Asia-Pacific News
Catholic Church hit by mother of all defections
Feb 22, 2009, 5:40 GMT
Sydney - Australia's Marina Dickson wowed a worldwide television audience of 1 billion and was praised by Pope Benedict XVI for her portrayal of the Virgin Mary in a re-enactment of Jesus Christ's final hours.
It was the high-point of the week-long World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney last year that drew 400,000 pilgrims from 170 countries.
Which is why the faithful were shocked Sunday when news broke that the beauteous 27-year-old had abandoned the Catholic Church and taken up with the evangelical Sydney-based Hillsong movement.
'It's important you're where God wants you to be,' Dickson told the Sun Herald. 'I feel Hillsong is where I'm called to be. I'm so happy.'
Cardinal George Pell, who as archbishop of Sydney hosted the pope, described the defection as a 'great sadness' - particularly because he headed the panel that picked Dickson over thousands of other hopefuls.
The Chilean-born Dickson was unrepentant. 'Hillsong is more about having a relationship with God,' she told the paper. 'It's a lifestyle, not just somewhere to go on Sunday.'
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KeithFeb 22nd, 2009 - 12:02:14
Well the Virgin Mary was never an original part of Christianity,even in the so called prophecy of Isaiah which was actually written in the present tense and mischievously mistranslated to fit the doctrine.The Codex Siniaticus, the oldest New Testament(British Museum) contains no mention of the Virgin Mary (or the Christmas story) who was edited into the Bible later by the church. When the Codex was discovered they Church was shocked but too committed to change the doctrine. This female Goddess figure actually originated with Isis,4000 BC, who was famed for her visionary appearances and statues which cried tears and was known as 'The Mother of God' and there are still statues in the Middle East of Isis holding Horus doing duty as Mary holding Jesus even though they can be aged centuries before AD. But don't just believe me because I have written this,look up the history for yourself and check the provenance of these things. Of course, those not attached to organised religions are also moral and ethical and in support of goodness. They just find the doctrine unsupportable. As for the pat on the head for this lady by the Pope, organised Religions are party to so many fantastic and unproven propositions that one more is of little significance and all this dubious doctrine would not matter except that sometimes it gets misinterpreted by extremists and people die.
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