A Fire of Testing Has Come to the Catholics

In my last posting, I talked about El Shaddai’s brother Mike Velarde and his “seeming” contradiction to the official teaching of the Catholic church regarding statues and images of saints. In his previous message (12/08/2007) he admonished the Catholics of the nation to stop from kneeling and praying before the statues and images of saints because, according to his teaching, it is a cause of curse to our nation.

In his last message (12/15/2007) he continued to talk about statues and images of saints, but this time he was bold and he strongly urged the members of their group to surrender any form of idol they may have kept at their homes and destroy them all by burning them.

His last message was in continuation of his previous message which borders on the theme on generational curses of a nation and the ways of breaking free from them. Brother Mike Velarde believes that the primary reason why our nation is in a seemingly endless cycle of sufferings and hardships is because the nation is under many curses, and one of the major cause of these curses is idolatry that involves the statues and images of saints.

To the Catholics, the statue and image of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the most sacred among the saints. They may give up devotion to the rest of the saints but never to Mary. She is so dear to them because she is the mother of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and hence has become their mother in Christianity. But in his last message, brother Mike Velarde had “found the strength” to dare challenge the rest of the Catholics of the nation and even the priests and bishops by implying that devotion to Mary is unnecessary for salvation, and therefore it needs to be abandoned. He said with a forceful voice of delivery, urging the nation once and for all, to do away with “rebulto at rosaryo” (statue and rosary).

He also mentioned again the name of their group’s spiritual director, Bishop Teodoro Bacani. He said that the bishop would not dare to talk about this matter to the group himself for fear of being rejected -- implying that he (Velarde) was made to do the “heavy lifting” for the bishop concerning this matter. Does this mean that a Catholic bishop is in approval of what brother Mike Velarde is teaching and urging Catholics to do? To say the least, this is shocking and confusing to the mainstream Catholics who are not members of brother Mike Velarde’s El Shaddai group.

Brother Mike Velarde’s word to the bishops: “As the priests and bishops go, so goes the nation.” Implying that maybe the priests and bishops are not doing their supposed job correctly concerning this matter.

In this serious controversy that is slowly starting to burn among the “Catholics” in the Philippines, the lay people deserve an official statement from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) regarding this matter so that they may be guided accordingly.

Brother Mike Velarde also told that some non-Catholic Christian charismatic groups were urging him to join their group since he no longer believes in the official teaching and tradition of the Catholic church concerning statues and images, but he refused to break away from being affiliated with the Catholic church because, according to him, “Light is needed most in places where darkness dwells, not in places where light already exists.”

If brother Mike Velarde is really true to his conviction on this issue, then at any time soon, his prayer mountain should be blazing with fire from burning of the idols that their members may have owned. Or better yet, fire from burning statues and images should be seen at the wide open grounds of AMVEL business park and fully covered by media for the whole world to see -- or any other action to this effect, otherwise, his talk is cheap.

A fire of testing has come to the Catholic church – to the Philippines for now, to the rest of the world later; for these days is a season of testing.

“Catholic Idolatry”: A Curse to the Nation?

It is 1:00am of 12/10/2007, and I just finished watching the late night replay at channel 13 of El Shaddai’s (a locally founded Catholic group whose teaching authority is not officially recognized by the Catholic church) latest weekly religious activity at AMVEL business park.

In the Bible teaching portion of their activity, brother Mike Velarde (the group’s servant-leader and founder) talked about the various causes and reasons why a nation may be undergoing hardships and difficulties. He narrated verses from the Bible that speak about things that bring curses to a nation. Among the things he mentioned was idolatry, and bluntly but politely he emphasized (using his favorite line of caution, “Bato bato sa langit, ang tatamaan huwag magaglit.”) the Catholic tradition concerning statues and images of saints. He admonished the “nation” to do away with this tradition of kneeling and praying before the statues and images of the saints because it is one reason our nation is experiencing a seemingly endless cycle of sufferings and hardships.

December 8th in the Catholic tradition is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and this is one of the important celebration of the Catholic religion. But brother Mike Velarde didn’t specifically mentioned the “wrong way of veneration” that most Catholics render to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I observed in the video that many of the audience looked so perplexed with brother Mike Velarde’s admonition. Bishop Teodoro Bacani is the spiritual director of the group, but is this teaching of the El Shaddai servant-leader do not seriously confuse the lay Catholics who are members of this group? Because it seems that brother Mike Velarde is contradicting the official teaching of the Catholic church regarding this matter. Is this another manifestation of conflict among the Catholic church?

Below is a text from the Catholic catechesis concerning the First Commandment:

The First commandment: "I am the Lord your God, you shall not have other gods before me" (Basic Catholic Catechism)

The commandment most directly prohibits the worship of false gods, and, to follow up, prohibits images. The Jews were very prone to such idolatry before the great exile. Afterwards they seem to have been largely healed.

The prohibition of images does not apply now, since the danger of idolatry has gone. Our images of Our Lord, His Mother, and the Saints, are just helps to devotion. We do not adore them. We only venerate them, but even the veneration goes not to the image but to the holy one for which the image stands.

We need to avoid also superstition, which is offering worship in an improper manner, probably based on false revelations, e. g, prayers that if said for a set number of days will have an infallible result. Vain observance would be magic or satanism. Sadly, there is explicit worship of satan today. The Ouija board is dangerous, and we should avoid it, since part of its results come from automatic writing, but often enough satan intervenes.

We must also avoid sacrilege, which is scornful treatment of a person, place or thing dedicated to God. To receive Holy Communion in the state of sin is sacrilege. We avoid also simony, which takes its name from Simon Magus, who tried to buy with money the gift of working miracles . St. Peter rebuked him strongly (Acts 8:9-24). To give a stipend for a Mass etc. is not simony. It is not buying the Mass, it is an offering for the support of the priest, or a means of sharing specially in the Mass.

