In speech at ‘Day of Harmony’ in Abu Dhabi…
Novus Ordo Bishop Says Catholic Church Rejoices at Inauguration of Hindu Temple
“For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens.” (Psalm 95:5)
The following news item is almost a year old, but it really doesn’t matter when this absurdity took place, whether last year or last week — the evil and the scandal are the same. This story did not receive a lot of coverage when it came out, so it’s time we exposed it.
‘Bishop’ Paolo Martinelli, O.F.M. Cap. (b. 1958), is the Novus Ordo Sect’s Vicar Apostolic of Southern Arabia. He resides in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). A vicar apostolic is a prelate overseeing an apostolic vicariate, a type of provisional territory in which there is no diocese yet. The Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia encompasses the UAE, Oman, and Yemen.
On Feb. 15, 2024, ‘Bp.’ Martinelli participated in the festivities for the opening of a new Hindu temple, the first of its kind in Abu Dhabi. He did this by delivering a speech at the interreligious assembly hosted by the Hindu BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha organization for the occasion, known as the ‘Day of Harmony’.
Surprisingly, Martinelli’s address didn’t start out too badly. First he set forth the Catholic teaching on creation, the fall, and redemption; and he did so fairly accurately, at least for Novus Ordo standards. Then, however, he shifted into Vatican II ecumenical-interreligious mode, and instead of urging these hapless heathens to conversion to Jesus Christ and His holy religion, as St. Paul did with the pagans in Athens (see Acts 17), the so-called Vicar Apostolic congratulated them for their impressive site of idolatrous worship, going so far as to claim that the Catholic Church rejoices that Hindus in Abu Dhabi now have a spiritual home:
I conclude by expressing the joy of the Catholic Church at the inauguration of this new temple in Abu Dhabi. It represents a contribution to harmony based on the relationship with God. Every place of worship reminds people that without God, human beings are lost. With God, humanity can be born again. This new temple is a place for my Hindu brothers and sisters to pray and strengthen the harmony with God. The [2019] document on Human Fraternity states, religious freedom constitutes a fundamental pillar of civil coexistence. The inauguration of the new Hindu temple also expresses the freedom of worship in the United Arab Emirates, where tolerance and coexistence are considered as fundamental values, encouraging believers of various faiths to dialogue and commit to building a more fraternal world in peace and harmony. Harmony with God leads to harmony with all people and all of creation.
(Most Rev. Paolo Martinelli, Speech at Hindu Temple Inauguration on Feb. 15, 2024, Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia, Feb. 19, 2024)
These shocking words are a clear endorsement of Hinduism — not in the sense that Martinelli himself believes in the religion but in the sense that Hinduism is being accepted as a religion that is good, pleasing to God, and giving access to Him; a religion at least good enough for salvation, for being reconciled to God. This contradicts the Gospel to the core: “Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6); “For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times” (1 Tim 2:5-6).
Martinelli’s interreligious approach rests on a grave error denounced by Pope Pius XI, namely, “that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule”; warning that such a view is radically incompatible with the Roman Catholic religion: “Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little, turn aside to naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly follows that one who supports those who hold these theories and attempt to realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion” (Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 2).
Here is a short video clip of ‘Bp.’ Martinelli giving his speech at the Day of Harmony gathering:
The idolatrous worship site had been officially dedicated and ‘consecrated’ the day prior, Feb. 14, 2024. Videos of the ceremonies are available online:
- Inauguration of BAPS Hindu Mandir, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Dedication Assembly
- Inauguration of BAPS Hindu Mandir, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Consecration Ceremony
Many more photos of the pagan temple, including of the inside, can be viewed here. Architecturally and aesthetically, it is a magnificent structure.
