Pagan Liturgy Held In Cathedral

[Dave]

San Antonio Cathedral Hosts Neo-Pagan Lay Liturgy

(Special to The Wanderer)

May 22, 2003

SAN ANTONIO - A parody of the Mass was held in the newly renovated San Fernando Cathedral - the oldest cathedral in the United States - on April 29, 2003 when a ceremony honoring the pagan goddess Sophia was celebrated as part of an ecumenical event for Catholics and representatives of various Protestant groups sponsored by the Pastoral Summit.

Though the chief "celebrant" of this pagan liturgy was a nun, Sr. Martha Ann Kirk, the liturgy was "created" by Fr. Jake Empereur, S.J., vicar and liturgist at the cathedral.

The pagan liturgy, officially called a "community worship service" opened with the congregation turning to the baptismal font at the entrance to the cathedral.

After the water in the baptismal font was "sanctified" in the name of Sophia and Wisdom, participants in the entrance procession danced toward and into the sanctuary, sprinkling the audience with this water.

Next an offertory meal of bread and wine and fruits was brought in, and a select group of three women ritualistically set the meal on the altar. Sr. Kirk then appeared to "consecrate" the bread, fruit, and wine, and a communion-like sharing was held in which the over-whelming majority of the audience participated by breaking a piece of bread from the large loaves and consuming it.

After a short skit about King David and Sophia, the troupe held an exit procession.

The Pastoral Summit, led by noted Catholic author Paul Wilkes, a leader in the movement to establish a lay-run church, will hold similar three-day events in Indianapolis and Boston in coming months.

The featured speakers at the San Antonio event, held April 28, 29, and 30, were Notre Dame professor Scott Appleby and Ruby Bridges, who, as a little girl, symbolized the integration of New Or-leans public schools.

In Indianapolis, June 17-19, featured speakers will be Ken Fong and Fr. Donald Cozzens, while in Boston, October 6-8, the featured speakers will be Alice McDermott and Huston Smith.

The sponsor of the Pastoral Summit was the Lilly Endowment, and attendees for the summit came from across the United States to learn and share information on what makes successful worship and parishes.

"What came through loud and clear," wrote Wilkes on his Pastoral Summit web site, "at our first Pastoral Summit this year was that Catholics and Protestants too seldom get the chance to talk and learn from each other about their local churches. Not surface talk. DEEP talk about what works, how new people can be reached, what we can learn from each other's traditions and practices, how faith can be deepened, how the local church can radiate light and hope into its community.

"For the Pastoral Summit is all about local church excellence - and the workshops we had together, the amazing worship we shared - showed the hundreds of people who came that we have so much to learn from each other's traditions and practices. And that excellence is within the reach of any parish or church. We experienced excellence over and over again throughout our two and a half days together. And it seemed as though everyone had A MOMENT they wanted to tell me about.

"For many people, the moment came at San Fernando Cathedral in that breathtaking liturgy, when the Latina women sang their way to the altar with gifts of fruit and flowers and bread. The women, in their colorful, flowing dresses, told and danced and sang of wisdom; they sanctified the purifying waters at the baptismal fount. And then we broke bread together. It was a breathtaking bringing-together for all of us.

"For others, it was when keynote speaker Ruby Bridges - that valiant little girl immortalized by Norman Rockwell as she, at age six, integrated the New, Orleans schools - so calmly spoke of the deep faith that walked with her that day and accompanies her to this day.

"For others, it was a workshop speaker - on visualizing yourself as a 'missionary' church, or revitalizing a tired church, or reaching GenXers, or deepening family spirituality or infusing ritual actions with new power or breaking down large churches or fostering lay-centered ministries. Or the putting aside of the concept of 'volunteer' in our various churches and parishes and embracing that each of us, ordained and lay, is called instead to ministry.

"Or the Taize mediation, the fiesta, the breakfasts and lunches and dinners we shared together with the great conversations that a gathering like this naturally produces.

"The Pastoral Summit is perhaps the only national conference that brings people from different Christian traditions together - and to focus exclusively on how each of us can make our local parishes and churches 'the best they possibly can be.' With this rich mix of ordained priests and ministers and you lay staff and lay leaders, we all saw the potential of our churches and I think all of us returned home with new vigor for the great calling that we all have."

