NEO-PAGANISM: THE FRUIT OF A ROOT THAT WAS PLANTED ELSEWHERE?

PROLOGUE: THEY SEE THE FRUIT; BUT WHAT OF THE ROOT?

In a recent Communique, the Modernist Bishops Conference of Nigeria claiming the Catholic name deplores the growth of neo-paganism among Nigerian Christians, especially among the young. The enthusiasm with which the document is being shared by Novus ordo clerics is both admirable and revealing. 

It is admirable because they have at least recognized a danger and are eager to make it known far and wide. The abandonment of Christian faith for pagan worship, ancestral spiritualities, occult practices, and pre-Christian religious beliefs is certainly a matter deserving condemnation and serious pastoral concern.

But it is revealing because the same voices that eagerly condemn the fruit appear remarkably unable to identify and examine the root. They see young Christians turning toward paganism and immediately denounce the phenomenon, yet do not seem to know that the theological categories they themselves have popularized have helped create an intellectual climate in which such a return becomes easier to embrace.

They condemn the consequences while leaving their own premises unexamined precisely because they cannot see the inherent link. Pathetic. 

Think on this:

• If religious liberty is presented without sufficient reference to the objective rights of God; 
• if conscience is emphasized without equally insisting upon its obligation to truth; 
• if the religious traditions of peoples are approached principally through the language of cultural heritage and positive values; 
• if inculturation can blur the necessary distinction between evangelization and the preservation or rehabilitation of pre-Christian religious forms;

Then what happens when the younger generation applies these principles consistently to paganism itself? 

The question, therefore, is not merely:

“Why are our young people returning to paganism?”

It is also:

“What intellectual and theological climate has made such a return easier to imagine, defend, or justify?”

They are looking at the fruit.

A traditional Catholic examination must ask: 

Who planted the root? And what kind of soil has been carefully cultivated around it?

1. CORRECT IN IDENTIFYING THE DISEASE

The Communiqué observes that neo-paganism is spreading through:

• cultural revival;
• economic hardship;
• shallow Christian formation;
• the internet and social media;
• books and popular culture.

It recommends stronger catechesis and a “healthy inculturation” which respects positive cultural heritage while maintaining Christian truths.

But here lies the deeper problem: thorough catechesis cannot check neo-paganism if the catechesis itself is doctrinally ambiguous. More lessons, more programmes, and more “inculturation” will not suffice if young Catholics are not taught clearly the objective truth of the Catholic Faith, the necessity of conversion, the sinfulness of idolatry, and the duty to worship the one true God. You cannot cure neo-paganism with a catechism that leaves the Catholic unable to explain why pagan religion must be rejected.

However, that diagnosis contains an important truth:

A Christian who does not know his Faith can easily be reabsorbed into the religious worldview of his surrounding culture.

The remedy therefore cannot merely be better public relations, cultural accommodation, or digital evangelization.

The remedy must be Catholic doctrine, Catholic worship, Catholic morality, and Catholic formation which remains available to all who are willing to listen to, and submit to the perennial teaching  of the Catholic Church. 

2. A DIFFERENT DOCTRINAL STARTING POINT

Notice the language:

“The dignity of the human person is an inalienable gift…”

and:

“The dignity of the human person is the very foundation of human rights and religious liberty.”

The Communiqué appeals explicitly to Dignitatis Humanae of the Modernist robber council. 

Here the traditional Catholic raises a fundamental question:

What exactly is meant by “religious liberty”?

Catholic doctrine does not teach that man has a positive moral right to choose and publicly propagate religious error simply because he is a human person.

Rather, Catholic theology distinguishes between:

• the dignity of the human person,
•  the objective truth of religion,
•  the duty of every man toward God, and
• the legitimate limits of civil authority.

These distinctions matter enormously.

3. HUMAN DIGNITY DOES NOT MEAN RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE

The traditional Catholic doctrine begins elsewhere.

