Posted on 04/17/2007 8:44:15 PM PDT by Terriergal
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – Juan Mendez Mendez became a Christian in a village outside of this city in Chiapas state on April 7, and two days later local authorities put him in jail – for leaving their religious blend of Roman Catholicism and native custom.
A catechist or doctrinal instructor in the “traditionalist Catholic” church in the village of Pasté (pahs-TEH), the 25-year-old Mendez was released on Tuesday (April 10) after spending the night in jail. The previous Easter Sunday, political bosses in the Tzotzil Maya village noticed him missing from a church festival involving what Mendez considered to be idolatrous rites; they summoned him that evening.
“They said, ‘What do you mean that you’ve accepted Christ – you mean you don’t believe in our gods [Catholic saints]?’” Mendez told Compass. “And I said, ‘Well, those were just apostles, and now I belong to Christ.’”
The town leaders threatened to jail Mendez, and the following day they summoned him again after consulting with villagers, including other catechists. Mendez verified to them that he had heard the gospel in another community and now wanted to become part of an Alas de Aguila (Eagle’s Wings) church in Pasté, he said.
The officials threatened to strip him and throw cold water on him in jail, Mendez said. “You know what else we’re going to do?” one of them told the father of three pre-school children. “We’re going to beat you. We’re going to hit you.”
Mendez said he replied, “‘You know, if you’re going to beat me, then here I am. Here I am, if you’re going to beat me.’ But another said, ‘No, we’re not going to beat him.’”
After questioning Pasté Alas de Aguila pastor Jose Gomez Hernandez – confirming that Mendez planned to attend his church, though he had not yet had the opportunity to do so – village officials decided to jail the new Christian last Monday night (April 9).
Members of the Alas de Aguila church were allowed to visit him. He said he told one of them, “If I have to be a prisoner, I have no other alternative but to continue pressing forward.” He added that his wife, who put her trust in Christ along with Mendez, “despite this situation has been very happy, and in her faith she wants to press forward also.”
Mendez was not hurt while in jail from 5 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. and was released without further threats, he said, though another Alas de Aguila pastor, Antonio Vasquez, said “there is certainly a threat.”
“What is further painful to me,” Pastor Vasquez told Compass, “is that the brethren in our church continue to contribute to and participate in the pagan festivals, because if they don’t the local authorities will take all these people to jail.”
Compass declined to contact Pasté village head Mariano Lopez Gomez, as an international news agency questioning him or other village officials about the jailing of Mendez could result in further abuse of the fledgling Christian. Pastor Vasquez said that in the municipality of Zinacatan, to which Pasté belongs, local traditionalist Catholic officials in some of the area’s 46 communities prohibit any form of evangelization.
“There are still areas where they do not permit the gospel,” he said. “They don’t want it, and they reject it to the point that there are some brothers who have been prisoners in other communities.”
Home Burned, Family Tortured
Vasquez, whose church has grown to 60 to 80 mainly Tzotzil- or Tzeltal-speaking people since he began it in 1996, is no stranger to area persecution from traditionalist Catholics.
In 1998, local political bosses (caciques) put him in jail for 24 hours without food. In 2000, he was released from jail only after the intervention of Chiapas Religious Affairs officials – who promptly demanded that he contribute to and participate in the traditionalist Catholic religious festivals, which the pastor said amounted to a denial of his faith.
“An attorney from the government told me, ‘You know what? I’m a Christian, but you have to do what we say,’” Pastor Vasquez recalled. “And I told her, ‘As an authority you cannot obligate me to deny my faith, because, as you know very well, that goes against the constitution. Secondly, as a Christian, you cannot obligate me to deny my faith and all the things that my faith requires.’ So she was left something ashamed.”
The state religious affairs ministry had more success forcing his congregation to commit to participating in the traditionalist Catholic rites, which bring caciques not only festival fees but alcohol sales income. The congregation subsequently abandoned him, Pastor Vasquez said.
“They said to me, ‘You like to get into trouble, and we don’t want trouble, so we’ve signed the agreement with the government,’” Pastor Vasquez said. He was going to leave the area, but he said God told him two things: “Cowards flee,” and “Cowards have no part in me.”
Hence he signed the government agreement, which allowed him to continue preaching as long as he contributed to and participated in the traditionalist Catholic festivals – something “very painful,” he said. The church grew so much, however, that by August 20, 2000, the caciques again jailed him, his father and his two brothers – and burned down his house.
