This is a short note to warn any Catholics among my readership that if they are healers the bad guys are after them.

The Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has decided to tell faithful and knee jerk Catholics what they should believe about Reiki. Just another catechism to learn without thinking about it too much.

I know that many of my readers are spiritual seekers of many kinds and that healing work with energies that you can sense have become a part of your philosophical attitude to life. Know then that the Bishops and Archbishops, eight of them, none of them women of course, has put out a 6 page double spaced document about Reiki.

The reasoning is what you would expect from a Catholic document, and the paragraph 12 conclusion is:

“Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centers, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or provide support for Reiki therapy.”

Check ‘USCCB attitude to Reiki’ on Google and you can download the whole document.

You will notice that the spiritual attitudes that attracted you to Reiki are quoted as reasons for avoiding it.

There is a progressive Catholic facility about 8 miles away from me wherein various healing modalities, including Reiki have been practiced with great effect for a long time. Today they received a letter from the local Catholic authority, Bishop Sartain. They have been asked not to do Reiki any more. The Bishop is concerned that it isn’t a Christian practice. I find it amazing that he thinks that either American orthodox medicine, or pharmaceutical chicanery IS a Christian practice, but that’s silly old me.

So watch it all those lovers of St. Francis and the healers among you. The celibate old men don’t want you to be concerned with energy healing any more. My own view, which I cannot expect you to accept, is that since women are the vast majority of alternative healers, and the celibate male bishops and archbishops don’t know anything worth knowing about women, that perhaps the message applies only to the men.

After all, it was their leader who recently said that condoms didn’t help deal with HIV, they made it worse. Maybe knowing what nonsense that was will help you to deal with the new sprouting of the current Inquisition.

Good Luck to you, although that would be considered the sentence of a superstitious person by the Catholic hierarchy. I'm not superstitious. But I do wish you well.