Dear Tom:

With all due respect I do not think you have read very carefully the essay, "All About Spiritual Gifts", nor for that matter, carefully read the Bible on this subject. If you had, most of your questions would already be answered.

The "All About Spiritual Gifts" essay is thoroughly footnoted and supported by comments and writings of Popes, bishops, Saints, and other authorities. The essay quotes Popes and bishops are the value of the Charismatic Renewal and criticisms. The essay is supportive of genuine Charismatic experience and warns against the Pentecostalisms that are not Catholic and which may have doctrinal problems to which Catholics should avoid. Any Catholic of good will who respects truth should be interested in avoiding such Pentecostalisms and doctrinal problems.

From my experience the only people who take issue with that essay are those who have such a emotional investment in the way they do things that they will not listen to reason. Many in the Charismatic Renewal suffer from this myopia.

Quoting from the essay, Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger has warned the Charismatic Renewal of this problem in his “Foreword” to Cardinal Suenens book, Renewal and the Powers of Darkness:

First he (Cardinal Suenens) raises the basic question which is decisive for the fruitful growth of the Renewal. What is the relation between personal experience and the common faith of the Church? Both factors are important: a dogmatic faith unsupported by personal experience remains empty; mere personal experience unrelated to the faith of the Church remains blind.

The isolation of experience constitutes a serious threat to true Christianity—a threat extending far beyond the Renewal movement. Even if this isolation has a “pneumatic” [spiritual] origin, it is the price that has to be paid for [it is the result that comes from] the empiricism [the notion that experience and the senses are the only, or the primary, source of knowledge] that dominates our time.

Such an isolation of experience is closely linked with the Fundamentalism that separates the Bible from the whole of salvation history and reduces it to an experience of self with no mediation whatsoever. It does justice neither to historical reality, nor to the breadth of the mystery of God. Here, too, the true answer lies in a comprehension of the Bible, in union with the whole Church, and not merely in an isolated historicist reading.

All this shows once again that charism and institution overlap, and that what matters is not the “we” of the group but the great “we” of the Church of all times, which alone can provide the adequate and necessary framework, enabling us both to “hold on to what is good” and to “discern spirits.”

It is only those who place experience and subjective feelings above reason and respect for truth that seem to have problems with that essay. We need to assess the Charismatic Renewal, or any other movement in the Church, with reason, not with emotion and subjective experience.

I should add here before answering your questions, that I have taught seminars for thirty years on how to find one's charismatic gifts. I am not an opponent to the Charismatic Renewal; I am rather, an opponent to the inauthentic and to the contamination of Protestant Pentecostal ideas, notions, definitions, and theology into the Catholic experience.

Now to your questions:

Q1: If the gift of tongues is so "unimportant" then why is it mentioned more than any other in the Acts of the Apostles? It seems that EVERY time a new group of believers is identified and prayed over, the gift of tongues is released.
  

A. As mentioned in the essay, tongues in this reference was a Sigil Gift that was meant to authenticate the presence of the Holy Spirit. In this case, in the Book of Acts, we are dealing with the Sacrament of Confirmation and NOT some extra-sacramental "baptism" of the Spirit. The reason the Pentecostals misinterpret this, and why they mistakenly call their experience "baptism in the Spirit" is because they do not recognize the Sacrament of Conformation and thus they misinterpret the passages in Acts to be something other than what we know is the Sacrament.

This Sigil gift was no longer needed after the first century as the Bible and the Church were the authenticators and not any Sigil gift. This is mentioned by the likes of Pope St. Gregory the Great and also the First Vatican Council. Thus, the speaking in tongues upon the laying on of hands in the Sacrament of Confirmation ceased after the first century.

Q2: You claim that St. Paul admonishes us to speak in a language known by men, instead of tongues. Why then does he say, "Would that you ALL spoke in tongues?"

A. I "claim"? My dear Tom, I claim nothing, I state what St. Paul states in the Bible. By the way, it is St. Paul who states that tongues is the least important of all gifts (in reference to the first question). Dear Sir, you need to read your Bible. St. Jerome said that "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."

1 Corinthians 14 St. Paul gives instructions on the limitations of Tongues:

1 Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. 2 For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. 3 On the other hand, he who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. 4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5 Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues, unless some one interprets, so that the church may be edified.

6 Now, brethren, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how shall I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? 7 If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will any one know what is played? 8 And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? 9 So with yourselves; if you in a tongue utter speech that is not intelligible, how will any one know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. 10 There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning; 11 but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. 12 So with yourselves; since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.

13 Therefore, he who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret. 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. 15  What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. 16  Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how can any one in the position of an outsider say the "Amen" to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? 17 For you may give thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified. 18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all; 19 nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.

The phrase "would that you all speak in tongues" must be taken in context and not like the Protestants interpret Scripture on face-value. St. Paul is using a language convention. He is talking with people who are abusing tongues so he exaggerates in saying that would you all speak in tongues (which implies that not everyone does, by the way), but more important is prophesy, and more important is to speak with words that one understands, and more important is for others to understand.

I might use the same language convention technique in an argument and say something like, "If ALL of you were Catholics..." or "I want all of you to be Catholics, but...."

Such language conventions and techniques of rhetoric are common in the Bible, but people ignorant of proper Biblical exegesis never understand this.

Q3 Where in scripture or Tradition do you find a reference that the "Charism Gift of Tongues" is different than "praying in tongues" and only means praying in a language other than your own?

A. The proper question is where do you find Scriptural support for a "private prayer language"? In the passage quoted above St. Paul refers to tongues in the context of "...many different languages in the world", the tongues on the Day of Pentecost was human languages. The only reference to any other kind of tongue is the passage of "tongues of men and of angels". Again St. Paul is not suggesting that anyone speaks in angelic languages. He is yet again using a language convention of exaggeration -- "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love" -- he is saying you can speak in all sorts of tongues, even the tongues of angels, and it is useless without love.

One cannot base an entire theology based upon one verse, especially a verse where the OBVIOUS measure of St. Paul's words is to exaggerate to make a point.

As to the difference between the "charism gift" and another kind of gift, that point is made in 1 Cor 12:7 and Eph 4:11-13, and in the passage above: 

He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5 Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues, unless some one interprets, so that the church may be edified.

Q4: Why does St. Paul say, "If I speak in the tongues of men and 'angels', but have not love, I am nothing"? Does that not imply that one can speak in human and angelic tongues?

A. Sir, you need to stop thinking like a Protestant and start being Catholic. See the answer to Q3 for reference to this passage.