World Over - 2019-10-31 - Full Episode with Raymond Arroyo

a full rap of the controversial Amazon Synod and the final document will we see married priests and female deacons in the near future the papal party Robert royal and father Gerald Murray are he with complete analysis and the Pachamama idols made quite a splash at the Synod but what do they tell us about the future bishop a Venetian Eider of Kazakhstan shares his thoughts on that and his new book Christos Vinci's Christ's triumph over the darkness of the age the world over begins right now [Music] now from Washington DC Raymond Arroyo a warm welcome to all of you joining us in the United States and the world over an important show for you tonight Robert Royal father Gerald Murray bishop Appalachia Schneider and more all straight ahead if you'd like to comment on tonight's show send me a tweet I'm at Raymond Arroyo lots to cover let's get started the Synod on the Amazon is over and the outcome was predictable recommendations for married priests and further study of a female diaconate were among the conclusions along with inculturation and environmental concerns but what does it all mean to the wider Church joining me here in Washington with a complete recap of the Amazon Synod is the papal posse editor-in-chief of the Catholic thing org Robert royal and canon lawyer and priests of the Archdiocese of New York father Gerald Murray thank you both for being here glad you made it back survived Pachamama before we get to the final document of the Amazon Synod I have to start with those Pachamama idols that we saw throughout the entire Synod last week they were taken out of a Roman Church and thrown into the Tiber now what really makes this story interesting is that days later after they were recovered Pope Francis had this to say we'll put it on the screen I would like to say a word about the Pachamama statues that were removed from the Church of Santa Maria in response Tina which were there without idolatrous intentions and were thrown into the Tiber above all this happened in Rome and as bishop of the diocese I asked pardon of the people who were offended by this act now after three weeks the Pope himself there admitted that indeed these were Pachamama statues why were they in this church to begin with I'll start with you Robert royal well you asked the $64,000 question payment I mean you know it looks to any normal person as if these are pagan idols that have been introduced into a into a Catholic Church I know a woman a third-order Carmelite that church by the way is a caramelized Church who went in there and told me she came out with a stomachache that it just seemed to be so offensive to Catholicism rather than the other way around so I don't know how you can just declare that there was no idolatrous intent whoo we were never told who actually put these things there why they were there what they were and in fact III when I was in Rome what I heard most was that this was racism or that this ID no foe to oppose them to oppose them when in fact there was a theological question here and the fact that no one took that very seriously it tells us something about the whole father Jerry what did you make of the Pope's apologizing to the indigenous people who might be offended by this I think the apology was also directed at the organizers who brought these little statues and deposited them all over town well I think it apology really was necessary for why they were there in the first place because the average Catholic who paid attention was offended so you know the Pope obviously was sympathetic to the people who organized this display he was there in the Vatican gardens when people are actually prostrating themselves in front of these statues so you know the Pope has his way of dealing with so-called enculturation in the Amazon it includes a toleration of this kind of activity but quite frankly I agree with Bob they didn't belong in the church and they certainly didn't belong in a worship service or in any kind of ritual well the the story gets a little more bizarre and the Vatican actually that the head of the Vatican communications Paolo Ruffini he actually might disagree with what you just said he jumped in to answer a question that was directed at a Lutheran pastor about the video showing people in the Vatican gardens kneeling and bowing before Pachamama Ruffini responded this way he said there were no rituals no prostration took place we've repeated this here we have been rigorous in saying that this actually happened before the cameras we said this did not happen father Jerry what is he talking about here's the video I'm gonna show you the video so you see it at home while father Jerry responds what do you what do you say to this it's not a truthful statement certainly I hope he looked at the video before describing it because if he looked at it he would have seen the precisely that there was prostration there was forms of adoration that we offered to the Blessed Sacrement veneration of the saints this those are the proper things to do in a Catholic Church no you know what we're dealing with here and this is a larger problem that we've had during the pontificate that there are some people who think within the apparatus of the Communications Office that you have to falsify or modify things in order not to bring embarrassment upon them they did that with a statement by a theologian recently they did that with the letter from former Pope Benedict house earning books that would publish so we need an examination of conscience here about whether the Vatican communication apparatus is going to take itself seriously and actually report accurately because guess what videotape doesn't lie we saw the Franciscan bowing Bob you know along with me they offered prayers right to this this image and then Paulo Ruffini was saying you know there was no intention there's no evil here so we shouldn't describe any evil it's preposterous but I'm sure the Romans didn't see any evil and