Posted on 02/01/2013 3:15:04 PM PST by daniel1212
Chiapas: Expelled Christians Living in Barn
February 2013 issue, page 9
“We aren’t delinquents; we’re people who love God and respect society.”
A leader of a Christian group of 27 families in Altamirano, Chiapas, Mexico were expelled from their community “just for being evangelicals,” according to a recent report in a Chiapas newspaper. And now the families, which include about 40 children, are living in a cattle barn because they have nowhere else to go.
VOM has been providing basic needs to expelled Christians like these through a dedicated pastor who volunteers his time to help. Last year, we provided the Christians living in the cattle barn with mattresses and food. Although the 27 families are sleeping on mattresses on the ground and storing their belongings in a cattle trough, they have an eternal perspective. They chose to give up their temporal homes rather than compromise their faith in the God who will shelter them in his heavenly home for all eternity.
The leader and a group of 27 families were expelled from their community "just for being evangelicals," according to a recent report and a Chiapas newspaper. And now the families, which include about 40 children, are living in a cattle barn because they have nowhere else to go.
Most people in Chiapas practice a blend of Catholicism and animistic beliefs. When evangelical Christians refuse to participate in community-wide religious celebrations that involve heavy drinking and worshiping spirits, they are viewed as outsiders or worse. In 2010 an evangelical pastor named Armando Lopez was attacked by a men with machetes and then shot to death. Mexican police arrested one of the men last year.
More commonly, however, evangelicals are forced or coerced to leave their communities, land and livestock. In June and 2012, a group of traditionalist Catholics (as they're called in Chiapas) compelled a group of 40 Christians and San Cristobal de las Casas to leave their homes. On Sunday, June 10, the traditionalists imprisoned the evangelicals and warned them that they would burn their homes and belongings and rape their woman if the Christians didn't leave the village. The next day at noon, the traditionalists came to the prison and asked them to "voluntarily" sign an agreement to leave the village in exchange for their release. Three days later, the traditionalist destroyed19 of their homes with torches and hatchets.
VOM has been providing basic needs to expelled questions like these through a dedicated pastor who volunteers his time to help. Last year, we provided the Christians living in the cattle barn with mattresses in food. Although the 27 families are sleeping on mattresses on the ground and storing their belongings in a cattle trough, they have an eternal perspective. They chose to give up their temporal homes rather than compromise their faith in the God who will shelter them in his heavenly home for all eternity.
Religious persecution is not new much less exclusively done by Catholics, as early Catholic settlers is the U.S. realized (not without some understandable alarm), and these cultural Catholics are acting in accord with modern RC teaching on freedom of religion, or with past historical RC teaching by taking matters into their own hands, rather than making the State doing the work of cleansing the land of “heretics,” but which it seems some traditional RCs seem to long for.
Yet this persecution of evangelical Christians in S. American Catholic strongholds is not new, as a little over a year ago it was reported that at least 70 evangelical Christians in Mexico’s east-central region were homeless Saturday, September 17, after being expelled by local authorities from their village where traditional Catholics reportedly threatened to “crucify or lynch” them. - http://www.bosnewslife.com/18215-mexico-evangelicals-leave-village-after-crucifixion-threats
Note that while the above appeared in the Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, as RCs themselves are persecuted in many places, mainly by Islam and Communists, Voice of the Martyrs also works to provide some assistance to them.
Correction “these cultural Catholics are NOT acting in accord with modern RC teaching..”
Sorry that I read what i intended to say, although the contrast that follows should convey that these are acting contrary to modern teaching.
We are going to see more of this. The Catholic Church has done it before and they will do it again. I know that statement is not going to be popular but the closer we get to the end times the stronger the Catholic Church will get.
The seminary has all the ordinary classes and a good number of students. A well-equipped school for primary instruction is directed by the Marist Brothers, and a school for girls is under the care of the Sisters of the Divine Providence. There are other Catholic schools in this and other cities of the diocese. The see city possesses a goodcathedral and nineteen other churches. The diocese has been governed by thirty-six bishops since its foundation.
