A Friend just warned me about a so-called New Age rosary. It seems these beads are proliferating these days. They come in colorful, cheap plastic. They look like an ordinary rosary, but its crucifix has a perfidious design.

Together with the crucified Christ are other elements whose symbolisms are clearly New Age. There's a snake coiling on top of Christ's head with its mouth opened beside Christ's face. The serpent is a symbol of Satan.

Then there's a wand behind Christ's figure, similar to the one used by heralds like Hermes and Mercury of ancient mythologies. That's supposed to represent mediation between heaven and earth through natural earthly forces. There's also no INRI on top of Christ's cross.

A Church document has already warned us about the New Age Movement. "Even if it can be admitted that New Age religiosity in some way responds to the legitimate spiritual longing of human nature, it must be acknowledged that its attempts to do so run counter to Christian revelation."

The New Age doctrines and practices are not just ordinary superstitions. They are quite developed intellectually, and possess enough mystical and social appeal that they easily attract people, even celebrities and prominent people.

That's why nowadays, it is very important for us to learn how to be very discerning and discriminating, able to sift what is truly good from what may just look good but is actually dangerous.

Yes, with the fast pace and massive growth of development, we need to be very open to anything, flexible with everything. That seems to be the call of the times, an invitation for us to correspondingly grow in broad-mindedness. That, in fact, is what to have a Catholic outlook means.

But we should not forget that part of that call is the ability to choose the truly good.

Not everything is acceptable or convenient or advisable to everyone. Far from deadening our sensibilities, development should make them more perceptive. This is a task we should try to be good at. This is part of prudence.

All this is due to the fact that we need to flow with the times, yet should also be properly grounded, otherwise we'll just get lost and go nowhere.

This is especially so in the area of faith and religion. Religious freedom or freedom of consciences, being the basis of our freedom, should be given the utmost respect no matter how much we disagree with one another and are in conflict in our beliefs. Our dignity as persons simply demands that.

Yes, we have to learn to live with everyone, but without succumbing to religious indifference or irenicism which is the attitude which says that every religious belief in the end is just the same and equal. It's like "halo-halo."

Irenicism is an effort to reconcile all conflicting parties, by accepting all positions without making judgments as to which is good or bad, right or wrong, useful or dangerous. Everything is accepted, practically killing the dialogue to look for the truth.

It offers false peace and unity.

This is something we have to be more aware of, since in the world today, we have quite a sector not only of atheists and agnostics, but also of irenists and Gnostics, or those who claim to receive special revelations that cannot be verified by the Church.
In the case of the New Age crucifix, they have put together Christ and the devil to be adored, as if to say that both the extremes of belief are now unified in the New Age. There is nothing outside of this unity. There's nothing to worry, etc.

Our world and our times are indeed getting exciting, not only because of the wonderful technological advances but also and more importantly because of the sophisticated moral and spiritual challenges we are facing. We have to prepare ourselves for these challenges.

The gift of discernment is getting to be a must. We, of course, should ask for it from God, but on our part, we should also develop the necessary attitudes, skills, habits and practices that would make this discernment feasible.

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Fr. Roy Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE) in Talamban, Cebu City. You can email him at:Email: roycimagala@boholchronicle.com