Posted on 10/12/2019 10:15:28 AM PDT by ebb tide
ROME, October 11, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Reacting to Pope Francis’s participation in a “pagan religious ceremony” on the grounds of the Vatican, a canon lawyer said on EWTN’s The World Over that the ceremony was “horrendous” and that Catholicism is supposed to “overthrow pagan false notions,” not be taught by them.
On October 4, Pope Francis observed as an Amazonian woman led a ritual in the Vatican gardens as part of a tree-planting ceremony. The woman, bedecked with a traditional feather headdress, prostrated herself before the tree and a pair of statues of naked pregnant women. The indigenous woman also shook a rattle in an apparent blessing or incantation over the group at the ceremony, who included a Franciscan friar. Some members of the group prostrated themselves or knelt during the ceremony, while the pope stood by.
On Thursday evening, EWTN television news host Raymond Arroyo interviewed editor Robert Royal of The Catholic Thing and canon lawyer Fr. Gerald Murray of the New York archdiocese to get their reactions to controversy over the pope and his participation in a “pagan” ceremony.
Fr. Murray said, “The ceremony can be accurately described as a pagan religious ceremony and that false goddess, Pachamama — who is like a creation god — this is horrendous, I have to say, no matter what the intention of those who invited those people there. It’s quite clear that that was a pagan religious ceremony with religious meaning to them. This should not be — ever occur in a Catholic institution, certainly not in the Holy See.”
Saying that he regretted the pope’s participation, Murray said: “Paganism is not here in the Earth to teach Catholicism. It’s the other way around. Catholicism is meant to overthrow pagan false notions.”
“The kick-off of the Amazon Synod was a very strange tree-planting ceremony on the feast day of St. Francis in the Vatican gardens behind you,” Arroyo said on the show. Referring to the wooden statues at the ceremony, Arroyo said, “Some say this was the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Amazon, visiting Saint Elizabeth.”
Asking for a reaction to what Arroyo called a “fertility god,” Royal answered that “something … is starting to characterize this synod in a strange way. Something unique, something that we’ve never seen before on the Vatican grounds took place. … No one has been able to interpret it. No one wants to take responsibility for how it was organized or who permitted it and why the pope was there and what it meant for him to be a witness as this was going on.”
As to its effects, Royal said it caused “...tremendous confusion, especially after many people before the synod even started were pointing out the dangers of this kind of syncretism[.]” He said it brought in “native elements that don’t really accord well with Catholicism,” that are “confusing and lead us down strange paths.” He added, “I think that the fact that no one can explain this is an additional problem, besides the fact that something that is not Christianity was celebrated on the grounds of the Vatican itself.”
Arroyo observed that Pope Francis abandoned his prepared remarks at the conclusion of the ceremony. The pope “cast aside his prepared remarks, said an Our Father, and he left,” Arroyo said. “I read that as sort of a subtle rejection of what he had just sat through,” he concluded.
Royal said that at the point of the pope’s departure, he had been standing for about one hour in the sun and appeared fatigued. But he added, “Even this we cannot read with any great degree of clarity, and one of the problems with this papacy is the way that ambiguity and a lack of clarity has led to people having very grave doubts, and then — now we have a generalized mistrust when a situation like this arises.”
A native Amazonian leader, Jonas Marcolino Macuxí, told LifeSiteNews that what he observed of the tree-planting ceremony at the Vatican was “pagan,” as evidenced by the smoke pots there that were intended to ward off evil. “It’s 100 percent pagan,” he averred through an interpreter. Macuxí is a trained lawyer who asserted in the interview that there are bishops and priests imbued with Liberation Theology concepts who are taking advantage of Amazonian people while urging them to return to ancestral life ways. Formerly Catholic but now an evangelical Protestant, Macuxí said, “My main concern is to unite people: Brazilians, whites, Indians, people from the rest of the world because the visions are being exploited, they’re being promoted and these can only lead to a major breakdown of society that we have to avoid in order for everyone to progress — Indians, whites, et cetera — and have a decent life and freedom.”
