Peruvian expert in liberation theology reveals ‘scheme’ behind the Amazon Synod

LifeSiteNews interviews Editor of Pan-Amazon Synod Watch

ROME, June 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The upcoming synod of bishops on the Amazon region is a “scheme” aimed at “revamping” the Church according to the “most radical versions of liberation theology,” a Peruvian author has said.

Julio Loredo, president of the Italian branch of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and author of “Liberation Theology, a life jacket for the poor made of lead” [Teologia della liberazione. Un salvagente di piombo per i poveri (Cantagalli, 2014)], said the “untold” backstory of the Amazon Synod is that it’s been decades in the making, and is designed to “change the whole Church” according to “so-called indigenist and ecological theology.”

“It is a whole revamping of the Church from an ‘Amazonian’ point of view, which is nothing else than the culmination of liberation theology,” Loredo said in comments to LifeSite on Friday, June 21. 

Loredo, who serves as an editor and regular contributor to the new website, “Pan-Amazon Synod Watch” (launched by an international coalition seeking to combat such efforts), noted that this vision “is now being proposed by a Latin American Pope for the whole Church.”

“That is very important,” he said, adding that this vision “also coincides with the most extreme visions of the modernists and progressives in terms of ecclesiology.” 

Loredo noted the upcoming Synod “is being prepared and staffed by a well-organized network of ‘indigenist’ associations and movements,” such as REPAM (Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network). 

“All its mentors come from the folds of the Liberation Theology movement,” he said.

“Another point to be made,” Loredo added, “is that the encyclical Laudato sì is the doctrinal foundation for the Synod.” This encyclical, he said, “has parts inspired by ecological liberation theology, or eco-theology, and parts based on documents of the United Nations, like Agenda 21 and the Treaty on biodiversity.”

“These are binding treaties for all of the countries that signed during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, in 1992,” the Peruvian author explained. “These documents were studied and proposed by researchers from Socialist International who were seeking to explore ways for post-socialism or post-communism. Concepts like ‘sustainable development’ and ‘negative growth’ were launched by these documents. So, we are not speaking just of the Church in the Amazon.”

Loredo said he has been “struck” by the extent to which the Vatican, through the Pan-Amazon Synod, is assuming “the neo-pagan agenda proposed by the United Nations in conferences like the 1992 Rio Summit and the 2012 Rio+20 Summit.” 

“I participated, as a journalist, in the 1992 conference, and studied these issues in depth.”

Turning to the preparatory document and Instrumentum laboris for the October meeting, Loredo said the documents’ “embrace [of] a radical interpretation of ‘sustainable development’” is particularly concerning. 

Equally worrisome, he said, is the complete absence of anything negative about the Amazonian tribes, some of which he said “practice cannibalism, infanticide and witchcraft.”

“For someone like myself who has been studying liberation theology and indigenous theology for so many decades, so many things in these documents are perfectly clear,” Loredo said. “But for someone who has not followed these currents it might be baffling, or at least not fully comprehensible.”

Here is our interview with Mr. Julio Loredo.

LIFESITE: Mr. Loredo, who is responsible for launching the “Pan-Amazon Synod Watch” website, and what assurance can you give readers that they will find in it a credible source of information regarding the issues surrounding the October Synod? 

JULIO LOREDO: The site was set up by an international network of conservative associations. It officially belongs to the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute, in São Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Corrêa de Oliveira (1908-1995) studied the so-called indigenist currents inside the Church already since the early 1970s. But it is an international site which implies not only Tradition, Family and Property, but also other conservative associations internationally. 

It contains articles by leading experts, scientists, philosophers and professors; therefore, the material it features is highly academic. For example, it contains articles by Professor Evaristo Miranda, who is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Amazon. Dr. Miranda is the head of EMBRAPA, which is responsible for the satellite monitoring of the Amazon in Brazil. As you might know, Brazil has its own space program. The satellite system in Brazil is highly developed. EMBRAPA Monitoramento por Satéliteis the government organ which monitors the Amazon, and Prof. Miranda is its head. There are many articles by Miranda, as well leading ecologists from the United States and other countries. Very authoritative figures are writing for the site.

The Vatican released the Instrumentum laboris for the Pan Amazon Synod earlier this week. It has drawn considerable media attention, particularly for suggesting a relaxation in priestly celibacy for the Amazon region. What in your view should those in the media, and Catholic clergy and faithful more broadly, know about the upcoming meeting? Where should we focus our attention?