In a loose sense, not a strict sense, some people today "worship" the false gods of secularism, which says this world is the only one to be considered, or hedonism, which makes pleasure the goal of life, or Communism, which denies the existence of God, seeks happiness in a so-called classless society in Russia the very opposite has been true, great privilege and luxury for the ruling class.

On the positive side, we are to worship God, which means most essentially, adoration and obedience. Adoration means recognizing who He is, and who I am in comparison. This is due in justice, but also, more importantly, in love: we recognize that God is not only infinitely good to us, but also in Himself. As such we should respond by pleasing Him by making ourselves open to receive His gifts — for that pleases Him. that is what love for God means. In no other way to we really give Him anything. The central virtue that gave all its value to the sacrifice of Jesus was His obedience to the will of the Father. Without it, His death would have been a tragedy, not a redemption.

Sacrifice for us (some pagan peoples had different ideas of sacrifice) has an external sign, which is there to express and perhaps even promote the essential, which is the interior dispositions. God complained through Isaiah (Is 29:13: "This people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." The ancient Israelites at that time seemed to think their participation in their liturgy meant merely making responses and singing — these things were good, but the obedience was lacking. We must join our obedience — carried out in the recent past, or to come in the near future — to the offering of Jesus, when, through the human priest, He puts Himself on the altar under the appearance of separation of body and blood, to express His continued attitude of obedience to the Father. So catechists say our role in the Mass is ACTS:

Adoration,
Contrition,
Thanksgiving, and
Supplication.

We should do these things, but we must not let them cause us to forget the real center is obedience (Cf. Romans 519 and LG #3).

Outside the time of the sacrifice of the Mass, we should of course pray. Regular times are called for to insure we do not forget prayer altogether.

To God we give adoration, it the sense just described; but to Our Lady and the Saints we give only veneration, honor, something less than adoration. The sacrifice of Jesus is infinite, and so in a way we should need to do nothing. Yet St. Paul insists that the whole Christian regime means we are saved and made holy if and to the extent that we are not only members of Christ, but like Him. That includes being like Him in the work of reparation for sin (cf. Rom 8:17-18; Col 1. 24).

Bishop to Arroyo: Heed the signs

Tue, 12/04/2007 - 22:12 — CBCP News

MANILA, 4 December 2007— A Catholic bishop says President Gloria Arroyo should take a cue from the never-ending political saga and restore credibility to her administration.

Novaliches Bishop-Emeritus Teodoro Bacani said the standoff in Makati City recently only showed that the country is sinking to a deepening political crisis.

He said Mrs Arroyo is failing to read the signs that many people may have grown tired of her rule.

“I propose that the President and her administration take this most recent event as an opportunity to look into themselves,” said Bacani.

He said authorities might have foiled the supposed plan to overthrow the Arroyo administration, but warned that people's outcry is far from over until real issues are properly addressed.

“The victors of last Thursday’s affair may indeed be eating and drinking today, or going shopping or visiting other countries, not knowing what is in store for them,” he said. “Rather than gloat over their victory, those in power should examine their consciences."

The bishop also said he is hoping the government would be like that in Singapore where “center of truth” is present among their officials.

In Singapore, he also said, not one of the ministers has been charged or at least suspected of wrongdoing.

“This center of truth is so called because it is characterized by transparency, honesty and integrity,” he said.

Bishop Bacani, however, stressed that said facet of a better government is "precisely what we lack."

In the Philippines, he said, Mrs. Arroyo and her husband and other ranking government leaders have been accused, weighed and found wanting by the people, if not by the courts as yet.

“We, in fact, have a government we do not trust, because there is a lack of transparency, honesty, and adherence to the rule of law by those who are supposed to implement them,” he said.

The prelate cited the arrest and alleged harassments of journalists by the authorities at the Manila Peninsula siege last week as a case of breaking the law by the law enforcers themselves.

Contrary to what has been reported, Bishop Bacani also clarified that he was not at the Manila Peninsula during the standoff.

The bishop said he was in Batam, Indonesia attending the 3rd Asian Convention on the Divine Mercy when the foiled coup broke out.

Earlier reports revealed that Bacani also went to the hotel but reportedly left before the government assault.

Canon Law Prelate says involvement in social issues is part of mission

By Melo Acuña
Monday, 12/03/2007 - 19:17 — CBCP News

MANILA, 3 December 2007— Catholic priests and bishops may become unpopular should they talk about social issues but “that is part of our prophetic role, our responsibility to tell the people that what is morally wrong has to be rectified.”

CBCP Episcopal Commission on Canon Law Chairman and Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Y. Medroso said the bishops and priests may get into the picture if they see “there is something wrong with governance” and hastened to add “his conscience would tell him to get out and be heard, to speak out if there’s something wrong with the authorities.”

Bishop Medroso said limiting priests and bishops to spiritual matters is wrong. “It is a very, very wrong concept of the mission of priests, bishops and religious for we do not exist in this world as spirits, we are living in this world with body and soul and precisely because of that the involvement is so close and simply we cannot separate one from the other,” the prelate from Tagbilaran said.

Asked about various and at times conflicting opinions from bishops and priests, Bishop Medroso said his brother prelates and priests have different views and convictions on political issues.

“We have to consider the reality that even priests and bishops have different perceptions and appreciation of events,” the 69 year-old prelate concluded.

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But read also, "Political Confusion at The Catholic Conference".

List of Detained Individuals after the Manila Peninsula Hotel incident.