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Old scandal article |
Posted on 02/08/2011 7:12:21 AM PST by Gamecock
HINDUS HAVE applauded Pope Benedict for including verse from ancient Hindu scripture Upanishads in the Good Friday Meditations and Prayers led by him at Roman Colosseum.
Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that it was a remarkable gesture from Pope and invited him to study more ancient Hindu scriptures, which were very rich in philosophical thought. He or other Hindu scholars would gladly provide the help and resources in this regard, if asked, Zed added.
Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, also commended His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for inclusion of a verse from India’s Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali and reference to peace icon Mahatma Gandhi in these prayers.
This year’s 'Way of the Cross at the Colesseum' Meditations and Prayers on Good Friday, led by Pope, included well-known verse from Brahadaranyakopanishad (“Lead me from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality”), line from Tagore’s Gitanjali (“Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service”) and reference to Mahatma Gandhi.
Rajan Zed stressed that all religions should work together for a just and peaceful world. Dialogue would bring us mutual enrichment, he added.
Pope Benedict heads the Roman Catholic Church, which is the largest of the Christian denominations. Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about one billion adherents and moksha (liberation) is its ultimate goal.
Well, the official stand of the Catholic church has been softened some by Vatician II, however, it clearly hasn’t trickled down the ranks sufficiently.
I know that when I was Catholic, Protestants were, at best, considered nominally Christian mostly by virtue of the fact that they weren’t Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, etc and because they claimed some belief in the (wrong) Bible, but certainly were hell bound unless they came to the Catholic church.
And that was after Vatican II.
Aren't we all living in "the Matrix"? Certainly I would hope that all Christians agree that there is more to God's universe than what we perceive by our five senses.
If anything, I would argue that Catholics are more open to a fuller reality. The central act of our Faith - The Eucharist - is an acknowledgment that human senses are limited.
Thank you for your reply. Since I posed the question, I’ve done some background reading. I’d like to think he simply had no idea what the book was. That is the best possibility I came across, fwiw.
Pyro7480:
The article is from 2009. The Good Friday meditations from that year can be found at Way of the Cross at the Colosseum. It has this subheading: “MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS BY The Most Reverend THOMAS MENAMPARAMPIL, S.D.B., Archbishop of Guwahati (India).” So he was the author, not the Pope.
I browsed through the 14 Stations, and found the reference. Here’s the full context, from the 14th Station:
Tragedies make us ponder. A tsunami tells us that life is serious. Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain pilgrim places. When death strikes near, another world draws close. We then shed our illusions and have a grasp of the deeper reality. People in ancient India prayed: “Lead me from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality.”[1]
After Jesus left this world, Christians began to look back and interpret his life and mission. They carried his message to the ends of the earth. And this message itself is Jesus Christ, who is “the power of God and the wisdom of God”.[2] It says that the reality is Christ [3] and that our ultimate destiny is to be with him. [4]
[1] Brihadaranyaka Upanishads 1.III.28.
[2] 1 Cor 1:24.
[3] Cf. Col 2:17.
[4] Cf. Phil 1:23.
Ah, so he didn’t pray the pagan verse. It was a quotation. The meditations by the Indian bishop also included a quote from Shakespeare, but the overwhelming quotations/citations were from Scripture.
UHHHHHHHHHHHH . . . therefore?
I’m glad he didn’t pray such lines!
However, taken with Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore’s declaration that they [evidently his fellow globalist elites] could unite all religions but Islam . . .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2669147/posts
coupled with the Pope’s globalist encyclical
coupled with the official Vatican pronouncements about ET’s
SHOULD BE PLENTY SOBERING TO ANYONE WITH EYES TO SEE AND EARS TO HEAR.
So, if I understand your position correctly: because we use numbers in our everyday life, it is OK to drag pagan religious philosophy into a supposed Christian worship service.
I respect JPII and Benedict. I am REALLY concerned about what the next guy will be like.
There are Christians in every denomination and church and there are non-Christians in every denomination and church.
The term *Christian* has lost some of its meaning over the years. As it was used in the Church in Antioch in the book of Acts, it specifically referred to followers of Christ.
We use it today in a more general sense of behavior instead of an accurate description of one’s beliefs.
So today, a lot of people are called, or call themselves, *Christian* simply meaning that they’re not Jewish or Hindu or Muslim, what whatever, but that they attend a Catholic or Protestant church of some flavor, without necessarily having any personal commitment to Christ. It’s more of a descriptive term showing the moral code by which they live.