There is an untold story that has not gotten enough attention in the Western media. Cardinal Pedro Barreto, the vice president of REPAM(Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network) said very clearly in recent days that the plan they intend to carry out at the Synod is one they have been working on for almost 50 years. So, there is a whole plan, a whole scheme, behind the Synod, which consists in the introduction of so-called indigenist liberation theology that has been developing over the past 40 or 50 years. Now would be their time to propose it to the entire Church.

European media are focusing on clerical celibacy and the possible diaconal ‘ordination’ for women, and rightly so. These are both very important aspects of the plan, but there is a whole story behind it. What they want is to change the whole Church according to the most radical versions of liberation theology — the so-called indigenist and ecological theology.

We have been following this for many decades. In 1977, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira wrote a book about this, titled “Indian Tribalism: The Communist-Missionary Ideal for Brazil in the Twenty-First Century,” in which he describes pretty much what’s going on today. However, this panorama hasn’t been very present or widely known to the European public. It was more a Latin American situation, which is now being proposed by a Latin American Pope for the whole Church, and that is very important. It also coincides with the most extreme visions of the modernists and progressives in terms of ecclesiology.

At last year’s Youth Synod, certain controversial issues (such as the inclusion of “LGBT” language) were anticipated, but the final document’s heavy emphasis on “synodality” and ecclesiology was not expected. What surprises do think the Pan Amazon Synod holds? 

If you read the preparatory documents for the synod, especially the Instrumentum laboris, you will see that they want to reinterpret the whole Church from an “Amazonian” perspective. They call it the new Church with “an Amazonian face.” They want to re-interpret the whole Church, and this is a point that I think European media are not stressing enough. It is not simply the problem of relaxing clerical celibacy, as important as that is, or the problem of the ordination of women. It is a whole revamping of the Church from an “Amazonian” point of view, which is nothing else than the culmination of liberation theology. 

If they get their way, it would be the most pernicious revolution that has ever happened in the history of the Church — if they get their way.

At the June 17 press conference to present the Instrumentum laboris, LifeSite asked synod organizers about this. “In reading the working document,” we said, “[we] got the impression that the idea is not only to help the Amazon but also to give the rest of the Church ‘an Amazonian face,’ an expression Pope Francis has used various times. Will this Synod have implications and ramifications for the rest of the Church?” we asked. Bishop Fabio Fabene, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, responded by insisting that this synod is only dedicated to the Amazon. But he added that there could be repercussions “from a pastoral point of view also for the Church, especially … in the field of ecology.”

Exactly. They are proposing a whole series of ideas, like the “conversion to integral ecology,” which are valid for the whole Church. They are using the Pan Amazon Synod in order to propose a new model for the Church.

Do you believe the indigenous peoples are being exploited to carry out the ecclesial revolution you describe?

This Synod is being prepared and staffed by a well-organized network of “indigenist” associations and movements, like the aforementioned REPAM. All its mentors come from the folds of the Liberation Theology movement which, in more recent years, has been evolving in this sense, as well as in the sense of an “integral ecology.” In this quest, they have involved some highly-motivated Amazonian Indians, like Cayapó Chief Raoni. But I doubt they represent the majority of the indigenous peoples. Knowing the Amazonian reality quite well, I would say that the vast majority want to integrate themselves into modern society.

Another passage in the Instrumentum laboris which is raising concern is n. 129.  It says that because “authority” in the Amazon is “rotational” it would be opportune to “reconsider the notion that the exercise of jurisdiction (power of government) must be linked in all areas (sacramental, judicial, administrative) and in a permanent way to the Sacrament of Holy Orders.”

As I said, they want to revamp the whole Church from an “Amazonian” standpoint. A chapter in the Preparatory Document dealt with the “sacramental dimension,” and stated that Sacraments had to be reinterpreted under this light, including the Sacrament of Orders. It’s obvious that they are using the “Amazonian face” as a pretext to implement an old progressive scheme: confusion regarding the common priesthood of the faithful and the sacramental priesthood of the clergy. They want to attenuate, if not destroy, authority in the Church. Theirs is an egalitarian view of that Church and society.

That said, anyone who’s been in the Amazon knows full well that authority in the Indian tribes is anything but “rotational.” Indian tribes have a dictatorial structure in which the power of the chief is only towered by that of the witch doctor. 

