Faith and tattoos: possible combination? It is permissible for a believer to tattoo his body? But most of all: it is appropriate to scream “to satanism!” in front of a tattoo on the body?
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In past centuries many pilgrims to Loreto used to have a particular tattoo done there as proof of the pilgrimage. Then the thing at the end of the nineteenth century was seen as an uncivil practice and gradually it was abandoned.
As far as I'm concerned, I find the tattoos horrifying, disgusting and unwatchable. They give me a sense of dirt, dislike, ignorance. They are essentially yet another fashion, started by someone in some Western country believing they were imitating certain primitive peoples and then exploded in this era of prevailing boorishness and idiotic massification.
Finally a different article, current, useful and balanced. Bravo Father Ivano Liguori.
Of certain articles wearily and sterile polemical that lately more and more often unfortunately lodge on this site, frankly we would like to do without it.
… and naturally, good don Ettore Barbieri. Not for the blows given, obviously.
Bravo Luca, good Maria.
I remember a homily by a priest, native to the sub-Saharan region, about the rampant phenomenon of tattooing in the West.
He said at one point: ”As my people converted to Jesus Christ, abandoned the custom of getting tattooed ". I believe that the interpretative figure for our civilization lies precisely in this simple observation.
I am bitterly convinced that in our lands of ancient Christianization the exact opposite is happening with respect to what the African priest noted for his people.. Weakened, or missing altogether, the Announcement, the cult of latria slips inexorably towards objects other than its own. From the One Creator we go towards created goods, and among these there is, obviously, even the human body. Which has become, at this point, object of attention, so powerful, to appear even obsessive. And tattoos are only one of the ways of this fascination.
I told my children: “Getting a tattoo is first of all a mistake. It is often the fatal outcome of a seduction that comes from the world and not from God. It is an attack on the body that follows a dictate that does not come from right conscience. "After that, as I always do when we try to discern, in the light of faith, our doubts, I invited them to stay each, alone for a while, near Jesus on the cross. And in the silence of His abandonment, before Him torn apart in His Most Holy Body, wondering if getting tattooed would really make any sense. The answer is now in their hearts as adolescents who walk among so many difficulties in faith.
Then no one talks about the costs of this immoderate attention to one's body. They throw a lot of money away for aesthetic purposes, and the poor do not resign themselves. I helped a foreign teenager who begged for alms for his large family as a child. Well once I gave it some’ more went to get a tattoo on his neck. Is small, he justified himself all happy, it's small and I didn't spend that much.
The customs, negative or dubious, they always affect the most fragile and the poorest who do not like to feel marginalized.
Where there is a good dad, like Luca, there is to thank God.
Thanks Maria for your words. Frankly, I don't think I'm a good father. We can only know this at the end. I can only state this today, our duty as Catholic parents is to fight together with our children (sometimes against!). And at the end of the day, get together for dinner, thank the Lord, and say with Paolo:” We have fought our battle, we have finished the race, we have kept the faith”.
Rev. Father Ivano,
In the 2003 I was diagnosed with right lung cancer and told it was inoperable due to the particular location and other issues not necessary to explain why else matters …
I have always been devoted to Our Lady of Lourdes but for one reason or another I have never been able to go, I wanted to do it when I got sick but the doctors advised me against it.
I decided to have an image of Our Lady of Lourdes tattooed on the right side of my chest.
In 2004 the tumor has disappeared.
In 2005 the bishop of my city who had learned of the case through the hospital chaplain wanted to speak to me and a few months later all the medical records were presented to the commission that studies miracles at the sanctuary of Lourdes.
In 2008 I was recognized as miraculous by the Madonna.
Today I have 82 years and every year I go on pilgrimage to Lourdes, i only skipped last year due to coronavirus.
Excuse me if I don't write well Rev. Father but I think I said what I had to say.
Maria Assunta
In White Jacket, Melville mentions tattoos, and notes that the Catholics of the crew had crosses tattooed on their four limbs for the purpose, if found dead on the coasts of Catholic countries, to secure burial in consecrated land, while the Protestants did so by saying that they were absolutely certain that in that way, if dropped into water, they would not have been attacked by sharks…
Thank you for this clarification regarding tattoos… I state I do not like them and on me I would never do… but I never demonized them… despite being very believing… In many areas of the church (and not only by those who frequent Medjugorje… A place very dear to me… ) I have heard that the tattoo is a sign that approaches Satanism. I believe, But, I am convinced that by making an ethical discourse the people who have caused so many evils in the unit are those in suits, shirt and tie and not those who may have tattooed an image on their body to remember a happy moment in their life.
Premesdo that “secularly” I think the tattoo has a bad aesthetic taste, The ban on deuteronomy has been applied extensively to tattoos, but rather refers to Canaanite cult practices in which the priests of Baal tore their flesh with spears and swords, also described in the episode of “challenge” with the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel; said this, the oldest tattoo shop in the world is located in Jerusalem: from the time of the Crusades, here they made tattoos of crusaders and pilgrims both as mementos of the pilgrimage, and because in case of sudden death alone they could be recognized as Christians and therefore have ecclesiastical burial; also in Italy there was the use of the religious tattoo, as a reminder of the pilgrimage to Loreto, where there were said tattoo artists “Marker Friars”. Therefore tattooing should not be considered religiously prohibited, but only according to the subjects: for example tattoos with blasphemous subjects, satanic or obscene are certainly sin, subjects “neutral” or even sacred, however questionable from the point of view of good aesthetic taste, however, they are not sinful.
