Pope Francis tells those in Sri Lanka to turn to ‘Mary’

‘Our Lady of the Rosary’ Shrine in Madhu (lakpuratravels)

Pope Francis visited a Marian shrine in Sri Lanka:

January 14, 2015

“Mary never forgot her children on this resplendent island.” These were the words of the Holy Father during his visit to the Marian shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Madhu.

The Pope departed to the north of Sri Lanka by helicopter to the shrine…

He then boarded the Popemobile, greeted thousands of Sri Lankans who lined the streets to greet him. …

For his part, Pope Francis reflected on the Virgin Mary’s welcoming presence in the Shrine to all Sri Lankans: Tamil and Sinhalese alike. … he said. “But Our Lady remained always with you. She is the mother of every home, of every wounded family, of all who are seeking to return to a peaceful existence. Today we thank her for protecting the people of Sri Lanka from so many dangers, past and present. Mary never forgot her children on this resplendent island. Just as she never left the side of her Son on the Cross, so she never left the side of her suffering Sri Lankan children.” …

“Only then can we receive the grace to approach one another in true contrition, offering and seeking true forgiveness,” he said. “In this difficult effort to forgive and find peace, Mary is always here to encourage us, to guide us, to lead us. Just as she forgave her Son’s killers at the foot of his Cross, then held his lifeless body in her hands, so now she wants to guide Sri Lankans to greater reconciliation, so that the balm of God’s pardon and mercy may bring true healing to all.”

Concluding his address, the Holy Father entrusted the Virgin Mary with the efforts of both Tamil and Sinhalese Sri Lankans to rebuild “the unity which was lost”. He also prayed that the Shrine could continue to be a place of prayer and peace.

“Through the intercession of Our Lady of Madhu, may all people find here inspiration and strength to build a future of reconciliation, justice and peace for all the children of this beloved land,” he said.

The Pope ended the celebration by blessing the faithful present with a statue of the Virgin Mary as well as placing a rosary on the famed image. http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-mary-did-not-forget-her-suffering-children

Pope Francis is very oriented to his version of ‘Mary,’ an orientation that is NOT biblical. He pushed his interfaith agenda. He told people that they are to get inspiration from ‘Mary.’ He even entrusted another statute that will be idolized by people in Sri Lanka.

As far as the ‘rosary’ connection to the ‘Lady,’ notice something from my book Fatima Shock!:

Some feel that the rosary either came from St. Dominic or later Dominicans:

Some histories of the rosary claim this tradition, too, originated with Saint Dominic. One legend holds that the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Dominic in the church of Prouille, in 1208, and gave the rosary to him. However, other sources dispute this attribution and suggest that its roots were in the preaching of Alan de Rupe between 1470-1475.

Here is information from The Catholic Encyclopedia on the development of the rosary:

Impressed by this conspiracy of silence, the Bollandists, on trying to trace to its source the origin of the current tradition, found that all the clues converged upon one point, the preaching of the Dominican Alan de Rupe about the years 1470-75. He undoubtedly was the one who first suggested the idea that the devotion of “Our Lady’s Psalter” (a hundred and fifty Hail Mary’s) was instituted or revived by St. Dominic. Alan was a very earnest and devout man, but, as the highest authorities admit, he was full of delusions, and based his revelations on the imaginary testimony of writers that never existed (see Quétif and Echard, “Scriptores O.P.”, 1, 849).

So, the one who claimed that Dominic came up with the rosary was considered to be delusional by top Catholic authorities.

Also notice some interesting facts from Priest P.A. Duffner:

We do not have any historical documents dating from that period expressly referring to St. Dominic and the Rosary…We have to remember that in the time of St. Dominic:

1. The HAIL MARY did not exist as we pray it today…The word JESUS was not added until the 14th century, and the second half of the prayer came later still.

2. The OUR FATHER and the GLORY BE TO THE FATHER were not then part of the Rosary.

3. The Mysteries of the Rosary…The fifteen mysteries in use today were officially established by Pope Pius V in 1569.

4. There was no pendent (the cross and five extra beads) as we have now.

5. The very word “Rosary” taken from the Latin word “rosarium” meaning rose garden, or bouquet of roses, was not used in the time of Dominic as applied to this devotion.