Man is created by God.

Therefore man has an objective end:

God Himself.

Man does not invent his ultimate purpose.

He does not create religious truth.

He does not make revelation true by believing it.

And conscience is not an autonomous manufacturer of truth.

The Catholic principle is therefore:

Freedom is ordered to truth, not truth to freedom.

A man does not become more dignified because he is equally free to embrace truth or error.

His dignity consists in being a rational creature made by God and ordered toward God.

Consequently, his freedom reaches its perfection when it adheres to the truth.

4. THE UNCHANGING CATHOLIC WARNING AGAINST INDIFFERENTISM

The pre-modernist Magisterium repeatedly condemned religious indifferentism.

The error is not merely the statement:

“All religions are identical.”

It can take subtler forms.

For example:

“Everyone has an equal religious right to choose his own truth.”

Or:

“The particular religion a person professes is secondary; what matters is sincere adherence to conscience.”

Or:

“No religion should claim objective superiority over another in public life.”

The traditional Catholic answer is:

Sincerity does not make errors true.

A person can sincerely believe something false.

Conscience must therefore be formed by truth, not merely protected from external coercion.

5. AND HERE THE NEO-PAGANISM QUESTION BECOMES SERIOUS

Consider the practical consequences.

Suppose an unsuspecting young Nigerian Catholic is taught:

“Your dignity consists fundamentally in your religious freedom.”

Then he encounters traditional religious practices and is told:

“Your cultural heritage deserves respect.”

Then he hears:

“Different religious traditions contain values worthy of recognition.”

Then comes:

“Christianity must be inculturated.”

Without precise doctrinal distinctions, the young person can easily arrive at:

“Why should I reject the religion of my ancestors? It is part of my identity.”

The transition from cultural appreciation to religious rehabilitation can become almost imperceptible.

That is precisely where Catholic catechesis must draw a bright line.

6. CULTURE IS NOT RELIGION

This distinction is indispensable.

The Church can recognize:

• language;
• music;
• clothing;
• architecture;
• food;
• legitimate social customs;
• family structures;
• artistic traditions;
• communal solidarity;

without approving pagan worship.

Baptizing what is good in a culture does not mean baptizing its false religion.

St Paul did not preach:

“Keep the idols but reinterpret them.”

The Christian proclamation was radically different:

“Turn from these vain things unto the living God.” (Acts 14:15.)

Christianity does not merely add Christ to a pre-existing religious system.

Christ demands conversion.

7. THE GREAT DANGER OF “INCULTURATION” WITHOUT CONVERSION

The Modernist Bishops Conference of Nigeria commendably qualifies its language by calling for an inculturation that firmly upholds Christian truths.

That qualification is essential. Without it, “inculturation” can degenerate into syncretism; the very soil in which neo-pagan Christianity grows.

 A Christian cannot simultaneously confess, “Christ is my Lord,” and maintain that the traditional religious powers of his ancestors remain legitimate objects of religious invocation. That is not mature inculturation; it is a contradiction.

But here is the irony: the very neo-paganism these  “Bishops” deplore cannot be effectively uprooted by a theological framework that has itself softened the traditional Catholic distinctions between truth and error, true religion and false religion, conversion and accommodation, Catholic worship and pagan worship. 

If religious liberty, cultural affirmation, dialogue and inculturation are emphasized without those necessary distinctions, the Catholic is left asking: Why must I reject the religious practices of my ancestors if their culture and religious heritage are also to be respected? 

Thus the modernist framework can denounce syncretism in practice while supplying insufficient doctrinal grounds for rejecting it in principle. 

The contradiction is not in the Gospel; it lies in trying to combat neo-paganism with categories that can blur the very boundary between Christianity and paganism.

8. THE MODERNIST TRAJECTORY: FROM CONVERSION TO DIALOGUE

Here the traditional critique becomes sharper.

Modernist religious thought begins with the religious experience of man, rather than with the objective deposit of Faith.