Wilkes, the author of a dozen books on various aspects of spirituality, including one on Thomas Merton, was the project director of a two-year national study of successful local churches funded by the Lilly Endowment. Two books, Excellent Protestant Congregations and Excellent Catholic Parishes, resulted from his research grant. His Pastoral Summit is cosponsored by the Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

Fr. James "Jake" Empereur, the liturgy planner at the cathedral, was the founder of the Institute for Spirituality and Worship in Berkeley, founding editor of Modern Liturgy magazine, and was previously professor of liturgical and systematic theology at Berkeley and chair of the doctoral faculty in the arts, worship, and proclamation at the Graduate Theological Union.

His last two books are Spiritual Direction and the Enneagram and Spiritual Direction and the Gay Person.

In well-publicized comments at the 1998 San Antonio Catechetical Conference, Empereur said the following about the Blessed Sacrament:

"And we see that in the ongoing revision of texts being more sensitive to contemporary concerns and the continuous stress on the liturgical assembly as the main Eucharistic symbol. That the real symbol of His presence, the primary symbol of Christ presence is not the consecrated bread and wine on the altar but the liturgical assembly.

"And I just finished a course in New Orleans on lay presiding, ... the people did quite well. I had them do all sorts of things like conduct funerals, bless homes, and anything a lay person could do. They approach it very differently, their energy, their conviction, their motivation came from the fact, 'I've got to do this, you know.' But after that certain theological issues might come up, but of course real presence in the Eucharist was one that you could always get a discussion going on, especially when you tell people that Christ is not physically present in the Eucharist, as he is not, and the Church has never taught that, but unfortunately somehow or other in the minds of so many people that is the way things go. But apart from that, I found the movement and motivation and entrance was very different and so we need to take a look at the various ways of looking at liturgy because we can all be caught our own little perspective'"

In October 2000, Empereur was a special feature at De Paul University's annual "Coming Out Week," when he presented a talk on "Homosexuality in the Catholic Church." He told students that "a lot of gay people have heard a message to the gay community from a minister or priest that would quote a scripture and it was perhaps done incorrectly....

"There is little in the scriptures about sexual orientation and when it is discussed, most references to homosexuality are only connected with keeping bloodlines going."

[Laudate_Dominum]

Humph! I've had the displeasure of encountering "catholics" of this sort on many occassions. Either I'm Catholic and they're not, or they're Catholic and I'm not.

[Aloysius]

:angry:

there's been questions about the buddhist monks and stuff... but with this there's no question WRONG WRONG WRONG, that priest and 'liturgist'' should be defrocked.

ARGH.... California has been quite disgusting recently.....

[MC Just]

sheesh. How is stuff like this aloud? I don't understand. Is stuff like this only in america? It seems like our Church here just loosely does weird stuff.

[Laudate_Dominum]

no, sadly there is some pretty weird stuff in other countries too.

I suppose this means we need to pray a lot for the Church.

[jasJis]

Humph! I've had the displeasure of encountering "catholics" of this sort on many occassions. Either I'm Catholic and they're not, or they're Catholic and I'm not.

How about you're both Catholic, they're just not "perfect" Catholics. :P

Edited February 20, 2004 by jasJis

[PedroX]

Well, since I've been informed its perfectly Ok to have Buddhists praying in our sanctuary's, I don't see what the big deal is. Sophia is just a name for the spirit of nature sort of a Mother Earth. Not much different from Buddhist prayers. Remember folks, its ecumenical.

peace...

[Laudate_Dominum]

Well, since I've been informed its perfectly Ok to have Buddhists praying in our sanctuary's, I don't see what the big deal is.  Sophia is just a name for the spirit of nature sort of a Mother Earth.  Not much different from Buddhist prayers.  Remember folks, its ecumenical.

peace...

Oh my! You don't think paying homage to strange gods is a scandal?

Sophia is the ancient greek goddess of wisdom and fate. Gnostics and others in ancient times tried to equate this goddess with wisdom which is personified in the Bible. Modern feminist-syncretist people want to bring about a revival of sophia worship. This is paganism and gnosticism revisited. It's not a valid part of Catholic Tradition by any means.