Thus, the rosary as it now exists was not an original tradition as it did not come into being until well over a thousand years after the last of the original apostles died.

Catholic saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Monfort essentially wrote that Alan de la Roche claims that he saw Dominic in a dream, that in 1214 Dominic had seen a “Lady” after he had beat himself into a coma, that the use of the rosary was sort of lost, but that Alan de la Roche later reintroduced it.

Even presuming he is correct, it should be abundantly clear that the rosary was NEITHER from the Bible nor an apostolic tradition. The rosary and the current “Hail Mary” were late innovations.

Based upon Catholic teachings about the origin of the rosary, it apparently came from either someone in a coma (when the modern “Hail Mary” was not part of the rosary) or later from one who was delusional (and had other problems as well). How can anyone claim that the “Lady of the Rosary” could possibly be Mary, mother of Jesus?

While Catholics tend to believe that the expression, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” is straight from the Bible, that is not literally correct. More literal translations of that portion of scripture would be: ‘Rejoice, you who enjoy…favour! (Luke 1:28, NJB) Rejoice, highly favored one (Luke 1:28, NKJV).

Also, the Bible (DRB, NJB, NKJV) never calls Mary “holy” as the Hail Mary prayer does.

When the Fatima apparition appeared on May 13, and then July 13, 1917, Lúcia claimed that it said:

Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of war.

…pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world, because only she can help you.

The idea that only the Lady of the Rosary could help the children leaves God completely out of the picture and makes the Lady more powerful than God.

This is not theologically proper. It is blasphemous.

Telling people to turn to ‘Mary,’ who is dead and in her grace awaiting the resurrection like others (see also Did Early Christians Believe that Humans Possessed Immortality? and What Did Early Christians Understand About the Resurrections? ), for intercession is blasphemous and wrong.

The pontiff also made someone a Catholic saint today in Sri Lanka:

January 14, 2015

The Pope spoke of St. Joseph Vaz during a Mass for canonization that he celebrated this morning (local time) in Colombo. http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-draws-3-lessons-from-saint-he-canonized-today-in-colombo

In 1677 Joseph Vaz consecrated himself as a “slave of Mary”, sealing it with a document known as the “Deed of Bondage.” So a Marian pontiff ‘canonized’ a Marian priest. Pope Francis keeps promoting his version of Mary for evangelistic and other purposes when he can.

As far as using ‘Mary’ for evangelistic purposes for people associated with the subcontinent of India, notice also the following from my book Fatima Shock!:

Archbishop Sheen essentially thought that the appearance in Fatima was to also ultimately result in Muslims (and possibly Hindus) accepting his faith. Notice that he also wrote:

Our missionaries report the most extraordinary reaction of these peoples as the Pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima was carried through the East. At the edge of Nepal, three hundred Catholics were joined by three thousand Hindus and Moslems, as four elephants carried the statue to the little church for Rosary and Benediction…The final evidence of the relationship of the village of Fatima to the Moslems is the enthusiastic reception that the Moslems in Africa and India and elsewhere gave to the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima… in Mozambique the Moslems, who were unconverted, became Christians as soon as the statue of Our Lady of Fatima was erected…

Missionaries in the future will, more and more, see that their apostolate among the Moslems will be successful in the measure they preach Our Lady of Fatima. …

Archbishop Sheen also wrote:

At Patna, the Brahman Hindu governor of the province visited the church and prayed before the statue of Our Lady. In one tiny village of Kesra Mec, more than twenty-four thousand people came to see the statue.

But, that is not an isolated incident. Notice the following account of a group of Hindus who visited Cova da Iria in 2004:

Hindus…were allowed to conduct a pagan prayer chant at the altar in the sanctuary of the Little Chapel of the Apparitions…on May 5, 2004…a national television station in Portugal broadcast that a group of Hindus from Lisbon was allowed to commandeer the Shrine for a pagan prayer chant, with the Hindu “priest” standing at the Catholic altar invoking false gods in the causes of peace, while the Hindu congregation in the Little Chapel responded with a chant. This is a desecration…since Sacred Scripture teaches “the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Psalm 95:5)

This Hindu ceremony, as expected, upset some Catholics. (Note that Psalm 95:5 in the DRB is Psalm 96:5 in the NJB/NKJV which use the word “idols” instead of “devils.”)