Minerva either you know yeah the Greeks had no problem with Zeus but that's a problem here gospel brings the light of truth and we don't say well paganism has got to be given equal billing and that's not the way we deal with it what these these idols were not present during the final mass there was some offering of dirt which is of which we also saw in the Vatican gardens and as part of a ritual we've now learned to Pachamama but at the at the church of santa maria where these idols were taken in this photo you see the pews have been turned facing the statue while the people's backs are to the altar what does that look like to you above I see pagan worship and I see people who have turned away from the altar on which God Himself is present in the Eucharist and and pointed toward an idol and by the way this is not only something that conservative or rigid Catholics are thinking we know the Protestants in the Amazon itself looked at images like that and said you see the Catholics are actually worshipping pagan idols and they are not followers of Jesus Christ I've heard stories about this coming from the Philippines and from other places as well so it's a it's a very serious thing that the the images themselves say one thing well at the authoritative voice is inside the Vatican try to deny what almost everyone thinks is they talk about perversity so the Amazon Synod that was intended to help evangelize the Amazon is now being used against evangelist evangelization efforts in the Amazon this is me CEO and I have to get to your reaction to this father me CEO the pastoral agency of the Italian Bishops Conference before the Synod began published a prayer to Pachamama in April of 2019 it was in a booklet devoted to this special Assembly of the Synod on the Amazon it is described as a prayer to mother earth of the Inca peoples it reads Pachamama of these places drink and eat this offering at will so that this earth may be fruitful Pachamama good mother be favorable be favorable make that the oxen walk well and that they may not become tired and it goes on and on I'm not going to bore you with it what do you make of that this is horrendous this is a prayer to a fake God there is no Pachamama mother earth is not a god mother earth can make oxen walk or do anything else this is what happens when you unfortunately you put Jesus out of the central place in the life of the church and then say a humanistic concern with cultural understanding means we're gonna take Incan prayers and publish them by Catholic sources the loss of faith here is stunning you know we should never publish pagan prayers and then tell the Catholic people this is how we're approaching now the subject of dealing with faith in the Amazon big mistake you know the the whole point of the Amazon right is to bring Christ to the Amazon not to bring Amazon God's to Rome right and the absurdity even goes to the point that they try to quote st. Francis of Assisi who in his famous poem laudato si which is what gave the Holy Father the the title for his encyclical about the environment he says blessed are you my lord and he thanks you for sister Mother Earth right now but he's not praying to mother earth he's thank God he's thanking God for the he's giving us this wonderful creation that we all live in the the direction of spirituality here is wrong and it's not only here for me one of the most shocking things was when a group of Bishops went into the catacombs of dome Attila and pledged to preserve the spiritualities of the the Amazon people we're gonna get to that the pack to the catacombs at home it don't give it all away on the final Senate document recommends ordaining married men as priests and it has proposed that the question of a female diaconate be further studied the Pope opened a study of it in 2016 the document says about celibacy we appreciate celibacy is a gift of God to the extent that this gift enables the missionary disciple ordained to the priesthood to dedicate himself fully to the service of the holy people of God we know that this discipline is not required by the very nature of the priesthood although it has many reasons of convenience with it your reaction to that father Jerry is celibacy convenient that is a completely inadequate statement of the theology and practice of celibacy in the life of the church and in the priesthood it really is the proposal here is revolutionary and I say that fully understanding the meaning of that word this would change the way the Catholic priesthood has lived in the entire Catholic Church because I guarantee if it's granted for the Amazon it's gonna be granted elsewhere because how do you tell people in Germany where there are no priests well move to the Amazon if you want to get married no they're gonna have it they're gonna have it in Germany and all these other places now what does that mean we're living in the world of the sexual revolution the basic message there is Catholic morality on sex is repressive and impossible and we only contribute to giving some kind of assent to that if we say well by the way nobody wants to become a priest because they can't marry anymore what about the Chaldean right in the Byzantine Rite in the Eastern Church you have married clergy father well that's a historical thing that has to do with the way the history developed of priestly celibacy east and west but even in the East there are no married bishops right is testimony to the fact that expectation is the priesthood and celibacy go together and priests are not allowed to marry married men are ordained priests actly and by the way it gets what about Jesus Jesus wasn't married if we're sending priests to bring Jesus to people it really enforces the mess and it oppresses like Jesus I'm here to serve you not a family bob the document goes on to recommend ordaining married men in the amazon explicitly and they write the senate fathers in this regard some the Synod participants or in favor of a more Universal approach to the subject