November 4, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Mexico City burned effigies of the pagan “Pachamama” statues while leading the faithful in prayer to atone for the sin of worshiping the statues at the Vatican during the recently concluded Amazon Synod.
Video of the event captured Fr. Hugo Valdemar standing outside a Church dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe where flames leaped out of a four-legged metal fireplace that was on top of a table covered with a white tablecloth. The colorized Pachamama effigies were then placed on the table next to the fire.
Fr. Valdemar stood next to an altar boy who was holding an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and explained what was about to take place, as captured by the November 3 video. The priest was also flanked by an icon of St. Michael the Archangel.
Fr. Hugo Valdemar burning Pachamama effigy in Mexico City, Nov. 3, 2019.
“The most blessed Virgin [Mary] of Guadalupe, as we know, is a young woman who is pregnant. She has Jesus in her womb whom is to give birth to the new continent (the new world). She says that she comes to grant her love to all the inhabitants of this entire continent (not just Mexico). She is pregnant and carries Jesus who will bring us the Gospel and drive away the darkness of idolatry and the devil,” he said.
Fr. Hugo then picked up one of the Pachamama effigies and, holding it next to the image of Our Lady, explained the difference between the two.
“A friend exorcist says that this idol (Pachamama) is actually the figure of the antichrist. It is a blasphemy and parody of Mary. Pachamama is pregnant but carries the antichrist to give birth to him in the Masonic church, to destroy the sacraments, which is to return to idolatry and superstition. So, this antichrist who is to give birth to a church with an ‘Amazonian face’ is an abomination, it is a contradiction to Church doctrine, which is the dynamic into which these idolaters want to enter into now,” he said.
“So, in sign of repugnance to the offenses that they made to the most Blessed Virgin Mary in Rome, in her church of Traspontina, we, as a protest and as a sign of reparation, burn this satanic idol of the Pachamama,” he added.
The priest then dropped the Pachamama into the fire where it was consumed by the flames. Two more effigies were later burned.
Effigy of Pachamama going up in flame in Mexico City, Nov. 3, 2019. The priest then led the people in prayers, asking God for pardon for the offenses committed. Catholics around the world were outraged last month to see a pagan ceremony take place in the Vatican Gardens where people bowed down to the ground and worshiped Pachamama idols as Pope Francis and other top-ranking prelates looked on. The October 4 ritual, captured on video, shows Pope Francis blessing the pagan statue before receiving it as a gift.
Effigy of Pachamama burning in Mexico City, Nov. 3, 2019. Three cardinals along with four bishops have condemned the pagan rituals at Vatican, calling it “idolatry” and contrary to the first commandment about not having “strange gods.” On October 21, several replicas of the statues were seized from Santa Maria in Traspontina Church near St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and thrown into the Tiber river. Alexander Tschugguel, 26, of Vienna, Austria, revealed November 4 that he was the young man who seized the statues and threw them in the river.
“I saw in those statues and in those idols...a break of the First Commandment,” he said, adding that he was motivated by the desire to “bring pagan things out of a Catholic Church.”
The brave Christian, who threw the Pachamamas into the Tiber on October 21, is from Vienna, Austria.
His name is Alexander Tschugguel. He told Gloria.tv (4 November) his story.
During the October Amazon Synod, Tschugguel flew twice to Rome. On the first October weekend, he visited events around the Synod, including the now notorious Santa Maria in Traspontina church.
Amazon activists present in the church told him that the Amazon missionaries have stopped baptizing natives, and that the statues on the side altars were symbols of fertility, of "Mother Earth," and of the deity "Pachamama."
Two weeks later, Tschugguel and his friends decided to remove the idols from the church. The same day, on Sunday, October 20, they flew to Rome.
Next day at 6:30 a.m., they went to Santa Maria in Traspontina. While waiting for the opening of the church, they prayed the rosary.
At 7:00 a.m. they entered and removed the idols throwing them into the Tiber. A statue landed on the bridge pier.
For Tschugguel the fact that the statues were retrieved is of no importance: "The success consists in the fact that they are no longer in the church," he explained to Gloria.tv.
He was also grateful that Francis later identified the statues as "Pachamama". Thus, the pagan character of the figures was confirmed from the highest authority.
Tschugguel stresses that his action had a huge media impact. On Youtube alone, the video was viewed over 1.5 million times. In the whole Internet it generated 30 to 40 million clicks.
Tschugguel is not afraid of criminal prosecution. A court case would give him another opportunity to express himself, which would serve the cause, he explained. VIDEO
en.news During the Amazon Synod, the “abomination of idolatrous rites” has entered the Church, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó wrote in a message to the Pittsburgh “Catholic Identity Conference," read by Diane Montagna (November 2, video below).
