May 5 2004: Hindu "priest" prays pagan prayer at Catholic altar. This is a desecration, no matter how the present authorities at Fatima now try to justify it.
Posted on 11/05/2004 6:32:48 PM PST by Land of the Irish
That Hindu pilgrims were granted use of the Little Chapel of the Apparitions at Fatima to offer the Blessed Mother the worship accorded to their goddesses has angered and astounded some Catholics. The response is understandable, if far from universal, and the fact that so few of the faithful have been alarmed by this blasphemy is a measure of how the sin of human respect has come to be regarded as a virtue in the catalogue of ecumenism.
May 5 2004: Hindu "priest" prays pagan prayer at Catholic altar. This is a desecration, no matter how the present authorities at Fatima now try to justify it.
This sin, described more aptly by its Latin name, timor mundanus — worldly fear, arises from a reluctance to suffer the disapproval of men because of one’s fidelity to God. When this sin becomes habitual, human respect is confused with the virtue of charity: the sinner begins to believe that he is serving God by pleasing men and refrains from espousing any truth that men might find offensive.
At the other end of the moral spectrum from timor mundanus is what is called bitter zeal. Few of our actions are untainted by the sins and imperfections to which we are given, and this includes our defense of the faith. Our genuine and noble desire to set forth the Church’s doctrines clearly and to distinguish them from the distortions and perversions to which they are so frequently subjected is sometimes expressed in terms that appear harsh and intemperate. In attempting to practice the spiritual works of mercy — instructing the ignorant or counseling the doubtful — we can allow our pride and personal pique to color our speech and frustrate our own purposes. We must be righteous, but never self- righteous.
Fraternal correction should be rooted in fraternal charity, and this charity must penetrate the will as well as the intellect. We may know that someone is wrong, but our love of truth must be joined to our love of neighbor if we are to instruct our erring brother in what is right. Not all of us possess fraternal charity to the degree that enables us to practice fraternal correction in an effective manner. We must also remind ourselves that God distributes His talents and graces unevenly, as seems good to Him, and that not all of us are called to all tasks.
In light of these principles, how ought each of us to respond to the spectacle of pagan worship at one of our most revered Catholic shrines? Our first recourse is always prayer, and, in this case, prayer of reparation. We may want to scream out our protest, and it may be imperative to do so in certain circumstances, but first we ought to comfort Our Lord, tending to the wound in His Mystical Body by offering Him our love and faith. It is good to remember that Our Lady of Fatima did not implore us to condemn sinners but to offer sacrifices for their conversion and to make reparations for their sins. Once we have prayed, then we may act as prudence directs.
Those among the clergy and the laity whom Providence has deigned to give a public voice must raise that voice to denounce this action. Both the rector of the Fatima Shrine and the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, who not only allowed this blasphemy but commended it, must be told that they have sinned against God and given scandal to the faithful. Were Rome to be more diligent in applying its disciplinary powers, both priest and prelate would be removed from their respective offices and required to make public recantations.
Barring a miracle, however, there is no likelihood of this happening. In fact, we must recognize that the reception of the Hindus at the chapel is no doubt pleasing to those members of the Curia who wish to remove Fatima as an obstacle to their new ecumenical religion. Nothing could be more anathema to that religion than the vision of countless souls falling into hell, or the prophecy that Russia will be converted to the Catholic faith. And although Hindus now feel comfortable at Fatima, it seems unlikely that the Russian Orthodox ever will. And the comfort of the Orthodox is a paramount concern to certain of the Curia, to whom Fatima is bothersome.
The fact that raising our voices will most certainly not move Rome to action, however, cannot be an excuse for remaining silent. We must speak out. We must make those men who betray the faith mindful of what they are doing, of the danger they pose to the Church and to their own salvation. It may be that we will fail to convert the wayward, but we can at least curb their boldness, for they might work even more harm were they not aware of our readiness to oppose the Church’s truth to their falsehood.
We must also make unmistakably clear which dogma or precept they have violated. To this end, we must know precisely what action the Hindus performed at the Little Chapel of the Apparitions, and how they understood this action.
The Hindus, some of whom once lived in Portuguese colonies, have been long familiar with Catholic devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, but it appears that they have not understood the nature of that devotion. We see Our Lady as a creature distinct from Her Creator. We honor Her as the Mother of Jesus, the incarnation of the second Person of the Blessed Trinity; we regard Her as our spiritual Mother; we seek Her help through Her intercession. But we do not worship Her, for worship belongs to God alone and not to creatures.
The Hindus at Fatima offered Our Lady what they call puja, that is, divine worship. As the pilgrims and their shastri, or “priest,” explained, they regard Mary as the manifestation of God, just as they regard the deities of their own pantheon, each of whom has a male and female aspect. Mary they regard as the female aspect of the Christian deity, and the Christian deity as merely the Western conception of their maja deva, or supreme god. It is essential to understand this. The Hindus do not regard the Blessed Mother as an historical person distinct from Her Creator, but as one of their quasi-mythological avatars, or divine manifestations.