That presumes they are truly 'in Christ'. Jesus taught that not everyone who claims His Name are truly His. (Matthew 7:15-23). And he also taught that we would be able to recognize those who are not His by their actions. There is no clearer action that someone is not a brother and sister in Christ (no matter what their position may be) than seeking unity with pagan religions.
>> “The ONLY thing a Pope should be doing with Hindus is correction of their false religion and preaching the Gospel. Anything else is participating in the same false religious system.” <<
.
But how can one false teacher ‘correct’ another?
What could be more lost than a pope? - Christ denounced the nicolaitans as those that he hated, so how can the world’s top nicolaitan correct anyone?
.
I guess it depends with whom you most commonly interact. I would argue that most Catholics have been so poorly catechized that they could not explain the difference between Catholicism and any Protestant church. So to these folk the difference is immaterial.
In my view Catholic identity has become severely weakened by Vatican II's aftermath - not so much the council itself. That might not be a bad thing to you Protestants :-) but if one believes that Catholicism is true then to weaken the message and identity in the name of playing nice is diluting the truth.
In the same way that some Protestant Churches have moved away from reliance on the literal truth of the Bible - the very reason for many of these churches beginnings.
If one believes in the truth (whatever that might be) one should not be shy about proclaiming it - with respect of course for others who may feel differently.
BTW for the record I grew up Southern Baptist so I know both sides of the argument fairly well. I am very grateful to the SBC as in instilled me a much deeper knowledge of the Bible (as a sacred text and as a work of literature) than I ever would have received had I grown up Catholic.
I know that sounds tragic to you - but there are fuller truths that I have found in the Catholic faith than what I had as a Southern Baptist.
>>That presumes they are truly ‘in Christ’.<<
LOL!!!!!
I’m not going to ‘presume’ anything. If you want to be judge and jury, you go for it.
All I’m saying is, live your life in Christ’s light and I’m not going to care at all about the organized religion you choose. You are my Sister in Christ.
Nothing in that specific line that conflicts with Christianity.
Sheesh, it only took 18 posts to point out the obvious. But who am I to question a good Pope bashing thread anyway? Over/under for the number of posts on this thread that will completely miss the point made by you,Juana la Loca: 2,000.
Dear presently without a screen name: The point of Good Friday services is to remind us Catholics of what occurred, and one thing is that Christ descended into the grave, thus such a line as "lead me from darkness to light is perfectly appropriate for Good Friday, or really any day of the year.
But please, don't let me stop you if your intention is to bash the Pope. After all, we all know he "deserves it" even if it's not true. < /Dan Rather reasoning >
On this we can certainly agree! :-)
>> “This whole business about an incarnate God who dies and rises again is found in Egyptian and Norse paganism, you know.” <<
.
That is an often repeated falsehood.
I’m the opposite.
I grew up Catholic and while I didn’t end up in a Southern Baptist church, most likely because of living too far north for that, I was abysmally ignorant of Scripture until such time as I accepted Christ.
When I did that, I went out and bought a Bible and started reading it voraciously. And learned a LOT.
the the abysmal ignorance of Scripture is not uncommon amongst Catholics, and I sure grew up with and among many of them.
A protestant, of course. Every last one of them: they're all lost in the worship of the Almighty Self, the Idolatry of the Mirror.
Okay.
But that thread was started because a poster said that Catholics (generally) weren’t Christians.
It just let the “Usual Suspects” know that they were in the minority with that opinion.
Along with that thread was one asking if Catholics considered Protestants to be Christians. Again, proof that we consider each other Brothers and Sisters in Christ.
Unbelievers need to be taught The Truth and that does not happen by aligning themselves with their pagan beliefs at all. Did Jesus do that? NO WAY!
Acts 17:22-31 details the part where the Apostle Paul used the Alter of the Unknown God, to preach the Gospel of Christ. This gave him a platform to build upon a precept, and cause the people of Athens to ask questions and learn the truth.
The story of the Unknown God is an interesting one. But, one way to get people to ask questions, is to provide the opporutnity for them to learn. If they have an idol that tells them to love their enemy - wouldn't it be wise to use that philosophy to expound upon Christianity? We ask, we learn, we grow - and IMHO, all roads lead, eventually, to Christ.
Won't argue with that - certainly among some of the laity.
I'll see your Catholic ignorance of scripture and raise you Protestant ignorance of church history. :-)
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