Posted on 12/02/2007 7:28:29 AM PST by auraur
I tremble at the thought that such revisionist history is being written in the name of the Living God.
Was it not Jesus who said (John 18:36) “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
We are not to take up arms to convert men, but our crosses, and if necessary die on them. God would have been better witnessed to by Cortez dying while spreading the Gospel, rather than slaughtering thousands. If anything Cortez and the Spanish rape and pillage of the Americas should be an embarrassment to the Roman Church, not something that is glorified.
Did God still use Cortez? Yes, but as He also used the Assyrians and Babylonians to chasten Israel. They were used and still convicted for their own sins, just as Cortez was. I pray that he was given the grace of repentance in the last of his life.
Really, this sort of stuff makes me think some in the RCC still wish that the Pope still had the power to throw a crusade at the infidel, and that the St. Valentines Massacre is the sort of thing that should happen more often.
So the Aztecs were killing people to sacrifice to their gods...
And along comes Cortes; slaughtering men, women, children and babies so he can steal their gold and prescious metals, for the 'church', of course, and no doubt, plenty for himself...
This guy, thru his butchering, murdering, no doubt raping and obvious pillaging becomes a hero of the Catholic church...
And non-Catholics are derided for putting a negative slant on Cortes' and his church's mission...
We always find in Mary the perfect mediator between mankind and God.
This is a blatant lie, according to the God of Creation...So who would perpetuate such a lie but Satan???
Mediatrix is a proper title for Mary, but we should keep in mind that making Latin nouns masculine (e.g. medaitor —> mediatrix) often provides subtle changes to meaning. Another proper title for Mary is Genetrix (Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genetrix, from both the Angelus and the Rosary). Genetrix comes from the same Latin verb, generare, meaning to beget or bring to life. We see this same verb take on a different noun form in the Latin Creed:
...Et in unum Dominum, Iesum Christum, filium Dei unigenitum...
In this case the unigenitum is Jesus, literally, the only begotten Son. Just as significantly, the genitor, or begetter, is God the Father. And so, genitor (masculine) means begetter or father while genetrix (feminine) has an equivalent meaning in reference to a woman: the one who brings forth, which is to say, mother. These subtleties of semantic expression are often lost in English texts because English rarely uses word inflections (e.g. genitor for father and genetrix for mother) to distinguish such shades of meaning. This is one reason why it can be perilous to draw some conclusions from an English translation of Scripture unless one is aware of the linguistic and cultural norms of the the society in which the Scripture was written (the phrase, James, brother of Jesus, where brother means cousin or other relative, comes directly to mind here).
But back to Mediatrix, a proper title for the Blessed Mother. Mediatrix is certainly the feminine form of Mediator, but Mediatrix does not merely take on the same meaning as Mediator when applied to a woman. Rather, it takes on a specific meaning that is proper for the Mother but distinct from the meaning of the masculine term Mediator, properly applied to the Son. Frankly, my Latin fails me in understanding this subtle difference, but no matter. We can simply turn to John Paul, writing in Redemptoris Mater:
At Cana in Galilee there is shown only one concrete aspect of human need, apparently a small one and of little importance (”They have no wine”). But it has a symbolic value: this coming to the aid of human needs means, at the same time, bringing those needs within the radius of Christ’s messianic mission and salvific power. Thus there is a mediation: Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings. She puts herself “in the middle,” that is to say she acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother. She knows that as such she can point out to her son the needs of mankind, and in fact, she “has the right” to do so. Her mediation is thus in the nature of intercession: Mary “intercedes” for mankind. And that is not all. As a mother she also wishes the messianic power of her Son to be manifested, that salvific power of his which is meant to help man in his misfortunes, to free him from the evil which in various forms and degrees weighs heavily upon his life (Number 21, emphasis mine).
“She acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother.” Herein lies the difference. Mary is not the Son but she is the Mother our Mother as well as His. And this state of being (i.e. universal Motherhood) is what defines her role as Mediatrix.
Masculine and feminine inflections in language are not merely syntactic devices, put in place to avoid embarrassing each other in speech or writing. Rather, these syntactic devices reflect deeper Truths about who we are as persons and as aggregations of persons - that is to say as peoples or cultures. These meanings can only be understood properly if we do not obscure them, either by explaining away masculine and feminine linguistic distinctions on a superficial level or by hiding the explicit masculinity and femininity in our sacred texts by replacing it with neuter language.
If we are to change the text, I would change “We always find in Mary the perfect mediator of God’s grace to mankind” to “We always find in Mary the perfect mediatrix of God’s grace to mankind,” in order to emphasize Mary’s proper role.