Mr. Gingo allow me …
In addition to the examples presented by the article speaker, you can read the beautiful text by Nuccio d’Anna “Celtic Christianity The pilgrims of light” and you will see that the art of tattooing is practiced by MONKS – Hermits, has had, in that specific spiritual line, not a merely ornamental value but an operative one. A sort of corporal lorica.
It is therefore a real prayer conducted with the body and on the body of which the author of the text will be able to illustrate the purposes much better than I can, simple reader, that among other things I write a little’ by heart having read the book a long time ago.
Each era has its own complex network of signs and meanings.
But let's not forget that, in a more recent time, the Nazis tattooed our brothers in the Auschwitz death camp.
This too should give us food for thought.
But where are we at? A priest out of his mind (certo father Ariel) that speaks of “moral locked inside a condom” and a Franciscan … (I say Franciscan!) that “bless tattoo” indicated by his father Amorth as a demonic symbol … you have more planned?
And, we plan to continue to be priests at all costs, which also costs what it costs in prices and also in gratuitous public offenses, in order to restore idiots like her to faith and reason, who are still creatures loved by the Lord, therefore also from us.
Read the encyclical Faith and Reason of the Holy Pontiff John Paul II, instead of going from blog to blog where you talk about satanic nonsense, because the devil is a serious person, very serious, Unfortunately!
http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/it/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
P.S. etymology of “moron”
"Idiot." (ant. idioto) masculine and feminine adjective and noun [from Latin moron, from the Greek ἰδιώτης […] - A simple man is meant by an idiot; a rough and uneducated person "
Themselves. Gingo,
I had the effigy of San Gennaro tattooed on my right buttock then I went to my archbishop and showed it to him as proof of my devotion.
He approved, he only asked me not to show it to the faithful in the cathedral church on the day when the miracle of the liquefaction of blood is renewed.
Think that I too am demonic?
No, you're just dumb.
Take some “fool” by a priest who ended up in all the Italian newspapers for having beaten up one of his confreres in hospital 70 year old, I dare say it's almost an honor.
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2016/05/03/botte-tra-preti-in-seminario-ad-albenga-ha-rubato-i-soldi-della-cassa-no-mi-vuole-cacciare-dal-mio-alloggio/2692930/
Ah, congratulations to the bishop who appointed you dean of the Superior Institute of Religious Sciences, the Italian Church flies higher and higher!
https://trucioli.it/2019/07/16/don-ettore-barbieri-nuovo-direttore-issr-della-diocesi-di-albenga-imperia-e-vice-in-liguria-prende-il-posto-del-canonico-corini/
But how good you are! You did your research on the internet, vero? Oh yeah, because I put my name and surname, you, instead, you sign Don Ciro, which in Naples and Campania is like saying Brambilla in Milan or Parodi in Genoa. Good, caro don Ciro, if you had read, in the past, an article by your beloved Don Ariel, would you know what tensions we have been subjected to for years in the Diocese of Albenga due to the wicked choices of a certain Mons. Oliveri and you would understand why one, after twenty years of Mass, and after spitting blood since he was ordained he can reach the extreme gesture of raising his hands to the poor brother of 70 year old, which probably would have been better in the country's prisons.
As for the appointment as director of the Institute of Religious Sciences, you can be sure that I have neither sought it nor I like to exercise it; anyhow, to your knowledge, I have a license in Philosophy, I taught in our seminary for 13 year old, and also, in the past, five or six years at the Institute.
Faced with such a stupid and vulgar comment like the one you posted, I blurted out, but I know well that on this site priestly charity is very selective and courage too. Best wishes for your ministry.
Dear Brother,
Don Ciro's answer was published because everyone, as you may have noticed, we give the right to speak and reply.
The editorial staff approves all comments in themselves as publishable without the need to marry their contents.
Don Ciro is an excellent priest with a Neapolitan streak of irony, if you knew him personally I am sure you would like him above all for his intelligence and preparation.
As for the Diocese of Albenga, I confirm what you say: years ago it went through a terrible period with repercussions that hurt the entire Italian Church, you understood that you are part of that presbytery.
I wish you all good and grace from the Lord for your sacred ministry.
In the Cantico de cantici we read “Put me as a seal on your heart…”
Don Ciro can sing ” I put you as a seal on my cu ..”
Poor San Gennaro!
?????????
The cardinal blessing the tattooed backside of one of his presbyters.
Too bad there wasn't a Michelangelo Merisi to immortalize the scene with his admirable chiaroscuro!
it was time!
I was almost sick of people who combine tattoos and tattooed with Satanism.
Of course, I would never do certain wallpapers, but not even a small butterfly, however, to see the devil everywhere except where he really is and where he really works seems to me to say the least excessive.
Don Claudio – Monza
I too will take this enlightening article into account in responding to young people on this issue.
Thanks Father Ivano.
Father Ivano, Franciscan peace and good!
Very enlightening article and above all very balanced.
Already tonight I will use it in the catechesis meeting with the young people of the oratory.
Many thanks and good luck to all of you from the Island of Patmos.