Should a pope worship false gods?

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Ipso_Facto

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I noticed the following on a closed thread.

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon1.gif Re: Would I be welcome here… IF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mandi
A Catholic (especially a Pope) should never be disrespectful. They should also not worship false gods!:whistle:

Do they worship a false God, or is their manner of worship, and their understanding of God, false?
I’ll provide some food for thought in answer to the question posed.

The psalmist tells us that “All the Gods of the
Gentiles are Devils” (Psalm 96:5) and hence to whom do
they render their worship? The Scriptures tell us
clearly " They provoked him by strange gods, and
stirred him up to anger, with their abominations.
They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom
they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their
fathers worshipped not. " (Deut 32:16- 17 Cf. also
Baruch 4:7)

They “sacrificed to devils and not to God” -
regardless of whether or not they might have believed
they were rendering homage to the True God, the
reality is quite the contrary! It is an erroneous
proposition to qualify a prayer addressed to the devil
as authentic prayer.
 
I can only guess that this referred to the Pope kissing the Koran?

I guess I’d need more specifics. Of course the Pope shouldn’t worship false gods, just as nobody else should. But JPII doesn’t, so I’m, not sure what the point is.
 
The Pope has never, to my knowledge, worshipped a false God (the sin of idolatry). However, at Assisi he aided and abetted this sin by inviting pagans of all stripes to come and encouraging them to pray to their false Gods for world peace. Moreover, he did not preach Christ to them.
 
Koran-kissing is indeed very worry-some but probably more so was when JP2 joined with the snake-worshippers in the snake pit, and was reported as telling the voodooists there that “You’re god is my god.” Which is nearly word for word reportedly what he told a Mohammedan.

In case you didn’t know. The snake-worshippers worship the “devil” (disguised as a snake) and the Moslems worship the “devil” (disguised as a NON-Triune god; where Christ is not recognized as the Messiah the 2nd person of the Blessed Trinity).
 
First Commandment: “I am the Lord Thy God, thou shall not have strange gods before me.”
 
Hiya, Ipso Facto,
It seems to me there’s a leap of logic in your original statement. you say
They “sacrificed to devils and not to God” - regardless of whether or not they might have believed they were rendering homage to the True God, the reality is quite the contrary!
Click to expand...
but it seems to me you snuck in this idea of ‘whether or not they believed they were rendering homage to the True God.’ The texts you quote from the bible don’t say anything about the gentiles trying to worship the True God. It says that they sacrificed to devils. If you can fill in the gap here please do.

The pope may have said something stupid once or twice. He’s not perfect. I’d be perfectly happy to defend his kissing of the Koran though 🙂 . And if he told voodooists what you say he said, then I can agree that it’s troublesome (would you care to provide documentation on the matter?) But as far as telling a Mohammedan that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, well I’d ask you please to elaborate on your problem with his statement, taking into consideration my challenge that the bible actually does not make a qualification such as “whether or not one intends to worship God he can still be worshipping a devil.” I find that assumption troublesome. IMO many muslims may in fact worship God. I certainly don’t accept the Koran is a holy book, and I doubt the pope does either, and I don’t accept many ideas about God that muslims hold. But they can still know Him to some extent. Can’t they?
 
There is a well known photograph that has been published in many different books and can be viewed on many websites and it shows a Shiva priestess reaching up with her right hand, planting the Shiva mark upon the forehead of John Paul II.

Shiva (pronounced “siva”) as the “Hindu God of Illusion, Yoga, Animals, Ascetics; Lord of the Dance, who lives on Mt. Kailas, Benares, and sundry other places around the world”. [Page 180 New Age Dictionary]

We know that the religion of Shiva is part of the Hindu religion, and that it is Pagan. If the Roman Catholic Pope is “Jesus Christ’s Vicar On Earth”, and if he is infallible when he is performing his duties as Pope, then how can he sanction the false religion of Hinduism? How can he allow a ceremony in which he not only receives a mark on his forehead, but he allows himself to take part in a ceremony which clearly identifies himself as being subservient to the Shiva priestess? Has Pope John Paul II forgotten our Lord’s Words on this matter of other religions?
John Paul II is defying the solemn Words of Jesus Christ when he gives credence and validity to the Pagan religion of Shiva. He is denying, by his actions, that Christianity is the only real religion on Earth. But he is doing much more: he is defying the commandment of God in Jeremiah 10:2, “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen”.
 