Please don't expect any denouncing of these Catholics. Instead expect 1) denouncing of posting such a hateful article, or 2) silence.
You might find this interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy
Think of Haiti, and while there can be a cultural adoption of non-moral things (Hudson Taylor in Chinese dress), or perhaps the wedding dress and ring, as long as it not a doctrine and mandatory (which Christmas basically has become), a consistent Bible doctrine is that of separation, "touch not the unclean thing," and some pagan things are distinctively so.
And while, like the days of the week, we may use them as points of reference, we are not to "Christianize" them, for God makes new creations who are to worship in spirit and in truth, nor reformations (except to reform back to new creations).
And like the high places, seeking to Christianize them perpetuates their existence so that they easily revert back to their original form. Every tee that the Father has not planted shall be rooted up. And NT was not instructed to follow a liturgical season, unlike Israel (the first day being the one specific day they are recorded as meeting as a distinct body on) , and were chastened for so doing. ( Galatians 4:10)
Rather than bowing down to annual feasts instituted out of its religious syncretism, and finding security in inflexible structures (eyes on clock), let seek to stand fast in the holy liberty (not amoral license) of the Spirit, and have our sails up and be led by Him in living out His Word in all it encompasses [preach to self]
Not the norm by any means, yet i think it is also a fantasy that Rome's change of demeanor from the past is mainly the result of superior enlightenment rather than necessity. If powerful Catholic monarchies still were the norm and were free to enforce submission to Rome, and which Rome required under penalty of excommunication and deposition, then believers such us would have about as much freedom as in China, or less.
Note that early Prots had much to unlearn from the world and from Rome. And Baptist-purist Roger Williams had to flee from the very committed Puritans who wanted a new Jerusalem, with no real dissent.
Now we face the problem of becoming too much like this society, while in the past the church much became like empire in which it was found, and later governments, including its means of warfare (in contrast to the NT church), and even expanded upon them, yet it seems ecclesiastical courts were overall considered preferable to secular counterparts.
"The Church has the right,..to admonish or warn its members, ecclesiastical or lay, who have not conformed to its laws and also, if needful to punish them by physical means, that is, coercive jurisdiction." - Catholic encyclopedia, Jurisdiction (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08567a.htm)
Innocent’s Bull prescribes that captured heretics, being "murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith, . . . are to be coerced – as are thieves and bandits – into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb." — Bull Ad Extirpanda (Bullarium Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 3 [Turin: Franco, Fory & Dalmazzo, 1858], Lex 25, p. 556a.) (http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html)
Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors): "[It is error to believe that] The (Catholic) Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect." Section V, Errors Concerning the Church and Her Rights, #24. (http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM)
A History of Christianity by Roman Catholic Paul Johnson
In the 1180s, the Church began to panic at the spread of heresy, and thereafter it took the lead from the State, though it maintained the legal fiction that convicted and unrepentant heretics were merely 'deprived of the protection of the Church', which was (as they termed it) 'relaxed', the civil power then being free to burn them without committing mortal sin. Relaxation was accompanied by a formal plea for mercy; in fact this was meaningless, and the individual civil officer (sheriffs and so forth) had no choice but to burn, since otherwise he was denounced as a 'defender of heretics', and plunged into the perils of the system himself.
The codification of legislation against heresy took place over half a century, roughly 1180-1230, when it culminated in the creation of a permanent tribunal, staffed by Dominican friars, who worked from a fixed base in conjunction with the episcopate, and were endowed with generous authority.
The permanent system was designed as a reform; in fact it incorporated all the abuses of earlier practice and added new ones. It had a certain vicious logic. Since a heretic was denied burial in consecrated ground, the corpses of those posthumously convicted (a very frequent occurrence) had to be disinterred, dragged through the streets and burnt on the refuse pit. The houses in which they lived had to be knocked down and turned into sewers or rubbish-dumps.