Viganó calls this “an unprecedented form of apostasy.” According to him "the internal mutation of the Faith" which has been going on for several decades "has seen at the Synod a dramatic acceleration towards the foundation of a new Creed."
He points at "pagan elements" which in the name of inculturation are introduced into the liturgy "in order to transform it into an idolatrous worship.”
For more than six years now, Pope Francis has engaged in a crude polemic that pits the rich against the poor: the rich are greedy hypocrites who “raise up walls,” while the poor, simply because they are poor, are “the gatekeepers of Heaven,” as Francis declared at the end of the disgraceful Synod on the Amazon. This is the basic demagogic trope of Liberation Theology: the elevation of poverty qua poverty to the level of a theological virtue and the depiction of wealth as a sin.
But what did Our Lord mean when He declared the revealed truth that “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” He certainly did not mean “Blessed are those who lack material possessions” or “Blessed are those who live below governmentally established poverty lines.” The traditional understanding of the phrase “poor in spirit” is that it signifies humility. As Father Haydock’s commentary on the beatitude notes, this meaning can indeed embrace the humility of mind and heart of one who patiently endures material poverty, even if — indeed, especially if — his deprivation of material goods is the result of social injustice rather than any fault of his own. Then again, it can also mean a man of wealth who is nonetheless humble in mind and heart concerning his blessings, knowing that they come from God, and who honors his duty of almsgiving according to the divinely ordained universal destination of all goods.
In any case, the first beatitude certainly does not refer to poverty as such, a purely relative term whose meaning depends upon social context. The poor man in America, with a tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood but with central heating, reliable electricity service and running water, who owns a smartphone, a TV, an air conditioner, and has adequate food and unlimited potable water, may well be living far below the federal poverty line in conditions most Americans would consider appalling. Yet he has a standard of living that would be considered luxurious in Bangladesh. It can hardly be the case that both of these “poor” are blessed merely because they are poor according to the standards of their respective societies. Nor is there some absolute biblical poverty line below which the relatively disadvantaged are “blessed” while those above it are not.
Even the masses of illegal immigrants inundating Europe, whom Francis incessantly portrays as blameless victims of oppression by the rich — but never by socialist and communist governments — are predominantly military-age males. They arrive with smartphones and take selfies of their illegal arrival, which they transmit home to the people they left behind, who also have smartphones. As the linked source notes, without apparently noticing the irony: “More than one million refugees have arrived in Germany since last year. Along with their histories and dreams, almost all of them took one item with them: a smartphone.”
Indeed, many of these smartphone-owning “refugees” arrive from places where they were not at all starving and where friends and family members, including abandoned wives and children, await text messages on their own smartphones and electronically transmitted remittances from “refugees” who seek merely to exploit the EU system of social benefits, work off the books, or both. Are all of these illegal immigrants “blessed” and among “the gatekeepers of Heaven”? Are they all blessed even if they riot, attack police and demand social benefits to which they are not legally entitled merely because they call themselves “refugees”?
Francis has reduced the first beatitude, and with it the entire social teaching of the Church, to a caricature on the level of a Latin American socialist rabble-rouser of the relatively poor against the relatively rich. Which is not to deny the existence of social injustices in Latin America, the point being that revolutions by the poor against the rich, which have generally produced oppressive socialist dictatorships, do not bespeak the poverty of spirit of which Our Lord speaks. And it was none other than Our Lord Who refused to be a revolutionary against social injustice, the “bread king” who would feed the masses and overthrow the Romans, but Who rather observed that “the poor you will always have with you.”
In short, Francis has given the first beatitude a bad name. But at this point, in view of the rising opposition to his pontificate from all over the Catholic world, it is not too much to say that he has given the papacy itself a bad name. Barring a miracle, it will take a long time for the Church to recover from the damage this Pope has inflicted on the Petrine office. ___________________________ Catena Aurea Pseudo-Chrysostomus: "Blessed are the poor in spirit," [ed. note, a: The Bened. ed. reads 'beati egeni' - and has this marginal note, 'Hinc sequitur hune Graece non scripsisse' - but S. Thos. reads 'beati πτωχοι ptochi;' it may be remarked moreover that the author follows the order of verses 4 and 5 according to the Greek; all the Latin Fathers (with the single exception of Hilary on Ps. 118) following the order of the Vulgate.] or, according to the literal rendering of the Greek, 'they who beg,' that the humble may learn that they should be ever begging at God's almshouse. For there are many naturally humble and not of faith, who do not knock at God's almshouse; but they alone are humble who are so of faith. Chrysostomus: Or, the poor in spirit may be those who fear and tremble at God's commandments, whom the Lord by the Prophet Isaiah commends. Though why more than simply humble? Of the humble there may be in this place but few, in that again an abundance. Pseudo-Chrys.: For as all other vices, but chiefly pride, casts down to hell; so all other virtues, but chiefly humility, conduct to Heaven; it is proper that he that humbles himself should be exalted. Jerome: The "poor in spirit" are those who embrace a voluntary poverty for the sake of the Holy Spirit.
