I agree that Christianity sought to dominate and supersede ancient pagan practices toward the dead, and that deeper traditions of communing with ancestors endured. The Church regulated and embraced those traditions that remained, while condemning others.
It reminds me of the stories I've heard about Boniface and other Christians, who attempted to injure sacred trees as one of their first acts against the pagans. Many of our indigenous spiritualities place a high value on trees, particularly as a means of communicating with ancestors.
If you can somehow sever or subvert that ongoing relationship and reverence between a people and their ancestors you take control over their understanding of their history and what is means to be spiritual.
The longer I live the more I feel that our concept of death is not what the Catholic Church would have us believe. That is not to say there is no afterlife - I believe there is. But the dead are with us here and now in a way that seems more in tune with pagan beliefs than Christian teaching.
I agree that Christianity sought to dominate and supersede ancient pagan practices toward the dead, and that deeper traditions of communing with ancestors endured. The Church regulated and embraced those traditions that remained, while condemning others.
It reminds me of the stories I've heard about Boniface and other Christians, who attempted to injure sacred trees as one of their first acts against the pagans. Many of our indigenous spiritualities place a high value on trees, particularly as a means of communicating with ancestors.
If you can somehow sever or subvert that ongoing relationship and reverence between a people and their ancestors you take control over their understanding of their history and what is means to be spiritual.
The longer I live the more I feel that our concept of death is not what the Catholic Church would have us believe. That is not to say there is no afterlife - I believe there is. But the dead are with us here and now in a way that seems more in tune with pagan beliefs than Christian teaching.
So I like this article very much.