Convictions of thought-crimes being difficult to secure, the Inquisition used procedures banned in other courts, and so contravened town charters, written and customary laws, and virtually every aspect of established jurisprudence. The names of hostile witnesses were withheld, anonymous informers were used, the accusations of personal enemies were allowed, the accused were denied the right of defence, or of defending counsel; and there was no appeal. The object, quite simply, was to produce convictions at any cost; only thus, it was thought, could heresy be quenched. Hence depositors were not named; all a suspect could do was to produce a list of his enemies, and he was allowed to bring forward witnesses to testify that such enemies existed, but for no other purpose. On the other hand, the prosecution could use the evidence of criminals, heretics, children and accomplices, usually forbidden in other courts.
Once an area became infected by heresy, and the system moved in, large numbers of people became entangled in its toils. Children of heretics could not inherit, as the stain was vicarial; grandchildren could not hold ecclesiastical benefices unless they successfully denounced someone. Everyone from the age of fourteen (girls from twelve) were required to take public oaths every two years to remain good Catholics and denounce heretics. Failure to confess or receive communion at least three times a year aroused automatic suspicion; possession of the scriptures in any language, or of breviaries, hour-books and psalters in the vernacular, was forbidden.
Torture was not employed regularly until near the end of the thirteenth century (except by secular officials without reference to the Inquisition) but suspects could be held in prison and summoned again and again until they yielded, the object of the operation being to obtain admissions or denunciations. When torture was adopted it was subjected to canonical restraints - if it produced nothing on the first occasion it was forbidden to repeat it. But such regulations were open to glosses; Francis Pegna, the leading Inquisition commentator, wrote:
'But if, having been tortured reasonably (decenter), he will not confess the truth, set other sorts of torments before him, saying that he must pass through all these unless he will confess the truth. If even this fails, a second or third day may be appointed to him, either in terrorem or even in truth, for the continuation (not repetition) of torture; for tortures may not be repeated unless fresh evidence emerges against him; then, indeed, they may, for against continuation there is no prohibition.' ...
Where the system was employed against an entire community, as in Languedoc, it evoked resistance. There were riots, murders, the destruction of records. Many countries would not admit the Inquisition at all. In Spain, however, it became a state instrument, almost a national institution, like bullfighting, a mystery to foreigners but popular among the natives. It is surprising how often admirable, if eccentric, individuals were burned, not only without public protest but with general approval. Thus the fourteenth century breakaway movement of Franciscans, the fraticelli, who opposed clerical property and reasserted the apostolic practices of their founder, were hunted and burned all over Europe but especially in their native Umbria and the Mark of Ancona; the crowds who watched them destroyed were apathetic or inclined to believe antinomianism was rightly punished. In the Middle Ages, the ruthless and confident exercise of authority could nearly always swing a majority behind it. And the victims of the flames usually died screaming in pain and terror, thus appearing to confirm the justice of the proceedings. — More: Paul Johnson, History of Christianity , © 1976 Athenium, pgs. 253-255.
http://baltimore-catechism.com/lesson12.htm:
Q. 539. What do we mean by the "temporal power" of the Pope?
A. By the temporal power of the Pope we mean the right which the Pope has as a temporal or ordinary ruler to govern the states and manage the properties that have rightfully come into the possession of the Church.
Q. 540. How did the Pope acquire and how was he deprived of the temporal power?
A. The Pope acquired the temporal power in a just manner by the consent of those who had a right to bestow it. He was deprived of it in an unjust manner by political changes.
