Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Worcester Commission for Women: Promoting New Age Relativism



"..if truth is objective, if we live in a world we did not create and cannot change merely by thinking, if the world is not really a dream of our own, then the most destructive belief we could possibly believe would be the denial of this primary fact. It would be like closing your eyes while driving, or blissfully ignoring the doctor's warnings." - C.S. Lewis, "The Poison of Subjectivism" in Christian Reflections.


The coming of Antichrist will be preceded by a general apostasy, the loss of faith of most Christians: "Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship, so as to seat himself in the temple of God." (2 Thess 3-4.) This is necessary because if people were faithful to their Christian beliefs, they would never submit to the lies of the Antichrist. The work of the enemies of God to undermine the faith is clear for everyone to see today.

Saint Paul wrote in his First Epistle to Timothy (4:1-2): "Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will turn away from the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic instructions through the hypocrisy of liars with branded consciences." And in 2 Tim 3:1-5: "But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power."


The basic credo of the New Age Movement, which looks to usher in a New World Order, is that a person creates their own reality according to what feels right for them. For example, a person may choose to be homosexual, bisexual, monogamous or polygamous and it's "okay" as long as it's "right for me." A person may choose whether or not to have an abortion. And so on. Of course, this is nonsense. For, as Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand reminds us, "The truth of a proposition is essentially objective; a truth which as such would be valid for one person only is a contradiction in terms. A proposition is true or false, but it can never be true for one person and false for another." (The New Tower of Babel: Modern Man's Flight from God, pp. 57-58).


This New Age relativism is promoted by the Worcester Commission for Women. In a Blog post which may be found here, the Commission has published a prayer by New Age advocate Joyce Rupp. Ms. Rupp writes, "We will make choices and decisions in 2010 of how we create our reality." She prays that we will all "..let go of aversion and avoidance of the unwanted" so that we will, "welcome people and events disturbing [our] comfort zone."


In a previous post, I noted how Sister Joyce Rupp, a self-proclaimed spiritual midwife who feels that she resonates with mystical islamic sufism, has extolled New-Ageism as valuable and claims to have stretched herself "beyond the safe world of heterosexuality" while attending a "gathering of lesbians." And this certainly explains what she means when she prays that we "let go of aversion and avoidance of the unwanted." In an interview with US Catholic (April 2000), Sister Joyce Rupp said that, "In many ways, New Age has become the new enemy. That's unfortunate because some things about New Age are valuable...I think some Church people are envious about New Age, because it does draw people toward spiritual growth."

And this is an advisory group for the Bishop of Worcester? What are they advising him?

Related reading here and here.

Johnette Benkovic on Joyce Rupp.

6 comments:

John Ansley said...

Many "Christians" today have bought into relativism in order to rationalize their "fun and sex games." Relativism is used to justify fornication, adultery, sodomy and even abortion. Our diocese is truly falling into apostasy. Why else would it tolerate such nonsense?

Michael Cole said...

Paul, thank you for revealing who Joyce Rupp is and what she stands for long before most even heard of her.

Johnette Benkovic of EWTN fame warned about her last month at the Living His Life Abundantly website:

http://lhla.org/newage/?p=31

Shame on Bishop McManus for allowing this. And shame on this diocese for blacklisting you.

Ellen Wironken said...

Wicca encourages spiritism and many styles of divination. It uses magic spells or incantations, and is rooted in pagan beliefs such as reincarnation, karma and pantheism.

That Bishop McManus would allow the "Commission for Women" to promote a religious who in turn promotes divination and New Age occultism is disturbing.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Bishop McManus needs to study, teaches that: "All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to 'unveil' the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone." (2116).

The fact that the man who is supposed to be the spiritual leader of Worcester has no problem with the "Commission for Women" promoting a pagan nature religion which includes recourse to Satan and demons is chilling. Rome needs to be made aware of this.

Gerard said...

I found your Blog through EWTN. It seems that your Bishop doesn't really care for his spiritual children. A Bishop is supposed to be an overseer. He is supposed to be concerned about the spiritual well-being of his diocese. I guess Bishop McManus is an "absentee Father."

Anonymous said...

Have you forwarded this information to the papal nuncio and the appropriate congregation at the Vatican? I think you should. Perhaps also sending it to Tom Peters at Catholic Vote (formerly the American Papist) and even to Fr. Z might fan the flames. If all else fails, get a video cam and go to the conference and post videos to YouTube. I am sure the diocese would have to respond once something visual hits the internet.

Blessings,

Rory McGinn

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

Those are excellent suggestions Rory. I haven't. But I surely will. God bless!

Site Meter