Posted on 07/19/2023 8:58:09 AM PDT by ebb tide
TOOWOOMBA, Australia (LifeSiteNews) — An Australian bishop was welcomed into his new diocese with a pagan “smoking” or “smudging” ceremony performed at the steps of his cathedral.
It was intended to “purify” him and the sacred place of “negative energies.”
On July 11, Bishop Kenneth Howell participated in the indigenous pagan ceremony before the Cathedral of St. Patrick in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. The ceremony was conducted by Janine Mayer of the Western Wakka Wakka people, an Aboriginal community of Queensland.
Mayer distanced herself from the assembled Catholics by referring to Howell as “your new bishop” and differentiating between her “elders and ancestors” and those of the assembled faithful.
“Today is a very special day as we are welcoming your new bishop. I would like to acknowledge and pay respects to all my elders and ancestors from the past and present, and emerging,” she said. “I’d like to also acknowledge and pay respects to all of your ancestors and elders as well.”
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Mayer referred to the ritual as a purification from “past negative energies,” using language Catholics reserve to sacramentals such as holy water and exorcism. The latter derive their authentic power to purify from sin and drive out demons from the power of Christ’s saving death—which the pagan smudging ceremony does not invoke.
“Today I’m doing a smoking ceremony to welcome you all and your bishop, to bring in healing and healthy positive vibes, and to cleanse and remove any past negative energies,” Mayer said. “I hope that this smoking ceremony brings you all peace and good energies, and that it cleanses the area and brings success and confidence to you all.”
Mayer instructed the new bishop to take “gifts” from the deceased “elders” and even to “make a wish.” Inviting him to participate formally in the ritual, she said: “One of the most important things about a smoking ceremony is to just take it in, let it cleanse you, take all that the elders have to offer.” She ordered the bishop to “take in a bit of smoke to cleanse yourself,” and he obediently wafted his face with the smoke three times. Mayer then told him to drop a pinch of shaved sandalwood into the smoke “and make a wish.” In the context of a religious ritual, these acts constituted superstition.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition. (CCC 2111)
Appropriating pagan indigenous ceremonies for Catholic worship has become commonplace in Australia. In July 2022, Australia’s Plenary Council of Bishops featured a smoking ceremony at the opening Mass of its second assembly. The Plenary Council issued a decree endorsing recommendations put forward by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC). The decree states: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander spirituality contains symbols and rituals that, when used appropriately in Catholic liturgical contexts, enrich our celebrations, and facilitate a welcoming environment for Indigenous Peoples.”
RELATED: Australian bishops participate in indigenous ritual to kick off nat’l gathering
However, the essential difference between what the Church does in her sacred rites, sacraments, and sacramentals, and the superstitious ceremonies and rituals of pagan religions, is that the Church has a supernatural principle by which grace is communicated when she uses bodily things or performs physical actions, like pouring water over the catechumen’s head in baptism. That supernatural principle is the spiritual authority that flows from the Person of Christ and the power of His saving death. It is Christ who gives the sacraments the power to communicate grace through bodily actions and things.
To attempt to spiritually “purify” a person or place outside the order of grace established by Christ and His Church in the sacraments and sacred rites of Catholicism, constitutes not only the sin of superstition, but would also entail grave sacrilege, since both a consecrated Church and a consecrated bishop would be subjected to a pagan ritual of purification and would thereby actually be profaned.
But Traditional Latin Masses are forbidden!
Ping
That’s because the current pope is a heretic.
Ignorance is nothing to be proud of.
Aww, make it a caucus thread then if you can’t deal with any one pointing out the obvious.
It’s only your ignorance that is obvious.
If you wish to continue, go for it!
It amuses me.
Why do these “aboriginals” we see in public always look like woke white Karens?
So, sinner of all sinners was he, Wycliffe translated the Bible into English, which made them madder than when Notre Dame's linebacker dated a fake girlfriend. Wycliffe later died of a stroke. But to make sure others learned to not do as he did, they dug him up and burned his remains so they could say they got the last word in.
That comment is completely false. Mass throughout the Catholic West, and most certainly everywhere in England, was exclusively in Latin in Wycliffe's day. And there were vernacular translations of the Scriptures, or parts of them (Psalters and books of the Gospels) available in England going back to Anglo-Saxon times, as noted in the preface to the 1610 KJV. Of course, books of any kind were rare and expensive prior to Gutenberg's invention of movable-type printing.