Another point to be made is that the encyclical Laudato sì is the doctrinal foundation for the Synod. This encyclical has parts inspired by ecological liberation theology, or eco-theology, and parts based on documents of the United Nations, like Agenda 21 and the Treaty on biodiversity. These are binding treaties for all of the countries that signed during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, in 1992. These documents were studied and proposed by researchers from Socialist International who were seeking to explore ways for post-socialism or post-communism. Concepts like “sustainable development” and “negative growth” were launched by these documents. So, we are not speaking just of the Church in the Amazon.

The Vatican seems in recent years to have bolstered its cooperation with the United Nations.  

Exactly. One thing that strikes me about the encyclical Laudato Sì and about the Pan-Amazon Synod is the extent to which the Vatican is assuming the neo-pagan agenda proposed by the United Nations in conferences like the 1992 Rio Summit and the 2012 Rio+20 Summit. I participated, as a journalist, in the 1992 conference, and studied these issues in depth.

What do you think people will find most surprising about the situation in the Amazon as it relates to this synod, beyond what we’ve already discussed?

I think European, and in general Western, peoples will find it quite shocking that the Synod is proposing the Amazonian tribes as bearers of a new revelation for our times that will revamp the whole vision of the Church and of Catholicism. They call the Amazon an “epiphanic place,” a “source of divine revelation” (Instrumentum Laboris, n. 18, 19). What do they mean by this new Indian or indigenous revelation for the world for the 21st century? It’s very worrisome.

Another thing that might shock people is the fact that they embrace a radical interpretation of “sustainable development.” It says that the level of consumption today is far beyond the capacity of the Earth to produce food and materials. So we have to drastically reduce our level of consumption by adopting more austere and poorer models. And that is where the tribal model comes in; they say that the Indians can teach us how to be poor and yet happy. They are proposing the doctrine of buen vivir —“good living” (Instrumentum laboris n. 12,13) — which is not living in abundance but in poverty, but in perfect communion with nature. And this is the “good living” they are proposing.  They are against industrialization, they are against not only consumerism but actually consumption. They say that we have to lower our levels of consumption, because the Earth cannot support it. This is also very worrisome because it means that they want us to do away with a whole series of advantages that industrial civilization has brought about.

When you say “they,” who do you mean?

Both the people who in the United Nations propose this doctrine of sustainable development and the people in the Church who embrace the doctrine of sustainable development, which is an essential part of what they want to do in the Synod. The documents proposed for the Synod are quite clear. They want the Amazonian Indians to be the evangelizers of the world.

Through “good living” …

Exactly, and this is also very shocking. Of course, as Christians, we are called to live humbly and modestly and to care for the gift of creation, which has been entrusted to use by our heavenly Father. But if interpreted interpreted in a linear way and taken to its last consequences, this way of thinking means we would have to renounce many advantages of modern society. Just think if people will renounce cars, electricity or air-conditioning!

At the June 17 press conference, Sandro Magister noted that while the Instrumentum laboris has critical things to say about the Pentecostals or urbanization, they only speak positively about the indigenous peoples, without addressing the evils of cannibalism or infanticide or other pagan practices that are still present in some tribes.

Or witchcraft. Both the Preparatory Document and the Instrumentum laboris, as well as statements of the people who are involved in the Synod, are full of negative language with regards to industrialization, or what Pope Francis calls “extractivism”, i.e. the extraction of material from the earth; they are full of negative language against free market economy and private property. But they have nothing negative to say about the Amazonian tribes, some of which practice cannibalism, infanticide and witchcraft. The Indian tribes are presented as idyllic. The real Indian tribes are very different.

Is there anything you would like to add?

For someone like myself who has been studying liberation theology and indigenous theology for so many decades, so many things in these documents are perfectly clear. But for someone who has not followed these currents it might be baffling, or at least not fully comprehensible.

However, the gates of Hell will not prevail. We must face this situation with serenity and hope, knowing that God at times permits His flock to be tried in the Faith so that it can be proven worthy. And we must especially never lose or diminish our veneration for the See of Peter.

Scientific study slaps Bergoglio and his erroneous anthropogenic climate change

Study: No Evidence For Man-Made Climate Change 

New Finnish Study Finds No Evidence For Man-Made Climate Change

Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars.com - JULY 11, 2019 

A new study by researchers at Turku University in Finland found that the human contribution to a rise of 0.1°C in global temperatures over the last century is just 0.01°C.

