| Ralph Martin | |
| Occupation: | Professor, speaker |
| Main Interests: | Charismatic renewal |
Ralph C. Martin is a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary and was involved in the early Catholic charismatic renewal as founder of the Word of God (community) and cofounder of the Sword of the Spirit association of covenant communities.
Martin was raised Catholic, but having fallen away from religion as a youth, he was reconverted to Catholicism by a Cursillo retreat he attended as a college student.[1] [2] Martin and Stephen B. Clark, who would also become a leader in the charismatic renewal, worked for the National Secretariat of the Cursillo from 1965 to 1970.[3] During a Cursillo retreat in 1966, Martin and Clark recommended The Cross and the Switchblade to certain retreatants from Duquesne University. The book inspired one of these retreatants, Ralph W. Keifer, along with history professor William G. Storey, to lead a retreat on the Holy Spirit for Duquesne students.[4] This retreat, the Duquesne Weekend, in turn spawned the Catholic charismatic renewal, through which Martin was soon baptized in the Holy Spirit. Martin and Clark then began hosting prayer meetings in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which would eventually spawn the Word of God community.
Martin was invited to Belgium by Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens to help jumpstart the Catholic charismatic renewal in Europe.[5]
In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Martin to a five-year term as a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.[6] Martin is currently the president of Renewal Ministries, and lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, Anne.