Last month I was stunned by the pagan worship at the Vatican. Today I learned that this isn't the only time a Pope has allowed this. Pope John Paul II did similar things. I am very shaken at these revelations. This makes no sense to me. I am looking for help.

A. Prayer with False Religions, Pagan Worship (mid-1980s until at least 2002)

Pope John Paul prayed with and participated in non-Christian and pagan religious ceremonies on multiple occasions. ”Pope John Paul II departed from the example of Christ, whose representative on Earth he was, and committed a grave and public sin against the first commandment.”- Henry Sire, Phoenix from the Ashes

In 2002, he organized a meeting of world faiths. He went as far as setup rooms for worship of all kinds of religions, removing or covering up any Christian symbols that were present.

https://onepeterfive.com/remembering-th ... ars-later/

https://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com ... dmdDvROkwB

(there are other sources, probably better ones, but these were selected in the hopes they are factual)

B. Canonization of Pope John Paul II (2013)

Pope Francis declares him a saint. JPII, the same guy who broke the first commandment in view of the world, and did not publicly recant, or so I understand.

C. Idol Worship at the Amazon Synod (2019)

Pope Francis invites pagan worship, then brings idols into St Peters. A man offended by the presence of identical idols in a church nearby takes them out and throws them in the Tiber river. The pope apologizes to anyone offended that someone took them! He even calls the idols by their pagan name.

The Vatican garden ceremony on October 4, and the Pope’s response, is the worst thing I have ever seen a Christian leader. I don’t even see how he can be called a follower of Christ, let alone the Vicar. In addition to the naked female statues seen in the video, if you look closely, you can see a carved statue of a man with an erect penis. There are NO Christian symbols present. The idols were then brought into St. Peters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6P39XswlzI&t=326s

https://gloria.tv/post/fppCjjZTXvJB2cY49Ap1cnF6z

PERCEIVED VIOLATIONS OF CATHOLIC CHURCH CLAIMS

1. The gates of hell won’t prevail against the Catholic Church (based on Mathew 16:18)

They calling someone a saint who led the entire church astray on the first commandment? You have a successor who is doing the same thing, and probably will continue? That’s hell at work!

Plus, the cardinals and bishops tacitly approve by their silence. Only a small handful have criticized.

To me it looks hell has prevailed. Maybe not forever, but for decades anyway.


2. Infallibility of a pope when teaching on faith and morals

Isn’t what the pope does in view of the entire world, in a formal capacity, planned well in advance, relevant on this issue?

Or is it only words written on a document that count?

Or does it only pertain under an extremely limited set of criteria?

Whatever the specific formula, we need to think about the average person, the average catholic. Everyday Catholics see and hear what the popes do. They believe they are hearing the truth, especially when the whole freaking magisterium is behind it. When a Pope organizes pagan worship, how can that NOT be teaching in error? He is teaching by his actions, his response (or non-response) to questions about what he is doing.

3. Implicit: God will intervene to stop error from being taught

I have repeatedly heard that if the Pope were to teach error, God would strike him dead on the spot. It's probably not an official teaching, but seems to be widely believed.

Nobody struck dead on the spot. No roof collapsing at St Peters. No voices from heaven condemning these actions of JPII and Francis’

Where are the corrections from Mary in the church approved visitations? Yes, there is Fatima and the direction to the Pope to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. But there have also been numerous other approved apparitions since then. In my studies of these, I have not seen warnings or condemnations against the Pope or the magisterium for their evils. Instead, it’s the rest of humanity who is scolded. That is very frustrating.

I could be wrong but that’s what I have noted.

http://miraclehunter.com/marian_apparit ... ishop.html

A great deal has been typed and images posted about this. Pope Francis stated no idolatry, so who to believe? I believe the Pope. I believe that instead of reading his denial of any idolatry, some would prefer a different answer, or confusion. Use of the word worship is more than placing idols in a Church but actually worshiping them? I think not. May I respectfully say, the Church is not turning pagan. Like missionaries who went among indigenous peoples in years past, the Missionary Church continues.

Your post is packed full of unproven and untrue assertions, Xavier. Stick to facts and then you won’t have any fodder for catastrophising. I don’t have time now to patiently go through all your dubious and erroneous assertions, but I’ll just begin and end now with your first sentence:

“Last month I was stunned by the pagan worship at the Vatican.”

There was no pagan worship at the Vatican.

I can't encourage the websites you visited, Most Holy Family Monastery in particular. You have no chance of getting a fair overview of what happened there.

I am troubled by what Pope Francis did, and I wish he would explain, but my breath is not held.