I might note that Cortes was stripped of his rank and sent back to Spain because he was trying to defend the Indians from land-grabbing noblemen who wanted to profit by the total enslavement of the local population.
The consecration of the main Aztec Temple in Tenochtitlan in 1487 (St. Juan Diego was a boy at the time) may have taken the lives of at least 20,000 over a period of four days (estimates range to over 80,000). The Aztecs made lousy neighbors, since most of their victims were not Aztecs. It is no small wonder, then, that the native tribes supported the Conquestators in overthrowing the Aztecs.
Alas, Cortés was human too. But that he ended one of the prime examples of cannibalism in making way for civilization is no small thing.
After all, had such savages as the Aztecs the means of exploration themselves, they would certainly have extended their practices the other way instead.
I have read both Prescott and Bernal Diaz’s accounts and find them facinating.
Cortez lost about 400 men at La Nochie Trstie (sp?) and later returned with thousands of Indian allies who hated the Aztecs with a vengance.
I have a Spanish speaking friend in Los Angeles who said that after the conquest there began a program of genocide against the Indians.
I do know that there were two priests whose accounts difer in this. One says the Indians were treated well, the other claims genocide. Maybe it is six of one and a half dozen of the other.
I think only Al Capone would wish for that.
(Hint: The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre are to totally different events ... well, people were killed at both, but other than that, they're totally different.)
I have to agree with you that that's a pretty questionable thing to say, since it presents Mary's mediation as apparently not merely independent of Christ's (which it isn't) but superior to it (which is inherently impossible, since it is completely dependent upon it).
As to who would perpetuate (did you mean, "perpetrate"?) such a lie ... Catholics who are careless about how they phrase theological propositions.
I don't know of the authors of this piece. (I know who Jeff Cavins is, but he's not credited in the byline.)
And non-Catholics are derided for putting a negative slant on Cortes' and his church's mission...
You would find Aztec paganism preferable to conversion to Catholicism? A religion which killed tens of thousands of victims (by cutting out their hearts without benefit of anesthesia, BTW) just to dedicate a single temple?
A religion whose temples were so steeped in human blood that they literally stank of it?
A religion which had a shrine consisting of thousands of human skulls, each of whom had belonged to a sacrificial victim?
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Nope...Meant perpetuate...This is hardly the first instance where it has been printed that Mary is the mediator between God and man...
You blame it on carelessness...So what was the careless part??? Is it that you guys sometimes forget that the real mediator is Jesus??? Seems to me it wouldn't have been printed if the thought wasn't in the person's mind...Perhaps the carlessness is saying what you guys believe in private to a public audience...
Maybe you don't believe Mary is the one mediator between God and man...But I'd say it's pretty clear that many in your religion believe just that...
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I don't believe it for a second...The adoration of Mary is something 'perpetrated' by your church...There is nothing Biblical about most of the things you say about and attribute to Mary...
Jesus was very careful not to draw attention to the 'woman, His mother...
Now if folks would see an apparition of Jesus, that might be another story...But Mary, No Way...
You have made a goddess out of Mary and even call her the Queen of Heaven...She has a throne...Just as the goddess Diana, warned about in the N.T...
My advice is to get rid of Mary and focus on Jesus...No man can come to the Father but by Jesus Christ, alone...
I don't really have much of a brief for what "some" or "many" Catholics believe.
I care about what the Church teaches. She's quite clear that Mary mediates with and through her Son, not instead of him or apart from him.
I think the authors of this piece understand that, but are doing a poor job of expressing what they believe.
How many times must you be told that Catholics to not adore or worship Mary. We venerate her as the Mother of God, Jesus Christ, and we ask her to pray for us.
I believe that it is many Protestants such as yourself who choose to “perpetrate” such untruths.
BTW, we, as Catholics, do focus on Jesus along with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit — the Blessed Trinity. (I’m sure you are aware of that fact, too.)
Excellent article...and one that can help spread the truth about one of the greatest explorers.
I will definitely pass it around.
Take it up with the writers of the Gospels. Start with St. Luke; he seems to write the most about Mary.
Iscool, St. Paul writes that "all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for instruction in righteousness". If you want us to "get rid of Mary" then clearly you cannot believe that anything written of Mary in Scripture is God-breathed and useful for instruction in righteousness.
Either that, or you think you're qualified to censor God's word.
Bumping the thread!
“Never apologize for the Blessed Virgin Mary!” ~~Mother Angelica
Because so much of the written history we rely on today is from an Anglo-Protestant perspective, Spain’s role in bringing the Christian faith to the new world is minimized by many early historians.
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