Pro-abortion & Pro-Gay Joe Biden: ‘The Holy Father…gives me Communion’
November 1, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Pro-abortion former Vice President and 2020 Democratic hopeful Joe Biden has commented on a priest recently upholding Catholic teaching by denying him Holy Communion, saying, “It’s not a position that I’ve found anywhere else, including from the Holy Father, who gives me Communion.”
The Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ and therefore may only be received by practicing Catholics in a state of grace. Additionally, Canon 915 of the Catholic Code of Canon Law says that those who “obstinately” persevere “in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
The scandal created by giving pro-abortion politicians Holy Communion is one familiar to most faithful Catholics in the West, where Canon 915 – and many other parts of the Code of Canon Law – is nearly universally ignored by clergy and prelates.
Father Robert E. Morey of St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina followed Canon 915 during Sunday morning Mass by refusing Biden Holy Communion.
In a short interview with PBS News Hour, Biden said his being denied Communion is a “private matter.”
“It’s the only time it’s ever happened,” he said.
He also accused Fr. Morey of bringing the story to the press and said Pope Francis gives him Holy Communion.
Biden’s 2020 presidential platform includes taxpayer-funded abortion on demand and enshrining into law the many demands of the LGBT lobby.
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong because it kills an innocent human being, thus violating the Church’s prohibition on murder, and that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved” (CCC 2270-2272; CCC 2357).
The platform on which Biden is running for president also includes a suggestion that doctors who refuse to commit abortions be punished and would “weaponize the Justice Department against states to strike down popular pro-life laws — like health and safety standards for abortion facilities, waiting periods, and parental involvement laws — and stop them from passing new ones,” Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser explained in a July piece in The Washington Times.
As Vice President, the first “wedding” Biden officiated was between two men.
The Obama-Biden administration notably tried to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to participate in the provision of abortion-inducing drugs and contraception and threatened schools with the loss of federal funding if they wouldn’t let boys in girls’ bathrooms and vice versa, among other things.
“Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden,” Fr. Morey told the Florence Morning News.
“Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church,” he continued. “Our actions should reflect that.”
“Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.”
During a Thursday FOX & Friends appearance, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan defended Fr. Morey while also saying he personally wouldn’t deny Biden Communion.
LifeSiteNews has reached out to the Vatican press office for comment, and will update this story upon receiving one. LifeSiteNews notes that Italy is five hours ahead of the U.S. and this story is being published at 6:40 p.m. EST.
November 1, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-LGBT Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin is claiming his private meeting with Pope Francis in September was “a public sign” of the pontiff’s “support” for his work — which the American Jesuit describes as “ministering with LGBT Catholics” but which critics say is an indefatigable campaign to change Catholic teaching on homosexuality and other deviant sexual behaviors.
Martin tweeted to his 255,800 followers Wednesday:
But Martin isn’t the first to allege the private audience signaled the Holy Father’s support for his homosexual advocacy.
The liberal Jesuit America magazine, of which Martin is editor at large, interpreted the meeting shortly after it took place as a “highly significant public statement of support and encouragement” for the celebrity priest, LifeSiteNews reported then.
Martin tweeted then that the meeting, during which, he said, he and the pontiff laughed “several times,” showed the pope’s “deep pastoral care for LGBT Catholics and LGBT people worldwide.
Martin’s non-stop though often coy dissent from Catholic teaching on homosexuality has drawn fire from high-ranking churchmen and Catholic lay academics (here and here). The American Jesuit received an award in 2016 from the dissident pro-homosexual group New Ways Ministry, which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the U.S. Catholic bishops have condemned but Martin consistently defends.
Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, called Fr. Martin “one of the most outspoken critics of the Church’s message with regard to sexuality,” and Cardinal Raymond Burke described Martin’s teaching as “not coherent with the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.” More recently, a U.S. bishop and a cardinal rebuked Martin for questioning the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality.
At the same time, Pope Francis appointed Fr. Martin in April 2017 as one of the 13 consultors who advise the Vatican's Dicastery for Communications and the Vatican invited him to speak at the 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin on “Exploring how Parishes can support those families with members who identify as LGBTI+.”
Fr. Martin’s latest self-congratulatory tweet touched off a minor Twitter debate, with a number of people contrasting Martin’s “ministry” to the Courage apostolate, which supports same-sex attracted people in living chastely.
Deacon Jim Russell tweeted:
Austin Ruse, who has engaged on Twitter with Fr. Martin previously, observed:
