Thoughts on Amazon Synod

  • Thread starter Thread starter zgraf
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Isn’t the point of evangelization to make converts to Catholicism?

And yet now, evangelism seems to be frowned upon. I recall hearing several Catholic converts’ stories about approaching a priest for instruction only to be told that they are fine where they are. Does the Church want to convert the people of the Amazon to Catholicism or does it want to affirm their native culture? Or is it all about ecology?

The only religion I know of which has currently engaged in conversion by force is Islam in certain places. I don’t know of any Catholics trying to evangelize by coercion.
 
Trying2overcome said:
I already gave the reasons. Bowing to it, honoring it, carrying it in procession
Click to expand...
In Australia we ‘invented’ Our Lady of the Southern Cross. Her image which was officially blessed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, is a fair haired, fair skinned woman. She is bowed before in prayer, honoured and carried in processions on her feast. She is the patron of the Anglican Ordinariate here.

I just wonder why an Amazonian woman isn’t an appropriate representation?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
Last edited:
See this is wrong, they tried contributing and they were shut out.
[/quote]

Not at all true. Cdl Ottaviano and Cdl Bacci wrote the Pope in 1969 asking that the old Mass still be approved for those who didn’t want anything to do with the reforms.
 
If you’re trying to accuse me of prejudice, its not gonna work. I’m the same color as the amazon figure. The point I’m trying to make is why give such veneration-- the type we give to images of Our Lady-- to an image that isn’t even confirmed as our Lady? Its just confusing
 
Trying2overcome said:
If you’re trying to accuse me of prejudice, its not gonna work. I’m the same color as the amazon figure. The point I’m trying to make is why give such veneration-- the type we give to images of Our Lady-- to an image that isn’t even confirmed as our Lady? Its just confusing
Click to expand...
Whatever she represents, I think it’s amazing and heartening that they already have a sense of a supernatural maternal force of love to reference Our Lady with. So many Protestants baulk at coming into the Church because of our love of the Holy Mother. They have been so poisoned by the idea that it is exclusively a pagan concept.
 
Even if it is ‘heartwarming,’ that’s no excuse to bring pagan worship into the Church (If indeed that image is a pagan goddess), nor should pagan rites be used to kick off a Catholic synod.
 
My son, on his way to Panama for World Youth Day in January, went via Mexico city in order to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Catholic guide said that that when the Spanish had come to convert them, they found that the Aztecs veneration of Tonantzin, the Goddess of the Earth was easily translated to the Christian Mary, Mother of God. Protestant missionaries had a much harder time trying to rid the Aztecs spirituality of a supernatural maternal force. Now I have ‘one decade’ size rosaries of Our Lady of Guadalupe hanging on all the doors in the house!
 
Trying2overcome said:
Even if it is ‘heartwarming,’ that’s no excuse to bring pagan worship into the Church (If indeed that image is a pagan goddess), nor should pagan rites be used to kick off a Catholic synod.
Click to expand...
How do you feel watching the traditional African cultural displays that kicked off St Paul VI tour of Uganda 50 years ago?

 
Last edited:
I don’t mind cultural displays. Pagan rites are more than simple cultural displays. Plus, those dances were done before Paul VI even arrived.
 
Perhaps reading Pope St Paul VI’s homily at the Ugandan Mass will enlighten.

Granted this first reply, however, we now come to the second. The expression, that is, the language and mode of manifesting this one Faith, may be manifold; hence, it may be original, suited to the tongue, the style, the character, the genius, and the culture, of the one who professes this one Faith. From this point of view, a certain pluralism is not only legitimate, but desirable. An adaptation of the Christian life in the fields of pastoral, ritual, didactic and spiritual activities is not only possible, it is even favoured by the Church. The liturgical renewal is a living example of this. And in this sense you may, and you must, have an African Christianity. Indeed, you possess human values and characteristic forms of culture which can rise up to perfection such as to find in Christianity, and for Christianity, a true superior fulness, and prove to be capable of a richness of expression all its own, and genuinely African. This may take time. It will require that your African soul become imbued to its depths with the secret charisms of Christianity, so that these charisms may then overflow freely, in beauty and wisdom, in the true African manner. It will require from your culture that it should not refuse, but rather eagerly desire, to draw, from the patrimony of the patristic, exegetical, and theological tradition of the Catholic Church, those treasures of wisdom which can rightly be considered universal, above all, those which can be most easily assimilated by the African mind. The Church of the West did not hesitate to make use of the resources of African writers, such as Tertullian, Optatus of Milevis, Origen, Cyprian and Augustine (cf. Optatam totius, No. 16). Such an exchange of the highest expressions of Christian thought nourishes, without altering the originality, of any particular culture. It will require an incubation of the Christian “mystery” in the genius of your people in order that its native voice, more clearly and frankly, may then be raised harmoniously in the chorus of the other voices in the Universal Church. Do We need to remind you, in this regard, how useful it will be for the African Church to possess centres of contemplative and monastic life, centres of religious studies, centres of pastoral training? If you are able to avoid the possible dangers of religious pluralism, the danger of making your Christian profession into a kind of local folklore, or into exclusivist racism, or into egoistic tribalism or arbitrary separatism, then you will be able to remain sincerely African even in your own interpretation of the Christian life; you will be able to formulate Catholicism in terms congenial to your own culture; you will be capable of bringing to the Catholic Church the precious and original contribution of “negritude”, which she needs particularly in this historic hour.
 
