Charismatic Revival – Monsignor Vincent M. Walsh

Last updated on November 25, 2023

This one’s about a Catholic priest. Feel free to skip it.

This tape was in the cheap cassette player I bought and is a motivating factor on why I bought it in the first place. Honestly, I got excited by the September 2001 date on one side, but I’m confident this is a misprint and it should be 2000 on both sides. Side A references the Kursk submarine disaster which would have been fresh news in 2000 and neither has anything to say about 9/11.

So! Near as I can figure, Key of David Publications no longer exists, but up until at least the mid 2000s they sold books, cassettes, and video tapes on their website. Internet Archive sadly did not keep a copy of their catalog to peruse, I can’t find this specific tape listed on the church’s own list. The page only lists up to volume 50 and this tape is 226/227. Tapes were $8 each or you could get a deal on 30 of them for $135.

The Church is still present at the address listed, a Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. Monsignor Vincent M Walsh’s name does not appear on their current site or anywhere in the Archdiocese’s website. He resigned in 2005 due to a grand jury report in Pennsylvania finding him to be responsible in a long coverup of another priest’s abuses of young boys in the 60s and 70s. (The details of the case are Bad).

“Charismatic” specifically refers to a Christian belief system centered around the gifts or charisms you receive from being baptized: including speaking in tongues, faith healing, prophecy, evangelizing that kind of stuff. Fringe in the 1800s it became more accepted in the mainstream in the 60s as part of a Revival movement. Not traditionally seen in the Catholic Church, it seems Monsignor Walsh was swayed by a Pentecostal demonstration in the 60s and became an adherent.

SIDE A

• A reading from Isaiah 35:4.
• A hymn.
• A reading from Mark 7:31-37
• Abridged history of Pope John Paul’s childhood.
• Various anecdotes about how Communist Russia tried to break the Christian faith.
• Talking about how Russia is a mess today (in 2000), including a mention of the Kursk submarine disaster.
• Anecdotes about bringing Jesus into communities and how prosperous they turn people.
• A group prayer to Jesus and a closing anecdote about Mickey Rooney becoming born-again.

SIDE B

• An excerpt from the book of John.
• A section of chanting / speaking in tongues?
• Sermon about John and the creation of the Church and Jesus’s influence on the world.
• Anecdote about meeting Holy Hubert, a campus preacher, at a Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship Meeting. Holy Hubert Lindsey was quite a character and didn’t seem to garner much good will at Berkley in the 70s. Most sources online are praising his actions and all repeating the same (third, fourth, fifth hand, whatever) overblown anecdotes.

I found this online in a message board discussion about campus characters. 70s, maybe? That’s Holy Hubert there.

Final sermon about Jesus, standard stuff.

So, the audio is more or less what you’d expect. A little rote and dry, honestly. I had more fun looking into the context around the tape and not the content of the sermons themselves.

I recorded these and uploaded them to an Internet Archive page. The audio quality is not great! The tape player I found is an end-of-life mono output device, but for a spoken word album it’s fine.