Catholic publishers in the U.S. To begin, I am disheartened that no effort was made to contact me directly from the author of this blog.

I do think a response is needed, however. My purpose is not to slam Ascension Press, nor to make a personal attack against Dr. How many of Ascension’s subscribers, Facebook friends, and other followers saw them promoting this course? Without a public correction, many of these people may be led astray. When I just checked Ascension’s Facebook page, I found their post on mindfulness still there, with 25 likes and some shares. But I have been unable to find any public retraction. I have been told Ascension received the criticism well. Others have voiced their concerns about “Catholic mindfulness” with the publisher. They are (up until now) one of the most reliably sound Catholic publishers in the U.S. It is very concerning to see this from Ascension Press. Gregory Bottaro, who has created an online “Catholic mindfulness” program. The podcast was from a two-part interview with Dr. Easter Tuesday, I received an email from Ascension Press about a podcast on the subject. Readers have forwarded unsolicited emails from Catholic sites promoting mindfulness. Why am I addressing mindfulness again so soon? “Catholic mindfulness” is currently being marketed vigorously all over the internet. The text from the original post appears in and my response in black. I hope this is received in a spirit of charity and openness to truth as that is how it is being written. Recently there have been one or two threads of concern popping up in regard to my teaching of Catholic Mindfulness. As my concern is always to lead people towards greater flourishing through a deepening encounter with Christ, I publish my response here to one such concerned author.

Mindful catholic