How Chinese culture and Catholicism blend

Kung hei fat choi!

As we celebrate the Chinese new year, it is good for us to reflect on our Catholic beliefs vis a vis our Chinese cultural heritage.

Superstitious beliefs are clearly incompatible with Christianity. They are against the very first commandment, “Thou shall have no other gods before Me,” because they ascribe to certain things or practices some kind of magic that brings to a person’s life good luck, charm, etc.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following:

[2110] The First Commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.

[2110] Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition.

The Chinese people being known for having many superstitious beliefs, we now raise the question: can a Chinese who is proud of his cultural heritage be a good Catholic?

The answer, of course, is yes. He only needs to be careful as to what aspects of his culture he will embrace. An important caution is for a Catholic Chinese to limit feng shui to what is practical. For example, keeping the house clean is certainly a good practice, as is placing items in areas that are safe for them and for the people inhabiting that space. He cannot, however, pin his hopes on feng shui and ascribe to it certain magical powers. After all, if a person has faith in God and entrusts himself to His divine providence, what need has he for feng shui and similar practices?

For insights on Catholicism and feng shui from the perspective of Chinese Catholic priests, check out theinterview with Fr. Jimmy Liao and the UCAN article cautioning Catholics.

Happy Year of the Lord, everyone!

(by JBAlcoreza, orginally posted at http://knightsofsaintbenedict.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/how-chinese-culture-and-catholicism-blend/)

Sorcery and Cults in Papua New Guinea - Let us pray for them

We are enemies of evil (Satanic cults, sorcery, witchcraft, etc.).
But we are also enemies of murders and violence, for it is also the same devil working behind them.

PNG woman tortured, burned alive in 'sorcery' case

AFP News – Thu, Feb 7, 2013

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  AFP News - This photo, taken on February 6, 2013, shows a young mother accused of sorcery who was stripped naked, reportedly tortured with a branding iron, tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile …more 

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A young mother accused of sorcery was stripped naked, doused with petrol and burned alive in front of a crowd including schoolchildren in Papua New Guinea, reports said on Thursday.

The woman, named by The National newspaper as Kepari Leniata, 20, was reportedly tortured with a branding iron and tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tyres.

According to the rival Post-Courier newspaper she was torched by villagers who claimed she killed a six-year-old boy through sorcery, with police outnumbered by onlookers and unable to intervene.

A fire truck that responded to the incident, which took place on Wednesday morning in Mount Hagen city in the Western Highlands, was also chased away.

According to the reports, which were accompanied by graphic front-page images of the woman's burning corpse, she admitted to killing the boy, who died after being hospitalised with stomach and chest pains on Tuesday.

Police said they were treating the torching as murder and preparing charges against those responsible.

There is a widespread belief in sorcery in the poverty-stricken Pacific nation where many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune, illness, accidents or death.

In 1971, the country introduced a Sorcery Act to criminalise the practice. But PNG's law reform commission recently proposed to repeal it after a rise in attacks on people thought to practise black magic.

Local bishop David Piso said many innocent people had been killed.

"Sorcery and sorcery-related killings are growing and the government needs to come up with a law to stop such practice," Piso told The National.

The US embassy in the Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby issued a statement strongly condemning the "brutal murder" of Leniata, who had an eight-month-old daughter, as evidence of "pervasive gender-based violence".

"We add our voice to those of Papua New Guinean religious and civil society leaders who have spoken out against the brutality inflicted upon Ms Leniata," the embassy said.

"There is no possible justification for this sort of violence. We hope that appropriate resources are devoted to identifying, prosecuting, and punishing those responsible for Ms Leniata's murder."

Police arrested dozens of people last year linked to an alleged cannibal cult accused of killing at least seven people, eating their brains raw and making soup from their penises.

There have been several other cases of witchcraft and cannibalism in PNG in recent years, with a man reportedly found eating his screaming, newborn son during a sorcery initiation ceremony in 2011.

In 2009, a young woman was stripped naked, gagged and burnt alive at the stake, also in Mount Hagen, in what was said to be a sorcery-related crime.