will we see a universal approach I think father is exactly right that's this is the first step along a pathway that's gonna open out to two new paths new pathways for the rest of the church as well one of the things I was struck by by there being there for those three weeks is that there were lots of calls for heroic changes of life to protect the earth right you know live more simply be aware of what you're doing and how it has an impact on the environment there was not the same kind of call for this heroic life of celibacy or dedication to missionary work that I think used to used to be the spark behind the expansion of the church throughout the world it's a very strange lack of emphasis on one side and then a great emphasis on things that yes the the environment is important but they're not central to the mission of the church as right right well that's why some have said something even some some people who were at the Synod participants told me it had the feeling of a UN summit on the environment and at times they sort of had to remind themselves why they were there because the talk devolved into a lot of scientific data and statistics and things that they really don't have a competency to understand or explore thoroughly the paragraph on the female diaconate however reads this way 1:03 the permanent diaconate for women was requested for this reason the theme was important during the Synod already in 2016 Pope Francis had created a study commissioned on the diaconate of women which as a commission arrived at a partial result based on what the reality of the diaconate of when was like in the early centuries of the church and its implications for today we would therefore like to share our experiences and reflections with the Commission and await its results father Jerry what are they saying there it hasn't this question already been settled they make it sound like it's just a partial answer so it's an open question okay number one is not an open question the church has never ordained a woman a deacon the church has never given the sacrament of Holy Orders to a woman the church understand that this goes right back to the intention of Christ there were three ordered levels of the priestly holy orders Deacon priest Bishop there are no women there for a reason so the church by its life has already decided the matter the Pope formed a commission in 2016 to study the matter and the Pope never released the findings of the Commission he simply said they came to an incomplete conclusion meaning there was a division of opinion now pope john paul ii already had a commission in 2003 the international theological commission studied the matter and again they found no evidence of women operating as deacons meaning female equivalent to male deacons alright there were Deaconess is right this was an order of women who assisted in the work of the church but not as deacons they didn't receive Holy Orders they received a blessing on an ordination in the sense of sacred ordination so the fact now that they want to reintroduce it this is a revolutionary mindset in the church which is if we want it we're going to find a way to justify it the way the Catholic Church always looks at it is what did the Lord intend for the church and how can we be faithful to that in the midst of changes in paragraph 102 above it also suggests the role of women in ministry and a line that was left out of the unofficial English translation reads this way we ask you review the Moto proprio of st. Paul the sixth ministeria qua Dom so that appropriately trained and prepared women may also receive the ministries of Lecter and acolyte among others to be developed why do you think they omitted that from the English translation and what are they intending there well I don't know I mean there's so many things are uncertain about whether the way they formulate these things but okay but that this Synod itself was set up by the Pope not as a general synod of Bishops it was a what's called a special assembly of Bishops and therefore the individual national bishops conferences did not select delegates the Pope selected all the delegates the ominous thing it seems to me here is that the Pope suggested that this new Commissioner if there's going to be another study commissioned he will be appointing new members to this and I think on the same model I mean we knew what the outcome was going to be in this there were no surprises the people who showed up there that had been selected were by and large going to deliver unmarried priests on deaconesses and on Synod allottee which is another subject that we need to talk about as well so I don't know it just seems to me that we know that this issue has been studied over and over and over again with the same answer and yet now we're going to get another Commission that's going to have specially appointed people LS father Jerry said we kept this this mindset that well if we don't get it now we'll try it again it's like Briggs if you can't execute it we'll just have another vote Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego had this to say he was a synod participant when asked about the final documents requests for a continued consideration of a female diakonos watch my own view is that I'm in favor of opening any ministry we have in the church to women which is not clearly precluded doctrinally so my own assessment of it is and I'm not an expert in this field that what has come out so far indicates that the current D acronym for women is not clearly prohibited by my doctrinal considerations so they my hope would be that that they would find a way a pathway to make that a reality is this the next step for the church father cannot be the next step because a female diac and it is impossible the church has lived this message for 2,000 years they have never ordained a woman a deacon and the reason is Christ only intended men for the sacred hierarchy that understood from the start the sacrament of Holy Orders is one sacrament so this