You're peddling made-up nonsense as "history".
The vernacular translations of the entire Bible were done before the RCC cracked down on future translations. Those already translated were grandfathered in (i.e. Coptic Christians had a Bible in their language, but English speakers had only small portions and were furious at Wycliffe for translating the entire Bible in English).
This pestilent and wretched John Wycliffe, of cursed memory, that son of the old serpent... endeavoured by every means to attack the very faith and sacred doctrine of Holy Church, devising... to fill up the measure of his malice... the expedient of a new translation of the Scriptures into the mother tongue... (Archbishop Arundel, 1411 in leading to Wycliffe being posthumously being branded a heretic). How dare English speakers have the Bible in their own language! Of course, at the Council of Constance in 1415, Wycliffe was declared a heretic and all of his works declared destroyed, including the English translation of Scripture.
The only translations they "cracked down" on were unauthorized ones, particularly those with "notes" which endorsed Protestant theology.
And, as this article explains, even unauthorized versions, even including Wycliffe's, were in use among English Catholics during and long after Wycliffe's time.
I suggest you read the Wikipedia article on Wycliffe, which goes into considerable detail on his opinions. Translating the Bible was not high on the list of the English church's objections to Wycliffe. Nor, as is sometimes alleged, was William Tyndale condemned for translating the Bible.
So? Lots of Catholics went against the teachings of the RCC central authority. Such as Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague, Johannes Gutenburg, Wessel Gansfort, and Girolamo Savonarola (all before AD 1500). Obviously if I was to quote the work of these early reformers you would say they don't represent the teachings of the RCC at the time. Likewise, your fact that some Catholics used Wycliffe's translation doesn't negate the fact that the RCC condemned translating the entire Bible in English.
Read the words of the archbishop of Centerbury at the time ( Thomas Arundel): therefore we enact and ordain that no one henceforth do by his own authority translate any text of Holy Scripture into the English tongue or any other by way of book, pamphlet, or treatise. Nor let any such book, pamphlet, or treatise now lately composed in the time of John Wicklif aforesaid, or since, or hereafter to be composed, be read in whole or in part, in public or in private, under pain of the greater excommunication, till that translation have been approved by the diocesan of the place, or if occasion shall require, by a provincial Council. Let him that do contrary be punished in the same manner as a supporter of heresy and error
So how long was someone supposed to wait for the RCC to "approve" the Bible being translated into their language?
Or look at the decisions made in the Council of Trent (1563) (a century and a half after Wycliffe): The translations of writers, also ecclesiastical, which have till now been edited by condemned authors, are permitted provided they contain nothing contrary to sound doctrine. Translations of the books of the Old Testament may in the judgment of the bishop be permitted to learned and pious men only, provided such translations are used only as elucidations of the Vulgate Edition for the understanding of the Holy Scriptures and not as the sound text. Translations of the New Testament made by authors of the first class of this list shall be permitted to no one, since great danger and little usefulness usually results to readers from their perusal.
So even on into the 16th century, if you don't have the Bible translated into your language that's "approved" by the RCC, tough for you. Simon forbid the Bible be shown to be contrary to "sound doctrine".
Also from Trent: Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing. Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary
So reading the Bible in one's own language makes people too bold! Oh the horrors! Anyone in possession of a vernacular translation "may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary". Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! And you wonder why Solar Scriptura is so important to Protestants?
Gutenberg died in the household of a Catholic bishop. Not sure why you think he "went against the teachings of the RCC central authority [sic]".
therefore we enact and ordain that no one henceforth do by his own authority
Stop right there. "By his own authority" ... see that? Ever heard of the Wicked Bible?
So how long was someone supposed to wait for the RCC to "approve" the Bible being translated into their language?
There are many other examples.
So reading the Bible in one's own language makes people too bold!
You mean like this?
All men now presume to criticize the Gospel ... almost every old doting fool or prating sophist must, forsooth, be a doctor of divinity. -- Martin Luther
Touche!
However, I quoted the Council of Trent (the agreed on teachings of the RCC) as an example of what the RCC as a whole believed at the time.
#IfYouDontHaveToPayForIndulgencesThankAProtestant
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