Religion becomes described in terms of:

• personal experience;
• conscience;
• human dignity;
• freedom;
• dialogue;
• cultural identity;
• mutual enrichment.

None of these words is evil in itself.

The problem arises when they become detached from:

objective revelation, the divine law, the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, and man’s obligation to embrace the truth revealed by God.

Then religion subtly changes from:

“God has revealed the truth; believe and obey.”

to:

“Human beings freely seek religious meaning; let us respect everyone’s journey.”

That is a radically different starting point.

The language sounds humane, but notice the shift: from conversion to dialogue, from revealed truth to personal religious searching, from rejecting error to respecting each religious journey. 

Dialogue then becomes the governing category: rather than calling the pagan from error to the truth revealed in Christ, we are encouraged to accompany, listen to, appreciate and “learn from” his religious experience. 

But if every religious journey is treated as equally worthy of affirmation, what becomes of the Church’s missionary obligation to convert nations from idolatry to the worship of the one true God? Dialogue can be a means of evangelization; it cannot become a substitute for evangelization.

9. THE TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC FORMULA IS MUCH SIMPLER

The Church’s missionary command is not:

“Help every culture discover its own religious truth.”

It is:

“Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” ( Mark 16:15)

And why?

• Because the nations need conversion.
• The pagan needs Christ.
• The Christian needs perseverance.
• The sinner needs repentance.
• The idolater needs the true God.

And every human being needs the Catholic Faith for salvation according to the traditional Catholic understanding of the Church’s missionary commission.

10. THE PARADOX OF THE PRESENT CRISIS

Here lies the irony.

The Communiqué rightly says that neo-paganism is spreading among young people.

But if unsuspecting Catholics are simultaneously formed in an intellectual environment in which:

• religious freedom is detached from religious truth,
• conscience is detached from objective moral law,
• culture is detached from conversion,
• and religious plurality is approached without sufficient emphasis on the unique truth claims of Catholicism,

then the intellectual defenses against neo-paganism become weaker.

The young Catholic eventually asks:

“If my pagan neighbour has a legitimate religious path, why should I convince him about the Catholic Faith?”

That is not a childish question. It is the unavoidable consequence of what he has been taught.

If every religion is presented as simply another legitimate path to God, why should the Catholic Faith be preached, defended, or embraced? Why should a missionary leave home, sacrifice comfort, and call another man to conversion?

Catechesis must answer that question; not with slogans, sentiment, or vague appeals to “dialogue,” but with truth.

The Catholic must know that Christ did not establish many saving religions, but one Church, entrusted with the fullness of revealed truth and the means of salvation. Therefore, missionary zeal is not contempt for the pagan; it is charity toward his soul.

The question is not:

“Why should I impose my religion on another?”

It is:

“If I truly possess the truth revealed by Christ, how can charity permit me to remain silent about it?”

A Catholic who does not know why the Faith is true will eventually have no compelling answer when the world asks him why he should believe it.

11. THE ANSWER IS NOT COERCION

Traditional Catholic doctrine must not be caricatured.

To say that Catholicism is the one true religion is not to say that the State should force every citizen to become Catholic.

The traditional distinction between truth and coercion is crucial.

Faith requires an act of the intellect and will.

Therefore conversion cannot be manufactured by physical compulsion.

But the inability of civil authority to force genuine faith does not transform false religion into truth.

• Non-coercion is not indifferentism.
  The Church can reject forced conversions while still affirming that religious truth is objective and that error has no equal claim to truth.
• Religious toleration is not religious equality.
   To tolerate something that cannot prudently be suppressed is not to declare it equally true, good, or pleasing to God.
• Respect for a person is not approval of his religious error.
   We honour the human person because he is made by God and possesses an immortal soul; we do not therefore have to approve every belief he holds.

