Iowa healing ministry temporarily suspended over ‘canonical concerns’

Des Moines’ St. Ambrose Cathedral has been the site of Prairie Fire Ministries’ monthly healing services. / Credit: Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Aug 9, 2024 / 16:56 pm (CNA).

A Catholic healing ministry in the Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa, has suspended its monthly healing services after the diocese announced this week that “canonical concerns” have been raised “regarding the exercise of ministry” within the organization.

Prairie Fire Ministries, a group that says it received approval from its bishop in 2021, ministers to “people from across the country at the monthly healing service, offering them a transformative encounter with the living God.” 

“Due to the nature of these concerns, the diocese and Prairie Fire Ministries have mutually agreed to pause all Prairie Fire ministries and the ministry of affiliate organizations until these concerns have been adequately addressed,” a brief Aug. 7 statement from the diocese reads. 

“Both the Diocese of Des Moines and Prairie Fire Ministries leadership intend to address these concerns promptly and with due diligence.”

The diocese has not explained what the concerns, which relate to the Church’s Code of Canon Law, entail.  

On its website, Prairie Fire Ministries describes its monthly healing services at Des Moines’ St. Ambrose Cathedral as an “opportunity to worship the Lord through song, listen to the preaching of the Gospel, pray for the outpouring of healing grace into our community, and receive individual prayer from our prayer teams.” 

The Blessed Sacrament is exposed throughout the evening and priests are readily available for reconciliation, the group notes. The service is not a Mass “but rather an opportunity to sing, pray, and experience the movements of the Holy Spirit in his Eucharistic presence.”

The group was founded by Tim Jameson, who lives in Des Moines and “speaks nationally on the power of the Holy Spirit and many different topics,” the website says. 

On its Facebook page, Prairie Fire Ministries announced that its upcoming healing service scheduled for Aug. 10 has been canceled, and future healing service dates on its website read “TBD.”

In a brief emailed statement in response to an inquiry from CNA, the ministry said it is “unable to respond to the canonical issues at this time.”

“However, we are following the leadership of the [Diocese of Des Moines] in this matter. Our mission has always been to bring the healing love of Jesus Christ to a hurting world,” the email to CNA said.

Healing services are not uncommon in the Catholic Church, which has long recognized that Christ’s ability and willingness to heal people’s physical ailments, recorded in the Gospels, continues to this day. 

“Large numbers of the sick approached Jesus during his public ministry, either directly or through friends and relatives, seeking the restoration of health. The Lord welcomes their requests and the Gospels contain not even a hint of reproach for these prayers,” reads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2000 Instruction on Prayers for Healing.

The Church further acknowledges that praying and trusting God to bring healing does not exclude the use of medical treatments.

“Obviously, recourse to prayer does not exclude but rather encourages the use of effective natural means for preserving and restoring health, as well as leading the Church’s sons and daughters to care for the sick, to assist them in body and spirit, and to seek to cure disease,” the CDF wrote.