is a wedge that the people who want women priests are using if you get a woman ordained a deacon then they're gonna turn around and say wait a minute there's already a woman in sacred orders why can't we promote it to the next lot now in fact the Holy See has granted female electors basically from the start and then john paul ii has a female serving as altar servers acolytes so this request really is a way to get people to desensitize them from the distinction between sacred orders ministries and all the rest now but again it's fabricated we don't if we say you know it's a great idea we do this let's go ahead and do it that's not how we operate in the church we say what did Jesus intend how do the church understand from the beginning in other words tradition and history matter now Bob the final document suggests the creation of an amazonian right alongside some of the other rites we to the Ethiopian right and other rites in the Eastern Church some tell me it was designed to confine this idea of ordaining married men and the female diaconate to a particular right do you buy that I would if I knew what the Amazonian Rite is supposed to we don't know it's it's evolving the new pathway is just opening Bob this has come up we were told by authoritative sources in Rome this has come up before in Africa and as in Africa where you have a number of tribes in one region and you may have as many as 40 different languages and 20 or 30 different cultures and spiritualities that are supposed to be somehow incorporated into this right I don't know how you can have a right that is at the same time going to be sensitive and preserving of all these differences that are out there it seems to me that you're either going to bring everybody together with something that is not their own particular spirituality or you're going to just have to live with the right there of the what the Western Church so you know again for me this is a kind of a camel's nose under the tent to do I don't know exactly what but it's clear that it's destabilizing of a lot of the things that we take for granted in the church and ultimately that we're told over and over again also in Rome that the Pope is going to decide about these things anyways but this is not Parliament even though they vote on it this is not binding on him so we're gonna have to wait and see what the Pope himself decides to do with these things yeah well this this runs to the heart of this Sonata model of the church what does that really mean what have we seen here I mean if it's not a parliamentary style or at least a cabinet style legislating in the church and governing the church what is it well a Synod of Bishops is precisely a meeting of bishops to consider matters of pastoral concern or doctrinal interest you know if there were heresies out there that need to be addressed you call it Synod so that you can then anathematized the heresies if you need pastoral planning how are we going to deal with this new group of people and said our meetings are held now the Synod of Bishops as an institution was only revived or exists really only since after the Vatican Council all right and as Bob pointed out this really wasn't even the Synod of Bishop is a particular meeting of a section of the world's hierarchy with others added on to it so it was a little strange you have the bishops from Austria and Germany participating in the Senate about the Amazon are taking place in Rome you know the natural place rescind on the Amazon would have been Brazil I would thought you know get you know close to the source in any event Synod ality and the pontificate of Pope Francis has come to signify an idea of walking together speaking learning etc all those are great ideas and I'm a favor of them but as Bob pointed out where were the vigorous arguments against some of these proposals being heard at this Synod there really wasn't a fair airing for instance of the objections to having a married clergy are we gonna cast aside the history of the Western right with with celibate clergy simply because some people in Amazon areas say with no Mary priest here let's ordain some elders as priests this is not how you're supposed to do things in the church one of the key organizers of this Synod was Brazilian bishop Irvine crawl-through we saw him a lot he told ed Penton this I guess it's a step to the new Apple I guess the church cannot be and stood without this salute it's your new opening yes for a man Amazon for the Amazon region but for the whole world now this would seem to confirm that the Amazon was just a predicate for global change right it's I mean it's really shocking to all of us that you know married priests and Deaconess --iz and Synod allottee all these sorts of things have been debated but they're debated directly usually in the church we're talking about an area that even the organizers admit has a very small number of indigenous people who were spread over a vast territory and yet somehow these other these other questions enter into this with all due respect to the Amazon region I mean it's a relatively marginal part of the Catholic Church in the world and to try to put the weight of all these these very serious theological questions into this to being about a particular area it just doesn't seem right yeah father I want to repeat this line I guess the church cannot be understood without this Synod Bishop Crowther just sit there maybe he doesn't understand the church without this Synod because he's you know getting his wish list of radical demands that you know this man is in his 80s and he basically has said things that would disqualify his you know being used as an advisor for promoting evangelization I'm not impressed by what he said the idea that we have a new ear in a new epoch I mean this sounds like Marx's new man new world thinking you know when the revolution happened in the world when Jesus Christ was born and this is the playing out we call this you know the time of salvation now that we're living