"Fr." Richard Rohr: An Occult Heretic

 

In Traditional Catholic theology, an "occult heretic" is one who denies one or more dogmas of the Faith but does not reveal it publicly. So if a cleric denied, e.g., the Immaculate Conception, but never let it be known to anyone such that only he and God are aware, that cleric is a secret ("occult") heretic. In the Vatican II sect, "occult heretic" takes on a whole new meaning.

"Fr." Richard Rohr (b. 1943) was invalidly ordained a Franciscan priest in 1970. He is a prolific writer on spirituality, and in 2011 was called by one source "one of the most popular spirituality authors and speakers in the world" (See pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2011/11/11/november-11-2011-richard-rohr/9902/).

Rohr's book, The Universal Christ made the New York Times Bestseller List in 2019. 

Rohr is an "occult heretic;" he denies multiple dogmas of the faith (he's an apostate actually) and he is heavily involved in the occult. However, the Vatican II sect denies these accusations. In an interview, Rohr stated that a group of "conservative" Vatican II sect laity had recorded his "homilies" and gave them to Joseph Bernardin (then Abp. of Cincinnati prior to becoming "Cardinal Abp." of Chicago) asking for Rohr to be excommunicated. Bernardin declared Rohr's teachings "within the bounds of the Church’s teachings," yet the sect's Archdiocese of Cincinnati claims to have no knowledge of the incident. (See newyorker.com/news/on-religion/richard-rohr-reorders-the-universe).

Nevertheless, it is undisputed that Rohr was endorsed by Bergoglio himself. He met with the Argentinian apostate on July 1, 2022. Rohr reports that:

I brought him a copy of Universal Christ, my end-of-life book, but he said he had already read it!

He shared three times very directly, “I want you to keep doing what you’re doing, keep teaching what you’re teaching.” For this Catholic boy from Kansas, that is a wonderful, hard-to-believe affirmation coming from the Pope himself, for the whole Christian contemplative movement. 

(See cac.org/news/statement-from-fr-richard-rohr-ofm-after-meeting-pope-francis; Emphasis mine). 

Rohr has an incredible following among millennials and even Gen Z. His "Center for Action and Contemplation" website is extremely popular, and he has published 32 books in addition to having given numerous retreats. His appeal is not limited to the Vatican II sect, but extends to Protestants, Eastern pagan religions, and those who are "spiritual but not religious." 

So, who's correct? Is Rohr an occultist and apostate, or are his teachings "within the bounds of the Church's teachings" as the Vatican II sect declares? He is a "priest" in good standing. Should he "keep doing" what he's doing and "keep teaching" what he's teaching, as "Pope" Francis stated? 

I'll set forth the facts about Rohr in this post; you can decide who's right. 

Rohr: A Universalist Who Proclaims a "Universal Christ"

In 2019, Rohr wrote a book, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe. This book will reveal the heretical and occult teachings of "Fr." Richard Rohr:

• Rohr is a panentheist, believing  God and the world to be inter-related with the world being in God and God being in the world. He makes a distinction between Jesus and Christ. Rohr writes: “Christ . . . was clearly not just Jesus of Nazareth, but something much more immense”(pg. 3). Since for Rohr, everything in the universe is a manifestation of God, to call Jesus a manifestation of God is to merely say that Jesus is part of the universe. Hence, the title of the book: "The Universal Christ."

• God is a subjective term that denotes a way people look at the world. “Anything that drives you out of yourself in a positive way . . . is operating as God for you” (pg. 52).

• Revelation is not a distinct, self-disclosure of God, occurring in history. “This book . . . [seeks] to reground Christianity as a natural religion and not one simply based on a special revelation, available only to a few.” (pg. 7).

• Christ is more a process than a Divine Person.  “The Christ Mystery is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process throughout time—as constant as the light that fills the universe," and so not “limiting the Creator’s presence to just one human manifestation, Jesus” (pgs. 14, 16). He goes so far as to dedicate the book to his deceased dog Venus "whom...without fear of heresy, I can appropriately say that Venus was also Christ for me."

