Posted on 02/22/2020 2:34:44 PM PST by ebb tide
February 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, the former President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum and defender of the dubia cardinals, has written a review of biblical and other related sources with regard to the relationship between the Creator – God – and His creation, the earth, the cosmos, the animals. His analysis, written for LifeSiteNews (published in full below), is aimed to assess the question of whether or not it is fitting for a Christian to worship “Mother Earth.” This theme was present during the Amazon synod in Rome which concluded in October.
As it is shown with the help of multiple sources – not the least St. Paul – creation that was originally “good” in God's eyes, was deeply wounded after the Fall of Man. Writes Cordes: “In St. Paul, the contrast between God and the cosmos is evident; the Apostle attributes it to sin, which came into the world through the First Man (Rom 5:12).”
The 85-year-old cardinal, who has lived in Rome since 1980, shows that such a “brief biblical review is critical of any nature mysticism. Homogenous planetary religions, esotericism and shamanism line its path.”
“The light of Revelation opposes decidedly all worship that is not directed at God,” he adds.
“Not worship of cosmic powers, but deliverance from them is the biblical message. The coming of Christ brings it about,” the German cardinal writes.
***
Cardinal Cordes' full article on ‘Mother Earth’
“Mother Earth” is not only called Pachamama. As a look into the Internet shows, she is also worshiped worldwide under a different name.
“Gaia, you! Bearer, Beloved, Nurturer, Divine. Oh, You Mother of all Being, You our Earth. Holy is Your wisdom. Holy Thy Being. Holy Thy Nature. Holy Thy Perfection. Holy Thy Heart. Holy Your Source...” (retrieved www.myananda.de, 17 February 2020)
A new goddess? “Mother Earth” – a cult object? Here, for Christians, some questions are due with regard to God's Word.
In the Judeo-Christian Revelation, statements about nature and creation are not intended to present the genesis of the cosmos and of man. Instead, they want to describe God in His relationship to man. Material and earthly elements mentioned are nevertheless by no means to be interpreted metaphorically; to dismiss them as secondary would not correspond to Semitic thinking that avoids abstractions and is integrally concrete. That is why the objects mentioned in the Book of Genesis – snake, fruit, tree of life, Garden of Eden – retain their expressive value for the right understanding.
The Bible begins: “God saw all that he had made. It was very good” (Gen 1:31). Yahweh has accomplished a work that is continually being qualified as “good” and “beautiful.” Thus the believer admires creation (Ps 8: “Heaven, moon and stars”; Ps 104: “Earth, mountains, animals and seasons”) – not for its own sake, of course, but for the sake of Yahweh, who created it: “Lord, how numerous are your works! With wisdom you have made them all” (Ps 104:24).
Then, however, man transgresses God's commandment and immediately faces the judgment (Gen 3:16-19; 23). Yahweh imposes on the first parents a comprehensive diminishment of their existence: pain, toil, oppression, failure, expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the shadow of death. Man's relationship with God is destroyed to such an extent that creation as a whole perishes.
Talmudic rabbis and Apocrypha later underline this corruption of nature as a result of sin. So it says in the “Book of Jubilees” (2nd century B.C.) immediately after the account of the expulsion: “And on that day was closed the mouth of all beasts, and of cattle, and of birds, and of whatever walks, and of whatever moves, so that they could no longer speak … And He sent out of the Garden of Eden all flesh that was in the Garden of Eden” (3:28sq.). And the “4th Book of Ezra” (100 A.D.) writes: “But when Adam transgressed my commandments, the creation was judged … Oh Adam, what have you done? When you sinned, the Fall came not only upon you, but also upon us, your descendants.”
The New Testament is also foreign to any hint of an apotheosis of the cosmos. Jesus preaches – for instance in the “Sermon on the Mount” – its God-related beauty. But He also knows about its transitoriness: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Mt 24:35). The eschatological goal of history is still to be achieved. Christ calls His own to live already today in the light of tomorrow.
In St. Paul, the contrast between God and the cosmos is evident; the Apostle attributes it to sin, which came into the world through the First Man (Rom 5:12). And the whole universe must be included in the history of salvation: “We know that all creation groans and is in labor pains to this day” (Rom 8:22).
The Letter to the Hebrews incorporates the Old Testament eschatology as described by the prophets with realism; it is different from the Hellenistic cosmic worship, which is undramatic and idealizing: “You, Lord, laid the foundations of the earth before time, the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will pass away, but You remain. They all age like a garment; You roll them up like a cloak and like a garment they are changed” (Heb 1:10sq.). The apocalyptic catastrophe is announced, which destroys the perishable and gives way to the permanent: “...so that the unshakable may remain” (Heb 12:27).
The strongest warning against all Gaia romanticism is given by the Evangelist St. John. For him, the cosmos even proves to be an anti-divine force. Without Christ – the light which darkness has not grasped (cf. Jn 1:5) – lies, sin and death prevail in the world and in history. They are darkness. And they are a force that determines man, that oppresses and overwhelms, confuses and covers up. Encircled by the cosmos, God's creatures are loved by it and become its property (cf. Jn 15:19); it begins to rule over them. This alien access to man comes from the “ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
This brief biblical review is critical of any nature mysticism. Homogenous planetary religions, esotericism and shamanism line its path. The light of Revelation opposes decidedly all worship that is not directed at God. Tempted in the desert, the Lord Himself answers the devil with a quote from the Old Testament: “You shall not bow down before other gods and you shall not commit yourself to serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Deut 5:9; Mt 4:10).
Not worship of cosmic powers, but deliverance from them is the biblical message. The coming of Christ brings it about. Benedict XVI teaches it by referring to the Apostle Paul. He warns against a “false doctrine...which refers to the elementary powers of the world, not to Christ” (Col 2:8): it is not the elements of the cosmos that are “the God to whom one can pray” (Spes salvi 5).
