An End of Year message from Kiko Arguello has recently appeared on several pro-Neocatechumenal web sites and Facebook pages. Click here, or here, or here to read it in the original Spanish.
As you would imagine, his message, though passionate, is not without some serious problems, which I will address below. But first, the message:
Kiko Arguello’s End of the Year Message
Given the deep crisis that is going on in society, I want to say something you might have never heard of, “God loves you”, listen well [,] God loves you!
He does not care that you’ve gone to a brothel because you know something? He is not disgusted by you, He is not shocked by your sins, He does not care that you fall and you fall into the same [sin], that women undress in your thoughts, because to the others you can be a pig, but with God you are the most precious in the world and every day gives you a new opportunity for you to meet a new opportunity to enter into conversion.
Maybe you’ve been in a time of perdition, living like an animal that does not reason, staining your body, having partners here and there, with a man and another man or with several women. Perhaps God does not matter to you, maybe have you felt that He limits you in how you have wanted to live, sure you had home, jewelry, travel, but even so I assure you that there is a void, a terrible loneliness in your heart.
But I do not judge souls, Who am I? Because I’m no good, I’m worse than you because I have insulted, lied, I hated! But the Lord has renewed me through time, He is transforming me into a new man and that allows me to announce this today; Believe it, open the ear, God loves you! and he sent his Son the only one to die for what you’ve done, and so much is His love that wants you out of where you are now, God loves you even if you have a homosexual attraction, no matter how you’ve messed up your body, He loves You!
Do you realize? He does not have conditions for His love for you as the others do, stop begging for love; stop asking [,] your boyfriend loves you just a little, your mom loves you just a little, life will not come from them, God comes to give you not “just a little love” but He gives you His blood , it is donated to you. Experience true happiness, be reconciled to your history, with your parents, become in peace with Him and have a full life.
If you want it I can help you, I invite you to live in community and to experience God’s forgiveness.
Let’s look at just a few problems with Kiko’s message.
“He is not disgusted by you, He is not shocked by your sins”
First, you must know that Kiko Arguello is the master of the half-truth. This statement about disgust and shock is one example. Of course God is not disgusted, shocked, or scandalized by my sin, for those are human emotions. But Kiko has forgotten about certain scriptures that describe God’s reaction to our sin in very human terms, in order to underscore the fact that our particular sins do indeed matter to Him. Here are some examples:
“When the Lord saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil, the Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved.” Gen. 6:5-6
or
“For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God.” Isaiah 54:6
or
“God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day.” Psalm 7:11
“He does not care that you’ve gone to a brothel”
What about the girls at the brothel, and the damage done to them? Does God care about them? Of course He does. God cares.
Does God care about the pain brought to a wife and damage done to a marriage and family by a husband’s visits to a brothel? Of course He does. God cares.
“He does not care that you fall and you fall into the same [sin]”
Does God care about the sin of a man who “fell into it and fell into” the sin of rape? Would God care about the victims of a rapist? Of course! And rape isn’t the only sin that wreaks damage. All sin does, and God cares.
“He is transforming me [Kiko] into a new man”
What can I say, other than that I have presented evidence here that Kiko is a fraud and a huckster, misleading millions.
“He does not have conditions for His love for you”
This sounds quite a bit like the Neocatechumenal catechist on Guam who says that “God makes no demands.” God never stops loving us, but He certainly sets conditions on us for remaining in the state of grace.
“I can help you, I invite you to live in community”
Kiko was careful not to mention the bit about submitting to the authority of his catechists while “in community”. In the end, what Kiko is really after is to have you join his sect.
References
Kiko’s message appeared in Spanish and Italian on these pro-Neocatechumenal sites:
- http://camineo.info/news/153/ARTICLE/35733/2016-01-02.html
- https://camineonews.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/mensaje-de-kiko-arguello-por-fin-de-ano/
- http://kairosterzomillennio.blogspot.com/2016/01/kiko-arguello-mesaggio-di-fine-anno.html
- https://www.facebook.com/Camino.Neocatecumenal.1964/posts/452758058268844
It also appeared on this Anti-Neo site:
http://cruxsancta.blogspot.com/2015/11/doctrina-neocatecumenal-sobre-lo.html
it’s one thing to say that there is no sin which God won’t forgive with one’s genuine repentance, save for the sins “against the Holy Spirit.”
but it’s a completely different thing to say that God doesn’t care when we sin.
kiko is leading people to evil. this cult needs to be opposed.
Kiko’s “theology” is anything but theology. I think he is taking off (stupidly, of course) on the “God loves every sinner” to include even the sinner’s sins. The simple message is that “God loves every sinner, but not the sin”. To make a purely human analogy – for a father/mother to say he/she loves every child of theirs (including the cancerous child) is not to say that the parents love their child including their cancer. Of course the father/mother love their cancerous child, but they certainly do not mean to say that they love the cancer that their child is afflicted with. What twisted logic! And this is looking at it purely from the human logical side.
From the spiritual side, why would God have banished Adam and Eve from Paradies for their sin of disobedience – if their sin didn’t matter to God? Why would God have cast Lucifer to Hell for his pride and disobedience, if God didn’t mind the pride and disobedience? Why would God have given man (through Moses) the Ten Commandments, if God that some would disobey them anyway? Why would God condemn angels and men to Hell, if He didn’t mind their disobeying Him (sin)?
If sin doesn’t really matter to God because “God loves you as you are – with your sins”, why would Jesus have had to undergo extreme suffering and death in order to redeem man from his sins, if sin didn’t really matter to Him? So Christ died for no good reason??
I guess Kiko’s warped mind fails to understand that sin a “rejection of God and the absence of grace (Sanctifying Grace)” in him, and that without Grace (the life of God in us), we would not be worthy of God’s Beatific Vision and eternal happiness in Heaven with Him.
I can understand this warped thinking of Kiko and of his closest cohorts , but what baffles me is that others (specifically our own deeply rooted Catholics in Guam, who know full well otherwise) fail to understand this – and just simply and blindly follow him, just because he is Kiko Arguello.
I truly pray often for our once-upon-a-time stalwart Catholics who have allowed themselves to be led by this heresy! Please pray for them too – “Lord, that they might see!” – jrsa (1/8/16)