SUNday worship

Since his investiture as Bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis fervently and vigorously promotes his agenda of Sunday Rest. I do not mean to offend anyone; I am just quoting history and current events unfolding before our eyes. In his encyclical letter ‘ Laudato Si’ on saving the planet, which he presented to the United Nations, Pope Francis inserted as part of the letter, Sunday rest. Quote ‘par. 237: “SUNDAY, like the Jewish SABBATH, is meant to be a day which heals our relation with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world. SUNDAY is the day of Resurrection, the ‘first day’ of the new creation…” In other words, the Pope is saying that keeping the Sabbath on Sunday will help the environment and a new lifestyle which includes Sunday rest. Why has Sunday rest become such a priority for the Catholic Church? Sunday worship, as the first day of the week has always been revered as holy by the Catholic Church since AD 313 when Emperor Constantine published the Edict of Milan enforcing Sunday the first day of the week as the day of rest. The Edict had nothing to do with Christianity: it was to honour the Greek and Roman Sun god Helios whom he worshipped. In 321 AD, Constantine who was still a sun worshipper decreed: “On the venerable day of the Sun, let the magistrates and the people residing in the cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” A coin circulated by Constantine in 317 AD shows the face of the Emperor on one side and on the other side the figure of Sol Invictus the Unconquered Sun, also known as Mithras whose birth was 25 December. As if that was not enough, the Catholic leaders of the 4th century felt it necessary to further enforce the power and importance of the first day of the week by the Council of Laodicea. Since the Jewish Sabbath was still being observed, the council stipulated: “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday, but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s Day they shall especially honour, and, being Christians, shall if possible not work on that day. If however they are found Judaizing they shall be shut out from Christ.”

Since he has been installed, Pope Francis, as have both the previous Popes before him, Pope John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, has promoted Sunday rest on several occasions in his speeches. In truth, the Jewish Sabbath is not specific only to Jews. Other religious denominations observe the seventh day Sabbath that honour Saturday as the day of rest and the day of the Lord. Long before Moses and the handing down of the Ten Commandments on the tablets of stone and before the Israelites settled in the Promised Land, the land of Canaan, God established the seventh day as the Sabbath at the end of creation week, which in Hebrew translates into rest, as the day of rest. “And on the Seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the Seventh day from all his work that he has made. And God blessed the Seventh day, and sanctified it” (Genesis 2:2.3). The hierarchy of the Catholic Church does away with and negates not only the seventh day Sabbath, but also the whole of creation week.

This was confirmed by Pope Francis in one of his pastoral meetings at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences when he declared: “When we read about creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God as a magician with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so.” In essence, what Pope Francis said is that the Papacy has the power to change God’s law. Can the law of God be violated and changed? “The earth is also defied under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the law, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant” (Isa 24:5). By merit of the Catholic Church and papal decrees issued throughout millennia they have changed times and laws according to their agenda. “The Pope has the power to change times to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things even the precepts of Christ. He can pronounce sentences and judgements in contradiction to the rights of nations, to the law of God and man… He can free himself from the commands of the apostles, he being their superior, and from the rules of the old testament” (Decretal De Translate Espiscop. Cap). Ecumenical councils of bishops and popes are immune from error claiming that doctrine does not rest on the Bible alone but on traditions and teachings being the sole authority of the Catholic Church.

Pope Innocent III claimed that “The Pope holdeth place on earth, not simply of a man but of the true God” (Decretals of Gregory IX, Book 1 chapter 3). Pope Nicholas said of himself: “I am in all, and above all, so that God himself, and I, the vicar of God, hath both one consistory… and I am able to do almost all that God can do.” Pius IX declared: “I alone am the successor of the apostles, the vicar of Jesus Christ… I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Pope Boniface VIII said: “We declare, say, define and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” One can compare the twisting of some of the Ten Commandments (Exodus Chapter 20) established by God on Mount Sinai against those ordained by the Roman Catholic Church. Beginning with the second Commandment which states: “Thou shalt not make any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth… do not bow down to it.” This second Commandment has been completely removed by the Catholic Church. The fourth Commandment reads “Remem- ber the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all the work: But the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” The Catholic wording of this Commandment, which has become the third because of the removal of the second, simply says “Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.” The Maltese version is “Isma’ l-quddies fill Hdud u l-btajjel kollha,” meaning to attend Mass on Sundays and all holydays.

Since time immemorial, even before recorded history, the veneration and adoration of the sun goes back to Neolithic times and the huge megalith stone buildings of prehistoric monuments erected specifically for the adoration of the sun. Without the sun, ancient man realized that crops would not grow and that life on the planet would not survive. These realities make it the most adorned object of all time. Sun worship dominated every aspect of their religious culture beginning with the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians as well as some religions of the east. The Catholic Church has preserved sun worship in various forms. One of the oldest symbols of the sun is in the main square facing St Peter’s Basilica. This symbol, which covers the whole square, represents the eight rays of the sun’s wheel. It can be traced back to the Babylonian inscriptions of the sun god Shamas with its eight rays. Inside the Vatican, sun worship symbols are numerous. There is a statue of a woman holding the figure of the sun with its rays in her arm. Before Vatican II Council, the Catholic Church celebrated Mass Ad Orientem, the altar and the celebrant facing East, the rising of sun. The Church’s reasoning was that it faced Jerusalem and the return of Jesus. Cardinal John Henry Newman, who was beatified in September 2010, documented all the pagan customs that were introduced in the Church thus: “We are told in various ways by Eusebius that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the ornaments to which they have been accustomed in their own. The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints… incense, lamps and candles, holy waters, processions, sacerdotal vestments, turning to the East, and the tonsure, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified for their adoption by the Church” (from an essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by J.H. Newman p. 369).