MLK and Ghandi images in our Church

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

I have not examined the icons up close yet. I hope I never have the chance.

[SarahB]

A few years back I went to my friend's church and he was showing me around. There was a stained glass window with images of some of the people you mentioned(I'm pretty sure MLK was there...it was a while back though, so I'm not entirely sure) and there was an image of Buddah. I kid you not. It was their "ecumenical" window to remind everyone to love all people blah blah blah. Poor kid wanted to tear it out with his bare hands.

[Guest Rick777]

dorothy day(kinda random)? ghandi? mlk? great people but not saints..............go to your bishop this is just crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

The Buddha? I thought this was bad. That is even worse.

[Ora et Labora]

[quote name='thedude' date='Dec 26 2005, 10:09 PM']Apparantly, "my" parish (I try to avoid it) has decided to hang pictures of  Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. in the church (along with Dorothy Day and Archbishop Oscar Romero), depicted with halos around their heads in icon-esque format (ridiculous).  This was two weeks ago and I first saw them yesterday at Christmas Eve Mass (was forced to attend said parish).  I am trying to come up with a letter to the pastor on why I am opposed to this (especially MLK and Ghandi).  Not that there is anything wrong with Oscar Romero or Dorothy Day, but we don't even have a statue of Mary and the crucifix is stashed on the side wall.  How should I go about it?
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What is Ghandi??

But the rest... Thats aweful!

[scardella]

[quote name='Ora et Labora' date='Dec 28 2005, 10:35 AM']What is Ghandi?? [/quote]

He's this guy:
[img]http://www.hippiemuseum.org/ghandi.jpg[/img]

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

Martin Luther King was an aldulter anyway. ghandi was no saint either.

plus they are not catholic. that is horribile.

(Oscar Romero was a marxist too, i would never hang his picture up)

[furay]

[quote name='SarahB' date='Dec 28 2005, 02:08 AM']Poor kid wanted to tear it out with his bare hands.
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That would've been awesome if he did.

[sraf]

[quote]Martin Luther King was an aldulter anyway. ghandi was no saint either.

plus they are not catholic. that is horribile.
[/quote]
And what great contributions have [i]you[/i] made to civil rights lately?



Respecting other faiths is very important in the Catholic (translation: universal) faith. After all, we acknowledge Jews and Moslems as worshipping (or at least trying to worship) the same God, right? Buddhism and Catholicism do not necessarily cancel each other out, nor do Catholicism and Protestantism.
And how do we know that the Holy Spirit has not inspired other peoples in other religions and from other places? Do you think that the Holy Spirit is unable to inspire a married Protestant minister from the South to take a stand for equality that, even now, changes the world and pushes us towards the Kingdom in the here and now? Or that it was possible for the Spirit to do so without having the same minister turn into a raving Catholic? God's bigger than that!
If you want to abide by [i]rules[/i], however, then by all means ignore all other faiths and their valid truths! Sit in your dark little study and complain about the stupid icons! By all means, do so!
Please, find another parish if you hate it so much.
Thank you. This message has been brought to you in part by the Anti-Discriminaton Commitee.

[Ash Wednesday]

I don't think that everyone here believes MLK and Ghandi are unworthy of praise and I think they are great examples of living in a lot of ways. And I certainly respect what good exists in other religions. Even the church teaches about the virtue of religion.

I think the concern is exhalting them on the same level as canonized saints in heaven, inside a Catholic church. We certainly respect other religions, but that doesn't mean subscribing to relativism, i.e. "it doesn't matter what you believe, one religion is as good as another." There is only one truth, and we are all called to it. Also keep in mind that to state this does not mean that Catholics are being discriminating, or think they are "better" than non-Catholics.

Whoever may have put those in the church might not even have intended to proclaim relativism -- on the surface it might seem harmless -- but I think it can give people the wrong idea. I happen to like rules, myself. The ten commandments were rules. Rules give the church a backbone.


An interesting story about Ghandi -- I read somewhere that when he was younger, he was drawn to the Catholic church and tried to attend a mass at a church, but was told he was not welcome in that church because he wasn't white, and he was greatly troubled by this, and unfortunately the experience marred his perspective about Catholicism. I don't know how true the story is or if someone can verify its authenticity.

[PadreSantiago]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 27 2005, 02:09 AM']churches are not monuments to great men in history.  saints are not simply great forces in history.  churches are structured towards worship of God, and saints are the people we know to be in heaven.  whether or not they were "great men" is irrelevent.

I would gather a mob to take down the pictures, it's complete sacrilidge is what it is.
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Are you trying to say you don't think MLK and Ghandi are in heaven?

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='PadreSantiago' date='Dec 29 2005, 10:12 AM']Are you trying to say you don't think MLK and Ghandi are in heaven?
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Thats what I call WAY...

This thread is not about the moral fibre of non-Christians. The Church doesn't decorate its churhces to glorify the goodness of individuals. It decorates its churches as means of enhancing its own worship, that is, celebrating the mission of our salvation being completed through the sacrifice of the Mass.