The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia says the following about Hinduism:
In the pantheistic all-god Brahma, the whole world of deities, spirits, and other objects of worship is contained, so that Hinduism adapts itself to every form of religion, from the lofty monotheism of the cultivated Brahmin to the degraded nature-worship of the ignorant, half savage peasant. Hinduism, to quote Monier Williams, “has something to offer which is suited to all minds. Its very strength lies in its infinite adaptability to the infinite diversity of human characters and human tendencies. It has its highly spiritual and abstract side suited to the metaphysical philosopher — its practical and concrete side suited to the man of affairs and the man of the world — its esthetic and ceremonial side suited to the man of poetic feeling and imagination — its quiescent and contemplative side suited to the man of peace and lover of seclusion. Nay, it holds out the right hand of brotherhood to nature-worshippers, demon-worshippers, animal-worshippers, tree-worshippers, fetish-worshippers. It does not scruple to permit the most grotesque forms of idolatry, and the most degrading varieties of superstition. And it is to this latter fact that yet another remarkable peculiarity of Hinduism is mainly due — namely, that in no other system in the world is the chasm more vast which separates the religion of the higher, cultured, and thoughtful classes from that of the lower, uncultured, and unthinking masses” (Brahmanism and Hinduism, 1891, p. 11).
(Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Hinduism”)
Hinduism is a classic example of polytheistic idolatry. It is the very worship of false gods from which Jesus Christ came to deliver mankind: “And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, and I will cleanse you from all your idols” (Ez 36:25); “God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:24).
A video of the ‘Day of Harmony’ celebration can be found here:
For a supposed ‘Catholic bishop’ to be able to say that the Church is joyful at the construction of a Hindu temple, shows how much lasting damage the false Second Vatican Council (1962-65) has done. On Oct. 28, 1965, the fake pope Paul VI solemnly promulgated the council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. This conciliar document foolishly and audaciously states that
in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust.
(Vatican II, Declaration Nostra Aetate, n. 2)
This sounds incredibly innocuous, almost touching. The reality, however, stands in stark contrast to these words. Here, for example, we see a Hindu woman “contemplat[ing] the divine mystery” by worshipping a Shiva lingam and pouring water over a Nandi bull:
(image: Shutterstock/Nila Newsom)
In the photo below, we see the idols Jagannath, Balbhadra, and Subhadra as they are displayed in the Abu Dhabi Hindu temple:
(image: Wikimedia Commons/BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha/CC BY-SA 4.0; cropped)
And here we see men in Bombay worshipping the Hindu deity Ganesh:
(image: Shutterstock/RAMNIKLAL MODI; cropped)
The Hindu goddess Durga is another demon adored in India:
(image: Shutterstock/suprabhat; cropped)
What makes a man who claims to be a Roman Catholic bishop say that by worshipping these idols “humanity can be born again”? Certainly not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which has a different teaching on spiritual rebirth: “Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit” (Jn 3:5-6).
Someone needs to tell this ‘Vicar Apostolic’ of Southern Arabia that the true God is not worshipped in Hindu temples. St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, reminded the Thessalonians that they “turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God” (1 Thess 1:9). And the prophet Daniel in the Old Testament said to the Babylonian king: “…I do not worship idols made with hands, but the living God, that created heaven and earth, and hath power over all flesh” (Dan 14:4).
The evil and the folly of idolatry is reprimanded again and again in Sacred Scripture
I am the Lord your God: you shall not make to yourselves any idol or graven thing, neither shall you erect pillars, nor set up a remarkable stone in your land, to adore it: for I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 26:1)
What doth the graven thing avail, because the maker thereof hath graven it, a molten, and a false image? because the forger thereof hath trusted in a thing of his own forging, to make dumb idols. Woe to him that saith to wood: Awake: to the dumb stone: Arise: can it teach? Behold, it is laid over with gold, and silver, and there is no spirit in the bowels thereof. (Habacuc 2:18-19)
The idols of the gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men. They have mouths and speak not: they have eyes and see not. They have ears and hear not: they have noses and smell not. They have hands and feel not: they have feet and walk not: neither shall they cry out through their throat. Let them that make them become like unto them: and all such as trust in them. (Psalm 113:12-16)
Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical on Italian Freemasonry, warned of “those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution”, pointing out that “[t]hese men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial…” (Encyclical Custodi Di Quella Fede, n. 15), and that is exactly what we find here.
The pseudo-Catholic authorities of the Vatican II Sect, who are in reality but Neo-Modernists serving the cause of Freemasonic Naturalism, are working very hard on the idea that all religions believe in and worship the same God, that all religions are ultimately the same or at least equal, being simply different manifestations of, or different approaches to, the same generic and unknowable God.
If this isn’t the Great Apostasy, what will be left to apostatize from?
Title image source: composite with elements from YouTube (screenshot) and Shutterstock (sidvemuri)
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