• The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus Christ did not save anyone. The sacrificial death of Christ was “not some bloody transaction ‘required’ by God’s offended justice in order to rectify the problem of human sin.”(pg. 140). Sin is a failure to put away our "false self." Original Sin does not exist. 

• Christ did not rise from the dead but was transformed into "beams of light." “If a video camera had been placed in front of the tomb of Jesus, it wouldn’t have filmed a lone man emerging from a grave . . . [but] something like beams of light extending in all directions” (pg. 177). 

Rohr: Spiritual Guru for Bono

In his above cited interview with The New Yorker magazine, it is noted: He is also revered by Melinda Gates and is close to Bono. “He’ll just drop me a little love note,” Rohr said. “He’s a very loving person.” (See newyorker.com/news/on-religion/richard-rohr-reorders-the-universe; Emphasis mine). 

Paul Hewson aka "Bono" (b. 1960) is the lead singer of the wicked rock group U2. Paul Hewson received his world-famous moniker "Bono" from his friend Gavin Friday who called him "Bono Vox" an alteration of the Latin "Bonavox" roughly translated as "Good Voice." Hewson liked it and dropped the "vox," hence being known as "Bono" ever since. Bono was raised by a Catholic father and Protestant mother. His father was a nominal Catholic and (sinfully) agreed with his wife that their first child would be raised Anglican, and their second Catholic. Even though Bono was the second child he was taken to both Catholic Churches and Anglican services growing up. 

Bono professes to be "Catholic" but the facts speak differently. 

• He founded the ONE Campaign, aimed at fighting extreme poverty and incurable diseases especially in Africa. How does Bono envision helping in this cause? Contraception and abortion! U2 performed concerts for the Contraception Action Campaign and the Irish Family Planning Association. Christ said, "For the poor you have always with you..." (St. Matthew 26:11) and "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God..." (St. Matthew 6:33). 

• In the Communist rag, Mother Jones Magazine of May 1, 1989, Bono was asked, "How do you feel, for instance, about abortion?" He responded, "I just have my own ideas. I believe that it’s a woman’s right to choose. Absolutely."

• He urged Ireland to legalize sodomite "marriage" and celebrated when they did make it legal, during a concert back in 2015. He said, "It’s a moment for us to thank the people who brought peace to our country, who had the courage to compromise in Ireland..."We have peace in Ireland today, and — in fact, on this very day — we have true equality in Ireland," he added. "Millions turned up to vote yesterday to say love is the highest law in the land. ...If God loves us, whoever we love, wherever we come from, then why can’t the state?" He also changed the lyrics to their smash 1984 hit Pride (In the Name of Love)--about Dr. Martin Luther King's murder--to say "They could not take away your gay pride" in place of "they could not take your pride." (See https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/26/u2-ireland-gay-marriage-_n_7442984.html). 

• Liberal Protestant sects and their colleges/seminaries are openly considering making U2's lyrics and Bono's ideas part of the curriculum! In the book Get Up Off Your Knees, several contributing authors, including Eugene Peterson, author of The Message Bible translation, praise Bono and U2 as a "prophetic voice." In fact, Calvin College offered a class which analyzed U2′s influence on Christians. (See "Calvin College on U2," Christianity Today, February 23, 2005). 

• While wearing the cross, he will sing the song I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Not exactly the message you'd expect to hear from one who allegedly follows Our Lord! In that same Mother Jones interview, Bono said, "...we don't have any answers...I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. How much more clear can you make it?"

This is the man who sends "love notes" to Rohr and sees him as his "spiritual guide." 

Rohr: Praising Sins Against Nature

The website Soulforce describes itself thus:

Soulforce works to end the religious and political oppression of LGBTQI people by breaking open the ideologies of Christian Supremacy and healing our communities’ spirits from Spiritual Violence.