in this is the era of the church the new covenant you know when all the people in the world have heard the gospel then maybe we can sit back and say no how well have we done really well you got to say boys get out there and work you know women get out there promote the gospel that's the revolution we have to live during his closing remarks of this Synod Pope Francis urged the media not to give undue attention to aspects of the final report addressing church discipline which we've been talking about here's what he said there is always a group of elite Christians who like to take up this kind of diagnosis as if they were universal however small or in this kind of more in Turkey a Stickle disciplinary resolutions there is a danger of only looking to see what they decided on this disciplinary issue or they decided on another making of the world who won this game lost this game what is the Holy Father saying here Bob well who are these elites he's talking about probably those those of us sitting in this room right I doubt it I wasn't invited to the Synod last time I checked it leads with the people invited to the fancy parties with all the titles and medals I'm sitting here but go on look this is part of his perspective that these rules are actually an obstacle to preaching the gospel now that's one way of course to look at it but the church has always thought his father keeps insisting that from the very beginning there are certain truths there are certain practices there's a certain life that Catholicism has lived out that has revolutionized the world there are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world and there's a reason why they the church has been successful we come back to the point that this is a particular region with some particular problems that need to be dealt with and and the environment is part of it and then the the evangelizing of all these different tribes is a part of it but to take this and to use it as a kind of a club with which to criticize people who in good faith look at what the practices have been in the church that have been successful in the past and ask well why hasn't the church for the past 500 years already done this what all of a sudden do we hear that indigenous peoples don't understand celibacy or they don't understand this or that there's to me there's some other agenda being played out here that is not the one that it appears from those those words has such father should we should have just ignored the ordination of women the recommendation to ordain married men and focused exclusively on preserving the environment and breathing with the lung of the Amazon rainforest I mean is that is that what we should have been focused no I mean look why our people have said about the Senate here it's precisely because they're viewing the whole Catholic way of life being called into question and this has been a theme you know goes back to amoris Laetitia on the question of giving communion divorced and remarried the question on the death penalty the question on you know God wills all religions the Abu Dhabi statement people are stepping back and saying oh wait a minute hold father what you are saying here in these documents and now contemplating in these changes these are momentous matters and we would like to have a little further discussion involving I don't know if there were elites you know that people don't agree with him but they were very intelligent humble people who have other points of view and I think should be heard I think that's what we're we'd like to have happen in this regard I want to talk about you raised this a moment ago this this gathering of 40 Synod fathers who were taking part in the Amazon Synod they attended a mass to renew the spirit of what is called the catacomb pact now this was signed or this during the Second Vatican Council and and asked God for the grace to be faithful to the spirit of Jesus well these Synod fathers just last week actually signed a new document entitled pact of the catacombs for the common home for a church with an amazonian face poor and servant prophetic and Samaritan now some of its 15 action points in the new pact are the following defend the Amazon jungle in the face of climate change commit to an integral ecology in in which all is interconnected the human race and creation because all beings are sons and daughters of the earth and over them the Spirit of God moves next the renewal of the church's preferential option for the poor helping native peoples to preserve their lands languages stories identities and spiritualities there was no criticism by the way of pagan traditions or spiritualities but they did reject this all types of colonists mentality and posture welcoming and valuing ethnic cultural ethnic and linguistic diversity in a respectful dialogue with all spiritual traditions what is going on here father Jerry Murray some say this is liberation theology this is a mishmash of Marxism relativism and you know invoking anti-colonialism for instance you know I take a different point of view I am glad the Spanish and the Portuguese went to South America and many of them were priests and religious who went there precisely to bring the gospel and I'm not going to defend immoral actions taken by conquistadores and others who did cruel things okay but that's you know part of the record what I will defend is going into a pagan village erecting a church and telling people don't worship those false gods anymore the true God is Jesus Christ and we're going to teach you who he is we're gonna baptize you and give you the sacraments that's the whole reason why Christ came to earth so that people get to know him and come to love him there are no native spiritualities that come from Christ those are pagan errors that developed over time it's one of the fruits of original sin God loves those people and any good in their heart he's going to use if they're trying to seek the eternal great you're worshiping the Sun God because you think