The Diocese of San Bernardino says its opening Mass for the Synod on Synodality Oct. 17 sought to celebrate the California diocese’s rich cultural diversity and welcome those on the “periphery” of the Church.
But the liturgy’s unusual pageantry, featuring liturgical dancers, a Native American prayer to the “four directions,” and the appearance at the end of Mass of a colorfully costumed figure that resembled traditional representations of an Aztec demon, has raised eyebrows and sparked criticism on social media.
Bishop Alberto Rojas was the main celebrant of the San Bernardino diocese’s approximately two-hour-long opening Mass, held Sunday evening at Queen of Angels Church in Riverside, California. San Bernardino Bishop Emeritus Gerald R. Barnes concelebrated the Mass.
The live streamed, multi-lingual liturgy began in dramatic fashion. A lay minister who works at a nearby Indian reservation led the procession into the sanctuary, waving a large bird feather with one hand while carrying a basket in the other, to the accompaniment of beating drums.
After circling the altar and arriving at the lectern, Michael Madrigal, who the diocese identified as a lay minister at St. Joseph Mission Catholic Church on the Soboba Indian Reservation, removed a wooden rattle from the basket and shook it while chanting in a Native American language. Then, in English, he recited the “Native American Prayer of the Four Directions.”
“We begin to the North,” Madrigal began. “It is the direction of the cool winter snows and ice. It is the direction of our healing medicines from where we receive prayer and ceremony and blessings from our creator. In this direction, we pray for all of our spiritual leaders. We pray for strength and blessings for Pope Francis, as he has called us together for this year of Synod. We pray for all of our bishops, priests, religious, and community leaders. We ask you to give them wisdom, strength for the journey.” Similar prayers directed to the East, South, and West invoked the Trinity and asked God for guidance, healing, and protection.
Contacted by CNA, a spokesperson for the diocese explained in an email that the prayer’s significance is two-fold. First, the prayer is meant to “reflect the multicultural character of the Diocese and to give voice to Catholic expressions that could be considered on the periphery.”
Second, “this prayer, by its nature, helps the faithful reflect on the entire web of life that God has created — a central idea in Pope Francis’s [encyclical] Laudato Si.”
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
You can watch the full Synod Mass in the YouTube video below. The Mass begins at the 7:53 mark. The entrance procession begins at the 11:15 mark. Matachines dancers appear at the 2:03:13 mark.
This is the reality of the Francis synodality, every Catholic Church doing its own thing, it’s all very Protestant. There are over 40,000 Protestant denominations, but the Catholic Church is called to be “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”. Synodality puts that into jeopardy.
The Holy Mass is not a pow wow, such defilement will have bad consequences, Look what happened after the Vatican pachamama abominations – a worldwide pandemic.
I’ve completely given up even trying to understand what it’s talking about.
Christians do not pray to the four winds. We pray to the Most Holy Trinity. We need to repent of Pachamama idolatry, all idolatries and all things which open us to demonic influences. Lord, have mercy on us all!
I urge faithful Catholics to accept the Pope’s invitation and participate in this “synodal process.”
The Faith comes to us from Christ and the Apostles and none are at liberty to change it (even when facing strong social pressure to accommodate the world, the flesh and the devil).
I have been trying to read the synodal document and it is really difficult to understand.
The first thing that bothered me is that large orange “groot” that is hovering over those multicolored people. But Ok so it is a unappealing graphic.
I have no clue what the word ‘synod” and “synodal” mean.
This quote:
The whole Church is called
to deal with the weight of a culture imbued with clericalism that she
inherits from her history, and with those forms of exercising authority
on which the different types of abuse (power, economic, conscience,
sexual) are grafted.”
What?
“The whole Church is called to deal with the weight of a culture imbued with clericalism that she inherits from her history, and with those forms of exercising authority on which the different types of abuse (power, economic, conscience, sexual) are grafted.”
cd, the point here, greatly oversimplified, is that the hierarchical nature of the church has given us shepherds (thus, clericalism) who have abused their authority (misuses are like unhealthy foreign branches grafted in to a healthy tree) to the harm of the sheep, and it is the job of the synod to correct this.