78. “[It is error to believe that] Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.” -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852. Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors), Issued in 1864, Section X (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9syll.htm)
"....Constitutions can be changed, and non-Catholic sects may decline to such a point that the political proscription [ban] of them may become feasible and expedient. What protection would they have against a Catholic state?" -The State and the Church (1922), pp.38,39, by Miller and John A. Ryan, imprimatur of Cardinal Hayes. (http://www.remnantofgod.org/nl990406.htm)
“If counterfeiters of money or other criminals are justly delivered over to death… much more can heretics, after they are convicted of heresy, be not only forthwith excommunicated, but as surely put to death.” – Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2a, 2ae, qu. Xi, art. III. [but who was himself excommunicated after he died, then later reinstated by high authorities]
In regard to ecclesiastical jurisdiction in criminal matters the Church exercised jurisdiction at first only in purely ecclesiastical offences, and inflicted only ecclesiastical punishments, e.g. excommunication, and in the case of clerics deposition. The observance of these penalties had to be left to the conscience of the individual. But with the formal recognition of the Church by the State and the increase of ecclesiastical penalties proportioned to the increase of ecclesiastical offences, came an appeal from the Church to the secular arm for aid in enforcing the said penalties, which aid was always willingly granted... In punishing offences of a purely ecclesiastical character the Church disposed unreservedly of the aid of the State for the execution of the penalty. — Catholic encyclopedia Jurisdiction (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08567a.htm)
The modern position of Rome can be seen here by way of contrast with the former.
Maybe even “clear it up” as he did in issuing the only thing close to an apology for the Inquisitions, etc., in which papal-sanctioned torture was ambiguously blamed on “some of our brethren” and “the sinfulness of her children,” “they,”
“...we cannot fail to recognize the infidelities to the Gospel committed by some of our brethren, especially during the second millennium. Let us ask pardon for the divisions which have occurred among Christians, for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitudes sometimes taken towards the followers of other religions.” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20000312_pardon_en.html
Hence it is appropriate that, as the Second Millennium of Christianity draws to a close, the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal. - http://www.cin.org/jp2ency/tertmill.html
Note that in RC theology, the church is pure and faultless, but members sin, yet their is no church without its members, and it is spotless because its members are only those that are washed, sanctified and justified by true faith, a faith that follows its Lord and Savior though it is not the works that saves them.
And when Daniel “apologized, it was “our,” not they:
“O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. “ (Daniel 9:16)
This is about a village or group who are not christian acting. Sad for the victims.
"as if he was one of the two prophets of Revelation. Not the norm by any means, yet i think it is also a fantasy that Rome's change of demeanor from the past is mainly the result of superior enlightenment rather than necessity. If powerful Catholic monarchies still were the norm and were free to enforce submission to Rome, and which Rome required under penalty of excommunication and deposition, then believers such us would have about as much freedom as in China, or less."
You Think thus it is?
Fantasy?
Like your not purveyor of Fantasy?
I think your all Romed Out.
Lions, Tigers and Rome......
What next Vatican issued Rifles?
You lawyered up all your words for this?
Wow!
1Co_11:19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
What an incohesive argument you are having with yourself, daniel1212, in this diatribe. Extremely hard to read and impossible to follow.
>What an incohesive argument you are having with yourself, daniel1212, in this diatribe. Extremely hard to read and impossible to follow.<
The post you are referring to simply provides the information in the newsletter.What argument do you see?
As far as my comments, what “diatribe” do you see, what is it you do not understand? Note that it was been often-evidenced in these forums that when some RCs see anything that impugns Rome then something happens that prevents understanding what is being said.
What was given was a presentation of certain points, which (as can be clearly shown) are that,
1. Persecuting others is not restricted to Catholics, who were persecuted themselves.
2. The subjects persecuting evangelicals here are animistic Catholics who are not acting consistent with Rome’s present teaching (which, in contradiction to much of the past, affirms freedom of religion and properly baptized Prots as separated brethren), nor that of the past, at least by taking matters into their own hands.
3. Yet Catholic persecution of evangelicals in S. American Catholic strongholds is not new, at seen by other recent examples.
4. In relation to the animistic Catholics, Catholicism has a history of religious syncretism, and elements thereof (such as liturgical calendars with Christianized pagan celebrations) are contrary in nature to religion under the New Covenant.
5. That in the future more Catholics might exhibit the persecutive behavior of these Mexican Catholics, and that Rome’s modern pacifism was more dictated by circumstance than superior enlightenment from them.