that's gonna help you there is no Sun God we're gonna help you with Jesus right so to say that for instance these Franciscans and Jesuits who went throughout South America was somehow colonial agents of oppression this is a wrong reading of their intentions and their actions they wanted ad yeah there's a certain guilt complex I think here in certain sectors of the Latin American church and fathers right exactly of course there were there were things that happened it should not have happened there but as we've talked about before the the Pentecostals come in and they preach Jesus and they're not particularly worried that maybe they have a first-world perspective on things they come in and they they talk about the gospel they allow the power of the gospel to to work in the people's that they come in contact with and they're there converting people like gangbusters and they look as we said earlier they look at those images of Pachamama and they say see this this is not really the the power of the gospel that we've been trying to bring to you so look there there's there's plenty of trouble in the Amazon that needs to be dealt with on the environmental side and but the way to handle this is not to go back and feel guilty about 500 years of supposed colonialist oppression and by the way the Bishop's claimed that for the past 50 years since Vatican 2 they've been walking with the people they've been out there and they've been accompanying people and trying to evangelize and be close to their their cultures learn their languages and whatnot so what's the fruit of these 50 years we don't see it and they're they're clearly needs to be a different approach but not the the one that we've been seeing seems to me to be a slight repeat of some things in the past where we await the Holy Fathers final pronouncement on all of this everything we've been covering and someone wrote recently we should pray for a miracle yes indeed because it is all up to the Holy Father he can do whatever he wants with this and he said that he wants to have a quick document of his own an apostolic exhortation so that the the energy generated by the the Synod does not just disappear dissipate and that people will actually begin to actively implement that the decisions that were taken pretty fast though he's promising this by the end of the year well let's see if that happens you know the document on the reform of the Roman Curia is taking a long time things do get tied up what I think in the meantime though is bishops and priests need to stand up and defend the value of clerical celibacy I mean this is not as some people just say it a thousand year old tradition to prevent the inheritance by priests children of property of the church this is going back to Jesus and what he said about those who give up life and children to serve the gospel and the kingdom so you know there are Universal effects that are going to come from this Synod and if we ditch celibacy simply because some people say well they don't understand it in the Amazon we can't get anybody to go there as a priest believe me you preach the gospel there will be young men who embrace celibacy we can't give a divided message and countercultural messages and and images and representatives and witnesses are compelling young people listen and if you don't believe me check where Kanye West album Jesus is king sits on the Billboard charts and you'll see what I mean thank you gentlemen read all of Robert royal and father Gerald Murray's columns at the Catholic thing dot org Bishop Anthony Schneider is coming up in a moment but first some news former Vice President Joe Biden made headlines this week when he was denied Holy Communion Sunday Mass the 76 year old Democrat now running for president was attending st. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence South Carolina on the past her father Robert Maury refused Biden communion for his public support of abortion according to Maury Holy Communion signifies we are one with God each other and the church any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of church teaching end quote Biden's stance on abortion has drifted further left in recent years earlier this year he withdrew his support for the Hyde Amendment that banned federal funding for abortion and favors punishing doctors who refused to perform them now on to our news maker he's the auxilary bishop of Nursultan that is the capital of Kazakhstan and he's well known as a defender of traditional church teaching he's been in the headlines recently for his condemnation of the Pachamama idols at the Amazon Synod he's also the subject of a new book length interview with Diane Montaigne it's called Christos Vinci Christ's triumph over the darkness of the age he joins me now to discuss his thoughts on the Senate and much more please welcome bishop appalachia Schneider to the studio your excellency thank you for being here well we have much to discuss I want to begin with in your book and and we'll get to the book I really want to dive into the book but you spoke about those Pachamama idols we discussed it with the posse earlier you wrote a very clear open letter on the subject condemning the presence of these idols in churches you called them new golden calves and then you wrote this Catholics cannot accept any pagan worship nor any syncretism between pagan beliefs and the practices and those of the Catholic Church syncretism and paganism are like poisons entering the veins of the mystical body of Christ the church is that what you felt happened in the Vatican gardens in that opening ceremony and with the reappearance of these idols throughout the amazons in it I did not felt it was obvious and the entire world could observe this on the video which even the Vatican News had shown as the people in the presence of the Pope in the Vatican gardens even our Franciscan priests and others they were really dancing like the Hebrews danced around the Golden Calf and they were dancing around these images