Amazon Synod idols cast in River Tiber today

[Rubee]

Are you as careful with how you assign the term “worship” when speaking about particular pagans as you would want Protestants to be when speaking about how Catholics “worship” Mary?

Paganism is a broad term and there are many pagans. I don’t asume they all believe or practice identically, do you? For all you know, the way “Life” and “Fertility” are honored or conceptualized may be different or have importante nuances among peoples.

Wasn’t it the medieval scholastics who said: never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish…

It doesn’t need to be worship to be grossly inappropriate in a catholic church or ceremony. We don’t bring Krishna and Shakti into our churches or ceremonies and bow to them and we shouldn’t bring tribal deities either.

The worship of the earth as a mother/goddess/life/fertility deity is one of the most ancient religious practices. Moreover, the deity is almost always represented like these statues: nude, heavily pregnant, with a babe. It’s scandalous to throw that into a Christian ceremony when St. Paul cautioned eating of meat for the mere reason it might create scandal. Now we’re not just eating meat sacrificed to pagan deities and sold in the market after, we are bringing these deities into our temples and ceremonies and venerating them. Amazing to me? That this is sthing to debate: what abt its impropriety is difficult to get?

 

[Rubee]

My point is this: While we no longer live in the age of conquest, we do still live in an age of paganism ( a very broad term) coexisting in the same world as Christianity. What should the Christian response be and in what ways should it differ from or be the same as in the past?

No one has even remotely suggested interfering in any way with things outside catholic centres and ceremonies. I do find it kinda interesting that it keeps being brought up as if it’s a legitimate concern that catholics are suggesting/planning to invade other people’s homes or non-catholic places of worship for any reason.

How about we just stick to the topic at hand? It’s: What is the appropriate response by Catholics to the inclusion of pagan deities in our churches and ceremonies by clergy? What’s the appropriate response by clergy and if/when they do nothing, by laity? That’s the topic.

 

[Emeraldlady]

We don’t bring Krishna and Shakti into our churches or ceremonies and bow to them and we shouldn’t bring tribal deities either.

Are you 100% sure that Our Lady of the Amazon is a ‘tribal deity’?

 

[PeterT]

We love to call out ISIS for destroying things in the name of God. We can be hypocrits of the highest degree sometimes.

Not the same thing.

These two people didn’t go to a pagan temple and destroyed or desecrated it like ISIS did when they destroyed Christian churches.

A more accurate analogy would be if some Muslim clerics thought it would be okay to place a statue of a Catholic saint like Saint Francis in a mosque which then caused an uproar among the Muslim faithful so that two members of the Moslem community went in and removed the statue of Saint Francis from their mosque because they felt strongly that the statue of Saint Francis was desecrating their sacred place.

 

[PeterT]

Rubee:

We don’t bring Krishna and Shakti into our churches or ceremonies and bow to them and we shouldn’t bring tribal deities either.

Are you 100% sure that Our Lady of the Amazon is a ‘tribal deity’?

Those statues were not “Our Lady of the Amazon”. Here’s an image of “Our Lady of the Amazon”. Note like all authorized depictions of our Blessed Mother, this depiction shows the Blessed Virgin Mary fully clothed and not naked.

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[Johann_du_Toit]

You can’t convert people who don’t want to talk to you.
Unless you use the sword. Which is where this militant ‘toss all idols in the garbage’ comes from.

Moses destroyed the Golden Calf. St Boniface chopped down the Tree dedicated to Thor. The Spanish Conquistadors destroyed the Aztec altars that were used for human sacrifices. The treatment of these Pachamama statues should be seen in the same context as this.

 

[Rubee]

Are you 100% sure that Our Lady of the Amazon is a ‘tribal deity’?

I’m assuming the Vatican knows what they received and feel no need to think they are stupid and confused and mistaking our lady for statues of ‘Life, Fertility, and Earth-Mother’ as they describe them.

 

[Rubee]

She’s beautiful!

 

[Nelka]

Why were they brought back?

Who threw them in?

 

[adgloriam]

It’s funny that you contradict yourself in successive sentences @Rubee :

The Roman govts that persecuted the early church were deemed legitimate by Jesus, the apostles, and the church.

Citation, please. When did Christians ever consider that Roman authorities were an illegitmate govt because they were persecuting Christians?