The claim is that sophia is the feminine principle of the Divine and a co-creator with God. Sophia worship was supposedly supressed in Christianity because of male domination.

All of these claims are utterly false. In reality sophia was a greek goddess similar to Isis for the Egyptians, or Juno for the Romans. Sophia worship was popular among certain gnostic movements that coincided with the early days of Christianity. These gnostics were syncretists so they tried to claim this dualistic Theology as something indicated in the Bible.

Here is a little quote from a "sophia" website.

Sophia was born from the primordial female power Sige

(Silence).  And that she }Sophia{ was God's mother, "the great revered Virgin in

whom the Father was concealed from  the begining before He had created

anything.Sophia gave birth to a male spirit, Christ, (who only much later came

to earth in human  form) and a female spirit Achamoth (who later came to earth

as Mary Magdalene). These two gave birth to the elements and the terrestrial

world, then brought forth a new god named Jehovah, Son of Darkness, along with

five planetary spirits later regarded as emanations of Jehovah: Iao, Sabaoth,

Adonai,  Eloi, annd Uraeus. These spirits produced archangels, angels, and

finally men and women.

Jehovah forbade men to eat the fruit of knowledge, but his mother Achamoth sent

her own spirit to earth in the form of the serpent Ophis to teach menkind to

disobey the jealous god. The serpent was also called Christ, who taught Adam to

eat the fruit of knowledge despite Jehovah's prohibition.

...later

Sophia sent Christ again to earth in the shape of one of Her totems the dove, to

enter the man Jesus at his baptism in Jordan. After Jesus died, Christ left his

body and returned to  heaven to help collect souls.

But not all of Sophia was taken out of the final version of the Bible by the

Paulist, some  was able to slip past i.e. from the 8th and 9th chapters Proverbs

we see the early conflict  between followers of Sophia and those of God. Maybe

the divorce was going on at this time?:

I don't know what the people at that parish were into, but I can't imagine it was all that orthodox.

Edited February 20, 2004 by Laudate_Dominum

[Laudate_Dominum]

Here is another strange quote:

Catholicism

Sure they have nuns, but that does not count because even they have to have a

Priest that is over them (I think I'm really not sure about the details).  So

with the return of  Sophia we could see also the Catholic Priestess who would

have her very on sacraments and everything (see following message) and to be

sure they could also become bishops  and cardinals I understand that such things

were quite common way back when.

And Pope? There was Pope Joan, but she had to be in disguise to do that. And all

that Pope stuff did not start till well after the last of the Sophiaist had been

offed.

But I know the perfect compromise, there is a lot of controversy in the Roman

Catholic  church right now between people who think that Priest should be able

to marry, and those that think  things should stay just as they are.  But if you

let Priest marry who knows what would happen! After all nobody can understand

anybody else's choices in books or mates, and if you're Catholic what would you

do if Father Dan showed up one day married to a  Yahway's Witness or a nice

Jewish girl?!  You know what gossips church people can be, well here's the

solution, let them get married, but only to Priestesses, sure that cuts down the

field a lot but hey! that's tough, it comes with the territory.

Edited February 20, 2004 by Laudate_Dominum

[Laudate_Dominum]

I'm getting into this.. hehe

Priestesshood:

1. Pre-Baptism (sacred midwifery) To atend in a number of ways to the spiritual

and physical needs of pregnant women, blessing the child, doing some rite at the

birth etc...

2. Blessing the Cup. Rite by which a cup of milk or water is imbued with the

essence of Sophia.

3. Bake the Love in. Rite in which an entire meal is imbued with the essence of

Sophia.

4.  Match-Making. Something that is badly needed before the Priest can do the

marriage bit. a number of  ways in which the compatibility is tested  between 

two people, also the  aiding of finding a suitable match. ("Nu! have I got a

girl for you!")

5. Nag. Sort of like confession, only while one is told to the priest this one

is told to you by the priestess, sort of like naging...but in a good way, a way

of pointing out where some  improvement could be made, all under the influence

of Sophia and not the good Mother herself `nach. Maybe it could start out by the

Priestess saying something like "Watch it buster, for you have sinned" or

something like that.