of the so called Pachamama these figures of unclothed pregnant women and even so in the beginning some spokesmen of the Vatican News denied they are dead it was Pachamama but we got the truth on last Friday when Pope Francis himself made a public statement saying lamenting that these figures were thrown into the Tiber in asking forgiveness for this action and he called these figures Pacha mamas so we know then what this was and Bishop Pachamama he said these statues by destroying them in a way that they were destroyed it was just they just threw them into the Tiber they were all recovered but he said he had to apologize to the indigenous people firstly and then he said no idolatry was intended what did you take from that yes we have to see the exterior facts no one can judge no Kane no one can see the interior intentions this is only known by God but we have to judge by exterior behavior in the same way you know in the first centuries of the Christianity the Christians were asked by the pagan authorities of the Roman Empire only to burn one grain of incense before the symbols or statues after Roman culture it was not only the Roman pagan religion the statues there were also the statues of the Emperor who was a symbol of the Roman culture of the in some way the indigenous Roman culture of those times right and no Christian not through Christian could do this and the Pope's so many Pope's refused to burn a grain of incense and so the action even when after the so-called lapsed Christians who did burn publicly incense in honor of the idols either pagan or cultural there was one there was no distinction it's always one they can be no middle turn between the own only one through God and the idols they cannot worship to our half Idol or a third Idol this is always an idol and so in this case the exterior actions have demonstrated that this is prohibited by divine law for the Pablo sewers or Zeus who was a participant in the Synod one of the organizers he said it doesn't matter doesn't matter if it was a it was a pagan ritual or not they were worshipping God yes disease against divine revelation such an statement as our Lord said in their first commandment you have not to have other gods besides me and so it is very clear and our Lord also said the same whoo and the apostle's son Paul said how can be Christ and the demons of the pagans it's there cannot be a union between them and so this we have to state again and all the Apostles and the Saints through 2,000 years they stated the same that is impossible to make any compromise in worshiping do give worship to what is not God what the true God the Vatican editorial director Andrea Courtney Ali said the following about the theft of these idols he said in the name of tradition and doctrine an effigy of maternity and the sacredness of life was dumped in contempt what do you think Saint Athanasius would say yes I quote it in my in your open letter in my open letter sent a tenacious from his famous writing against the pagans contra Gentiles and they're sent a tenacious condemns these explanations and arguments saying that not not only we have to condemn every symbol or Idol which is representing pagan divinity but then they say but we we only worship the nature water Sun starts and even Earth and center Tunisia say this is the same as to worship idols and so they this is evident we cannot worship a creature mother earth as they call this is a material creature earth I mean it's material we cannot worship and bow down before our creature do you think this moment this whole Pachamama controversy from the the first time it appeared to the theft to its return in front of the Synod Hall in some ways did it capture the stakes and the tension of this Amazon Senate in your mind yes to my opinion it was a revelation this worship to these idols which were idols we cannot deny this the entire world understood is and is completely not honest to deny this the evidence and it demonstrated in some way the core of the Synod which was to turn towards creature to turn away from the creator from the through God to go to creature only to put at the center not only man but creature materials and this is a further step away from the gospel from the supernatural from the true life which God gives us through Jesus Christ how did we get to this place of encode this idea of enculturation where you blend in or bring in foreign statues pagan ideas sing crowded synchronism how did we get here I think it we should look back because there were a lot of statements in the past 50 60 years in the life of the church which said that people can choose freely every religion so you are free to choose by your freedom any religion and and even saying that this is the right of your nature and this is of course wrong because we have only arrived from nature to choose the truth and the good we have not the right good God did not did not gave us the freedom to choose sin or to choose blasphemy and there are a lot of religions who perform blasphemy even blaspheming our Lord Jesus Christ and adoring idols is for example the Hinduism and other religions so we have to be careful to not to to spread such teaching and to stress that we have only God gave us the freedom for the good for the truth and there is only one truth and one religion which got positively wants this is the Catholic religion the Catholic truth the religion which is born from the faith in Jesus Christ God true God and true man in the only safer Saviour of humankind you spent seven years in Brazil so if anybody can really speak authoritative Lee about what the people in the Amazon might want or not what what do you make of the Synod recommendations particularly the ordination of married men married elders and the study of the extending Holy Orders to women making them deacons and yes I met in my time in Brazil even indigenous people who are Catholics and they don't like they expressed to me they were freed when they have known Jesus Christ and the beauty of the