Cults have a bad name. Jones or Koresh or whatever other leaders appear by the time you read this are rejected by society at large, and people would be quick to say that there is a world of difference between cults and so-called organized religion. 

But there are some who have lingering doubts, especially when it comes to a vocation to consecrated life. Frequently, but not exclusively, these are the parents or other relatives of those young people who feel the call to leave home and country to do God's work, or who are called to a particularly demanding, "strict" form of consecrated life.  

You might expect a denial of any similarity whatsoever between the two, since cult is such a bad word, but, as a matter of fact, the confusion is to some degree understandable. Its root is in the fact that a cult is a pseudo-religion.  

A cult assumes the nature of true religion whose place it is trying to take, it demands the same total degree of adherence, and hence there is bound to be a certain similarity, though on examination it proves superficial. A cult does not have the basis to ask of its members what God has every right to ask of his followers. It is the cult that is misleading and not the contemplative or other recognized forms of consecrated and religious life.  

Let us look at some valid aspects of a vocation to consecration and see how they are misappropriated by cults. 

the call to faith 

Faith is a grace that God places in our soul at baptism, and by it we can accept the reality of God and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Church and Scripture. Through faith, we can perceive his action in our souls and respond to it, we can perceive his call in our lives and answer it. We know it is he who speaks and acts through the sacraments and his intermediaries, and by faith we also can discover his action in the many signs we see around us. 

This faith sustains missionaries, strengthens preachers, gives active lay Christians the certainty that no matter what the opposition or non-acceptance of the message they carry, they must persevere and live according to it and spread it.  

To the person who does not have it, or who does not exercise the faith he has, faith seems like blindness, when in actual fact, it is light. It is our acceptance of God's light into our lives in order to live by it.  

Anyone who forgets this, even momentarily, will have great difficulty to distinguish between the blind, pseudo-faith asked of cult members towards their leaders (or of a soldier on the battlefield towards his officers) and the motivated, luminous faith of a follower of Christ willing to make enormous sacrifices in fidelity to him.  

The faith of a religious who consecrates himself to Christ is fruit of the gift given at baptism. But it is not exercised in a void. It is exercised in the context of the institutional Church, which is the great guarantor of God's action and which "tests the spirits" to see what is according to Christ. Giving yourself to Christ in a recognized religious group approved by the Church allows you to see the charism of that particular group as God's will for you. It allows you to accept the decisions of your superiors as God's will for you, and therefore strive earnestly to please Christ by carrying them out.  

You obey superiors and carry out their indications, not out of any servile fear, but out of filial love of God that tries to please him as perfectly as possible in every detail of your life. You don't abdicate the use of your faculties to give yourself to God like this. If the first part of the greatest law is to love God with all our heart and all our mind and all our strength, then without our whole heart and mind and strength our service of him will not measure up. You are never asked to shut down your conscience to follow him and to obey. Perhaps here is the greatest difference between the consecrated person and the cult member. The consecrated person forms his conscience according to the Gospel, the cult member has no conscience but his guru's dictate. 

Another very striking difference in this context is the search for approval that either one undertakes. One seeks it through the legitimate representatives of Christ, the other in the personal inspiration of the leader alone without reference to, and often directly against, the Church. The superiors of religious congregations and movements within the Church recognize that they are subject to the Church and its legitimate representatives. The cult leader assumes this ultimate authority for himself. 

separation from home 

It is true that, to be a Christian, you have to put Christ and his work above everything else, and that this is often not understood by those whose needs and wishes you are placing in second place in order to follow him.  

In the past, missionaries left their families in a very real way and rarely returned to their country of origin. Considering travel conditions before the present day, we might be tempted to put this fact down to the primitive state of travel alone and not the gospel mandate, but to do so would be to forget about the many monasteries and the contemplative orders during the centuries and still existing today, where those who enter cut themselves off from family in no less total and radical a way for the sake of the gospel, even though they live in the same town.  