Any form of sentimental Gaia myth – von Balthasar called it a “turning the globe into a love object” [“Amorisierung des Erdballs”] – finally becomes downright cynical in view of recent earthquakes (Albania, Philippines), in view of the volcanic eruptions and a tsunami in 2004.
“Gaia – Mother, Beloved, Nurturer”? Dreamy romantics stun us with their fantastic notions. Instead, they should observe the brutal laws decreed by “Mother Earth,” for example, in the animal world. The great Reinhold Schneider studied them in detail and recorded some of them in his notebooks Winter in Vienna (1958). Only two small sections: Whoever reads them no longer doubts that the curse of sin has marked creation.
Let us only remember the everyday, often-told story of the parasite living in the intestines of certain birds, whose eggs creep into the snails through the feces; in these the germs grow into tubes which penetrate the feelers; in the bloated feelers it develops a stimulating play of colors and similar movements; this lures the birds to tear off the feelers; in this way the parasites get back into their place. And the snail always grows antennae again and they are always torn off; the snail is only the producer of the destroyers that destroy it and the birds... (p. 191sq.)
After the nuptial flight, an ant from the Mediterranean countries enters the breeding chamber of another species, climbs up the back of the legitimate queen, slowly saws her head off with its jaws and now takes over her reign. The tiny eyeless thievish ants bite into the bodies of the host individuals in enormous quantities; hostile individuals enter into open field battles that rage undecided for days on end and are otherwise ended by rain or thunderstorms. (pp. 221sq.)
A new ecological sensitivity awakens in us an awareness of the beauty of the cosmos and rightly calls us to reverence it. Greta Thurnberg is on everyone's lips. It would be fatal, however, if we were to forget the Creator in light of creation, to bow down before the work instead of before its author. Today more than ever it is valid to say: “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20).
Translation by LifeSite's Dr. Maike Hickson
Ping
He needs to take it up with the Boss.
Rom.1 Verses 24 to 32
[24] Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
[25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature(creation) more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
One has to laugh at progressives.
Make fun of the concept of a God who thinks, does math, etc.
But worship rocks & stuff.
Oh well, that’s all their minds can come up with.....
The God of nature isn’t nature, no more than Picasso is one of his paintings.
I don’t bother going to the Catholic mass we attended every week. I’m sick of hearing the voice of the enemy (pure Leftisim) from the alter. I’m sick of the gutless spineless clergy who don’t seem to have the courage of the Gospel. And yeah the envirowacko line every sunday.
“Make fun of the concept of a God who thinks, does math, etc. But worship rocks & stuff.”
This is very good. Never really looked at it this way, but it fits in with their other nonsense.
They are pro-science when they want to harvest fetal stem cells, but don’t tell them there are two, and only two, biological sexes, because then their little heads explode.
I think we really need to start saying “sex” again, rather than “gender”. Gender is a term from language studies, like the Romance Languages that have male and female, or German (among others I imgagine but I really don’t know) which has male, female and neuter.
Slipping into? The false Pope is already there (the second one, not the first deposed one).
These fools don’t realize how dangerous is the stuff they are messing with. These “earth spirits” or whatever are profoundly dangerous, and Christ came to bring them the Revelation first made to the Jews and to liberate them from these demons.
But I think a lot of the Pachamama devotees have never ever believed in Christ or His Father, and therefore they think they can play around with this with no consequences. They think they’re just doing the old nature shtick, as blessed by George Soros, and don’t realize that they are putting the Evil One in the Holy Place...because they don;’t think there is a Holy Place to begin with.
Obviously not a Pope Frank fan!
was discussed in 1994 while in seminary (Protestant)
Too bad you didn't learn to express yourself without sounding like an illiterate.
And, you left the "faith of your fathers." What a shame. If the only thing you can say about the priests who ministered in your Church that they are "gutless spineless" clergy then that is a SHAME as well. Those men dedicate their entire adult lives to God. They CAN'T be perfect because they are only human. But, that's just not good enough for you, is it?
Jesus could only choose "mere" men and He knew that Judas Iscariot would betray Him but He chose him anyway. God the Father KNEW that Lucifer would betray Him but He created Lucifer nonetheless.
"evirowacko"-- Is that all you got from hearing the Word of God every Sunday? VERY sad. It's a shame to read such bitterness and anger from you.
New International Version
Isaiah 44:19
No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
Sorry Cardinal Cordes, as disturbing as it is, Gaia is the cool new deity for the millennials.
The church needs a better ad agency when the entire media and nearly all politicians are preaching climate change.
Tough competition.
Who are you and what’s your problem? There is nothing in your response that pertains anything I wrote that I can see. The first thing you do is contrive to call me a name. You took a mean little swipe at me. Happy now?
I don’t know what your definition of dedication is but failing to uphold the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for Priests is about the greatest failure I can imagine.
I never left the faith of my fathers, rather my father’s Church morphed away from what it was to somthing that is cowardly and small.
Religion and Faith aren’t traditions, handed down like a watch from father to son. The Gospel is Truth and if it is not maintained faithfully it is then abandoned. You call THAT dedication? I dont. It’s the exact opposite of dedication.
My Faith is exactly where it always has been. They have become something I can’t recognize.
There are many in the Church who are ripe for apostasy. There is the sheep and the goats. Time to stand strong and proclaim the truth and rebuke the wishy washy.
yea, some thimgs are not up to man although some say it is..smile
maybe it is just time to love all as His Body..cannot hate your brother and love God ya know..right now man thinks he understands, wrong, God is God, mam is man, and no man is placed above another..faith should not be slavery to a mans way..
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