The Hindus made this quite clear; so clear, in fact, that even the television commentator understood it and repeated it, so the shrine rector and bishop cannot plead ignorance of what was taking place.
They allowed Mary to be worshipped as God by pagan apostates. It is that simple and that terrible. What divine commandment did they violate? The very first one: I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima and the rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima permitted idolatry and praised it publicly.
It is a common canard among Protestants that Catholics worship Mary, and the ecumenists within the Church have become so sensitive to the charge of mariolatry that they have downplayed, if not discouraged, Marian devotion in the aftermath of Vatican II. It is a sad and curious fact that the first officially countenanced act of mariolatry in the Church’s two thousand-year history was performed in May by Hindu pilgrims at Fatima.
The horror of what has occurred has moved some commentators to strong words. The Hindus made it plain they they were not worshipping the historical Mary, but a manifestation of the female aspect — maja devi — of their supreme deity.
And Sacred Scripture has said that all the gods of the pagans are devils: so some have concluded that what took place at Fatima in May was devil worship. I can find no flaw in the reasoning. I can find no excuse for the bishop and the rector.
But what about the Hindus?
We tend to assume that those who engage in devil worship are malevolent, and that this malevolence must be manifest. But such is not always the case. Perhaps, it is seldom so.
Those who have had an opportunity to view a video of the Portuguese telecast of the Hindus at Fatima cannot help but note the gentleness of these people and their transparently sincere conviction that they are honoring Mary by offering Her worship. The fact is, they do not understand our faith, nor Mary’s relationship to the Trinitarian God of Catholicism; nor were their misconceptions cleared up by the men charged with doing so: the rector and bishop.
The Hindu is a pantheist. He makes no distinction between God and creation: the two are one. So for them, not only is Mary divine, but so are we all. The perception of individual existence is regarded as an illusion, as what Hindus call maya. Their great philosopher Shankaracharya, the Hindu counterpart to Aquinas, sums up all of Hindu religion in three statements: The world is illusion; Brahman is truth; the individual soul and Brahman are one. Brahman is their term for the creator god, the ground and sum of all reality.
Now, not all Hindus have the same grasp of their religion, nor does their religion recognize any supreme doctrinal authority. (The Catholic Faith alone of all the world’s religions possesses such a magisterium.) There are many levels of religion in India, with many Hindus failing to appreciate the subtle and abstract thought of Shanakaracharya and remaining attached to a particular deity, often contending with devotees of other gods: those who worship god as Shiva the Destroyer do not always live harmoniously with those who worship god as Vishnu the Preserver. And among the villages of India, one can find temples to the elephant god Ganesha, to his rat consort, to the monkey god Hanuman, and so on, almost ad infinitum. Brahmin priests have distilled from the Vedas — the principal scriptures of Hinduism — a great many rituals that pious householders must have performed to obtain a blessing for any major undertaking. And astrology is an integral part of life in India. The dates of marriages are decided by the family astrologer, for instance, and he is engaged to cast the horoscope of every newborn, whose life is thereafter guided by his prognostications.
Hinduism is thus a vast network of mythology, philosophy, literature, ritual, religion and superstition, all operating on many levels. It is not easily explained and can only be touched upon in the scope of this article. But in relation to the outrage committed at Fatima, I think it important to remember that while we can clearly recognize the material sin of idolatry, only God can know the certainty of a corresponding formal sin. This distinction is an important one. Moral theology assigns guilt to those who commit sin while realizing its gravity; it is possible to commit sin without this realization, so that the action may be objectively wrong, but the actor unaware of the fact. And in the wake of Vatican II, with the abandonment of sound catechesis, many young Catholics lack a sound and thorough knowledge of the moral precepts of the religion they espouse and are liable to commit material sin that is not formal sin. How can we expect those outside the faith to know our beliefs? If our bishops and priests are not properly instructing baptized souls, what hope exists that pagans might be taught saving truths? Fides ex auditu, says St. Paul. Faith comes by hearing. What happens when our teachers are silent, or worse, misleading?
We end with pagan worship at Fatima.
The Hindus should be apprised, in the spirit of fraternal charity, of the nature of our faith and the way in which they violated it; they should know that we do not blame them for this violation, so much as we fault those charged with protecting the sacred character of the Shrine and preaching the Gospel. I expect that had the Hindus realized the grave offense their action caused orthodox Catholics, they would never have proceeded with their worship service. But they were encouraged to do so. Indeed, they were commended after the fact.