Soulforce was co-founded by two men, Mel White and Gary Nixon, who also happen to be “Christian” sodomite lovers. (See soulforce.org/about/who-we-are).

In 2000, Rohr wrote the following endorsement:

October 8, 2000

Brothers and Sisters of the Church:

What is more important than to follow Jesus? Is that not our final and fundamental authority for everything that we do, either as leadership or membership in the church?

Apart from understandable disagreements on specifics, details, how, when, and where, we all the know the WHAT. Jesus came to draw us all into union with God, whom he called his Father. How sad if the public image of our church continues to be a group of people that judge first, exclude easily, and use theological arguments to cover basic "political" stances of power, image, and management of constituency. These seem to be things that Jesus cared about very little, in fact, he flaunted them. This is clear in the Gospels which we all proclaim with joy.

At last we have a group of dedicated Christians who are willing to use disciplined and Christian means of nonviolent protest against its church’s failure to live the Gospel. Christians outside the mainstream did this in the abolitionist movement against slavery, in the civil rights movement against racism, and in the antiwar movement. Eventually, in each case, the church, like Peter running late to the tomb, acknowledged that these were indeed Gospel positions.

SOULFORCE must take the role of John the Beloved, who runs swiftly to the tomb, because that is what love always does. But both of us will find there the Risen Christ who always reigns and transforms human history, but never without our "let it be." Our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered brothers and sisters have been left outside of his realm of grace for far too long. We can do so much better, and we will. I thank SOULFORCE for its courage, dedication, and proclamation of Christian nonviolence in the pursuit of justice and truth.

Yours in Christ Jesus,

Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M. 

(See web.archive.org/web/20160303213325/http://www.archives.soulforce.org/2000/10/08/fr-richard-rohrs-letter-of-endorsement; Emphasis mine).

From Rohr's "Daily Meditation" of 11/9/17, he writes:

Binary genders (male and female) are more an imposition of our dualistic minds than the nature of reality.” He went on to say, “When Christians label LGBTQIA individuals as “other,” sinful, or “disordered,” we hurt these precious people and the larger community, and we actually limit ourselves. Fear of difference creates a very constricted, exclusive, and small religion and life, the very opposite of what God invites us into (See cac.org/daily-meditations/identity-and-desire-2017-11-09; Emphasis mine). 

Rohr: His Occult Practices and Teachings

The Enneagram

Rohr wrote a best seller with Andreas Ebert entitled The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (1990) claiming it was an "ancient Christian tool" used by the "Desert Fathers." The most popular book on how to use the enneagram, The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile (2016) is based off of Rohr's teachings. On pg. 24, we are told:

The Enneagram teaches that there are nine different personality styles in the world, one of which we naturally gravitate toward and adopt in childhood to cope and feel safe. Each type or number has a distinct way of seeing the world and an underlying motivation that powerfully influences how that type thinks, feels and behaves.

Once you take the test to identify your personality type, you will come to realize:

The true purpose of the Enneagram is to reveal to you your shadow side and offer spiritual counsel on how to open it to the transformative light of grace. (pg. 31; Emphasis mine).

Then you work to rid yourself of your "old self" and become your "True Self" and the person God wants you to be. Rohr and his heretical, occult disciples are spreading this throughout the Vatican II sect through retreats and parish "spirituality courses" or "workshops." Many Vatican II sect clergy give "homilies" on it. 

The enneagram is not an ancient Christian tool that has been around for ages but was invented in the 1970s by Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo from automatic writing. What is automatic writing? Automatic writing is a form of spirit contact where you allow a spirit to write through you. You become, in effect, a medium. As I've written before, mediums are condemned by both the Bible and Church teaching. "Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD; because of these same detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you." (See Deuteronomy 18:10-12; Emphasis mine.) According to theologian Jone, "Spiritism claims to be able to communicate with the spirit world and endeavors to establish such commerce with it. Although spiritism is for the most part fraud, still the intention alone to enter into communication with spirits is gravely sinful. Therefore, it is mortally sinful to conduct a spiritistic seance or to act as a medium." (See Moral Theology, pg. 100; Emphasis mine). Imagine if you were told to use a Ouija Board to "understand yourself better" and "grow closer to God." That is as blasphemous as the use of the enneagram for "spiritual growth in God." The enneagram is inspired by the forces of Hell.