While I agree that this is true in many cases, some of which I have witnessed myself, there are also those shepherds (Bishops and Priests) who have simply served the people. I know of them personally as well. I have several heroes who are Priests and Bishops, including Bishop Joseph Sartoris (retired), Fr. Stephen Downes (retired) and Fr. Nabor Rios (Pastor). Those are just a few. I could mention the names of those of whom you speak too, as I’ve met many. I have been a Priest for 40 years and just retired (July 1, 2021) from the office of Pastor and am now “Pastor Emeritus”. I still live and do ministry in the same Parish (St. Raymond, Downey, CA) and help out in other Parishes, serve as Chaplain for out Firefighters and Police and do Mass, Confessions and other Sacraments in English, Spanish and German. God has a great sense of humor, as He placed me in the position of Pastor on the same street where I had my first job, my last secular job and my last hangover. I got sober in 1987 and God worked a miracle in me so that I have absolutely no desire to drink alcohol. But keep me away from chocolate and other sweets!
We, as a Church, can and must stand up and always help to correct the Church. I’ve had to report a Priest to the authorities, and I’ve had to call the Police on other people in the Church. It’s not a fun thing to do, but at times that’s the most important thing we can do.
Bless you in your courage to speak out!
Thank you for helping me to understand.
So I went back and skimmed it now that you told me that and maybe correcting abuse might be a side effect but the main purpose seems to be
It says communion, participation and mission. It is just confusing. I get the feeling in my diocese they don’t really know what to do. They are trying. I just think that those of us who like the Church as it is or was better speak up now.
It is supposed to be the Holy Spirit guiding this so we better pray over what He wants us to say.
He was not praying to the 4 winds. He prayed in the direction. It has some connection with the 4 Evangelists.
And apparently the dance is more Catholic than we thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concheros
Maybe we should try to learn.
Ha!
The only prayers that are allowed and belong to Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are the liturgical prayers in the Missal. Anything said and done on the altar (where this man was) is part of liturgy. In Catholic Mass there is no praying to winds, regardless of how far one tries to stretch the meaning and regardless of what preposterous connections one tries to point out.. There is no dancing during the Mass inside the Church. The Mass is a solemn prayer addressed to God and its purpose is to praise God. Mass is not for addressing our frustrations and showcasing our cultural heritage. Mass is not for us and about us. It’s for the Lord, it is centered on the Lord, offered to the Lord and for the Lord. We cannot change is according to our whims and our designs. Or we run a risk of turning it into sacrilege, like these people did.
This was before Mass and the dancing was after Mass.
I thought the dancing was done before or after mass outside, too, but there is a video online that Taylor Marshall showed, and some of the dancing was done during the mass.
Deacon Craig Anderson, for your perusal:
https://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/content/role-interpretation-determining-continuity-danza-azteca-history
These are the people that Our Lady of Guadelupe came to convert. These dances are how they honor Her and other saints and Our Lord.
Boy are we ignorant.
We should be supporting them because there are groups of these dancers that want to remove all vestiges of Christianity from the dance.
Apologies to these Catholics who were misunderstood.
I looked for the Aztec demon and it is just a person in a costume. I’m relieved.
As they used to say at my parish in the silly season of the ’80s “Whose idea was that?”
“I looked for the Aztec demon and it is just a person in a costume.”
Sure, just like that pachmama was “just a statue”
Back in the ’80s I saw both a “Clown Mass” (which I reported to the Pastor, as I was a newly ordained Deacon) and a Priest giving out Jelly Beans at Mass (which another Priest and I dealt with personally with that knucklehead Priest).
Unfortunately, it is looking like Alberto Rojas is turning into a Gerald Barnes clone.
You know, there was a time at Mass when during the annual parish golf event, the pastor would have one of the parishners come up all costumed up as a 1920’s golfer. The parishner would trundle a golf bag on a cart on up in to the sanctuary right next to the altar and then make the pitch for donations to the coming parish golf tourney. Remember this is during Mass.
Of course I was outraged and complained to the pastor. Of course, nothing came of it cuz you know all in “good fun and for a good cause”.
I see this leopard demon and long for the golf cart.
What a mess the institutional Church is now. Makes me sick.
I wouldn’t mind if the golf bag was wheeled in for a demonstration, but taken and put next to the front pew.
I’ve put on my Fire Helmet at a Mass during a homily to make a point, but only left it on for about 5 seconds.
This pastor was BIG on entertainment. A close relative was coming in to the Church at the Easter vigil. The Mass kicked off with a woman dancing up to the altar while swinging what looked like an ash tray (censor) streaming smoke. They had a altar server spray attendeed with holy water in an atttempted asperges. I was soaked. I genuinely liked this pastor as he was a great homilist (no fire hat tho) and gentle but perceptive confessor.
I don’t understand why folks feel like they need to embellish the Mass — even simple things like your helment are distrations.