The paper, titled ‘No experimental evidence for the significant anthropogenic climate change’ was published by Jyrki Kauppinen and Pekka Malmi.

The study found that, “During the last hundred years the temperature is increased about 0.1°C because of carbon dioxide. The human contribution was about 0.01°C.”

Kauppinen and Malmi conclude that global temperatures are controlled primarily by cloud cover and that “only a small part” of the increased carbon dioxide concentration is anthropogenic.

The study also calls into question the claims of the UN IPCC, which concluded that global temperatures are largely driven by human activity.

While the methods and results of the study can be debated, this once again illustrates how there is no overwhelming consensus on man-made global warming as the media often claims.

In reality, there are dozens of prominent scientists who believe that climate change is driven by natural forces or that the United Nations’ climate projections are unreliable.

Related: NASA veteran scientists warn of the error to Francis

Benedictine theologian: The working document for the synod on the Amazon, represents an “abandonment of the biblical faith for something different, with only a counterfeit label of Christianity. A bit like products bearing the European Union mark that are manufactured in China.”

The Instrumentum laboris “is not a Christian document,” the Benedictine theologian insists.

The removal of the scriptural principle: apostasy, rather than heresy.

ROME, July 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A Benedictine theologian has joined the chorus of voices criticizing the working document of the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, calling it “biodegradable Christianity.”

In an analysis published by Italian journalist Aldo Maria Valli on July 2, Dom Giulio Meiattini, a monk of the abbey of Madonna della Scala in the southern Italian province of Bari, said the Instrumentum laboris proposes and contains nothing less than a “reversal” of the “very idea of Church and Christian faith.”

“The Person of Christ and His Gospel disappear; they are literally swallowed up by the lush tropical forest” of repetitious reflection on ecology and sociology, Dom Meiattini writes.

“In reading this hymn to the Amazonian paradise on earth,” the Italian monk adds, “it is difficult to understand how and why this portion of humanity needs faith in the Incarnation.”

Commenting on the document’s focus on the Amazon as an “epiphanic” source of revelation, Dom Meiattini says the apostolic, scriptural, and liturgical tradition of the Church “are covered by vines and tropical molds or sunk in marshy quicksand.” Yet he notes that the authors of the document do not seem “concerned at all about giving theological and scriptural plausibility to what they say.”

Praising German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller’s recent critique of the working document, Dom Meiattini said “it’s hard to blame him” for calling it “heretical.” But, he adds, “more than heresy, we should speak of apostasy.”

The Instrumentum laboris “is not a Christian document,” the Benedictine theologian insists. “Let this be clearly stated: a few biblical quotations inserted as the title to several paragraphs, or the use of words like ‘Church’, ‘conversion’ and ‘pastoral,’ are not enough to guarantee the evangelical character of a text.”

The working document for the synod on the Amazon, he says, represents an “abandonment of the biblical faith for something different, with only a counterfeit label of Christianity. A bit like products bearing the EU [European Union] mark that are manufactured in China.”

In his analysis, Dom Meiattini also claims that the working document’s fascination with the “world of the primitive,” i.e. the “childhood of mankind,” betrays an infantile regression.

“After the attempts of the flower children, what is now being proposed is a cultural model which is ecologically more sustainable and as minimally neurotic as possible: life brought back to its beginnings, to bows and arrows, to shamanic healing rituals,” he writes.

He further argues that we should not underestimate the connection between such infantile regression and “homo and trans ideology” which is founded on the idea of spontaneous self-determination coupled with a rejection of reason.

However, according to the Benedictine theologian, the most interesting aspect of the document is that “things become clearer, compared to the previous ambiguous formulations that were supported by erroneous quotations of St. Thomas in order to be able to claim that everything was ‘completely Thomistic.’”

“Here it is clear that St. Thomas has nothing to do with it,” he writes, adding it is equally clear “that the Bible has nothing to do with it either. If there is still something Christian in this Instrumentum laboris, i.e., a few words and expressions here and there, there is no need to worry: it is undoubtedly biodegradable!”

Here below is an English translation of Dom Giulio Meiattini’s commentary on the Instrumentum laboris. The original Italian may be read here.