To state that something which originated with the automatic writing of two occultists was really something used by early Christians, was a fable told to Rohr by a New Ager. Rohr now happily perpetuates this false narrative. Moreover, you cannot make something "Christian" which has no scientific validity, and is inimical to genuine Catholic spirituality. There can be no "Catholic Tarot Cards." Yet Rohr will continue to make the ludicrous claim that the enneagram is now "Christianized" since its alleged use by "Desert Fathers" for which he has no credible sources.  

Rohr also claims we are not all born sinners, as he denies Original Sin in particular and redefines personal sin. We need to put off our “false selves” and discover the divine ("True Self") within ourselves. Rohr promotes the enneagram as a great tool to do that. He has gained a huge following, especially among millennials, but his teachings are heretical and must be rejected. 

Retreats in the Nude with "Healing Touch" Rituals

According to researcher Stephanie Block, Rohr fills his five-day men's retreats with rituals. "Usually on the last night of the old retreats — the Quest retreats, and the Hero retreats — I would have about an hour talk on sexuality and touch and embodiment. Then we would have a healing ceremony — several of you in this room have done that. Of all the things that happen, it reveals to me the power of ritual, or the power of touch over the power of just concepts . . . when I can let go of those and hand it over to ritual, that's when the real transformation seems to happen."  

"I give [the men] a talk on the body and I tell them to go alone and do a compassionate meditation on their body from head to foot. I give them all a foot and a half of red tape and wherever their body is holding a memory, a shame, a fear, a guilt, an anger — whatever — to wrap a little piece of that on their body. And then they come back and they sit in a big circle and I always say they look like a field of wounded soldiers. They're always very quiet when they come back. You can feel, like a self-massage almost. The pain came out when they touched each of those spots, I guess.

"And then beginning with the elders I lead them through an extended meditation. . . . I invite them to lie down in what is, for the male, the most vulnerable position — on his back. Then the other men surround them and cradle their bodies and especially touch and lay hands on and pray over those places where the man holds wounds...."

Given the high percentage of homosexuals at his retreats, it is conceivable that a good number of the participants' "wounds" are of a sexual nature. The listener is intrigued to consider the ramifications of this ritual. "[It] sounds like a rather simple, innocuous ritual — well, it blows them out of the water. It usually goes on the whole night. They don't want to stop. The man becomes their father that they never had; their father that they could never touch; their grandfather who died when they were a boy; their brother that they wanted to be friends with.

"Then when the older men are doing it to the younger men, it all, of course, reverses. But the tears just astound me. This readiness to cry and the readiness and the tears seem not be evoked by my words but by the touch itself, by the laying on of hands, by the communion, the connection that seems to happen there. And again, without any unnecessary encouragement from me, many of the men will invariably take off their shirts to expose the red tape, maybe on their chests." (As originally reported in The Wanderer of May 22, 1997; Emphasis mine). 

This is pure pagan/occult/demonic ritual. See, e.g., nakedhealingtouch.com/naked-healing/

Conclusion

There is no need to tape record Rohr's "homilies" to know he's non-Catholic and demonic. He's not "occult" in the sense of being "secret." I have set forth the facts on Richard Rohr. Do you believe he's within the teaching of the Church? Do you think he should keep on doing what he does and teaching what he teaches? If your answer is "no," then you must consider the question, "How can 'Pope" Francis and all the other members of the hierarchy, who see nothing wrong with Rohr, and encourage him to continue his teaching and actions be Catholic?" Answer that question honestly and it's "Welcome to Sedevacantism."