Problem : Participating Loy Krathong is considered blasphemous.

Such ceremony venerates

พระเเม่คงคา , who is a Goddess in Hinduism. Given that such tradition invites partipants to
worship another god other than Christian’s God, any Christian, or Catholic, to be more precise,
who goes to Loy Krathong performs an idolatry. As said in the Old testament, “I am the LORD
your God, …You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:2-3). In effect, participating
the Loy Krathong is against our belief.

Answer:

While the objective of the Loy Krathong ceremony is to ask พระเเม่คงคา a pardon for abuses
against river, or water, it appears that this practice worship another God than “Our God”.
However, what lies behind such act is mercy, charity and love, which are the core of our Faith.
Loy Krathong shows not only the love towards the nature (in this context – water), considered
as the God’s Creation, but also the love towards our friends (i.e. Charity) if we go in groups.
Saint Paul says what is the most essential is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). The one
who loves another has fulfilled the law… for love is the fulfilment of the law” (Rom 13:8.10).
Moreover, Thomas Aquinas answers what action is the best to show our Love for God by
saying that it is the act of mercy towards our neighbours, more than the worship : “We worship
God by outward sacrifices and gifts, not for his own benefit, but for that of ourselves and our
neighbour. For he does not need our sacrifices, but wishes them to be offered to him, in order to
stir our devotion and to profit our neighbour. Hence mercy, whereby we supply others’ defects,
is a sacrifice more acceptable to him, as conducing more directly to our neighbour’s well-
being”.1

Although the Loy Krathong ceremony originates from Hinduism, or a so-called “Pagan”
tradition, if we look at the History since the Old Testament, God also reveals in the Pagan
world through “Logos” (the Word), for example the alliance between God and Noah or Moses.
Surely, in that time, these two folks did know neither Jesus, nor the Catholic Church’s
sacrements. Given these phenomena during the prophetic period, God can say that God is
omnipresent. He reveals himself long before the Incarnation, before the arrival of the Christ in
the non-Christian world. The History of the Salvation is the History of Humanity. There is an
active presence, “partially” through the “Logos” in the Old testament, and “entirely” through
“Jesus-Christ”, our Lord in the New Testament.

If we limit ourself to the 7 sacrements of our Catholic Church, we limit the presence of God
and His Love to Christian people only. This will be absolutely seen as blasphemous because
we, as Christian, believe that the Love of God is immense, unlimited and accessible to any
human person. His love is not therefore exclusive to elected people, the Christians.

Some may say that addressing พระเเม่คงคา is the act of infidelity, and thus it is adultery. But if
we look at the intention, we can say that this is a form that non-Christians, or those who ignore
or do not know Jesus-Christ, performs in his quest for God in order access to the Salvation, the
unity of God, which is the utmost aspiration of human spirit. In all religious traditions, or all
efforts of human acitivity which bring us to the truth, the good, and God, present actively “the
seeds of the Word” in the plurality of religions (Ad gentes, n. 11; Lumen gentium, n. 17).

1
Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 30, ad. 1