Now, I am for one thing not a Protestant, and will not say Catholicism is an Apostate religion. And I am for another thing not a Modernist, I will not assure say Evolutionist "Catholics" they are not apostate.
Back to the video, I will not promote it directly, but it claimed lots of things in the necropolis under the Vatican are acts of idolatry. Now, if the Vatican has been HIDING that necropolis for millennia, it has not been EXPOSING it for millennia.
Let me quote wikipedia about the Vatican Necropolis:
The Vatican sponsored archeological excavations under Saint Peter's in the years 1940–1949 which revealed parts of a necropolis dating to Imperial times.[1] The work was undertaken at the request of Pope Pius XI who wished to be buried as close as possible to Peter the Apostle. It is also home to the Tomb of the Julii, which has been dated to the third or fourth century. The necropolis was not originally one of the underground Catacombs of Rome, but an open air cemetery with tombs and mausolea.
wiki: Vatican Necropolis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Necropolis
In other words, there is a Pagan graveyard under neath the Vatican. And there is St Peter's grave close by to it.
Now, obviously the St Peter's Cathedral was enlarged at a certain time. Just before the Reformation. There may be Pagan graves that came under the new St Peter's that were not under the Old one. But more important: The old one, with Pagan symbols, was covered up already when the Old Basilica was built. THis the article writers substantiate by references to a book by Zander, Pietro (2009). The Necropolis Under St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
And what you cover up, you cna hardly be said to promote. If the Vatican has been "hiding idols" it has therefore not been promoting them.
When Pope Pius XI did take initiative for excavations, when Pope Pius XII put these into practise during 1940-49, supposing him to be still Pope (a phrase from 1950 bothers me, actually), they very obviously thought or were at least supposed to be thinking that the Paganism concerned was stone dead (unlike Hindooism, unlike Buddhism, unlike Shintoism, unlike Fetishism, unlike Voodoo and Santería, unlike Satanism for that matter). It is also debatable how much is really idols.
For instance, Lucifer and Vesperus are spirits and stars-planets. Note that the title of Satan in this context is not so much "Lucifer" as "fallen Lucifer". He can well have been the guiding spirit of the planet Venus before he fell*, he does not continue to be so after his fall. And depicting stellar or planetary spirits is not exactly the same thing as worshipping them.* So called idols as portraits of the dead cease to be idols as soon as you cease to sacrifice to those dead. Unlike the claim made in the video, Catholicism does not sacrifice to dead people. Catholicism does sacrifice God to God, as on Calvary, on the days of martyrs so that God may honour them by bringing about miracles around their relics, and so that God may make their example fruitful, and same goes for other saints. It does also sacrifice for the dead, those not canonised, so that God may cleanse them of their sins.** But it has never and will never sacrifice to someone who is dead.
And Pagans had to cease worshipping the dead on that field with sacrifices as soon as it was covered, that is decades before Emperor Theodosius forbade Pagan public worship totally (thereby complying with rules of God kept by Davidic Kings during the Old Testament as well as with a rule made on behalf of the God of Daniel and of the Three Young Men in the Furnace).
The worst part in the case of the Necropolis was of course the picture of Pluto and Persephone - you pronounce the final -e - and of Mercury going before them. But even that rather illustrates Pagan ideas about what death means than constitutes Pagan worship - or at least this was the most probable intent back in the 1940's when the Necropolis was exposed. During the time from Emperor Constantine to that excavation it did neither. And to a mere visitor at day-time, this remains so.
Another thing is the fact that this is not exactly the Church Room. As long as it was inaccessible, it was below the Church Room level.
But I have a queezy feeling about Pope Pius XI insofar as he gave up the Papal States in 1929. An Austrian Cardinal dying recently before 2000, Stickler, enumerated the Status Ecclesiae as one of the things the Pope could not change. Perhaps the Foundation of St Peter's ought to have been another one.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Sts Justus and Abundius
14-XII-2013
* Yes, the Bible clearly teaches either that stars are spirits or that they are guided by them, in the latter case the spirits in some sense stand for the stars. Job 38, Baruch 3. Song of the Three Young Men in the furnace in Daniel 3. All speak as if the stars could praise God (Job, Daniel) and answer his call verbally (Baruch). Usually this was taken as meaning the angelic spirits guiding the stars. And this means planet Venus is now guided by another spirit than Satan and Satan is no longer the guiding spirit of planet Venus. Unless "morning star" is meant as Mercury rather than Venus, in that case no longer of planet Mercury.
** II Maccabees. Chapter 12. Verse 46. The words of the High Priest: It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. The Catholic comment thereon: Here is an evident and undeniable proof of the practice of praying for the dead under the old law, which was then strictly observed by the Jews, and consequently could not be introduced at that time by Judas, their chief and high priest, if it had not been always their custom.
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