***

Promoting a biodegradable Christianity

For some time now, we have known or imagined that the Synod on the Amazon would hold some surprises and create further reason for division. At first, it seemed that perhaps the thorniest issue to arise at the synod would concern married clergy. It must be said that the publication of the Instrumentum laboris has far exceeded these expectations and the liveliest imagination. The document, in fact, points towards a much more ambitious and radical goal. It is the most daring move that could be conceived and attempted by the secretariat of a synod of the Catholic Church. The document proposes and contains nothing less than a reversal ab imis fundamentis [in its deepest foundations] of the very idea of Church and Christian faith.

Diluting Christianity: wine turned into water 

I say “Christian” and not “Catholic” with good reason, because in fact the method and contents of this text, which is full of repetition and quite cumbersome, have actually liquidated the fundamental elements of Christianity. Naturally, the operation is carried out with the usual system, which I have pointed out on other occasions: not by denying but by keeping silent, not by contradicting but by diluting. In this way, the reader can also be favorably impressed by all the interesting reflections on ecology, ethnology, health and sanitation and sociology that it contains, and many of which are in themselves also right. But in the midst of these lush and redundant empirical analyses, which say nothing new and which a specialist could say in a better and more substantiated manner, the Person of Christ and His Gospel disappear; they are literally swallowed up by the lush tropical forest.

The relationship between faith and culture should be illustrated using the classical Christology expressed by the first ecumenical councils, which affirm the transcendence of the divine Person of the Word with respect to the human nature that it sustains, assumes and transforms, not vice versa. The Instrumentum laboris expresses, in fact, in its general logic, a completely inverted conception that no longer conforms to Christological orthodoxy. In reading this hymn to the Amazonian paradise on earth (which is presented as a new Eden of innocence and communal and cosmic harmony without stain, except those brought by Western civilization; cf. n. 103), it is difficult to understand how and why this portion of humanity needs faith in the Incarnation. The myth of the great Amazonian river as the source of life replaces the great Christological and Paschal image of the river that flows from the Temple (according to the prophet Ezekiel) and that “brings life and heals wherever it flows.” Instead of asking how the proclamation of the Gospel can be brought to these peoples, and how the living water of Christ can heal and bring life to the lives of these peoples, it is taken for granted that they already live, thanks to their ancestral traditions, in an Edenic condition by which, if anything, the Church must allow herself to be converted. It is said several times that the Church must take on “an Amazonian face,”but the document does not understand whether, and how, the Amazon can or should assume a Christian face, and whether this is desirable or not.

The Instrumentum laboris expresses opinions which some may like, but it is not a Christian document. Let this be clearly stated. A few biblical quotations inserted as the title of several paragraphs, or the use of words like “Church”, “conversion” and “pastoral,” are not enough to guarantee the evangelical character of a text. They look like protective screens, but the Word of the living God does not constitute the foundation and inspiration on which the document is built. By way of example, consider Part I, Chapter 1, which is dedicated to the theme of life. The title is inspired by John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.” It would seem to be an excellent starting point. But what follows never says what this life that Jesus came to bring consists in, nor that John speaks of “eternal life” and that this life is the same Trinitarian life given by the Holy Spirit. In commenting on this verse from the Gospel of John, the text is content to illustrate Amazonian biodiversity and the rich hydrography of the Amazon basin, and to praise the “good life” of the indigenous people, which — an astonishing discovery — “means understanding the centrality of the relational-transcendent character of human beings and creation and includes ‘doing good’” (n. 13). Of course, it is not clear whether the Cross of Christ and his Resurrection are still necessary for the sort of “good living” that is here being presented as a model. The Cross is mentioned only twice, and it is understood that it never refers to the redemptive Cross of Christ, but to the “history of the Cross and Resurrection” which consists in the Church’s solidarity with the struggles of indigenous peoples in the defense of the territory (n. 33-34; 145).

The removal of the scriptural principle: apostasy, rather than heresy

                     

Cardinal Brandmüller, in his widely circulated commentary on the Instrumentum laboris, states in no uncertain terms that the document is heretical. It’s hard to blame him. But one thing must be noted to better understand the type of “heresy” we are dealing with. Church history teaches us that heresies normally develop out of a controversial interpretation of scriptural texts. The heretic always believes that he is giving a more correct interpretation of Scripture, whose authority he does not question. Therefore, it was to the sound of biblical quotations that controversies were generally fed. In other words, from Arius to Luther and beyond, the assumption that united orthodoxy and heresy, Catholics and non-Catholics, beyond all division, has always been the undisputed authority of Sacred Scripture, recognized as the inspired word, and to whose scrutiny every teaching and every theology had to submit.

