October 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The pagan idol worship that took place in the Vatican Gardens on October 4 has received significant media attention. One topic of debate centers on the two statues of naked pregnant women that the attendees “worshiped.”
Today, on this special segment of The John-Henry Westen Show, I’m discussing the deeply concerning ritual and what it means for the Church.
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Watch this special segment here:
Transcript: An outrage either way: Pagan idol worship in the Vatican or a nude statue of Our Lady
An event last week with indigenous people from the Amazon along with Pope Francis in the Vatican Gardens caused social media to explode. And rightfully so. We were either witnessing pagan idol worship in the Vatican with the seeming approval of the pope, or else it was a scandalous portrayal of the Mother of God in a crude nude statue. Frankly, I don’t know which is worse, but either way, it’s totally outrageous. That’s what we’re discussing in this special episode of The John-Henry Westen Show. Stay tuned.
Let’s begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
The eve of the Amazonian Synod was marked by the Roundtable, where I joined several popular and outspoken defenders of the Catholic faith in calling out Pope Francis for the confusion he’s let loose in the Church. While that was happening, inside the Vatican Gardens was this alarming scene with what seemed like a pagan fertility ritual, complete with idol worship, all in the presence of Pope Francis.
A priestess of some sort was leading the ritual with dance, and participants, including a Franciscan friar, knelt in a circle and prostrated themselves, bowing to the ground with their foreheads before two statues of pregnant naked women. The priestess then shook a maraca in an apparent “blessing” over the whole group, including the pope, who was looking on during the prostration before the nude women statues.
As an aside, here are these far-left Catholics not only kneeling, but prostrating themselves. I find it so weird that the left-leaning prelates in the Church are the ones who disdain kneeling and sometimes even refuse to administer Holy Communion to kneeling faithful. Disgusting!
Remember the account from the Bible in the Book of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden idol and commanded all people to bow down before it or be thrown into a fiery furnace. The Jewish youths Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused even under the pain of such a horrible death. And the outraged king heated the furnace to seven times the normal and had them bound and thrown in. They were miraculously rescued for their fidelity to God, and the king converted.
To see this idol worship happening in the presence of the pope and on the hallowed ground of the Vatican, where St. Peter himself died and was buried, is a scandal beyond imagining.
LifeSite’s Rome correspondent, Diane Montagna, spoke with an indigenous leader from the Amazon Saturday who, after viewing the ceremony, called it 100% pagan.
However, some suggested that perhaps those wooden statues of naked seemingly pregnant women were not pagan idols, but rather depictions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Elizabeth.
The official story, at least coming from the bishop the Vatican had speaking at the synod’s first press conference, said, well, he didn’t know…that it could have been Mother Earth or the Virgin Mary. (play the clip)
That was the sentiment of Bishop David Martínez de Aguirre Guinea, O.P. And when he mentioned “Mother Earth,” you should know that what he’s referring to is exactly a pagan goddess — Mother Earth is a translation of the Inca Pachamama — which is, as you can read in Wikipedia, “a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. She is also known as the earth/time mother. In Inca mythology, Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. She is also an ever-present and independent deity who has her own self-sufficient and creative power to sustain life on this earth.”
Let me say, if you don’t know exactly if it’s supposed to be some pagan idol of a false god or the Virgin Mary, should you maybe not reconsider prostrating yourselves? All throughout the Old Testament are warnings against bowing down to false idols. Remember too that it was one of the temptations presented to Christ by the devil after his 40-day fast.
If it was supposed to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary, did someone not think twice about enraging our Lord by allowing such an unworthy depiction of His Holy Mother into the Vatican?
The standards of modesty in the Catholic Church are universal and not just limited to the Westerners. Public nudity is not a Christian practice, and beyond it, being spiritually unhealthy leaves people vulnerable and prone to sickness.
It’s time to evangelize with the truth of Christ boldly, and if that means sometimes saying that a cultural practice is unhealthy, well, then, so be it.
What kind of punishment from the Lord is the Vatican bringing down upon itself?
Here’s a possible answer and prophecy from the Book of Exodus, chapter 20:
2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 You shall have no other gods before me.
4 You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
5 you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Is this the abomination of desolation set up in the holy place as referred to by Christ as a sign of the end times? But if it was indeed a pagan idol set up for worship in the Vatican, then it sure does seem to be getting close!
For LifeSiteNews, this is John-Henry Westen.
