Pope Benedict XVI performing the ritual of baptism - but the words must be exact or God doesn't know it has been performed.
The ludicrous tale of the Catholic priest who inadvertently condemned thousands of residents of St. Gregory Parish, Phoenix, Arizona USA, to hellfire by using a wrong word in the magic spell called baptism, took a new turn recently.
Having resigned as the parish priest, he took up a new role of baptising those he cursed, this time with the right words in the magic spell. The ritual of baptism inducts children into the Catholic Church, and so the 'one true faith', without their consent or participation. This then gives them special protection by God who casts everyone without the 'one true faith' into Hell, there to suffer an eternity of agony in hellfire.
The problem was that by using the wrong words, God was unaware that he, in the form of Jesus, for whom the priest was speaking, had baptised the children into the one true faith, so he doesn't know which ones to save and which ones to cast into the fiery pit for having the wrong faith. What Fr. Andrés Arango, should have said was "I baptise you...", instead, he said "We baptise you..." and obviously, "I" means "Jesus" in that context, and "We" doesn't, because, being specially anointed, a Catholic priest (but now any other priest, mind you!) speaks for Jesus, so God wouldn't know what was going on as he, being omniscient, doesn't understand a spell if even one word is wrong.
So, you can understand the terror that these thousands of Arizonans and maybe others. who thought they were Catholics and so had the right protective spells cast over them, must be feeling right now, knowing they are bound for hellfire, no matter how well they stick to the teachings of the church or how diligently they perform all the other rituals required of them, or how kind, caring and compassionate they might be towards others. That's all to no avail, if God doesn't know he, in the form of Jesus, had inducted them into his true faith. Even the ritual of eating the literal body of Jesus and drinking his literal blood, in the form of a wafer and a sip of wine, doesn't work because only valid members of the one true faith are permitted to participate in this symbolic act of cannibalism, or Jesus doesn't know he's been incorporated into their body.
But now the damage is being repaired as groups of the accursed are having the right protective spells cast over them by Fr. Andrés Arango. Unfortunately, it has already descended into chaos, because no-one knows who, or how many people, Arango cursed in this way, since he served as a parish priest in several other parishes before his final 50 years cursing the children of the parish of St. Gregory, and no-one knows how many have since been correctly inducted. He was a parish priest in Saint Jerome parish, Phoenix and St. Anne parish in nearby, Gilbert, Arizona, and had earlier served in San Diego, California and Brazil.
Rebaptism doesn’t exist because baptism creates an ontological change (a change in being) in a person.
There is also a raging controversy now over whether a 'rebaptism' is theologically valid since church doctrine states that both a baptism and a confirmation are once in a life-time, transformational events which result in a permanent 'ontological change' in the being of the person, and this can't be undone or re-done.Jay Conzemius
Moderator of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s tribunal
Past president of the Canon Law Society of America
Moderator of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s tribunal
Past president of the Canon Law Society of America
The mistake has also sown discontent and maybe even a little doubt in the minds of loyal supporters of Arango, however. Two such, Terri and Steve Flynn, wrote in an email:
If he made a mistake in wording, believe me, it was not intentional, it was not lack of heart, faith or education, it was a simple human mistake that I believe Jesus himself would quickly forgive.Try telling that to the Pope, according to the logic of whose doctrine of 2020, Jesus will cast the unfortunate victims of this errant priest into hellfire because he doesn't understand what the priest meant, so doesn't even know what is to be forgiven. All he understands is that they didn't go through a valid 'ontological change' so can't be told from those who must go straight to Hell for not having the right human form. An 'ontological change' that is undetectable by any means known to man, apparently, so it's impossible to tell who has undergone this transformation and who hasn't.
Another parishioner, 17-year-old Brisa Lomas, said, in a letter to Bishop Thomas Olmstead, the bishop of Phoenix:
If Jesus was in charge of The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, I know in my heart that he would forgive Father Andres for this honest mistake.Nope! Not according to Catholic doctrine! Jesus only forgives those who have had the right protective spells cast over them to bring about the right 'ontological' transformation, apparently. Unless exactly the right words are spoken in the induction ritual, Jesus has no idea what is going on. When a priest gets the idea that he is speaking on behalf of his congregation, not Jesus, during the ceremony, things go horribly wrong, and might not even be repairable.
No wonder more and more people are seeing these rituals as the nonsense they are and how the church seeks to control the lives of its members with superstations and fear and so are leaving the faith for the freedom and liberation of non-affiliation and outright Atheism. Any 'philosophy' which needs these mental contortions and convoluted, self-contradictory reasoning is not worth the breath it takes to utter them.
Now I wonder if I was baptized correctly?
ReplyDeleteAnyway ....