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While poking around the internets for this question in SciFi&Fantasy, I was reminded of one of my curiosities that had come about from watching the same film. After watching Kevin Smith's Dogma, my cousin mentioned something along the lines of Loki being actual Catholic dogma according to a friend of his.

I can't find any sources on the internet to confirm this. In fact CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA lists him in a paragraph describing the beliefs of 'Teutons and Celts' confusing me more, since I'm quite sure Celts had nothing to do with Loki. Wikipedia describes the blending of Christian and Norse belief systems in a short paragraph without giving any easy references to go off of.

I find it difficult to drop the idea because I find it a lovely example of Christian syncretism. I ask in the hopes that some of you may have had interesting discussions in catechism that would have covered this, or perhaps you know where to look better than I do, and can confirm or reject this.

Was the Norse mythological being Loki incorporated into the Catholic belief system, and if so, in what way?

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Nope. Occasionally some local deities are sybcretized into Catholicism, but there is no official status to Norse gods or any other Pantheon. – Affable Geek Oct 29 '12 at 23:06
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As a Catechism teacher I get the "what about 'the gods'" question all the time, I think this question could be more useful if it didn't assume that the existence of Pantheism in a non-canonical encyclopedia had some bearing on Catholic doctrine. – Peter Turner Oct 30 '12 at 0:12
@PeterTurner ce and wiki links are there to show the closest I came to an answer in my own research. In part I list them to show how incomplete/mistaken my 'best' internet references are (i.e. why I'm asking here). – tugs Oct 30 '12 at 19:54
@tugs yeah certainly no criticism meant, it's an assumption that I'd assume is easy to make. – Peter Turner Oct 30 '12 at 20:19
Also, from the wiki page on syncretism, "The Catholic Church allows some symbols and traditions to be carried over from older belief systems, so long as they are remade to fit into a Christian worldview; syncretism of other religions with Catholicism, such as Voudun or Santería, is condemned by the Church." – svidgen Dec 10 '12 at 15:39

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The article you linked to is about magic and the occult, and speaks of magical concepts from many cultures, including Norse mythology. It mentions Loki only once, at the end of that section. In the very next paragraph, it says that "magic as a practice finds no place in Christianity."

From this, it seems pretty clear that Loki (and all the rest of the mythological figures mentioned in the article) are being used here as illustrative examples only, and don't hold any doctrinal significance in Catholicism.

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Is there a better source that we can reference? I worry about a dated perspective on history evident in small inaccuracies like the one I highlighted in my question. I also worry because of the hand-wavy reasoning in the author's arguments. I understand that if what I'm looking for doesn't exist, the answer could be in the hand-waving, but if possible I'd like a more official reference. – tugs Oct 30 '12 at 20:31
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More to it, the whole tone of the article (from Catholic Encyclopedia) is from a Catholic perspective looking out at a foreign perspective in condemnation of beliefs and practices. – svidgen Dec 10 '12 at 15:37

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