By Father James Maciejewski

“Basically the God our Catholic people believe in is a monster, a pagan god.”

This is because the ordinary Catholic has the idea that God is in some way responsible for sickness and evil, explained Father Francis MacNutt, O.P., speaking last weekend before 250 participants in a Catholic Hospital Association workshop at the Sheraton Biltmore in Atlanta.

The tall and magnetic Dominican priest, once a pre-medical student, has given his last six years exclusively to the ministry of psychological and physical healing through prayer. (He shies away from the term “faith healing” because of its association in the popular mind with quackery.)

MacNutt laid the groundwork for his ministry in these terms: “Just as nature always moves toward health, God’s normative rule is always toward health. So in a practical situation the norm is that God always wants the person to get well.”

As compelling indication of this, MacNutt recalls the constant concern of Jesus with bringing people to health, a concern he passed on to his followers: “Every time Jesus sent out the disciples to preach, he also sent them out to heal.”

In today’s world God works for healing through medicine and prayer, says MacNutt, but while the belief in healing through medicine is almost universal, the belief in healing through prayer is not.

In his own case, MacNutt has traveled the country in the work of healing, operating from a base in St. Louis called Merton House, a house of prayer.

He says he has witnessed innumerable physical healings, not only of such maladies as headache and backache, but even of bone deformity, cancer and other severe internal disorders.

The percentage of those physically sick who are healed or at least helped in some way at small-group prayer meetings is almost 50 percent, he says. The healing percentage rises to 75 percent for those who seek cure from psychological or emotional problems.

The key element, according to MacNutt, is faith in God – faith reposing in the one who seeks healing and faith in the one praying for the healing. Not necessarily an extraordinary faith. “The faith needed is the faith that God ordinarily heals.”

The customary simple “technique” for the healing is prayer and the laying on of hands.

MacNutt stresses that every priest potentially has healing power: “Ordination empowers every priest to be a healing channel for the church.”

Yet, because Catholic priests are not doing it, MacNutt sees more charismatic healing going on through those outside the church, most notably Kathryn Kuhlmann, Oral Roberts, Agnes Sanford and Ruth Stapleton, the sister of Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. The priest visited with Carter and his sister while in Atlanta.

In his talk MacNutt urged priests to be more active in the healing ministry: “Try it out and see if it doesn’t work.”

MacNutt feels that fresh impetus was given charismatic healing, and the charismatic movement in general in a recent audience Pope Paul had with movement leaders. “Cardinal Suenens told me the pope’s encouragement was the unofficial go-ahead for the charismatic movement in the Catholic Church.”