“The next day, when they took me out of jail and to the municipal manager, he told me, ‘Hey, Antonio, how was it that you came to burn down your house?’” Pastor Vasquez said. “I said, ‘How am I, a prisoner, going to burn down my house?’ He said, ‘Go see your mother,’ because my mother and my two younger sisters had remained at home.”
Pastor Vasquez found that his family members were able to flee the house, which was reduced to ashes.
He managed to build a house from donated wood and sheets of laminate for a roof, but local authorities cut his water line and electricity. He has lived by candle light, cistern capture and water sold from vendors for the past six years.
Chiapas state officials had secured an agreement from local chieftains to restore the pastor’s water and electricity, but secretly they conspired to let leave him without the services, he said. The last statement on the matter that Pastor Vasquez heard from a state official was, “Forget about it – nothing can be done.”
No longer contributing funds or participating in the alcohol-drenched festivals that pay homage to Catholic saints, in 2004 Pastor Vasquez found his father and brothers jailed while he was preaching in another city. The caciques stripped them and threw cold water on them, he said, as well as stung them with chile juices and a sprayed chemical compound that burns the skin.
They were freed only after intervention from state officials.
Because of the complicity of government agencies, “It’s easy for these kinds of abuses to be carried out with impunity,” said Esdras Alonso Gutierrez, head of San Cristobal’s ministry of religious affairs and founder of the Alas de Aguila movement.
“The situation in the areas around San Cristobal has calmed in San Juan Chamula, but beginning in 1998-2000, violence in the region outside of San Juan Chamula has been increasing,” Alonso told Compass. “In the last Chiapas administration under Gov. Pablo Salazar, there were no murders in San Juan Chamula, but there has been persecution in other areas: Huistan, Zinacatan, Las Margaritas, San Cristobal de las Casas, Ocosingo and La Trinitaria, among others.”
Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News
The satire only serves to highlight the mockery that the actions of the RC edific makes of the simple Gospel by it's hogwash. Other congregations have greater or lesser mixtures of similar things. But the RC edific's examples are BRAZENLY, GARISHLY SCREAMINGLY loud and in the face of the world most vividly. Wimpy illustrations of same would not fit.
THE MORE HORRID MOCKERY is that which elicits the satire--the charade pretending to be pure religion undefiled that is actually hollow or corrupt to the core. Why is THAT not railed at MORE than the satire highlighting it?
imho, MD, the Chiapas facts describe a situation worse than the money changers at the Temple.
It saddens me that RC believers on FR do not rise up en mass and condemn all such. Instead, the messenger highlighting such horrors as vividly as possible, he’s the GREATER EVIL?
Fascinating.
It was a yes/no question. I have yet to see a yes/no answer.
Is the wafer God?
It either is or it isn't. I say it isn't.
In the meantime, is it okay for me to say that some Protestants, P-Marlowe in particular, deny the omnipresence of God?
You can say anything you want.
If God is present in the wafer by virtue of his omnipresence, then that would mean that God is present in the wafer in the same way he is in present in a ham sandwich. In that sense it is a "real" presence in both. Is that what catholics mean by "real" presence, or are you claiming that you are actually consuming physical flesh and physical blood. If it is a spiritual presence, then I would agree. But I don't think we need to deny the reality that what we are consuming is in actually and in truth, bread and wine.
I suspect that Catholics deny reality in their claim of a "real" presence.
So, one more time for clarity...
Is the wafer God?
Left unanswered was my argument from silence concerning Jesus and female clergy.
I hear tell that God waited until the Israelites in front were up to their neck in the Red Sea before He parted the water by the hand of Moses. I would just like to say, "Glub glub."
I didn't hear it that way.
Exodus 14:
[21] Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
I believe it is a product of institutional control that goes back to the 3rd century AD. I think it was Cyprian of Carthage who first proposed "no church no salvation". The jesuits further perfected this with the teaching that blind support of the church is imputed as righteousness. I think this "institutional loyalty equals faith" belief stops them from fighting the obvious wrong. It must be causing a lot of internal turmoil.
1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651).
1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.
I actually think this, though seemingly a simple question, is so complex that neither Mad Dawg nor the Pope could give you a satisfactory answer.
What happens if the Host crumbles, pieces miss the Paten and are not completely found and "restored"?
What happens if a communicant takes the Host in hand, pockets it and takes it home as a souvenir?
And on and on and on.
Your question cannot be answered. It is as simple as that.
Now, if Communion was to be practiced in the very simple manner as taught by Jesus without regard to a long and convoluted procedure life would be simpler wouldn't it?
