Amazon Synod idols cast in River Tiber today

[Beryllos]

I believe 1 or 2 Catholics have already written to Vatican and publicly protested outside of Synod to no effect.

Hence Plan B.

Yeah, who ever heard of patience and obedience to the Church. Let’s round up a posse, and take matters into our own hands, because… um… we know better than those old guys in robes.

 

[Usagi]

Pachamama is worshiped as a benevolent deitiy in the area of Tawantinsuyu. Tawantinsuyu is the name of the former Inca Empire, and the region stretches through the Andean mountains into many present-day countries.

Doesn’t matter if it’s Andean or Incan, pagan fertility goddess statues don’t belong in a Catholic Church.

The issue is that Pachamama is apparently associated with a whole other part of South America than the Amazon region. Which calls into question the identification of the Amazonian images with Pachamama.

There’s also apparently one case already in which Pachamama worship was Christianized into veneration of a form of the Virgin Mary — Our Lady of Candelaris, honored in the Canary Islands. Of course, there has long been speculation that the same occurred many times over long ago during the conversion of Europe. It’s rarely as clean as “give up every custom and festival you used to have and adopt ours instead,” but more “let’s change the names and meanings associated with these customs and festivals so that you can keep them but be Christian now.” (When we occasionally have tried to replace a culture wholesale, as with indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australia, it has invariably involved horrific mistreatment.)

If we are witnessing an earlier stage of that with these Amazon images, it may well be uncomfortable for us European-descended Catholics, but it’s not some newfangled and terrible compromise by the modernized Church. It’s how the Church has done its most successful conversions.

 

[Beryllos]

Paul is not chastised anywhere. Quit making up fake scriptures. How unbecoming.

Acts 9 is not fake Scripture.

 

[PetraG]

You’re not suggesting that God “moves” people to steal from churches and destroy items they don’t believe belong in them instead of to have the courage to go directly to the rector or the bishop when there is a liturgical abuse? No, I know where pride and theft come from, and it isn’t God.

I don’t think you understand where this line of reasoning leads. This was a theft. It should not be approved.

 

[Anrakyr]

Yeah, who ever heard of patience and obedience to the Church. Let’s round up a posse, and take matters into our own hands, because… um… we know better than those old guys in robes.

Especially since the church is trying to make inroads in the Amazon. How can we expect anyone from down there to think we respect them after this?

Following the incident, Paolo Ruffini, the head of Vatican communications, repeated that the image resents “life, fertility, mother earth.”

Ruffini said the incident “seems to me to contradict the gesture of dialogue” that the Synod should represent.

Oh, look…

 

[Aquinas11]

You’re not suggesting that God “moves” people to steal from churches and destroy items they don’t believe belong in them instead of to have the courage to go directly to the rector or the bishop

Wow I didn’t realize Jesus should have gone to the rector or bishop before destroying the market in the temple.

 

[Beryllos]

Excuses for bad behavior.

 

[Rubee]

Acts 9 is not fake Scripture.

Acts 9 is St Paul’s conversion story: He was murdering Christians then he became one. Irrelevant. Still waiting for St. Paul getting chastised for his preaching of “fire and brimstone” as was pretended to exist.

 

[Aquinas11]

Excuses for bad behavior.

Yes condemning destruction of idols does excuse bad behavior (idol worship)

 

[PetraG]

I have no patience for the suggestion that there is room for rebellion within the Church by dissidents who paint themselves as more faithful than the bishops. This is not how the saints dealt with distressing decisions or behaviors by the heirarchy, not even when Popes went off the rails. No, that is the way the Womenpriests talk–they do what they want and “reject” their excommunications and pretend that the power in the Church is something to be obtained by fighting over it and that they’re saving the Church and following the Holy Spirit by self-appointing themselves to positions of authority they do not have. I’ll have none of it.

 

[Aquinas11]

I have no patience for the suggestion that there is room for rebellion within the Church by dissidents who paint themselves as more faithful than the bishops.

Agree 100% , I have no patience for the suggestion that there is room for False Idol worship within the Church by dissidents who paint themselves as more faithful than those who abide by Scripture that Idols must be destroyed.

 

[PetraG]

OK, but not by any means that crosses their minds. The Vatican says the items were stolen. That is nothing to cheer about.

 

[PetraG]

Agree 100% , there is no room for False Idol worship within the Church by dissidents who paint themselves as more faithful than those who abide by Scripture that Idols must be destroyed.

Nobody was worshipping those statues. Nobody was asking anybody to worship those statues.
I’m done trying to have a conversation when the question is whether it is bishops and pastors and rectors who have authority over a church or whether any Catholic who walks in the door and decides that the furnishings are an abuse has the authority to remove them and toss them in a river.

I cannot believe that is even a question, to be frank. And this is on the Traditional Catholicism forum? My mind has been boggled this morning.

 

[Rubee]

To be fair, someone could’ve accused our Lord of ‘stealing’ the money-changer’s goods or even destruction of property. He overturned their stuff and drove them out with a whip, no?

 

[PetraG]

To be fair, someone could’ve accused our Lord of ‘stealing’ the money-changer’s goods or even destruction of property. He overturned their stuff and drove them out with a whip, no?

He was asked by what authority he did what he did. Are you satisfied with his answer?
Can the people who took the statutes without permission of the rector, pastor, bishop or the Holy See say the same as Our Lord could?

Those statues were not being offered as idols for worship. They could have been covered, they could have been removed from the place they were in without being stolen. Several licit ways to respond to the problem were rejected.

 

[Rubee]

I don’t know: maybe they can, given they have such a holy example.

 

[Aquinas11]

Nobody was worshipping those statues

Asked and answered. They were all gathered in a circle around the idols, on their knees, with face in the mat. Pope Francis was present. They put black ring on Pope Francis’ finger. To suggest it wasn’t worship and something like a yoga class is laughable.

I cannot believe that is even a question, to be frank

Agreed, its most obvious pagan worship ceremony I’ve ever seen.

 

[Rubee]

Those statues were not being offered as idols for worship. They could have been covered, they could have been removed from the place they were in without being stolen. Several licit ways to respond to the problem were rejected.

I think that’s presuming a lot. What would stop others from taking the covers off?

 

[steph03]

I would have had no problem if the bishop or priest of the church they were in asked for them to be removed. Throwing them in the river, well this just shows me the person who did this may have had good intentions, but did something wrong.

As for comparing the pagan idols with the statue of Christ or Mary, you are correct. Because the statue of Christ or Mary has as much importance to me as a pagan has for his idols. And Christ says we should treat others (not just those we agree with) as we would want ourselves to be treated. Keep in mind that in no way I am saying there is anything right about idol worship, there isn’t.

Unfortunately the Church went from being persecuted from the pagans to being the persecutor. Did we not learn? Show me your reaction in love and not a crusader attitude. You can have faith to move mountains, but if you have no love… you have nothing. 1 Corinthians 13

“It’s terrible to see people who say they are Christians, but who are full of bitterness”
-Pope Francis

 

[Rubee]

There’s no persecution. I think we need to tone down the hyperbole. It was a pagan idol in a catholic ceremony and was thrown out. I blame the prelates who insisted on it in the first place.