SYNODAL SCHISM - BISHOPS BAULK AT IDOLS

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‘Sad.’ ‘Violent.' ‘Intolerant’.

Whence comes this brave denunciation of the unceremonious dunking of the Pachamamas (pronounced Pawch-mamas) in the Tiber? Why, from Vatican News, no less, so we better believe it.

The subtitle reads, ‘The sad episode of the theft and destruction of the Amazonian ‘images’.’ 

There was no ‘destruction’, not even death by drowning - unfortunately - as the idolnappers who stole into the Santa Maria Transpontina under cover of darkness not too cleverly forgot to conceal a sack of bricks about their persons. Being wooden, the idols resurfaced, and were rescued by the brave carabinieri, to be rehabilitated, the Pope suggested, at St Peter’s for the closing Mass of the Amazon Synod.

So ‘destruction’ is the first inaccuracy.  


But the Pachamamas were not present at the closing Mass. 

Because bishops were overheard in the synod hall to say they 

would not participate in the Mass along with idols. 

And not to be outdone by his own press office, the Pope weighed

in at the closing Mass with a diatribe on those who"profess to be

Catholic but have forgotten how to be Christians and human 

beings" … "worship of self carries on hypocritically with its rites

and prayers' - and many are Catholics." 

Thank God for bishops like +Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, who has declared that "the acts of worship of kindling a light, of bowing, of prostrating or profoundly bowing to the ground and dancing before an unclothed female statue which represents neither Our Lady nor a canonised saint of the Church, violates the First Commandment of God: You shall have no other gods before Me."

Schneider called the idolnappers "heroes" … the gestures of these Christian men will be recorded in the annals of Church history as a heroic act which brought glory to the Christian name."

What's more, he called out the clerics who watched that ceremony in the Vatican Gardens: "The acts of high-ranking churchmen who defiled the Christian name in Rome will go down in history as cowardly and treacherous acts of ambiguity and syncretism."

Bishop Marian Eleganti, Switzerland, stated that even if the Pope somehow maintains these statues were used "without idolatrous intentions … there would still the remain the scandal that at least it looks like such (idolatry) and the Rock of Peter (the Pope) is not at all getting worried about it, but that the Pope "even defends those rituals conducted in the Vatican Gardens" which are "alien to Christianity … it is not understandable to an observer that the publicly displayed veneration of Pachamama at the Amazon Synod is not meant to be idolatry."

Cardinal Gerhard Muller had already commented on Thursday that "to bring the idols into the Church was a grave sin, a crime against the Divine Law".

See what I mean? This is schism.

And we Catholics who rejoiced (with Cardinal Muller) at the idols’ removal, are we really ‘sad’, ‘violent’ and ‘intolerant’?

For starters, we may assume that Vatican News’ spin doctor Andrea Tornielli would also indict St Benedict for destroying idols in a pagan temple at Montecassino in 529 AD, an act immortalised in the painting by Fray Juan Andres Rizi now admired at the Prado.

But we idolnappers and sympathisers are not vindicated yet: Tornielli invokes two saints against our one.

First up there’s St Francis of Assisi, reinvented by bleeding-heart environmentalists as some kind of saintly zookeeper, and now having his Canticle to Brother Sun massaged to fit the same agenda. St Francis made it very clear that his poetry was a hymn about God’s creatures. I daresay it would never have crossed the saint’s mind that Christians would ever worship creatures – but then, St Francis was not a modernist.

Then Tornielli parades St John Henry Newman, trying to show that Newman defended ‘the adoption of pagan elements’. 

Ahem. Weren’t various Vatican spokespeople tripping over one another in the rush to deny that these images are pagan? It’s enough to make a cat laugh.

Tornielli quotes Newman’s long list of items “of pagan origin” introduced into Holy Mother Church over the centuries, among them temples, incense, holy water, calendars, vestments etc etc, which “are sanctified by their adoption into the Church”.  In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, the newly-canonised convert Newman explains that ”The Church’s doctrine can never be corrupt. We consider that a divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal corruption …”

Yes, of course, as Newman says, “That great portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in heathen philosophies and religions”.

The point is, as Tornielli herself triumphantly quotes Newman, these ‘pagan elements’ are sanctified by their adoption into the church (sic).

Tornielli is distressingly literal-minded, and misses the point. “Adoption into the church” - even with a lower-case ‘c’ - cannot be reducedto parking ‘pagan elements’ like the pachamamas up on an altar in Santa Maria Transpontina, or even more absurdly on an altar in St Peter’s Basilica, even by a pope.