I’ve attended SSPX for the past 3 or so years. No fire hats or funky theatrics. Deo gratis.
My great-grandparents immigrated from Europe. They were strong, hard-working and grateful people. Respecting them and their example, my entire family retains and cherishes traditions from the “Old Country”, such as language, traditional foods and veneration of traditional patronal Saints. We are at the same time fully American, respecting our Country’s founders and their values, which undergird and preserve the free society they gave us.
That said, it is impossible for me to accept [much less to venerate] a return to the pagan practices abandoned at conversion to Christianity for the sake of nostalgia. Worse, to bring such pagan rites into a celebration of the Eucharist is to me a sacrilege against both the Eucharist and my peoples’s cultural heritage. Because that heritage has advanced beyond caveman status and has accepted the world’s sole Redeemer, without one whit of sacrifice to its authenticity.
Christians, stop the madness! Despite our different ethnicities, all of us together worship the Risen One as our sole Redeemer! Refuse to accept the political correctness which dilutes that Faith!
And that’s why so many of us are still outraged by Pope Francis allowing veneration of pachamama inside St. Peter’s Basilica and in the Vatican gardens.
Forgive them Father they know not what they do
Oh no, they know exactly what they are doing, but depend on the pew sitters to be unaware. Snakes!
O yes, they do know what they are doing. This is too elaborate and too all-encompassing not to be pre meditated and planned.
And if “they did not know what they are to do” in a Mass, they should have asked someone who knows (obviously not the priests who participated in this sacrilege). But any faithful Catholic who knows their faith could have told them that dancing, “blessing with feathers” and praying to four winds is NOT part of Catholic faith, let alone Holy Mass.
They know exactly what they are doing, and that is creating confusion in the Church and introducing pagan ritual into the Holy Mass.
This is why I am glad I am German, English and Irish. The simple Germanic Yule Log from the worship of Woden, the fact that my last name comes from the Gaelic word for “Wiccan” and the wonderful English Tradition of the Anglo-Saxons who had the big fur worship of trees, like we see in homes and Churches during Christmas (Yuletide).
Unsere Nordlanders, Englanders und Irelanders sind immer so besser!
(Ironic voice over, please)
Fr. Higgins, thank you for your ending comment. I thought maybe you had gotten Covid or something and it had affected your brain ?
Hope you don’t have a Thor’s hammer tattoo. (Laughter), and some, including myself, have names taken from our heathen ancestry. Christians, though, (and Jews like Jesus) already have a lovely litany that includes all the beauties of nature without using prayers too close to the “casting a circle” magic rituals of our European and American indigenous polytheistic ancestors.
“The Canticle of Daniel” is from the Bible and included in many Catholic prayer books. I will stick with that, AND after mass.
“O ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all for ever.”
Christmas Trees, Easter Egg Hunts, Christians incorporated and changed the meaning of pagan symbols.
Don’t forget the wedding ring, which came from Roman mythology.
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the ancient Israelites grooms did give rings to the bride. usually with a Hebrew inscription. Some Christians kept that custom. When I was younger, I never paid any attention to whether or not a man wore a wedding ring as my grandfather did not have one and neither did my stepfather. Many men did hard labor and and rings just got in their way and could be dangerous. Even today many men take them off or do not wear them because they interfere with their job — plumbers, electricians, etc.
I’m much more concerned about what Bishop Rojas will do about the various “ministries” to persons with homosexual attractions. Here in Palm Springs at a parish, we have one such group led by a man who claims to be “married” to another man. https://www.sttheresaps.com/gifted-and-called-ministry
Some things in the letter from the priest are concerning.
Simply outrageous and does not belong in a Roman Catholic Church. As much as I am a supporter of Native Americans who have suffered for decades and live in Oklahoma which is home to 39 Indian Nations, Bishop Rojas is a known supporter of LGBTQ rights and under the tutelage of the infamous Cardinal Bernadin of Chicago. The dancer in question dressed as a jaguar represented the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca the god of the Night sky and war. I for one attend pow wows yearly and enjoy them, this however does not belong once again belong in any Roman Catholic Church by any means.
Oops! I gave a thumbs up, but I really do not know anything about Bishop Rojas so I should not have clicked up nor down. The other comments about a representation of an Aztec god sound correct, though.
Bishop Alberto is already fabulous, he didn’t need all that dancing and those feathers
The Catholic Evangelist Jesse Romero has a great article on his website called “Do Pagan Dancers Have Room in Our Church in Honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe?” He is definitely against any Aztec dancing in the Church and against the bowing down to pagan gods or any ethnic group.