Church Authority and the Amazon Controversy

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Is the assumption here really that Mary, the Mother of God made flesh, didn’t know when her Son, God incarnate, was born? Pardon me, but I find that rather hard to swallow.
 
MiserereMeiDei said:
Is the assumption here really that Mary, the Mother of God made flesh, didn’t know when her Son, God incarnate, was born? Pardon me, but I find that rather hard to swallow.
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They knew when a person reached certain ages because there are certain rituals marking religious growth. They did not celebrate birthdays though as the pagans did. It was regarded as being associated with idolatry.
 
I assume she wouldn’t have spoken of a pagan practice.
Especially because Jesus is 30 by the time she would have met Apostles or deciples. Who would be the conduit of the information to writers and church fathers many years later.
 
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thistle said:
Actually the Pope can change Canon Law which applies universally.
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He can, but the law is the law until he changes it. Flouting it is in poor taste at best, especially since he is its Supreme Legislator.
 
The entire topic is new, unexpected, and astonishing to me.

What I saw:
I saw idols in the Catholic Church, which are not accountable for as being statues of Christ, nor saints, or local servants of God according to what the bible tells us, at least not according to the English Standard Version Catholic Edition, nor Douay-Rheims, nor or the Protestant King James or any other Holy Bible, nor in the Jewish Holy Books. No spirit of the earth is validated in holy writing.

I saw, in the video, inside a Catholic church, printed on a large banner the photographic explanation of the “life spirit” represented by the pachamama idol. This is not the Virgin Mary but quite different.

What I believe about the indigenous people?
SO out of compassion the native woman suckled the animal. In developed countries, someone would have taken the baby animal to a safe place and bottle fed it. But where should that woman find a bottle and milk/formula, when all babies there are breast-fed? We must excuse the compassionate act toward the animal, the people are poor and uneducated.

This is only to say what understanding I get from that depiction. In my conscience I can’t agree with the idolatry behind it.

commandment 1: obviously, idols=no. Statues and paintings/images are allowed as works of art to inspire prayer. Remind me to pray.

commandment 6: yes it’s wrong to steal. I’d have to talk with the priest right away about the idol if same was found in church. I would expect the priest to take action.

I would rather be guilty of stealing or destroying idols than guilty of abiding with false gods and idols in God’s Holy Church. I’d probably destroy an idol or throw it away myself, if I was there and moved by the Holy Spirit through conscience. Right now, I confess being happy to have seen those idols thrown in the river. But that could be an error of my ignorance. Patience, for a while.

If the Catholic church is going to allow idolatry, I have a very difficult time of prayer and decision based on what Jesus said in the bible, vs. what a broken church could say. I’m not at all ready to go Protestant and lose so much, but I’m not going for 'pendulous goddess of the earth or any paganism.
I want clear statements from a position of authority. Patience for me, for a while.

Too much speculation in all the arguments. I’m willing to wait for clarity. God won’t deny wisdom to whom asks for it.

Right now I am waiting for a clear statement from the Pope on this matter and I pray the Holy Spirit will provide wisdom and truth so that a statement makes clear sense to all, educated or not.

And I expect something to be said on this coming Sunday in the homily, as surely the scandal is well-advertised by now.
 
You couldn’t be guilty of stealing an idol from a church when no one has the authority to place one in a church in the first place. No one has the authority to sin or to tell others to sin.
 
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This article is hilarious!

An official Vatican reaction from Andrea Tornielli is quoted:
The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees, incense, lamps and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water, asylums; holy days and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the east, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the church.
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As if they had not read Tornielli’s comment, a petition accompanies the article:
SIGN PETITION: Call on Vatican to remove all “pagan” symbols from St. Peter’s and the Synod Hall!
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Shall we get rid of “turning to the east”, chant, vestments, processions, etc? as Lifesite calls for?
 
I’ve heard the objection that they were of Jewish origin or whatever so maybe they’ll stick with that.
 
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Just to clarify, the passage above was written by St John Newman and quoted by Tornielli.

I have no idea where the Judaism theme comes from, Lifesite’s own expert describes it as “… elements of suppressed pagan cults to facilitate the conversion of the heathen…”

The humor is in circulating a petition that the Vatican could read as calling for an end to “turning to the east” etc. Do they really not realize how ridiculous that is?
 
I’ll link you to the chapter of Cardinal Newmans orthodox essay so you can see that he was not mistaking anything, Here. The customs and rituals that grew with Christian worship were recognisable as incorporating the experience of the gentiles ‘worship’ rather than Jewish because Christ’s sacrifice naturally found resonance in what was already valued there.

Newmans essay references St Jeromes defense of candles and oils against another Christian presbyter Vigilantius. This was somewhere around the year 400 AD. That attack is still used today by Protestants against the Catholic Eucharist.

And St. Jerome asks Vigilantius, who made objections to lights and oil, “Because we once worshipped idols, is that a reason why we should not worship God, for fear of seeming to address him with an honour like that which was paid to idols and then was detestable, whereas this is paid to Martyrs and therefore to be received?”
 
Well I must be honest to feeling a certain uplifting at the removal of the wooden carvings, and then wondering if this was disobedience to the Holy Father and having to attend confession to confess this potential disobedience.

Anyone else go through this?
 
But us sitting here in the 21st century, were not privy to nuanced symbolism that had been adopted by the new Christian Church in the early days. What was happening in Christ’s worship was causing knowledgeable Christians at the that time, discomfort because of the ‘pagan’ feel of what was happening. So we have a long history in the Church of having to define what is good and true in other faiths and what is not.
 
Canon Law only applies to the Roman Catholic Church. The Code of Eastern Canons applies to the Eastern Catholic Churches.
 
I don’t think so. The Eastern Catholic patriarchs would strenuously object to having our Canons changed, and it would drive the EO farther away from us imo.
 
Fauken said:
This whole business with the icons is a horribly sad affair. I wish they were never involved with the Synod. I wish none of this was happening. Throwing them in the river is a conclusion to a story that should have never began.
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They were idols not icons. Icons are images of Our Lord, Our Lady or the Saints. And they never should have been in a Catholic church.
 
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Margaret_Ann said:
They were idols not icons. Icons are images of Our Lord, Our Lady or the Saints. And they never should have been in a Catholic church.
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Whoops, I didn’t even notice I said icons! I think that was a spelling error.
 
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