Our iconography is there to lead the mind towards deeper embrace, understanding, contemplation of the Catholic teaching on redemption and salvation. In the saints we see those individuals who have been transformed in Christ and who point the way to becoming one body through the one bread (1 Cor 10:17). They are signposts, markers, candles that light the way for us as we too journey towards God by becoming partakers in the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4). Moreover, they illustrate the veracity of God's Word in His promise of His transforming presence (John 14:18-20).

There are dozens of great individuals and nobel prize winners whose achievements can be said to be of some merit and who have exhibited certain virtues profoundly. However, only those on the road to canonisation should find their images adorning Catholic churches. Saints are examples to follow in living out the Catholic faith, non-Catholics cannot possibly serve as our examples towards that end.

[quote]Communicantes, et memoriam venerantes, in primis gloriosae semper Virginis Mariae, Genetricis Dei et Domini nostri Iesu Christi: sed et beati Ioseph, eiusdem Virginis Sponsi, et beatorum Apostolorum ac Martyrum tuorum, Petri et Pauli, Andreae, (Iacobi, Ioannis, Thomae, Iacobi, Philippi, Bartholomaei, Matthaei, Simonis et Thaddaei: Lini, Cleti, Clementis, Xysti, Cornelii, Cypriani, Laurentii, Chrysogoni, Ionnis et Pauli, Cosmae et Damiani) et omnium Sanctorum tuorum; quorum meritis precibusque concedas, ut in omnibus protectionis tuae muniamur auxilio.
(Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.)
[/quote]

INXC
Myles

Edited December 29, 2005 by Myles

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

[quote name='sraf' date='Dec 29 2005, 02:35 AM']And what great contributions have [i]you[/i] made to civil rights lately?
Respecting other faiths is very important in the Catholic (translation: universal) faith.  After all, we acknowledge Jews and Moslems as worshipping (or at least trying to worship) the same God, right?  Buddhism and Catholicism do not necessarily cancel each other out, nor do Catholicism and Protestantism. 
And how do we know that the Holy Spirit has not inspired other peoples in other religions and from other places? Do you think that the Holy Spirit is unable to inspire a married Protestant minister from the South to take a stand for equality that, even now, changes the world and pushes us towards the Kingdom in the here and now? Or that it was possible for the Spirit to do so without having the same minister turn into a raving Catholic?  God's bigger than that!
If you want to abide by [i]rules[/i], however, then by all means ignore all other faiths and their valid truths! Sit in your dark little study and complain about the stupid icons! By all means, do so!
Please, find another parish if you hate it so much.
Thank you.  This message has been brought to you in part by the Anti-Discriminaton Commitee.
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I started this thread and I have no beef with Romero, Day, MLK, or Ghandi as people and their extraordinary contributions to humanity. I did not make any comments regarding these people's personal lives. I even compiled [url="http://www.catholicfiles.com/againstfeeneyism.html"]forty pages of magisterial quotes[/url] making the case for salvation outside the physical Church against people who think otherwise.
I just do not think they should be pictured with halos around their head with titles like "Ghandi of India" and "Martin Luther King of Georgia", as if they were canonized saints; especially when we do not even have a Marian staue and our crucifix is on a side wall. I never said I "hated" this parish either.

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

Ghandi was not catholic, he should not be hung up in a catholic church to recieve veneration.

plus how good can someon be if they are not Catholic and not recieving as much Grace as the members of the church?

[sraf]

[quote name='thedude' date='Dec 29 2005, 09:14 AM']
I started this thread and I have no beef with Romero, Day, MLK, or Ghandi as people and their extraordinary contributions to humanity.  I did not make any comments regarding these people's personal lives.  I even compiled [url="http://www.catholicfiles.com/againstfeeneyism.html"]forty pages of magisterial quotes[/url] making the case for salvation outside the physical Church against people who think otherwise.
I just do not think they should be pictured with halos around their head with titles like "Ghandi of India" and "Martin Luther King of Georgia", as if they were canonized saints; especially when we do not even have a Marian staue and our crucifix is on a side wall.  I never said I "hated" this parish either.
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.... I'm sorry.
I just got a little emotional - my mother is an energetic worker for civil rights () and I inherited it from her.
To be honest, I was more arguing with people like [b]Extra ecclesiam nulla salus[/b], whose opinions regarding this thread I strongly disagree with, and I made the mistake of assuming that you agreed with him completely.

Really, are the icons in the Church that important? I always liked Lucy Maud Montgomery's line that the best Church is one among the pine trees in a forest at dawn, in perfect communion with nature. And if your parish is spending its money for icons on, say, helping Katrina victims, that's commendable and in my opinion more important than a few painted pictures on a wall and whether or not they have a little white paint daubed in circles. Or if your church doesn't have any budget at all, well... that's a valid excuse.
I don't think it's that important whether or not the fellows are Catholic or even Christian... but if you want to improve your parish, then I would say that your first priority is to get the crucifix and Marian statue in a noticeable place, then focus on the non-Catholic saints. Then you can have a respectable set of icons and donate money to the monument to Dr. King in Washington D.C. Hooray.

I'm sorry again. I'll try to learn to hold my tongue - er, fingers on the keyboard - in future.