The Pope has been in Africa this week, and performed mass there.
He urged the Catholic Africans to help their countrymen to abandon superstition, magic, reliance on shamans and witch doctors. They should rather accept Christianity (in its Roman Catholic form, of course).
It is dangerous to believe in such superstitions, Benedict said.
Indeed! I agree with His Holiness entirely.
It is dangerous (as well as emotionally harmful) to believe such superstitious things as these:
- sprinkling with magic water while a witch doctor says magic words will wipe away your faults;
- a priest saying the proper words will turn a cracker into actual flesh;
- eating a bite of magic cracker-flesh will make you acceptable to the gods;
- if a demon possesses someone you love, you can get a witch doctor to "exorcise" the demon by waving a cross over him and saying certain magic words;
- you had better participate in the magic rituals on special magic days, at least twice a year;
- you can ask holy dead people for special favors;
- burning candles on an altar has a magic effect and will bring you your wishes;
- a Jewish rabbi who was executed two thousand years ago for treason wants you to devote your life to him.
Yes, superstition can be a terrible thing, if you let it get hold of your mind.
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Magic and religious ritual are one and the same thing - they all have their talking snake angle.
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