6. That being conformed to the world has always been and is a problem for the church, seen by evangelicals (though not alone) now becoming more like the society in which they pilgrimage, and which negative adaptation the Catholic institution engaged in by substantially taking upon the form and the means of the world it was in.
7. That Rome claims the right to punish its members by physical means, and had done so in the past, and which included rulers being mandated to cleanse the land of those use the church deemed were heretics, which were basically considered guilty until proven innocent.
(The reality that “ admirable, if eccentric, individuals were burned, not only without public protest but with general approval,” also evidences how the public could react here to the progressive punishment by liberal “Inquisitors” of souls of Christian character whom it deems incorrect.)
That is your judgment, and which i affirmed even as regards Rome's modern teaching, while it is no Protestant fantasy that this modern teaching was mainly the result of superior enlightenment rather than necessity.
As one of your separated traditionalist Catholics argues,
Religious communities have the right not to be prevented from publicly teaching and bearing witness to their beliefs by the spoken or written word. ["Dignitatis Humanae"]
A) The accursed perversity of heretics has so increased that now they exercise their wickedness not in secret but manifest their error publicly, and win over the simple and weak to their opinion. For this reason, We resolve to cast them, their defenders, and their receivers under anathema, and We forbid under anathema that anyone presume to help heretics or to do business with them. III Lateran Council (Ecumenical)
B) It is insanity to believe that Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Worship are the inalienable rights of every citizen. From this foul-smelling fountain of Indifferentism flows the erroneous and absurd opinion -- or, rather, MADNESS -- that freedom of conscience must be asserted and vindicated for everyone. This most pestilential error opens the door to the complete and immoderate liberty of opinions which works such widespread harm both in Church and State. Pope Gregory XVI
C) Right Reason: Cannibals should not be allowed on street corners. Ask yourself this: If it is OK to permit a man to murder his mother, what do I do if that man is my brother? Honor his "right" to kill Mom, or defend to the death my Mom? - http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/vatican2.htm
You lawyered up all your words for this?
That is quite a tactic for dealing with a reality that you apparently find objectionable, though it both affirms these persecutors were acting contrary to Rome past and present, respectively, while substantiating what it practiced in the past, and provides its present stance in contrast.
But since you object, what is it you are defending that i did not state?
You think you understand these words. Just astonishing.
You have been doing this thing too long. Take bits and pieces from things.
Still the " lawyer "?
I will be praying for you.
That is quite a try, but if anything, it "seems to me," that the diagnostic physician needs to heal himself. Rather than being moved by insecurity, it is RCs who evidence they seem driven to blindly promote Rome ass if to reassure themselves (or perhaps gain indulgences they feel they may need); in response to i write from a position of confidence against her basic errors, esp. as a former RC who became born again while still an RC and spent 6 years as a faithful attendee therein, and knows the stark contrasts btwn institutional faith and regeneration, while you must resort to psychological speculation in order to deal with the exposure of lack of clothes for your emperor.
If you want to deny that i wrote here, then attempt to do so, while resorting to such psychoanalysis is actually an argument against what faithful RCs are bound to trust in and feel they are driven to defend.
This is about a village or group who are not christian acting
"Wow." You still do not even see it is Rome who exalts herself as the supreme judge, which presumption is an advertisement for challenges, and which often result here due to RCs who engaging in constant advertisement/promotion of Rome, and then her defenders resort to tactics such as but dismissing things which impugn her as "lawyering, or postulating psychoanalysis, etc. Last week i was called a pope!
Or is it only the Mormons whose self-promotion is not to be challenged?
You have been doing this thing too long. Take bits and pieces from things.
Rather, it is RCs like you who have been resorting to such charges as the above too long, and in response have a history of making false charges or insinuations.
Since it is Rome that exalts herself and is thus to be examined, and it is you who is making charges in her defense, do you deny that Rome supported what i stated it did, in contrast to official teaching of the present? What is it that you can prove that i have misrepresented?
That should be an alert to any follower of Rome. I suppose when God blinds they are truly blind.
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