That’s the vision of the Third Secret released in June 2000. The Third Secret per se begins with the exact words of Our Lady: "In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc… Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him."

Source: Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words. Fourth Memoir.

Since the Most Holy Mother of God does not end Her sentences with “etc.”, therefore there must be more that She said.
 
Pope St Paul Vi is talking about inculturation (which I don’t mind), which is not the same as pagan worship.
 
What happened at the synod was pagan worship (If the image represented was a goddess). What happened in Uganda was Africans dancing and preparing to greet the pope. Major difference.
 
Trying2overcome said:
What happened at the synod was pagan worship (If the image represented was a goddess). What happened in Uganda was Africans dancing and preparing to greet the pope. Major difference.
Click to expand...
It was a tree planting ceremony. Not a black Mass or something. Millions of US Catholics dress up for Halloween night. Millions of US Catholics give great reverence to the green goddess of liberty in the Hudson River. (Which is a great symbol in my opinion). Why can’t the Amazonians, demonstrate a cultural more in tree planting without being dissed to high heaven?
 
Since this is a synod of Brazilian bishops - and perhaps others from South America - I wonder how it is that a 90 year old German Cardinal knows so much about what the Brazilian bishops intend to put together in a synod document and submit to Rome.

Thank you for once again confirming why I don’t watch Church Militant and Mr. Voris.

And not to beat a horse to death, but I will flog it one more time: I suggest Mr. Voris read paragraphs 37 through 40 of Sacrosanctum Concilium.
 
I cringe every time something like this synod takes place.

Can you imagine St. John Paul II doing something like this?

Neither can I.
 
I have no idea why you are troubled.

Pope John Paul 2 ended the discussion on women priests; it is amazing to me how many people insist on bringing this up ad nauseum.

The Church has had married priests ever since the time of the Apostles. It has them today. The Roman rite had them until somewhere around the 10th century, and has them this very day; according to one source there may be a couple of hundred; primarily from the Anglican, Episcopalian, and Lutheran communities, and Cardinal Levada when he was archbishop of Oregon ordained one who had been a Presbyterian minister before converting.

In other words, that is old news. It is a discipline - a rule - , not a doctrine and it would be helpful if people stopped lumping it in with doctrines. There have been symbols on churches and other Church property which some have taken as pagan symbols, going back to the middle ages. No clue what this is about, but how about we let the synod do its work? What they do after their meeting, is a document is written. And it is then up to the Vatican to accept, reject, or accept in part what is set forth in the synodal document. In short, until a document comes out, all we are doing is playing telephone chairs.
 
Last edited:
Yes the image is Pagan, it’s called Pachamama. Dr Taylor Marshall looked into it and said historically in Amazon , prior to European arrival, it was an angry goddess who would punish the people by causing earthquakes. Then after Europeans arrived it eventually developed a more gentle and materialistic image. Sounds like angry Amazonian Pachamama image was changed based cultural influence of arrival of European Christians.
 
If the Amazon image is a pagan goddess, it is 100 percent wrong and inappropriate for Catholics to make a circle around it, dance around it, offer prayers, bow to it. It is that simple. If it simply represented life, I would call those actions confusing and unnecessary, but maybe not morally wrong. I don’t see what Catholics dressing up on halloween has to do with this. As for the statue of liberty, if I ever walk into a church and see it treated like the Amazon image was treated, I would definitely be concerned. But US Catholics don’t do that. Especially not in any Church related functions.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top