Eastern Signs and Faiths

While “Mary” is known throughout the Middle East and West, she is less known, though revered by some like a goddess, in Eastern religions:

Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and other pilgrims regularly worship at famous Roman Catholic shrines to the Virgin Mary such as Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal…Many venerate her like one of their own goddesses…

There is a Catholic plan to reach those of Indian heritage through ‘Mary,’ and Pope Francis is trying to do this. ‘Mary’ is believed to sometimes be helpful for the interfaith discussions that Pope Francis has engaged in.

Pope Francis is not a true Christian and should not be trusted as one (see also Where is the True Christian Church Today?).

It remains my position that it is very likely that apparitions that people will claim will be Mary, the mother of Jesus, will be part of the signs and lying wonders that are mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:9 and Matthew 24:24 (cf. Isaiah 47; Nahum 3:4-5).

The current Marian focused Pope Francis, as well as other somewhat like-minded bishops, will likely be a factor in this.

The visit to the Marian shrine of the rosary in Sri Lanka is one more step to get the public thinking that Jesus’ mother Mary is intervening and that people need to venerate her. This should not be the case.

Some items of possibly related interest may include:

Mary, the Mother of Jesus and the Apparitions Do you know much about Mary? Are the apparitions real? What happened at Fatima? What might they mean for the rise of the ecumenical religion of Antichrist? Are Protestants moving towards Mary? How do the Eastern/Greek Orthodox view Mary? How might Mary view her adorers? Here is a link to a YouTube video Marian Apparitions May Fulfill Prophecy.
Satan’s Plan Does Satan have a plan? What is it? Has it already been successful? Will it be successful in the future?
Mystery of Civilization Why is civilization like it is? How will it end? What will replace it? Here is a link to a related sermon titled: Mystery of Civilization and How it Will End.
Will the Interfaith Movement Lead to Peace or Sudden Destruction? Is the interfaith movement going to lead to lasting peace or is it warned against?
What Did the Early Church Teach About Idols and Icons? Did the early Church use icons? What was the position of Christians about such things?
India, Its Biblical Past and Future: Any Witness? The Bible discusses the origins of those of Indian heritage. This article quotes the Bible and also discusses some of the witness to India throughout history and what is happening in the 21st century (including those in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka).
India and the Beast of Revelation 13 Do biblical, Catholic, and even Hindu prophecies suggest that many in India will follow, for a while, the Beast and False Prophet/Antichrist? Here is link to a related YouTube video Will People in India Worship the Beast of Revelation 13?
Pope Francis: Could this Marian Focused Pontiff be Fulfilling Prophecy? Pope Francis has taken many steps to turn people more towards his version of ‘Mary.’ Could this be consistent with biblical and Catholic prophecies? This article documents what has been happening. There is also a video version titled Pope Francis: Could this Marian Focused Pontiff be Fulfilling Prophecy?
Feast of the Immaculate Conception? Did early Christians teach Mary had an immaculate conception and led a sinless life?
Origin of the Marian Dogmas: Where Do Catholic Scholars Say The Four Dogmas of Mary Came From?
Assumption of Mary Did Mary die? Was she taken to heaven on August 15th? What is known? What does the Bible show?
What Did the Early Church Teach About Idols and Icons? Did Catholic and Orthodox “saints” endorse or condemn idols and icons for Christians?
Fatima Shock! What the Vatican Does Not Want You to Know About Fatima, Dogmas of Mary, and Future Apparitions. Whether or not you believe anything happened at Fatima, if you live long enough, you will be affected by its ramifications (cf. Isaiah 47; Revelation 17). Fatima Shock! provides concerned Christians with enough Catholic-documented facts to effectively counter every false Marian argument. In addition to the print version, there is a Kindle version of Fatima Shock! which you can acquire in seconds.