I do think you might find these two articles helpful:
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/1 ... ilius.html
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/1 ... latry.html

Thank you for the articles. I will print and read them carefully.

Thank you for not writing any more. I don't have patience for people like you.

I think the problem is your state of mind, not Pope Francis, looking to see bad in everything. There was no Papal participation in pagan worship. Haters of the pope say there was, why would you believe them? Were you there?

Despite the claims of some radical Sedevacantists, I've never seen any evidence John Paul II doing anything like what happened at the Amazon Synod. Every supposed example I've looked at turned out to be taken wildly out of context and things that were supposedly pagan turned out to be explicitly Catholic. There were some minor problems at the Assisi I and II, but upon closer examination they turned out to be minor incidents based on misunderstanding.

Be careful about your sources.

It's easy to dismiss people who disagree with you as "haters." Can you see any reason why someone would be worried by the garden ceremony at the synod?

I was initially going to write “Only haters of the Pope say there was” but then I realised that wouldn’t be correct, so I omitted the word “Only”, but I see now that wasn’t sufficient to change it to the way I intended. So I agree with your point.

Hello Father, would you as a priest hold such a ceremony outside your parish and then display Pachamama statues, or some other pagan deity, in your church near the altar?

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A bit of an expansion on the recent events at the Vatican as a kickoff to the Amazon Synod.

The opening ceremony is pretty shocking. It lasts less than 15 minutes, so easy to check out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6P39XswlzI&t=328s

There is a seated gathering of several Cardinals and Pope Francis to watch the ceremony.

A circular blanket is spread out with strange objects on them including a wooden figure with an erect penis (clearly visible at 6:20). There were also the statues of the two naked women who appeared pregnant. A group of people danced around the objects, looked up to the sky while someone led in a prayer in another language, then the group bowed down to the statues. A woman acting as some sort of shaman said a few things in another language while shaking a maraca. There was no Christian symbols present on the ground, and i did not see any christian necklaces or other symbols on anyone participating.

Afterwards the wooden female statues were presented to Pope Francis. He later called them Pachamama, which is a fertility deity that is worshiped by some in the Amazon region. The Pachamama were later taken into St Peters in a canoe with the Pope and some cardinals standing nearby. A quick search on google of "pachamama st peters" will show them.

Many articles have been written about the Pachamama deity by those who have lived in the Amazon region. Fr. Mitch Pawca, who also has experience in that region, made a video explaining these were idols to another God that were worshiped at the Vatican. He is clearly upset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHCxjaWUZTg

If it is reasonable for Fr Mitch Pawca to be angry, then I think it reasonable for me to be angry and frustrated, too.
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I was a relatively happy protestant who started reading about the origin of the Bible and early christian beliefs about it. I was dragged mentally kicking and screaming into the Catholic church by the weight of evidence that the early church believed more like Catholics than the evangelical protestants. Frankly, becoming Catholic was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

My wife and two children followed me in to the Catholic church. Later my parents became Catholics themselves. Over the past 7 years we have held a Bible study in our house with other Catholics who are less well formed than us.

However, the papacy of Francis is making it harder and harder to be at peace with this religion. What keeps me afloat at the moment is likening the Papacy to the High Priest of Mosaic covenant. Some of the chief priests were monsters, and yet God continued to let them serve that role. It was Caiaphas after all who condemned Jesus. Likewise, even if Pope Francis is a monster whose goal is the destruction of the faith, perhaps that is possible within the framework of Catholicism.

This sort of thinking is not consistent with what Pope Francis said. As I suggested earlier, perhaps people should contact the Vatican directly to get further clarification, That idea was rejected out of hand here. I think the tendency should be to find out more. As a professional researcher myself, I contact people directly to confirm facts. I think the Pope would be agreeable to this.

Is there any injunction in the Faith against causing confusion among the faithful? At the least, I link Francis with confusion.

Note that I do not ascribe an ideological cause or a personal characteristic.

Instead of assuming anything, contact Pope Francis. I mean, just give it a try.

Do you honestly think that he would get a personal response from Pope Francis?

Francis has not even answered the questions submitted by 4 of his own Cardinals, he certainly is not going to answer a random laymen.

From cruxnow.com

https://cruxnow.com/church/2016/01/noto ... e-francis/

“Although it’s only being discussed now, the papal call to Maso actually occurred in 2013, so it could have been among the first in a string of almost endless, and generally unpublicized, attempts by Francis to answer those who write to share their pain, to ask for forgiveness, and to express doubts.”

Some will win the lottery. But it is not prudent to put a future winnings in your personal budget.

you mean i need to rethink my retirement strategy i'm devastated!!!!1

i know... i can say that again!