But there is no longer any detectable trace of this scriptural premise in the Instrumentum laboris for the Pan-Amazon synod. The authors of the document are not worried at all about giving theological and scriptural plausibility to what they say; it seems that, to them, the only “theological locus” (venerable terminology dating back to the illustrious Melchior Cano) is the “territory” or the “cry of the poor.” We read: “Territory is a theological place where faith is lived, and also a particular source of God’s revelation: epiphanic places where the reserve of life and wisdom for the planet is manifested, a life and wisdom that speak of God” (n. 19; cf. 144; 126e). Of course, it is not said anywhere that Scripture and the Liturgy, within the great apostolic and ecclesial tradition, by order of importance, are the first theological places from which all other possible minor loci theologicimust be verified, nor are they used as primary sources. Dei Verbumand Sacrosanctum concilium are covered by vines and tropical molds or sunk in marshy quicksand.

This is a phenomenon that must not escape us, because it is the most important indicator that allows us to grasp the true nature of the deviation or “paradigm shift” that the Instrumentum laboris introduces. In modern times there have already been illustrious precedents of a removal of the scriptural principle in favor of the primacy of other entities. The so-called liberal theology from the 19th century onwards, in the Protestant sphere, was basically an attempt to justify Christianity (or its cultural relics), in the face of the multiple criticisms of modern culture, reducing it “within the limits of reason alone” or to a particularly high form of unsurpassed ethics or leading it back to universal religious sentiment. Faith and the Church were reduced to their universal comprehensibility through a process of rational homologation. The key words and concepts of Christianity remained, but their meaning was completely secularized. This removal of the scriptural principle was the consequence of the new confrontation that Christianity had to sustain: no longer through internal divisions, but with a rationality emancipated from revelation, which could only accept what was within its parameters.

This anthropological dilution of Christianity into ethics or reason or religious sentiment (which was felt in Catholic circles with the modernist crisis) no longer considers Scripture as a theological locus. It is the great Christian “symbols” (the Church, worship, the cross and the resurrection, moral norms, etc.), now extrapolated from their original ground, but still living by inertia in European civilization, that must find some justification and reinterpretation. A great thinker like Ernst Troeltsch could thus argue, on rational bases, that the Christian religion represented the highest form of universal morality and religiosity. But nothing more than this! Central dogmas thereby became “myths” to be overcome in a universally acceptable “logos.” Bultman’s demythologization was one of the most famous variants of this homologation of faith in an existential dimension that is easily digestible.

It is in the light of this history (which has not yet ended) that a phenomenon such as the Instrumentum laboris on the Amazon should be considered. It is the dilution of Christianity to anthropology, or rather to ecology to be precise, in order to give it again a semblance of acceptability in the United Nations assembly and in environmentalist, post-modern, anti-Western and biodegradable naturalist thinking. That is why Cardinal Brandmüller’s diagnosis is correct, but immediately adding, as he himself does, that more than heresy we should speak of apostasy. The removal of the scriptural principle (which is like saying the renunciation of theology and mission), the abdication of a reading of the phenomena and mission of the Church in the light of the Word of God, replacing it with the uncontaminated and mythical “theological locus” of the environment, of territory and of the poor (as if all this were immune to original sin, and therefore a “pure word” of God that can do without the two Testaments), is equivalent to the abandonment of the ground of faith, which for Paul and the Apostolic Church comes from listening to the kerygma and not from the “ecological conversion” to the territory (an expression that is repeated nine times in the text). The Apostolic Church, and the one that followed, transmitted the proclamation of Christ the Son of God who died and rose for sins. That is why it was missionary. But there is no trace of this proclamation in our document. Here, therefore, we are not faced with a variant, albeit heterodox or heretical, of Christianity, but with a phenomenon of abandonment of the biblical faith for something different, with only a counterfeit label of Christianity. A bit like products bearing the EU [European Union] mark that are manufactured in China.