But the Spiritual error occurs in the conscience both of the one worshipping an idol and the one whose conscience is offended because he believes the other person is worshipping an idol.
As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol [is] nothing in the world, and that [there is] none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us [there is but] one God, the Father, of whom [are] all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom [are] all things, and we by him.
Howbeit [there is] not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat [it] as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.
But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.
For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?
But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. – I Cor 8
But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth [is] the Lord's, and the fulness thereof: Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another [man's] conscience?
For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: Even as I please all [men] in all [things], not seeking mine own profit, but the [profit] of many, that they may be saved. – 1 Cor 10:27-33
Anything or anyone we treasure above God is an idol.
Amen, brother. The fact that the dissenting voices here trash the article rather than simply say "sorry; mistakes were made" is profoundly typical of Rome.
As I've stated above in the thread, PentChar believers and every other type of congregation of believer has some level of idolatry—sooner or later...
As we have seen on the forum, idolatry has fierce defenders whether directly or tangentially.
"Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols." -- John Calvin
The error is in not recognizing this and falling to our feet in remorse before God. Instead, some encourage the creation of idols and insist there are additional mediators between God and men other than the man, Christ Jesus.
But the facts are that this is equal to the beginnings of A MODERN INQUISITION of the same spirit and horror of the DARK AGES INQUISITIONS.
If it walks like an Inquisitor and talks like an Inquisitor and acts like an Inquisitor, it's sure not a duck.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me.The true idolatry of men is to fall down to the stock of a tree, rather than the singular Trinity of all creation. Sadly, some are incapable of understanding, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God" -- Exodus 20:3-5
Again the idolatry is a matter of conscience.
No, I believe idolatry is a matter of record.
I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies. It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law. Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way. Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them. The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple... The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live... Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever... Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD: give me understanding according to thy word." -- Psalm 119:124-130;144;160;169"Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes.
Except that the saints are not dead people. They are no different fron the people in John’s vision, the martyrs who cry out for justice.
"The Chiapas facts"? FACTS? What "facts"?
I see an accusation. And then I see that your "insight" and "understanding" lead to a verdict of guilty and a blanket indictment of my religion. Sentence first, trial afterwards -- that's the charismatic way, huh?
(Note to Charismatics: As long as it is taken as a forgone conclusion by SOME charismatics that every error of Catholics is the fault of the Church while every error of charismatics is in spite of their ecclesiastical arrangements, I will continue to slam charismatics. I don't mean it, but I'm tired of gratuitous insults excused as the wrath of God and an act of Love against me.)
It saddens me that RC believers on FR do not rise up en mass and condemn all such. Instead, the messenger highlighting such horrors as vividly as possible, he’s the GREATER EVIL?
The messenger concluding on the basis of such an article that he has ANY facts is involved in a very great evil, yes. And then if you look at the first couple of dozen posts on this thread, you will see a number of Catholics deploring what happened, and a number of YOUR co-religionists using this as a trigger for a blanket attack on Catholicism. So then you judge our condemnation as insufficient, while you have no problem with your co-religionists going off half-cocked and accusing us of, for example, praying to relics, or attacking a sacramental doctrine which they clearly do not understand. We do NOT pray TO relics. Anyone who says so is not telling the truth. Am I to conclude from your silence that lies and slanders against Catholics are spirit-filled and display insight and understanding?
Maybe the Holy Spirit would lead to the writing out a form of condemnation which would be shared with us so that our condemnation would meet your stringent standards.
But more seriously, annalex's confusing responses aside, do you think there's anyone here who thinks this alleged action is right, if true? Is your hatred and contempt for us so great that you think we approve either of the alleged syncretist pseudo-Christian religion or of violence in it's promulgation or in the promulgation of any religion?
If, as you argue, silence means approval, (RM et. al.:NOTE this is a reductio ad absurdum and not a charge meant to be taken seriously) then we already know that you approve of lies against Catholics. That's why I limited my question to violence. Personally I don't like lies against Protestants OR against Catholics, but evidently that is not a scruple shared by many here.
The satire only serves to highlight the mockery that the actions of the RC edific makes of the simple Gospel by it's hogwash.
AH! That's an interesting, no doubt insightful and understanding approach to dialogue. You reach out by insult. YOU persuade by mocking. You start out by KNOWING that you are right and we are wrong. What basis for conversation is there then? Like the Romans and the Pharisees, you justify insult because you just KNOW we're vicious.
