Do you recall the canonization mass for St. Juan Diego? It was my first exposure to 'liturgical dance'. Granted this was a tribute to the indigenous natives but ...
Posted on 03/10/2006 10:44:16 AM PST by NYer
Through a letter sent to the Bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, the Holy See has called for an end to the so-called “Indigenous Church,” influential especially in southern parts of Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.
The letter to Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, is signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze (bio - news), prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. He deplores the influence of the ideology of the "autoctonous church,” inherited by Bishop Arizmendi from his predecesor, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia. Cardinal Arinze remarks that the new policy should supress the overreliance on the ordination of permanent deacons in the Mexican diocese.
Bishop Ruiz prevented many different movements and religious orders from being active in the diocese, and seriously discouraged religious vocations to celibate priesthood. Above all, he promoted the massive ordination of permanent deacons, in the expectation that soon the Church would accept married priests, which according to him was better adapted to the vision of an "indigenous" or “autochthonous church.”
The eloquent letter written by Cardinal Arinze, contained in the latest issue of the Notitiae, the bulletin of the dicastery is addressed to Bishop Arizmendi, but its conclusions are extended to other regions such as Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, where a similar “Indian theology” has been spread.
There's no difference whatsoever in a Spanish Mass (except that the Spanish text has been translated more accurately from the Latin than has the English text).
Certain cultures, such as the Filipino and Mexican cultures, have maintained a very high level of emotional, dramatic practices that were probably brought by the Spanish but then transformed by local cultures into something even more spectacular. Spain has penitential processions and sometimes even flagelants, for example, but they do not have people who crucify themselves. Some of these things should have been suppressed, as theatre in the churches was suppressed by the Pope centuries ago when it got out of control, but there has been no control over Catholic liturgical and paraliturgical practice for about 40 years. I strongly suspect that the new Pope and Arinze are going to be looking at these things.
Do you recall the canonization mass for St. Juan Diego? It was my first exposure to 'liturgical dance'. Granted this was a tribute to the indigenous natives but ...
Probably a bad example to use Reverend King here. the point is that if one was to use his full name and titles in an article, one would only use it once, the from then on Reverend King would suffice, IMO.
You probably aren't too far off. This bishop inherited a terrible mess. That region is also home to rebels that want to break away from the Mexican government and make a socialist state. God help the new Bishop.
Still waiting for the "indigenous pipples" and the Darwinists to discover each other. Who will have to give?
At the risk of rekindling the unpleasantness from last weekend, I wish to point out that this is the type of thing that has long been accepted in folk Catholicism without near the criticism from Catholic intellectuals that Biblical literalism receives.
Guess I just picked the wrong ancestors!
Give it a rest.
That was probably pretty tame as "liturgical dance" goes! Fortunately, I think BXVI is toning it down a bit.
The first time I saw "liturgical dance" was in the 1970s, when I was at a wedding in my parish church in San Francisco. Both the bride and the groom wore strange white cotton gowns, and a group of Filipinos dressed in white came snaking down the aisle waving candles, with several of them wearing candles on their heads. This was not an authentic Filipino ethnic ceremony, btw, but something dreamed up by somebody based on the fact that there were a lot of Filipinos in the parish.
Bizarre, and I can see why earlier Popes banned theatre and dance in churches.
Actually, it was long criticized and suppressed, sometimes even very firmly (witness the Inquisition). However, after Vatican II, many leftists got into positions of power in the Church and started encouraging "native" practices. The left is the biggest reason that voodoo and various bizarre African-influenced cults have flourished in Latin America. I think our current pope is not going to be as tolerant as his predecessor.
It was a perfectly appropriate comment to make on this thread.
You know, you don't have to read my posts.
Where do you live? I live in Florida, and the practices of the Haitians - who are only vaguely Christianized, and actually need a new evangelization - pop up all the time down here.
And you know, you have to get over your past. It's like every other past this month is about how Catholicism rejected you, blah blah blah.
That region is also home to a large influx of Muslims and a fair harvest of Muslim converts. Oddly enough, many of the Muslim converts had first been converted to Evangelical Christianity, since Chiapas was for some reason a fertile field for Protestant Pentecostals (probably because the leftist bishop, Ruiz, wasn't doing the religion thing anymore).
Certain things, like voodoo and the Mayan cargo system, are very old syncretisms. Even in Europe itself some bizarre practices (like wrapping live snakes around statues) still went on until quite recently.
But it is true, and most ironic, that the Left (which is supposed to be dedicated to all things new and "progressive") often poses as the defenders of ancient traditions. And I'm still waiting for Darwin to enter the mix!
PYRO: Give it a rest!
See, Pyro? I saved you the trouble. Maybe I should just make that my tagline. It would save you a great deal of trouble, wouldn't it?
There are bizarre practices everywhere. The position of the Church - which of course had to go out and preach the Gospel to total pagans everywhere from Norway to - well, fill in the blank - was that some bizarre practices were worth stamping out, and others didn't matter and would probably go away on their own or were harmless "grandmother" practices that had no significance.
The problem is that the leftists exalted what they thought of as "indigenous" cultures (meaning, anti-European) and when they took over the Church or at least certain parts of it, they permitted these evil weeds to flourish.
http://downtheroad.org/Publishing/1TheRoadnoEnd/Pictures_Pages/9Guatemala.htm
Yellow church combines Spanish Catholic traditions and traditional Mayan beliefs.
Ornate decorations complete with a pregnant Virgin Mary.
The cult of San Simon a morphed Catholic saint.
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