This separation is invariably difficult, especially on the family, for they do not have the experience that the religious has of his "new family." They are full of apprehension, wondering if he will be happy or not. Sometimes the religious himself is at fault, engrossed in his own fervor and not sparing a thought for those he has left behind or, on the other extreme, burdening them unnecessarily with his own struggles and feelings of separation as he works through them to grow in his vocation.  

The family, too, has to grow in the understanding of the call God has made to their child, until eventually their faith is strengthened to the degree that they can accept, support and love it. This will always be an act of faith, but again of a faith that is backed up by the Church with its approval of the different ways and charisms of consecration, each with its own characteristics in the area of contact with one's family. 

And each congregation and institute of consecrated life has the difficult task of being faithful to its own God-given spirit in this point, and not seeking the understanding of men if it is at the cost of fidelity to God.  

The cult demands of its members a separation and sacrifice such as is due to God alone, out of fidelity to a man and the doctrines of men. They want to be like God.  

"indoctrination" 

"Brainwashing" would be the not nicer way to say this. It is a real fear that stems both from many unfortunate experiences in recent years and the strange, simplistic view of man and liberty that so many have nowadays.  

Nothing need be said about the known cases of cult brainwashing; there is something patently wrong there. 

The deeper problem is a little more difficult to approach. People will call anything brainwashing. And the aphorism that there is no one blinder than the one who does not want to see holds true here too: to those who have already made up their minds, any attempt at teaching the truth becomes imposition of a personal world view; any insistence on moral standards or their objective consequences becomes psychological coercion; prayer, reflection are escapism; examination of conscience is negative and creates a guilt complex; common or community life becomes regimentation; a spirit of sacrifice becomes unhealthy masochism and dualism; any restraint in the use of the media becomes fear and burying your head in the sand. 

The litany could be longer, but in my judgment, at the bottom of all this there is a very romantic, idealistic and simplistic idea of the human person and his liberty. 

The root failing is the idea that man is of himself good, and that his greatest value and definition is freedom. We should not deny that people want to be good, like to appear as good, and often choose evil under the guise of good. But that is a far cry from admitting, as Christ in his revelation forces us to admit, that there is evil in the heart of man; that we are broken and divided persons; that our passions are active and strong and dangerous to ourselves and others; that, in other words, our ideals and dreams are one thing while our reality is another - and we need a redeemer.  

If we take the simplistic idea, the path to goodness and fulfillment is easy and clear: all you have to do is act freely; anything that limits your freedom is bad; the good you do not choose "spontaneously" is no good, etc. For a person who thinks like that, life on reflection must seem pretty unfair. It is amazing how many do think that way, but at the same time accept the limitation that life in society imposes on them (all those non-smoking signs...), rebelling only when they think it is God who is moving in on their freedom.  

In reality, the human person is not defined by his liberty, but rather by the use he makes of it. The proper use of liberty admits that we are essentially creatures of God, endowed with reason, for whom the ultimate test in our lives is to see if we are capable of giving God his place or if we will put something less worthy there, be it ourselves, our freedom or some other creature.  

To shape our lives to live according to this truth, to be reminded of it, to engage in the prayer that is necessary to make it a part of us, to overcome our passions which strive to make us forget it, is not brainwashing. It is necessary if we are to grow up. 

Brainwashing is based on fear, coercion, disorientation, confusion, the elimination of truly rational thought. Religious and Christian life are based on love, reflection, decision. If there is any similarity, it is in the intention and attempt to lay a foundation we can build our lives on, and which will not be shaken or compromised by the vagaries of fortune.  

But the differences of method and content are so marked that any thinking person can see it is cynical and gratuitous to call what happens in the pursuit of a vocation to consecration brainwashing.  

separation from world 

The world does not like to be rejected. It does not even like to be challenged. 

The idea of giving up the world and its pursuits is so strange to those immersed in it that the easiest explanation, if someone gives it up, is that he is crazy, or that he is being unduly influenced.  

Even Jesus' relatives thought he was temporarily insane, and it is not unusual to hear the shocked comment of whoever put this idea into your mind? That it could be the working of grace, of the Holy Spirit, is not even contemplated.  