Catholic faith and these indigenous Catholic people they are very pious and they loved the priesthood they had a deep veneration of the sacredness and so they got their freedom in the true Catholic faith and now the Synod seemed to to say them you can remain in your situation or mix your pagan indigenous creeds or traditions with the Catholic faith this is impossible and so we are depriving people from this experience because the indigenous Amazon ik tribes they have the same right as all the other peoples on earth they are not a special species here on earth who they alone are not able to give God their sons to be celibate Aryan priests as all the people in the entire world during two thousand years of history of the church did so in this way the see not with this proposal are considering these Amazonian people as a second-class people who are not mercy not capable to do to give God their sons and to mature in faith Cardinal Houmas who was one of the chief organizers here a former Cardinal in Brazil he suggested that this Synod went further than even he imagined he was particularly excited about the recommendations for women to become lectors and acolytes at the mass are you excited about those from no I am NOT excited because this contradicts the entire tradition of the church unfortunately after the council we had de facto already women Lecter's and acolytes so you know today in we're in the majority of the parishes in the Western world in Europe and America even in Asia they are already female acolytes serving mass in the same dress liturgical dress as men and reading lectures or readings in during the Holy Mass and even distributing Holy Communion this is even in some way more than an acolyte only serving mass to stand sight on-site with a priest a woman and giving holy communion so these practices already prepared and accustomed people to accept female lectures and acolytes which already we have I want to talk about your book for a moment Chris Josephine sheet and we will talk more about the book next week first of all you say you wrote this because we're living in a dark age in a dark time explain that that we are living in a dark time we have not to prove it is already too evident and so only a blind person could say we are living in the springtime or in a new Pentecost as we heard these words 5060 years ago during the council yes now they are living in a winter in a cold spiritual winter in the church why did you decide to write this now and call it Christ's triumph over the darkness of the age well the potato in Latin is Christos vincit it is a famous unknown song of the Catholics that's saying that Christ is the victor he is the is the winner the Conqueror and so in this way I decided to to do this interview in a book form to give some strengths and consolation and spiritual help to so many people in the first place to the little ones in the church to the laity who in this time are thirsting so much for a clarity for the truth tell me because I know your first book I believe was on the Eucharist particularly about the perception of the Eucharist the psychology of the Eucharist you you you address it once again in the new book how is the Eucharist in some ways perhaps in the only way the way back the Eucharist is the heart of the church the church is built up from the Eucharist as john paul ii wrote in his last encyclical ecclesia deo krystia saying that the church is built up and leaves from the eucharist so the Eucharist Easter the true heart of the trench and so when de when when the heart is weak so the entire body is weak so we have first to strengthen the heart of the church and this is the Eucharist the veneration of the Eucharist the worship of the Eucharist and the Eucharist is not only some thing it is him Christ and therefore my first book I gave the title it is the Lord it is him he you heard my opening story by former Vice President Joe Biden was denied Communion last Sunday at a parish he presented himself the priest told him no not once but twice that priest is being criticized some saying you are politicizing the sacrament your weaponizing the Eucharist what is your reaction to that no solution by the priest this is not convincing this is an argument with which we cannot accept because here is at stake the holy of holies in the church our Lord Himself and if we would admit such a person who publicly supports very Grievous sins as the killing of innocent human beings unborn children in other he cannot be admitted to Holy Communion because of us what is Holy Communion it is an expression that you are the most United is Christ with his Commandments and with the entire church and is it this would be a lie to admit such a person to a Holy Communion we would commit a lie and so it is I consider it's very heroic and courageous of this priest who denied this person the Holy Communion he denied him these and he did good because it was for the spiritual good of this person because if such a person receives the Holy Communion in such a attitude it is a heart for this person and he eats his judgment SN Paul says and therefore we have to support such a priest we will leave it there for the moment Bishop Christos Vinci Christ's triumph over the darkness of the age by Bishop Athanasius Schneider is available at bookstores everywhere online and through EWTN s catalogue at ewtn our see.com we will have more with him next week that is all the time we have for now until next week the show continues on Facebook and Twitter like me on Facebook follow me on Twitter the links are trained and arroyo dot-com be sure to catch us next week until then we'll be starting the world over for all that is seen and unseen on behalf of the staff and crew of EWTN news thank you for watching I'm Raymond Arroyo from Washington DC I know [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

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Length: 56min 26sec (3386 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 31 2019