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A Catholic priest in Northern Ireland cautioned
against practicing yoga and receiving Indian head massages, saying that those
who take such risks with their “spiritual health” are opening themselves up to
“Satan and the Fallen Angels.”
Father Roland Colhoun warned that those partaking in
the ancient practice may be led into the “Kingdom of Darkness.”
“Pope Francis said 'do not seek spiritual answers in
yoga classes'. Yoga is certainly a risk. There's the spiritual health risk,” he
told the Derry Journal.
"When you take up those practices from other
cultures, which are outside our Christian domain, you don’t know what you are
opening yourself up to,” he added. "The bad spirit can be communicated in a variety
of ways. I’m not saying everyone gets it, or that it happens every time, and
people may well be doing yoga harmlessly. But there‘s always a risk and that’s
why the Pope mentioned it and that’s why we talk about that in terms of the
danger of the new age movement and the danger of the occult today. That’s the
fear."
Prominent officials in the Catholic Church have
expressed wariness about yoga in the past.
In 2011, the Vatican’s chief exorcist, Gabriele
Amorth, said that yoga leads to a belief in Hinduism, and that "all
eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation".
"Practicing yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil
just like reading Harry Potter," he told the Telegraph.
Even the late former Pope Benedict XVI cautioned
Christians in 1989 against partaking in yoga, Zen and other forms of
meditation, suggesting that they could “degenerate into a cult of the body.”
One Derry yoga instructor, however, defended the
practice, telling the Belfast Telegraph that teaching yoga for 15 years has not
stopped her from being a “good, practicing Catholic.” Evelyn Donnelly said that
her yoga students come to classes to "learn good posture and breathing to
help them with tension in their bodies and to help calm a busy mind.”
"In
all the time I have been teaching, not one person has ever expressed an
interest going deeper into the spiritual elements of yoga," she added.
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