These distinctions must be recovered. But this discovery cannot take place within the modernist framework where they are dissolved.  There,  differences between truth and error, the Church and false religions, conversion and dialogue, are recast in the language of pluralism and religious equality.

A Catholic who is intentional about his identity and the ultimate end of his faith must reject that modernist framework.

Charity does not require us to call error truth.
Toleration does not require us to call error equal to truth.
Respect does not require us to approve error.

The Catholic must allow himself to learn to distinguish the dignity of the person from the truth of his religion.

12. THE REAL CATHOLIC RESPONSE TO NEO-PAGANISM

If the “bishops” genuinely wish to arrest the spread of neo-paganism, the remedy must go beyond social-media evangelization, slogans, cultural programmes, and occasional appeals to young people.

Young Catholics must be taught the Faith itself; clearly, confidently, integrally and without ambiguity:

• God exists and can be known by human reason.
• God has revealed Himself, and His revelation is not merely one religious perspective among many.
• Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, the only Saviour of mankind.
• Christ founded one visible Church, not a federation of equally valid religions.
• The Catholic Church possesses the fullness of revealed truth and the means of salvation entrusted by Christ.
• Idolatry is objectively sinful, even when surrounded by cultural tradition or sentiment.
• Pagan worship cannot be reconciled with Catholic worship by merely calling it “inculturation.”
• Conscience must be formed according to truth; conscience does not create truth.
• Culture must be purified, healed, and elevated by Christianity, not Christianity reshaped to accommodate every cultural practice.
• Human dignity does not place man above divine truth; the creature remains subject to the Creator.
• Religious liberty cannot mean freedom from man’s duty toward God. Genuine freedom is not emancipation from truth, but the freedom to know and embrace the good.

Without this doctrinal foundation, young people may be taught to discuss neo-paganism without learning why they must reject it.

The battle is therefore not won merely by producing more Catholic-sounding content.

The Catholic mind itself must be formed.
 And that requires recovering a catechesis that teaches truth as truth, error as error, sin as sin, Christ as Christ, and the Catholic Church as the Church founded by Him.

EPILOGUE: DO NOT MERELY FIGHT THE FRUIT

The modernist nominal bishops conference of Nigeria deserves credit for recognizing the seriousness of neo-paganism.

But a serious diagnosis must examine both fruit and root.

If paganism is wrong, then Catholicism must be presented as true, not merely as one respectable religious option among many.

If idolatry is wrong, then cultural appreciation must never become religious rehabilitation.

If Christ is the Truth, then dialogue must never become doctrinal indifference.

If conscience must be respected, then conscience must also be formed.

And if human dignity comes from God, then that dignity cannot be used to place man and his religious preferences above the truth revealed by God.

The battle against neo-paganism will therefore not be won merely by putting Catholic content on social media.

It will be won when Catholics once again know what the Church teaches, why she teaches it, and why Christ demands conversion.

The pagan does not need a Catholic Church embarrassed by her claims.

He needs the Catholic Church proclaiming them clearly.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)

And the first question is therefore not merely:

“Why are our young people returning to paganism?”

It is:

“Have they been given the Catholic Faith strongly enough to know why they must not?”

Sadly, these modernist nominal bishops cannot give them that Catholic Faith which is the victory over neopaganism. 

They are formed in the very modernist categories that blur the boundaries between truth and error, conversion and dialogue, Catholic worship and religious pluralism, and they continue to promote the same categories. 

Being now nominal  “guardians”, they must return to the catechism of the perennial Church: to the clear, uncompromising teaching of her Fathers, Doctors, Councils and premodernist Magisterium. 

Until the modernist fog is dispelled and the fullness of Catholic truth is embraced, the agents of the modernist impostor Church will continue trying to uproot neo-paganism with instruments too blunt to reach its roots. The victory over paganism is not a better synthesis with it, but the Catholic Faith in its fullness.

Oh that these nominal bishops bend humbly to the perennial teaching authority of the Church, and reject modernism,  its fruits and categories!