In another LifeSiteNews interview, Rexcrisanto Delson said he was appalled to learn of the pagan ceremony at the Vatican. “I saw the ceremony that was performed in the Vatican garden and couldn't believe my eyes,” Delson told LifeSiteNews. Referring to the earlier interview with Macuxí, Delson said, “I later learned that an Amazon tribal leader confirmed it was purely pagan. Did the Catholics who participated and supported such a vile act not know it was pagan?” Delson said, “There’s no excuse from here on out to claim they didn’t know they were violating the First Commandment,” while quoting Psalm 95:5 in saying that “all the gods of the Gentiles are devils.”
Anthropologists identify “Pachamama” or “world mother” as a fertility goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. The Quechua and Aymara peoples of the Andean region erect shrines to Pachamama at hallowed rocks and trees. She is depicted as an adult woman who is self-sufficient and creative in sustaining life on Earth. Among some native peoples after the European conquest of the 1500s and Christianization, Pachamama was often confused with the Virgin Mary. However, in pre-Conquest times, she was often a cruel goddess, greedy for human sacrifice, especially of children.
Ping
Everyone,
Pray the Holy Rosary so that this Amazon and other synods to not succeed.
Stick with the basic Church, in other words.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++and I repeat:
Pray the Rosary daily for the demise of the Amazon and other synods.
If praying the Rosary kept the Moslems out of Europe, it should work here, too.
Fr. Gerald Murray of New York sounds like a Protestant.
What occurred in the Vatican has occurred many times in different circumstances throughout Roman Catholicism. In Roman Catholic teaching, is it not possible to be saved by good works outside of Christ, such as other religions? So why would this ceremony bother a pope or other Roman Catholics?
I want to know more, much more about why Pope Benedict XVI stepped down, and how someone whose religious ideology is almost diametrically opposed to his was named his successor as Pope.
Pope John Paul II had an important role in the fight against world Socialism/Communism, and Benedict XVI was a friend and confident of John Paul II. So maybe those who are promoting global Socialism/Communism felt that ‘this time around’ they had to make sure we didn’t have a Pope like John Paul II, or his friend Benedict XVI - who opposed secularism.
Nobody is saved apart from the merits of Jesus Christ, and nobody can earn their own salvation on their own by good works. (I am a Catholic, and can easily defend the foregoing from official Catholic teaching documents.)
Well, you can assume that the globalists hated JP2 and B16 and wanted B16 to step down. Was he coerced? Threatened? The rumors are out there. You can wonder, surely, how this heretical Pope was (miraculously) elected and if he is a puppet whose strings the globalists pull.
We all wonder these things.
The woman, bedecked with a traditional feather headdress, prostrated herself before the tree and a pair of statues of naked pregnant women.
14He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it.
15Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
16He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:
17And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.
18They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
19And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? SHALL I FALL DOWN TO THE STOCK OF A TREE?
20He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?
Unfortunately, this is a continuation of folding pagan practices, rituals, beliefs, and symbols into Catholicism.
The brown scapular is no different than the feather headdress.
This nonsense too shall pass.
I don't know whee you got this, but you have been misinformed.
You can find Catholic dogmatic statements affirming Jesus as the unique (one and only) savior of the world, in every century of the Church's existence.
In 2000, the Church issued a detailed doctrinal statement -- "Dominus Iesus" (The Lord Jesus) --- specifically repudiating the teachings of some false theologians, claiming that Jesus is just one of many possible means of salvation, or that he only offers salvation to certain people.
This position, the document said, “has no biblical foundation. In fact, the truth of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord and only Savior, who through the event of his incarnation, death and resurrection has brought the history of salvation to fulfillment, and which has in him its fullness and center, must be firmly believed as a constant element of the Church’s faith” (par 13).
Anyone who states the opposite, is marketing a line of baloney.
No doubt they want the native people to join the church and to continue with their pagan practices.
That will not turn out well.
And oh! So -— if anybody gets on this thread and contradicts my reply at#12, please say, rather politely, “Baloney.”
Really terrible. I’m all in favor of planting trees. Lots of trees to replace those cut down in the Amazon jungle and elsewhere. Remember Johnny Appleseed?
