Get Your Facts Right
©Lucio Mascarenhas, Bombay, India.
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Recently, in the reports on the May 5, 2004, rite of pagan worship of the �goddess�
Durga in the Chapel of the Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, it was reported that these rites were led by a Hindu priest called a "
Sha Tri", and that the rite consisted of the "
Shaniti Pa".
Living as I do among Hindus and in India, those names do not sound correct. There is no class or kind of Hindu priest called a "
Sha Tri" nor is there any Hindu rite called "
Shaniti Pa". Both names are improbable — improbable from the viewpoint of Indian grammar. They make no sense to one who is familiar with India.
I believe that the correct names should be "
Shastri" and "
Shanti Path".
A
Shastri is a Brahmin, one of the hereditary caste of Hindu priests, one who has studied the particular Hindu scriptures called the "
Shastras" — apparently, some kind of commentary. The
Shastras are one of the numerous classes of Hindu scriptures.
The "
Shanti Path" or "
Shanti Paath" is a prayer, the name of which means "
The Way of Peace". The word "
Path" is derived from the Sanskrit "
Panth". My own experience of this prayer is from the obituary columns of the newspapers, where such terms as "
Shanti Path", "
Chowtha", "
Uthamna", "
Bhog", "
Besna", "
Marka", "
Antim Ardas", etc., are mentioned, as Funerary Rites.
Since then, after reading the accounts of the May 5 happenings, I have searched the Internet for the "
Shanti Path" and have found two versions of the prayer:
http://www.saraswatiyoga.com/shanti_path.htm
http://www.aryasamajhouston.com/invo_docs/shanti.html
It is evident that the
Shanti Path cannot be pretended to be a merely "ecumenical prayer" for it specifically prays to the demon Siva or Shiva, who is most commonly worshipped under the form of his phallus, the Shiva
lingam (
lingam is the male reproductive organ):
"We worship the three eyed one (i.e. Shiva)"
It is extremely important to get one�s facts right. When dealing with exotic cultures, it is advisable, if possible, to consult persons who have experience of that culture. There should be very many people in the Traditionalist movement, not excluding Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy, who would have been able to make corrections.
It is important because even when we are sincere in our reporting, the sons of satan — the Neo-Cons — seek to capitalize on insignificant errors (and the errors I have pointed out above are insignificant) to discredit our reports and to continue to lull souls into a false complacency and thereby submission to the Antichurch.
One error, for example, was the claim that the woman who anointed John-Paul II with the tilac, in Madras, after performing the aarti upon him was a "
priestess of Shiva". Any person conversant with Hinduism would immediately inform you that there are no priestesses in Hinduism! Hindu orthodoxy forbids the teaching of Hindu theology to women and to low caste men. There is an effort to create Hindu priestesses, as part of a reform movement, but this is on the fringe.
Another was the claim that the semi-naked woman who took part in the rites in Papua-New Guinea was an American student named Holly Kenge. There are no references to support that claim, and even if it were true, it was necessary to have stated that, even though the woman was American, or an American citizen, or naturalised as an American, she was, as the pictures make obvious, a native Papuan by race. Therefore, if she was American, she must have been a Papuan-American.
There are other errors. Recently, one site showed a picture of a young girl having her toy, a "teddy-bear" being blessed by what seemed to be a priest in a church, and objected to it.
But this objection is misplaced.
It has been traditional Catholic practice to have the priest bless farm animals and vehicles. It has also been, as far as I understand it, traditional practices for the faithful to bring their pet animals to Church on one particular patron saint�s feast day, in order to have the priest bless these animals. There is nothing profane or godless about these practices. On the contrary, they are deeply pious.
The same can be extended to a child seeking the blessing of his or her playthings, and especially of a teddy bear.
I find such an act to be touching and pious. It is certainly better that a child understands that the toy is not something magic and superior, something that, following the New Age nonsense of Enid Blyton or J. Rowlings, comes to life in the dark and leads a magic life, but that he or she appreciates the life of the Church so much that he or she brings the toys to the priest for blessing — evidence that the child possibly understands that it is a mere inanimate object, and so one that is capable of being misused by Satan, and so needing exorcism and blessing.
Therefore, I would consider such an action to be pious.
Another problem is the near universal acceptance of the supposed revelations made by Our Lady to Melania Calvet at La Salette. There is a genuine revelation and a spurious one. Melania spent the rest of her life hawking the spurious one. This spurious message is contrary to long-standing Catholic Doctrine that Rome cannot and will not ever fall, and which was shortly before reiterated by the Vatican Council in 1870, a few years before Melania began to claim that she had been told that "Rome will fall and become the seat of the Antichrist". And this spurious "message" was put on the Index. [See
Contra Melanianism.]
Too many people, websites and organisations of the Catholic Resistance (Traditionalist Movement) blindly and fanatically regurgitate the Melanianist heresy — which is extremely deplorable, and worse...
It is equivalent to a stalwart of Traditionalism being simultaneously an advocate of "Astrology" and of "Crystal Gazing", etc...
On the contrary, the
Abbe George de Nantes was one of the first to expose the fact, though he too, blame-worthily credits the false revelation that "Rome will fall�"
Such credence to, quotations from, and propagation of the spurious message of Melania Calvet, of literature specifically put on the
Index of Prohibited Literature is a grave sin and an insult to the Catholic Faith.
I request those who style themselves members of the Traditionalist Movement to quickly investigate this subject and to make themselves conversant with the Facts, and thereby cease this lamentable nonsense.
©Lucio Mascarenhas.
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