You realize, of course, unless your school of psychology is very different from those with which I am familiar, that there is no hope for friendship, dialogue, or cooperation if you hold to that attitude.
THE MORE HORRID MOCKERY is that which elicits the satire--the charade pretending to be pure religion undefiled that is actually hollow or corrupt to the core. Why is THAT not railed at MORE than the satire highlighting it?
Because I do not agree that it is hollow or corrupt to the core. Becuase I knwo that some Protestants will stop at nothing, no lie is too extreme, to attack Cahtolicisim, so I don't evben know if this account is true. Because what is more grotesque is the lie-tolerating, incest-committing, agreement-breaking, utterly devoted to their own will and completely shut to the possibility that those with whom they disagree may have something they need congregation of self-described spirit led people who claim to be obedient to the Leading of the Spirit but in fact do only what they feel like when they feel like it.
(The preceeding sentence was the winner in the 2006 confused syntax contest of Redondo Beach, CA)
How does that feel? Feel like conversing much? Wanna have a dialogue after that?
Despite your account, what the "magicsterical" and the big, colored letters suggest to me is a fear that the truth clearly and dispassionately articulated is too weak to fight for itself and an idea, strangely similar to the one shown by these pseudo-Catholic barbarians (if such indeed they be) in Chiapas that the Lord of Love really approves of hatred as long as it's committed in His Name.
If purposefully painful and clearly contemptuous modes of expression are okay for one side, because the evil that side sees is just SO evil that only mockery and contempt are adequate in responding to it, well, that's really not far from the Islamic approach, is it? "We're so right, and you're so horribly wrong, that there is no room or need for courtesy or equity."
If that is really your view, then all that's left is to come to blows. Is that how you see it going? You certainly will not persuade me by insulting and hurting me and slandering the Church I have come to love.
I see, quite seriously albeit unscientifically, an approach to Christ in the charismatic movement that shields self-will and provides a cover for madness. I have seen it, so your data will not persuade me that it doesn't happen. Especially when the eagerness for resolution and the lust to have the right answer (and to be seen to have it) leads to such extreme argument. You see in my Church a structure (about which I think you may know less than you think you know) which you think leads to a kind of superficial Christianity or, what's worse, a dreadful and sometimes violent perversion of the Gospel of Love.
You excuse the charismatic movement of those flaws you see in it, while you characterize my Church as "corrupt to the core".
I believe that, just as Peter, even when He was not betraying Jesus, so often got a hold of the wrong end of the stick, so also the Catholic Church is conspicuously stupid, cumbersome, awkward, and sometimes vicious. And just as Peter turns out to take a leadership role (if not THE leadership role) after Pentecost, displaying by his obvious inadequacies the power of the Spirit to work with, well, clay of less than the highest quality, so also the Church continues to amaze those who listen to her with the wonder of her message despite the gross failings of those entrusted to spread it. IN other words, sometimes the leaders are corrupt very nearly to the core, but God is stronger and chooses the weak ....
One problem is there is a huge number of people who have already made up their minds that the Church is irredeemably terrible. And , again like the dwarves in "The Last Battle", they are surrounded with a feast but refuse to see it. And further there is a kind of restricted vision of the ways of God with a soul and an impatience that the wayward are not tamed with the snap of a finger.
Today at Mass I wished you had been there to hear the sermon. I am confident that you would have eagerly given an Amen to it. But since we do not claim to be a society of the elect, but a hospital for sinners, I am not scandalized, as I expect you would be, by the probably huge number of people who probably didn't "get it". I'm patient. I know that most of us will be "bad Christians" before we are "Good Christians" in any meaningful sense. I'm okay with a little girl telling me God is in her chest. That's not strictly speaking right and it could lead to a kind of pantheism or gnosticism. But it's not strictly speaking wrong either and it could be a good foundaton for the ideas of the presence of GOd, of His fathfulness, of His availability to those who call upon Him in need. So I don't lift my theological hems away from such.
I told my story of the lady to suggest that while we may not see the process of conversion until it reaches a crisis stage, it would be arrogant and stupid to assume that because we saw nothing therefore nothing was happening -- or because all we saw was rote droning of Rosaries and Novenas that that was all that God was doing there in her. I am open to God doing things in the hearts of others that I do not see. I am open to God's fight for a soul seeming to be lost in the ebb and flow of battle, and I don't count the battlee lost just because it isn't over yet. I keep thinking of Paul whose early life as a zealous Pharisee gave him what he needed to be, well, Paul, once God finally brought His work to the stage where Paul had to admit He was vanquished. I do NOT see Paul's pre-Damascus life as wasted, I see it as redeemed and made integral to his Post-Damascus life.