Immersion in the world is seen as something healthy and good in itself. Separation as bad. As if you are not free when you are not under the influence of the world, or when you take a step back to see it in its proper perspective.  

total dedication 

People have difficulty at times telling the difference between dedication and fanaticism. They both seem to go beyond reason so it is easy to blunt the effect of a dedicated person (and to stifle the call to dedication) by calling him a fanatic.  

They both seem to go beyond reason. Ergo, you have to be a fanatic to embrace celibacy for the Kingdom. Or you have to be a fanatic to base your life and life decisions on "intangibles" such as grace, Kingdom of God, love for Christ, etc. 

The basis of religious dedication is reason enlightened by faith. 

The basis of fanaticism is reason blinded by the cause and made subject to the cause.  

Religious dedication, therefore, never oversteps the boundaries of morality, while fanaticism does so with terrifying ease. 

"no time to think" 

Quite a number of people would tend to agree, or at least believe if told so, that in consecrated life, above all in those groups that are more community oriented, there is very little time to yourself, hardly any time to think. And if the days are highly scheduled, as in a formation house, there is even less.  

The truth is, some of the first and most important habits or abilities that you acquire in following a vocation are reflection, prayer, and knowledge of yourself, your conscience, your motivations, weaknesses and strengths. All those who follow Christ in consecrated life set aside time for prayer, recollection, retreat, examination of conscience. The religious person usually tolerates silence much better than his counterpart in the world. 

The value of silence is that it can facilitate our encounter with God and with ourselves in prayer. The value of thinking, taking time to think, is that it allows us to see the truth of things, and in that way to order our decisions and actions. Daydreaming should not be mistaken for thinking.  

The aim of religious discipline, silence and prayer is to discover the source of our freedom, the truth will set you free. It teaches you especially to use your time responsibly, to acquire habits and abilities that otherwise you might not, to value time as a gift of God for which you must give an account, and be discriminating in your use of it.  

It has another very important effect: when we live under discipline, we do all the necessary and good things, although not, perhaps, at the times we would prefer. You may have to study precisely when you would like to relax, or play when you feel like reflecting, or reflect when you would rather converse. Yet you learn to get yourself to do each one despite how you feel. For someone who is to be an apostle at the service of souls, it is very necessary to be able to do this. As an apostle, your time is not your own, and you cannot afford to be controlled or dominated in any way by your whims and fancies. Besides, this is basic human maturity. 

"easy to get in, not to get out" 

We have all heard the stories of young people having to be rescued, kidnapped from cults, and the subsequent deprogramming which uncovers the pressures and fears that were used to make them stay. 

You are not physically locked up in consecrated life. Are you, psychologically?  

The trouble with this question is not what it asks, but what it omits. It reduces the whole matter to psychological considerations and it neglects to consider that there are others to be made - the spiritual ones, for example.  

It neglects the choices the disciples had to make - as a case in point, in the gospel of John, after Jesus spoke about the gift of himself as our food and said that we had to eat his body and drink his blood to have life in us, some people turned away. He asked his apostles, "Will you also leave me?" There was more than psychological slavery to Peter's answer, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."  

It passes over scenes like that of the rich young man, the prophecies of the cross, and, ultimately, it strips all merit from the heroism that has been shown by Christian martyrs and confessors throughout the ages.  

For all practical purposes, it denies that following Christ is a difficult thing, and that to be faithful to him we have to get ourselves to do things that are not the easiest or the most spontaneous.  

It would deny us the happiness and fulfillment that is ours when we do overcome ourselves and discover the new, desirable dimension that moral and religious consistency give our lives - the happiness of the beatitudes.  

All this to say that, if you follow a vocation to consecration, there will be times that you will feel like rebelling. And those are times that you will need the loyalty of a friend, a spiritual mentor, who will bring you back to basics. And the basics will always be: if you are called, you should see it through no matter what the cost; if you love, prove it in the times of difficulty and not only when the going is easy.  

The emphasis will always be on what God wants of you. Something to be pursued in love.