Still less does it mean that such a move can sanctify Pachamama, who has been clearly identified as the ‘Earth Goddess’ worshipped by the Incas of Peru, who indulged in human sacrifice. (Well of course, along with pagan New Zealanders, we Catholics indulge in human sacrifice too, viz abortion – but that’s another story.)

And now we must trump (oops sorry, that slipped out, please don’t get upset), Tornielli’s two saints with the greatest of saints, the Mother of God, invoking her under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Empress of the Americas, who appeared to the indigenous Juan Diego and is revered as their Heavenly Mother by the indigenous peoples of South America.

At the Amazon Synod, Our Lady of Guadalupe - Our Lady by any title - has been very conspicuous by her absence. She has been elbowed out by the Incan Earth Goddess that Our Lady was sent by God to replace.

Must we really trot out the First Commandment, “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not put strange gods before me”? The literal-minded like Tornielli should surely see that putting Pachamama on an altar - presumably in front of the tabernacle because the Italians, like all European countries, have kept the tabernacle in its rightful place - is literally putting a strange god before God.

If God’s command doesn’t persuade us, we could take a look at any of the Church’s Creeds or Professions of Faith, like for example the Creed of Pius IV, promulgated by the Council of Trent, which begins: “I believe in one  God”…

Sorry. All the ‘adoption’ in the world could not happen to an ‘Earth Goddess’. It’s hard to believe how even a dyed-in-the-wool modernist could want to ‘adopt’ into the Church a naked pregnant wooden woman, even or especially if she’s a Goddess.

In this press release, Vatican News displays the shallow, worldly arguments and prevarication that is only to be expected in their sorry attempts to defend this pontificate.

Catholics are obliged to believe everything that the Catholic Church believes and teaches. Vatican Council II states: By divine and Catholic faith everything must be believed that is contained in the written word of God (the Commandments) or in Tradition (the Creeds), and that is proposed by the Church as a divinely revealed object of belief either in a solemn decree or in Her ordinary, universal teaching. To save his/her soul, every Catholic must adhere to these dogmas of the Faith. 

Any teaching contrary to the Rule of Faith, i.e. contrary to the dogmas contained in the Deposit of Faith (the body of doctrines handed down from Jesus to the Apostles and from the Apostles to their successors) must be rejected as heresy. Nothing can be added that is not contained, at least implicitly, with the Deposit of Faith, because public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle.

So that nothing can be “sanctified by their adoption into the Church” which is contrary to the Rule of Faith, no matter who proposes it, not even a pope. None of the items in Newman’s list is contrary to the Rule of Faith; on the other hand, who could propose to adopt anything more opposed to the Rule of Faith than idol worship? 

And what a gift the Pope has handed to the Pentecostals, who've already made such inroads into the Catholic Church in South America! 

Now they can say Catholics worship idols, and whip out the pix to prove it. 




Paul Collits says: 

The Benedict option.

I say: 

For those who haven't heard of it, 'The Benedict Option' is a book by Rod Dreher, a best-seller which discusses living in the world while taking our Christian formation seriously. Dreher says we must get serious about forming our conscience on "the teaching of the Gospel, not on the teaching of the media".
Which is why I suggest, for starters, 'Fire Within' by Thomas Dubay SM. 
Bob Gill says:

Thank goodness those statues were not present at the closing Synod Mass, apparently in response to the concerned voices of wise-thinking bishops. I hate to think of what repercussions we would have had if the statues had been on display.

With the conclusion of the Synod, it will be interesting to now see what proposals Pope Francis accepts regarding married priests and if the debate on women deacons will be re-opened.


I say:

See Linda's comment. She reckons the bowl of dirt on the altar represented Pachamama and I reckon she's right.


Linda Clarke says:

These posts are a blessing and I think and pray that they will be of great help to the few (?) souls who are sincerely on the fence. How I see now, what a lean 'banquet' we had with NO.    Knowing nothing else, even  l'il 'ole me didn't like the 'spiritual drink' bit.   I am feasting on the amazing Catechism I bought - ya know, it's SO clear - and strict, I might say.   I love it.
And I did want to say "Bravo, Father Brazil !  It is wonderful to have a priest on board telling the Truth. Thank you!"

I say: 

As to the bowl of dirt and the plants which were placed on the altar at the Closing Mass of the Synod, placing anything except bread and wine on the altar during the Mass is absolutely verboten.