Beware of Cursed and Occultic Objects

Catholic Christians must be aware of the presence of cursed and occultic objects in circulation, promising good health, luck and charms especially in welcoming New Year. Some are given by practitioners of witchcraft like witchdoctors, psychics, New Age practitioners, feng shui, horoscope, palm reading, crystal ball, faith healing, fortune-telling, including those who patronizes lucky pendants, wristbands, necklaces like quantum pendants, etc. These objects and all those belonging to New Age movements are incompatible to the Church's teachings, doctrines and Catechism. "ONLY JESUS. ALWAYS JESUS.".

Saint Benedict, pray for us.
St.Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us.
Holy Name of Jesus, save us. Amen.

BEWARE OF THE DECEPTIONS OF NEW AGE MOVEMENTS

Vatican Exorcist Calls Yoga “Satanic”

Posted on November 30, 2011 by SBrinkmann

see http://www.womenofgrace.com/blog/

Rome’s chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, has reignited the debate over whether Christians can practice yoga by declaring that both yoga and Harry Potter are tools of the devil.

The NY Daily News is reporting that Father Amorth made the comments at a film festival in the Italian city of Umbria this week where he was invited to introduce the new movie, The Rite.

“Practicing yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter,” Father Amorth said.

He went on to say that those seemingly “innocuous” Potter books convince kids to believe in black magic.

“In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses.”

As for yoga, it leads to Hinduism and “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation,” the 86-year-old priest said.

“Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence,” he said. “He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.”

Father Amorth, who performed more than 50,000 exorcisms since retiring in 2000, is the author of two books on his experiences and is both the founder and honorary president of the International Association of Exorcists.

Father Amorth is not alone in his estimation of both Potter and yoga. Pope Benedict once warned of “subtle seductions” in the Potter books that “dissolve Christianity in the soul.”

In 1999, while serving as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he issued the document “Some Aspects of Christian Meditation“ in which he warns Catholics about the dangers of eastern practices such as yoga, Zen, and transcendental meditation, saying that these practices have the danger of degenerating “into a cult of the body” that debases Christian prayer.

He also states that yoga poses could create a feeling of well-being in the body which could be confused with “authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit.”

No To Occultism and New Age

Holy Week, not only the real faithfuls are observing the season. Fanatics
are also on the loose. So is Satan, the cunning enemy of God.

The Knights of Saint Benedict, a Catholic Lay Deliverance Team declares war
against the astute assaults of evil through spiritism, medium, talisman,
amulets and many other forms of occultic rituals, divination, "faith"
healings, quack doctors, witchcraft, sorcery, etc. and various types of
"New Age" movements and superstitions especially during Good Friday.

(send in your prayer requests for souls, healing, deliverance from evil infestations - personal, objects and household; report any extraordinary and paranormal; send in your inquiries and requests for talks, lectures, visits for houses, families or individuals; be guided only by and within the teachings of the Catholic Church in handling unknown, undetermined and suspected cases)

Simple Deliverance Prayer (from St.Michael's Book of Deliverance)

Holy Trinity, One God, living and true,
Almighty and Omnipresent, Total Love,

I adore You, I bless You,
and I glorify You.
I believe in You, and in Your saving and healing power.
Today I recognize how much I sinned and hence, I am cut off from You.

My Lord, I renounce from my heart and for always:
Satan, his works, his lies, sin, impurity,
and the love for power and pleasure
that separate me from You, my God and Lord.

I recognize, O Lord, that I have erred in accepting
what other sects have proposed,
in using God's name in vain,
in my participation in
satanic rites and occult rituals
that are not in accordance to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

I have been an easy prey to these sects and false teachings
because I don't study the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church
and I dont frequent the Sacraments.

I am not faithful to the Sunday Eucharist
and when I participate, I don't listen to the homily.
I don't seek spiritual guidance, nor do I seek forgiveness of sins
through the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession).

Merciful Lord, I can only express honestly
what I have passed through.
I return to You with a repentant heart,
and I beg You not to refuse me with Your Mercy.
Pardon me for all my sins. Amen.