The Christian Life Movement USA

I guess this gives some context of how the Sodalit Family, particularly the Christian Life Movement [CLM] is related to North American Politics, as it's more difficult for most Canadians (and Americans) to relate to Latin American politics.

It appears that Denver is the capital of Catholic conservatism in the USA.

Taken from CLM Canada (http://www.clmcanada.org/page2.html):

"When he was 7 years old, he received the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Communion, and Confirmation. Presiding over the Liturgy was Archbishop Juan Landázuri, O.F.M., who would later have an important role in the approval of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, as well as in other religious societies Luis Fernando established."

The CLM USA stronghold is within the city of Denver, whose diocese is run by O.F.M. Archbishop Chaput.



Chaput's political motivations during the 2004 election

"Archbishop Chaput has discussed Catholic priorities in the election in 14 of his 28 columns in the free diocesan newspaper this year. His archdiocese has organized voter registration drives in more than 40 of the largest parishes in the state and sent voter guides to churches around the state. Many have committees to help turn out voters and are distributing applications for absentee ballots.

In an interview in his residence here, Archbishop Chaput said a vote for a candidate like Mr. Kerry who supports abortion rights or embryonic stem cell research would be a sin that must be confessed before receiving Communion."



Support for CLM
"Now present throughout the world [the CLM], both Archbishop Francis Stafford and Archbishop Charles Chaput welcomed the group to the U.S. by way of the Archdiocese of Denver. The consecrated male community was formally established in 2003."


Here is an interesting piece written on the Archdiocese of Denver written by a Catholic newsgroup from Australia


The article acknowledges the relationship of Denver's former Archbishop, now Cardinal Francis Stafford in the Vatican. It is no coincidence that the Sodalit Family can grow in Denver, an area with such support of the Vatican. It is also no coincidence that there are very strong connections between Pope Benedict and the Sodalit Family and strong connections between the Pope and these Archdiocese in Denver. An Opus Dei cleric was appointed as the Auxilary Bishop in Denver as well.

"In Denver, Archbishop Chaput took over an archdiocese that had been patiently refashioned during the ten-year tenure of J. Francis Stafford, a theologian and intellectual who is now a cardinal and head of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in Rome. It was then-Archbishop Stafford, observers say, who first identified Denver as an "emerging city" and set about building a local Church to match its energy and dynamism. He brought in top lay advisers, encouraged new religious orders and movements to relocate there, built close ties with Latin American Church leaders, and made the Church a respected voice on issues ranging from urban sprawl and "hyperdevelopment" to evangelisation and the Internet...

Some critics fault Archbishop Chaput for speaking with what they say is a muted voice on social issues. "There is no deep commitment to the poor - the priority now is with these very conservative theological efforts," complains Loreto Sister Anna Koop, who has run a Catholic Worker house for Denver's needy and homeless for nearly 25 years. Sister Koop complains that Archbishop Chaput has done little to protest against gentrification and development efforts in Denver or the skyrocketing cost of living, all of which have displaced hundreds of poor families and made housing unaffordable except for the very wealthy. The Archdiocese's "only legislative interest is in pro-life and anti-gay and lesbian things," she says....

As he looks forward himself, Archbishop Chaput sees the face of his Archdiocese rapidly becoming Hispanic. The ordination in March of Auxiliary Bishop José Gomez, a 49-year-old Mexican priest of Opus Dei, marked another turning point in the Archdiocese's understanding of itself, Archbishop Chaput says: "We will begin to see ourselves as a diocese that is inherently bilingual, inherently multicultural."



An essay written by Chaput

"I write a lot of letters every day because a lot of people write to me, and my parents always taught me that ignoring anyone is bad manners. So I always write back, which means I have a lot of interesting pen pals, some happy, some angry and a few who are a little strange. One of the angry ones emailed me a few weeks ago to complain that the Archdiocese of Denver was becoming a magnet for every flaky, right wing new group in the Church. And I immediately thought: Thank you for a great way to begin my talk on St. Francis.

It's true that God has raised up many new charisms and communities in the Church over the last 60 years, and especially since Vatican II. It's true that all of them have their special weaknesses along with their special strengths. And it's also true that the Archdiocese of Denver has tended to welcome them with an openness which they may not always find elsewhere. I think that's partly because of the vision of my predecessor, Cardinal Francis Stafford, and partly because of the conversion our own local Church has undergone since World Youth Day 1993.

But in each of these new charisms that has taken root in Colorado -- groups like the Community of the Beatitudes, the Neocatechumenal Way, the Christian Life Movement, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, the charismatic renewal, Opus Dei, Cursillo, the Marian Community of Reconciliation, Families of Nazareth, and most recently a wonderful apostolic society that began 30 years ago in Peru, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae -- in each of these cases, their spirit is something very familiar to anyone who knows St. Francis.... "