My previous post reads
…and if he is infallible when he is performing his duties as Pope, then how can he sanction the false religion of Hinduism?

Was meant to read
…if he is "Jesus Christ’s Vicar on Earth, he should not be doing these things when publicly performing his papal duties. If he is pope, then how can he sanction the false religion of Hinduism?
Naturally a pope is not infallible when performing his duties.

Does this forum only allow one edit per post?
 
hail, Queen of Sheeba,
these forums allow multiple edits but they need all to be done within a certain period of time.

regarding your complaint about the pope’s actions, well I might agree with you that it is in bad taste. But I don’t know enough about the particular circumstances you describe. Most of these things that scandalize Catholics about the pope’s behavior don’t scandalize me all that much and I am not about to spend my energy looking into all the details. The Koran kissing though? It’s been explained to my satisfaction. The action suited the time and place. I suspect that in some way, so does the Shiva priestess business. You’ll have to share more about it.

But regarding the conclusions you draw, I’m pretty confident that you pull them out of thin air. And that is this idea:
John Paul II is defying the solemn Words of Jesus Christ when he gives credence and validity to the Pagan religion of Shiva. He is denying, by his actions, that Christianity is the only real religion on Earth. But he is doing much more: he is defying the commandment of God in Jeremiah 10:2, “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen”.
Click to expand...
For one, you say that he denies the truth of Christianity. Who has been so led to believe? I know lots of people hostile to the Church, and they are immensely hostile to JPII. It is well understood even by non-religious people that he teaches adamantly that the Catholic Church is God’s one true Church. Who believes that he has taught otherwise? I was once in daliogue with a Protestant who in one minute criticized the pope for kissing the Koran and in the next minute criticized the Catholic Church for its teaching on no salvation outside the Church. I challenge you to show me where his actions (be they prudent or not … I’m not drawing any conclusions rashly) have led somebody to believe he teaches indifferentism.

Regarding you second complaint that we are instructed not to learn the way of the heathen … just read the rest of Jeremiah. It goes on to describe what the heathen’s ways are … so it is not talking about learning those ways in the sense of, knowing what they do or what their religious intentions are (Maybe you didn’t mean to say that’s what the passage teaches, but it’s how it reads in your statement above) God exhorts us not to take part in those practices.

Now: JPII has never practiced a false religion. Or can you show me where he has? And he does not leave people thinking that he teaches indifferentism. Or can you show me where he has?
 
If you remember Jesus Christ, who by the way is the founder of our faith, was only hostile to people who were hypocrits to their own faith! Jesus never condemned pagans, He condemned hypocritical Jews. The foundation of Christianity is love, love the verb, that is. It is best defined in the modern context of the word charity. To many people confuse the emotion of love with the verb of love. John Paul loves all of humanity in that he serves them as equals, regardless of their “religion”. Isn’t this what Jesus did? Christ never brow-beat anyone with His message, and He was the only one who had ultimate authority to. The first thing that Christ did is he made the people he interacted with feel loved. That opened up their hearts to His message.

Evangelization is a whole lot more than standing on a soap box with a copy of the Catechism and beating passers-by over the head with it. The church has never condoned force conversions. Remember St. Paul’s dissertation to the Corinthians about faith, hope and, love…the greatest is love. Paul ranks love higher than faith! Because if you have faith to move mountains and not love, you are nothing! (1 Corinthians 13:2) John Paul demonstrates the proper way to evangelize, love you neighbor as yourself. You can win converts to your “religion” because of a debate over dogma. You win converts to faith in Jesus when you show them the same love that Jesus has for you. Only after you demonstrate this does dogma become important. When a person really grasps how much God loves him, then he becomes concerned about how to properly love (the verb) Him back, and that is found in its fullness though our Catholic faith.
 
This (Koran, priestess) was all addressed I believe in Catholic Answer’s Q&A program from yesterday with Karl Keating. Download it from Catholic Answers website and give a listen.
 
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