Now, the Hindus set forth plainly the nature of their beliefs and the import of their action. It was the Catholic authorities who failed to be honest. The Hindu “priest” made the following unequivocal statement:
“As a Hindu who believes that the whole world, or rather, all human beings,are members of a global family, it would be natural for me to see any manifestation of God, in- cluding Our Lady of Fatima, as a manifestation of the same (one) God.”
To this plain confession of pantheistic religion, the Rector of the Fatima Shrine responds that although there are differences, which he does not identify, in the civilizations and religions of Hinduism and Catholicism,
“There is a common background that, how can I put it, is born from the common humanity we all possess. And it is very important that we recognize this common background because, due to the clashes of the differences, we sometimes forget our equality.”
With all respect, I don’t think any human being has difficulty recognizing another human being as belonging to the same species. That Hindu and Catholic are both human is obvious; but what does each religion make of humanity? What is the purpose of human existence? What can such vapid rhetoric on the part of the rector mean? Why does he not acknowledge what is actually taking place in the Fatima Shrine in the name of “common humanity”? Does our “equality” on the natural level as homo sapiens require that he allow idolatry? Are all religious beliefs equal? Is our “common humanity” more important than our supernatural salvation? Why does he not tell the Hindus that they must be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost in order to be saved? Would this not be true charity, as opposed to human respect? Or does the rector not believe that his mission is to convert souls to Christ?
Why does he permit the Blessed Mother to be worshipped by pagans in the very place where She appeared to warn us of the loss of faith in our time and of the dire consequences of that loss? Perhaps, the answer lies in the Bishop of Lieria- Fatima’s other statement on the occasion of the pagan worship service:
“We don’t want to be fundamentalist; we don’t want that; but we want to be honest, sincere, and want to communicate by osmosis the fruitfulness of our rituals, so that we may produce good fruits. I am pleased to meet them (the Hindu pilgrims).”
The ambiguities in the above statement contrast sharply with the precise words of the Hindu priest. “Osmosis of fruitfulness?” Such a phrase places upon the semantic resources of language a burden not easily borne. What can such an odd and awkward verbal concoction mean? As far as not being “fundamentalist” is concerned, what are we to understand by the bishop’s disavowal of such a desire? Does he not wish his practice of the faith to rest on the foundations of the faith? Is there some way of being too Catholic that he wishes to avoid? Is there a superficial faith as opposed to the fundamental faith that is to be preferred when dealing with pagans and apostates? Is our “common humanity” a thing that supersedes the salvific truths of the only true Church?
It is significant that the telecast concluded with the image of the bishop and rector being wrapped in Hindu prayer shawls by the Hindu priest. The shawls were decorated with verses from the Bhagavad Gita, or song of God, the most popular of Hindu holy books. The Gita expounds the doctrine of dharma: the teaching that each man has his path to God, or rather to the realization that he is indeed God and that individual existence is an illusion. The bishop and the rector beamed graciously as they were invested, and the Hindus boarded their bus to leave the shrine, having learned nothing of the Catholic Faith, still believing that so long as they and their Catholic brothers followed their respective dharma, all would become one in Brahman.
The Hindus no doubt regarded their warm reception at the shrine as a triumph. That they were not only permitted to offer worship to the “holy Mother,” but were honored for having done so by the highest Catholic authorities at Fatima, they must have taken as at least a de facto endorsement of their beliefs. The bishop and the rector failed these people miserably, shamefully, cruelly. We as Catholics must compensate for the failures of our prelates and priests. As stated before, the Hindus must be made aware that what they did constitutes idolatry. Perhaps, some Catholics in Portugal with the requisite fraternal charity might undertake this spiritual work of mercy.
As for the bishop and rector, what can be done about them? They will not be chastised by Rome. They may even be congratulated by some for having helped to make Fatima less of an obstacle to the overarching ecumenical enterprise that continues to spawn so many doctrinal and disciplinary vagaries. Many Catholics will doubtless register their disapproval in one way and another, and this may give the bishop and rector second thoughts about allowing repeat performances of pagan worship at the shrine. Then again, it may not. So what follows?
As our first recourse is prayer, so must be our last. Whatever efforts we have made to comply with Our Lady’s request for sacrifice and reparations must be doubled and redoubled. The diabolical disorientation of which Sister Lucy spoke has reached Fatima itself. We may well wonder if our times are not forming an answer to Our Lord’s terrible question: “When I come again, will I find any faith in the world?”
Ours is not an age for half-measures. Those of us blessed with faith must give ourselves wholly to it. We must allow God to work in us so that He can transform our weakness into His strength. For if the devil is waging his final battle, only the bravest will be able to stand against him. So, let us become God’s heroes. Let us pray.
Ping
"As our first recourse is prayer, so must be our last."
I don't think that's correct. Not at all.
These two will discover what eternity is all about!
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