I fear I am wasting my time. Those who already know cannot learn. "Since you say you see ... ." Some have so much invested in our being corrupt to the core that if one were to rise from the dead they would not believe.
It is remarkable to me. In the charismatic movement, what I have SEEN is the religion of self, of rationalization, of displacement of responsibility, of flight from insight, of calling a whim a leading of the Spirit and of following it to the brink of madness and perdition - and once right over the edge. The number of people in the psych ward at Mass General Hospital who claimed to be spirit led was impressive! I have done no scientific study. I did came to pentecostalism with hope and yearning rather than a pre-judgement, and this is what I saw. Yet I still acknowledge that the Spirit moves in some lives through such means and channels -- despite the evidence which could be construed to the contrary.
But I have never heard the love of God and His rich promises proclaimed and explicated anywhere as I have among Catholics. I see what I see, you see what YOU see. I am open to what you see, you are not open to what I see. You KNOW we're corrupt to the core. I know no such thing.
I like it here better. Over there you all seem to think the way to change minds is to mock and insult and blame. But let US mock, and then look out: We're an outrage.
Even as you disparage us you all expect more of Catholics than you do of yourselves! And, with Petrine lapses and betrayals some of us will try to live up to your expectations.
Yes or no question: Have you stopped beating your, uh, significant other? Come on, either you have or you haven't, right?
In other words, no, it is not a yes or no question.
This conversation has deteriorated. I'm out of here.
and Anything or anyone we treasure above God is an idol.
if I had to choose, I'd go with the second rather than with the first.
As for deceiving people about our practices. I think any objective observer here would see that we are saying repeatedly that we do not place Mary above God or worship statues, and our adversaries refer their interpretation of what we do to our account.
The deception is self-inflicted by people who would rather condemn than love or even see what is in front of their faces. Any sugestion that we shoudl abandon waht in many cases has sped us along to the heart of Christ because others are so in love with elevating themselves above us that they insist on misunderstanding us does not persuade me.
Can we now see some condemnations by Prots of Prots so eager to condemn Catholics that they can't see what's in front of their faces?
Why do I think we won't be seeing that?
Why do you go to the Catholic Encyclopedia rather than to the Catechism? Seriously.
And if you know nothing, how do you know how Jesus "taught" the practice of the Eucharist.
The answer to the questions you raise are in the answer "as long as the species subsist". When it's not bread anymore (and I'm not talking chemistry, "Substance" and 'Species" are philosophical terms of art" not scientific terms.) the Eucharistic presence no longer endures. So if the wine dries out, it is no longer fit for drinking, which I suggest, is of the essence of wine, so the Eucharistic presence no longer endures, because the wine did not endure. Similarly, if it ain't bread any more, there isn't any Eucharistic presence. It's important to get into the old noggin the difference between what a thing IS and what it is made of.
This kind of conversation simply cannot be carried out in an adversarial environment.
The whole subject was brought up the way artillery is brought forward when a breach is supposed to exist in the enemy lines. An atrocity is alleged to have been wrought by people calling themselves Catholics. Thus is evidently an occasion to bring forth every grievance, real or imagined, against Cahtolics. You all argue like Democrats. It's not about the truth winning it's about YOU winning, the truth be damned.
The Prots (among whom I think Luther would be surprised to find you do not reckon him) are enjoying an ecstasy of moral superiority. Evidently self-esteem is preferable to Truth or to humility in the contemplation of one's own ignorance.
Do you KNOW of anyone unwilling to condemn these acts, if they are true? Is this just an opportunity to take a shot and to oblige us to dance to the Prot tune - "Oh yes, I'll sign the loyalty oath, where do I sign, it was horrible, Can I go now, Senator?"
I know of a number of Prots who haven't condemned it -- because they take it as read that if it's true it's (a) probably not Catholics and (b) an outrage whoever it is -- IF it is.
As I said, you all argue like Democrats.
Does that mean that the wafer is not God?
I believe it is a product of institutional control that goes back to the 3rd century AD. I think it was Cyprian of Carthage who first proposed “no church no salvation”. The jesuits further perfected this with the teaching that blind support of the church is imputed as righteousness.
I think this “institutional loyalty equals faith” belief stops them from fighting the obvious wrong. It must be causing a lot of internal turmoil.
= = = =
Excellent points and historical ref, imho. Thanks much.
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