6. Tidy-Up. Rite to "clean-up" the spiritual "being" of the person in question,

sort of like all that aura cleaning that the New Agers do.

[jasJis]

Pedro,

I think you're just being sarcastic??

The monk thing was not part of the Liturgy, the Eucharist was not present, so in a way, they were using a building.

This thing was done within the Liturgy, as part of the Mass, and really is an abomination. Lumping them both together as equal is misleading, makes one seem worse than it was, and the other not as serious as it is.

[Aloysius]

And Pope? There was Pope Joan, but she had to be in disguise to do that. And all

that Pope stuff did not start till well after the last of the Sophiaist had been

offed.

that's been prooven to be a myth. the whole lot of those quotes is ballony and bs.

*~\Pax Christ/~*

[bluengold]

I can't believe somebody posted this article!

Allow me to explain:

I live in a rural area, and we have a "clustering" situation with three other parishes (1 priest, 1 deacon, for four parishes).

A parish council member informed me of this "Pastoral Summit" coming to Indianapolis in June, 03. It was sponsored by Eli Lilly (pharmaceutical co.), not the Archdiocese of Indy. The Priest and Deacon both were exhorting all of the members of the parish councils to go to this conference (they both lean decidedly left). A quick cross-reference of the speakers showed at least one priest who is a member of Call To Action, and the keynote speaker is famous for his affiliation with Voice of the Faithful, Fr. Donald Cozzens (and his ideology that SSA men dominate the clergy. See his book "The Changing Face of the Priesthood" which Fr. Groeschel gave a harsh critique of, and that can be found on Catholic Culture).

Well, I did a search engine on this "ministry" and this is what I found: It is a "ministry" to try to get parishoners and general "church-goers" (this is an "ecumenical" "ministry/movement") to learn how to run their parishes/churches without any clergy!

A quick search on this website, of what it considers "Most Excellent Church list", of our diocese showed two parishes which were given their "thumbs up". The first parish is a modernist structure with no kneelers, no stained glass windows, no Tabernacle in the main body of the parish, and a jacuzzi for a "baptismal font". The other parish just so happens to be a parish which caters to the same-sex attraction crowd (and on occasion uses illicit matter for the Eucharist, among other abuses).

Then I came upon this article which appeared ont he website "Defenders of the Magisterium", 'Neo-Pagan Lay Liturgy?'! For goodness' sake!

I typed up an email to warn parishoners and some of the parish council members about this "ministry/movement". Later in May, the National Catholic Reporter gave this "ministry" two-thumbs-up (oh now there is a red alert not?).

Now a question for you all. Is this not a scary thing? The "agenda" is to get us used to the idea of not having any clergy! This, coupled with the fact that our diocesan chancery, nor the vocations director, do a thing to foster priestly vocations!

Can we not see it? The blatant attack upon the ministerial priesthood? What say you Fr. dUSt?

[Laudate_Dominum]

that's been prooven to be a myth. the whole lot of those quotes is ballony and bs.

*~\Pax Christ/~*

Yes indeed. The whole site was a bunch of nonsense. Unfortunately the sophia movement among certain catholics is more subtle. It's part of the whole "new age" thing.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I found this quote on the sophia institute's website. There were countless scandalous quotes, I'm not posting this to scandalize (there are much worse quotes out there I assure you). I think it may offer insight into the sophia liturgy that the above article describes.

Sophianic Liturgy and Ritual: Through the inspiration of Sophia, new artistic ritual forms will gradually incarnate into the world - forms in which great spiritual truths will be enacted by way of rituals in an artistically (spiritually and aesthetically) meaningful setting. Participating in such rituals can help bring about far-reaching transformations in consciousness and the entire inner life, even taking effect in the outer world, in the kingdoms of nature. This will lead to Sophianic liturgical forms, complimentary to the traditional Christian forms of liturgy. In anticipation of this development, a morally conscious cultivation of liturgy and ritual occupies a central place in the new Sophianic mysteries arising in our time.