Lawsuits before Unbelievers.
1Cor 1:1. How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones?
1Cor 1:2. Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts?
1Cor 1:3. Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters?
1Cor 1:4. If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church?
1Cor 1:5. I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers?
1Cor 1:6. But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers?

So you’ll leave me to justify your own points? Wow.

No. What I say is coherent and well sourced, I don’t expect that much from you.

[CCC 1900] The duty of obedience requires all to give due honor to authority and to treat those who are charged to exercise it with respect, and, insofar as it is deserved, with gratitude and good-will.

 

[Rubee]

It’s funny that you contradict yourself in successive sentences @Rubee :

What’s the contradiction? Those govts were legitimate and Christians never considered them illegitimate. Perhaps you need to read what you quote from me. My two statements make the exact same point: that the govt was legitimate authority, and yet some of its laws were not legitimate rules for Christians to follow. Now find me your big contradiction.

1Cor 1:1. How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones?
1Cor 1:2. Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts?
1Cor 1:3. Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters?
1Cor 1:4. If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church?
1Cor 1:5. I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers?
1Cor 1:6. But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers?

Irrelevant: "Christians, don’t sue each other in the courts of pagans: bring your disputes to us" is NOT, as you are trying to insinuate, "Pagan govts are illegitimate."

[CCC 1900] The duty of obedience requires all to give due honor to authority and to treat those who are charged to exercise it with respect, and, insofar as it is deserved , with gratitude and good-will.

And does not make your point AT ALL that the pagan authorities were illegitimate. You can disobey unjust laws without that making the govt that made them illegitimate. Stop mixing up the legitimacy of laws with the legitimacy of govts.

 

[adgloriam]

Those statues were not “Our Lady of the Amazon”.

Those who presented the statues to pope Francis said it was “Our Lady of the Amazon”.

The INVOCATION under the title “Our Lady of the Amazon” exists and is valid. What was wrong was the iconography, purity of intention outweighs formality of iconography in this case.

 

[Maximus1]

What does that mean?

 

[GEddie]

Why on earth does everything need to be connected to sexual misdeeds in the 1900s Church?

Yes, wrongs were committed. Everybody admits that now. It’s been splashed in 108 point type all over our minds.

Does that mean that other issues no longer exist??!!

 

[commenter]

St JP2 and Pope Emeritus Retained some officials in high positions who had points of view different from the pope, and different from each other. Since 2013, those who think different are shipped away, and their dubias are ignored. Francis surrounds himself with people who think just like him.

An inner circle with so little diversity increases the chance of blunders. People throw idols in the river because they feel marginalized.

 

[adgloriam]

because that’s the verdict the Vatican established afterwards.

It’s independent of what the Indians explicitly said when they presented the statues to the pope, and also posterior to when the icons were carried into the church from where they were stolen.

The Vatican’s assessment does not pertain to the facts as they were unfolding, it only ascertains the icons weren’t officially accepted as intended.

 

[Rubee]

It’d be worse to me, if this was a depiction of our Lady: why present her as a naked, heavily pregnant woman? Is that how you’d want your mother’s picture at the Vatican?

 

[adgloriam]

Note like all authorized depictions of our Blessed Mother, this depiction shows the Blessed Virgin Mary fully clothed and not naked.

This is again not true.

The “Nursing Madonna” and “Our Lady of Visitation” being two classic notable exceptions.

(this one is dedicated to you @Emeraldlady , for your valuable contributions. Folks during the discoveries and the middle ages where indeed more enlightened than so many today )

The depiction is mentioned by Pope Gregory the Great, and a mosaic depiction probably of the 12th century is on the facade of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, though few other examples survive from before the late Middle Ages. It continued to be found in Orthodox icons (…), especially in Russia.

Usage of the depiction seems to have revived with the Cistercian Order in the 12th century, as part of the general upsurge in Marian theology and devotion.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

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[adgloriam]

the Vatican “doesn’t buy”.

They conduct sensitive dialogues with serious language, which is different of the false zeal and misguided rhetoric that we’ve seen.

And enough serious commentators have tried to explain what happened. If people can’t be bothered to do some research there’s not much hope of them understanding anything (including their own faith).

 

[adgloriam]

No media outlet dependent of any bishop’s conference would take that stance.

Check your sources.