But Pachamama is no Johnny Appleseed. What the natives do on their own time is one thing, but the alleged Catholic Church promoting and participating?
Will this start a rash of naked feminazies wearing feathers cluttering up the aisles of churches here?
Where is St. Boniface when we need him?
“This nonsense too shall pass.”
Yes. However, how much hurt and damage will be done, and to how many people, before this happens?
You are misinformed.
You must assumed that when the CCC states,
"Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification and for the attainment of eternal life (Catechism of the Catholic church, Part 3, Life in Christ, Merit, 2010)
And Trent (not Trump) stated,
"nothing further is wanting to the justified [baptized and faithful], to prevent their being accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life." (Trent, Chapter XVI; The Sixth Session Decree on justification, 1547)
If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema." (Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 32.
that it means saved by good works, which it does, "by God's grace," but not outside of Christ and the Catholic church (though what being part of it may mean sees debate among RCs) , though Catholicism allows that those ignorant thru no fault of their own may be saved if they somehow find Christ as their Lord and Savior.
That would be contrary to the paganism which was celebrated on Vatican grounds, while the Catholic salvation thru grace by merit gospel is also false.
Which [url=https://peacebyjesuscom.blogspot.com/2019/06/basically-what-is-roman-catholic.html]RC doctrine of salvation [/url], means that he act itself (ex opere operato) of baptism (even without the required personal wholehearted repentant justifying faith: Acts 2:38; 8:36,37) effects regeneration and makes one actually good enough (justified by his own righteousness: causa formalis) to be with God - until his remaining sinful nature manifestly shows he is not, thus resulting in the [url=https://peacebyjesuscom.blogspot.com/2018/10/did-new-testament-church-believe-in.html]false doctrine of RC Purgatory [/url] in order to become good enough to be with God (and atone for sins).
However, it is heart-purifying regenerating faith such as effects the obedience of baptism (all that we voluntarily choose to do is a result of what we truly believe, at least at the moment) that is counted for righteousness. (Acts 2:38; 10:43; 15:7-9; Rm. 4:5; Titus 3:5;)
And which evidences faith, and thus those who will believe and obey are promised salvation, (Heb. 5:10) just as those who believe. (Jn. 3:16) Cause and effect must go together, as with forgiveness and healing in cf. Mk. 7:2-16, but the effect is not to be made the cause.
Thus believers are made accepted in the Beloved, and spiritually made to sit with Him in Heaven, (Eph. 1:6; 2:6) on His account, and have access with boldness into the holy of holies in Heaven by His inless shed blood, (Heb. 10:19).
And thus they will go to be with the Lord at death or at His return and the believers resurection, being henceforth forever with the Lord. (Lk. 23:43 [cf. 2Cor. 12:4; Rv. 2:7]; Phil 1:23; 2Cor. 5:8 [“we”]; 1Cor. 15:51ff'; 1Thess. 4:17)
And which event is the next transformative event believers looked to in the NT church, that of being conformed to Christ at the resurrection of believers at the coming of the Lord. (2Cor. 5:2,3; 1Cor. 15; 1Jn. 3:2)
And after the Lord's coming is the judgment seat of Christ, with its giving and loss of rewards (Mt. 16:27; 1Cor. 3:8-17; 4:5; Rm. 14:10; 2Cor. 5:10; 1Thes. 2:19; 2Tim. 4:1,8; Rev.11:18; ; 1Pt. 1:7; 5:4; cf. Mt. 13:30,39; 25:31-46; Jn. 5:29; Rev. 20:5,6) based on the quality of the material they used to build the church with.
But the loss (1Cor. 3:14,15) of fruit and rewards (along with the implicit grievous displeasure of the Lord) is the only suffering mentioned for believers after leaving this world (versus purgatory, which has souls suffering upon death). And which loss is not that of personal defects but the fruit of such as providing material for building the Lord's church, and which loss the believer is saved despite of. (1Cor. 3:15)
Hope this too-prolix an explanation will suffice.
Good works done by a man in the state of grace are meritorious. That is the clear teaching of scripture.
An unjustified man's works are not. Nobody can merit the grace of justification by his own works or effort. Justification is always the result of God's gracious choice.
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