I will say more. The great representatives of theological liberalism to whom I have referred at least kept Christianity in a privileged position: it remained for them the highest expression of the human ethos or religion of humanity. In their own way, “they could not but call themselves Christians.” In the new mythical reduction presented by the pre-synodal document, something more radical happens: this privileged position is lost. It seems that the Church now has the sole task of protecting what good the Amazonian people already possess. Therefore, that high vision of Christianity as the most evolved religion or, if you like, as man fully realized, also disappears. Here the problem of true religion no longer has any reason to exist. Nor does the question of the true God whom religions venerate. In fact, we read: “Insincere openness to the other, just like a corporatist attitude, that reserve salvation exclusively for one’s own creed, are destructive of that very creed.” (n. 39). As if to say: believe what you want, you are saved all the same. We had already read something like this in the Abu Dhabi document. Evidently it was not a slip of the tongue!

The cultural phenomenon: an infantile regression

Having ascertained this, there is another fact to be noted, equally important and of considerable proportions, concerning the cultural operation underway here (given that we can now only deal with culture and no longer with Christian theology). The interesting thing is that what is privileged in the Instrumentum laboris is no longer the adult logos that illuminated and dissolved the mythos of the infantile and primitive eras of humanity, including the Judeo-Christian “myth,” as happened in the interpretation of liberal theology and in all the enlightened or positivistic reductions of Christianity, such as that of Kant, Lessing, Hegel, Bultman and so on. Now the fascination with the emancipated adult age, as the “age of reason” which has guided much of modernity has dissolved for the westernized world; it has lost its appeal.

Taking its place once again is much-despised mythos, the world of the primitive; in short, the childhood of mankind, the good savage with his ancestral animistic wisdom (which the sad homo technologicus envies, but without really knowing what it is). After criticizing and eliminating the “myth,” even the biblical one, as a remnant of the infantile age of humanity, and consequently desacralizing the ritual practices of the Church (which is accused of a magical and superstitious mentality), now an attempt is being made to replace the void produced (more than deforestation!) by resorting to the shamanic myths and rituals of the indigenous Amazon, to a pre-Christian repertoire, so that they become the new paradigm in which to water down the true wine of the uniqueness of Christ.

One cannot but notice that, from the psycho-cultural point of view, this is a classic phenomenon of post-modern infantile regression typical of the Western world, which no longer aspires to the adult age of enlightenment or positivistic memory. It’s too demanding or too boring to be an adult. Enough with pure and absolute reason, enough with the fatigue of the concept. Better to be carefree and instinctive like children, simple and spontaneous like them. Not the age of reason, but of dream and play. Too bad that this childish aspiration camouflages, behind the enchanting innocence of the puer, the deepest nihilism. Recall that the Nietzschean Superman, who decrees the end of the logos, has the appearance of a child; he is innocent in his playing (beyond good and evil) with the wheel of eternal return. The child mentioned in Friedrich Nietzsche’s novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, for those who do not know it, is Dionysus, “Dionysus against the Crucified”! The pagan myth replaces the Christian God. Today, what is childish fascinates, because it impersonates an innocent and irresponsible instinct that the adult cannot allow himself.

Let such diagnoses not seem excessive. Rather, note the strange and fatal attraction between Westerners with their decadent bad conscience, disappointed by the longed-for emancipated adult age (which soon turned into unwanted old age) and lost childhood, the land of gold, which cannot be found except in the pre-civilized tribal cultures, since we have also robbed our techno-children of their childhood. The myth of the uncontaminated, the neopagan naturalism of childlike innocence of the natives is an entirely western and post-modern regression. Where can we find salvation from hyper-technology? How can we escape an increasingly less manageable urbanization? How can we heal the wounds of increasingly fragmented relationships? After the attempts of the flower children, what is now being proposed is a cultural model which is ecologically more sustainable and as minimally neurotic as possible: life brought back to its beginnings, to bows and arrows, to shamanic healing rituals. A new beginning! Today everyone wants to have a new beginning, or another chance, as they say. The other possibility for westernized man is to turn to those who have remained at the beginning for millennia. This is the new myth presented by Instrumentum laboris, an excellent example of this post-modern infantile regression, a real complex or syndrome of European origin, even if it is cloaked in love for the peripheries and anti-Westernism. Like all regressions, this one too is not fully self-aware, otherwise it would be ashamed. Instead, it is said openly with impressive naivety, imagining it is doing prophetic work. But usually prophecy is “outdated.” The boring pages of the Instrumentum laboris are a smoothie blended with obvious things; it is suitable, in fact, for children (or perhaps for old people without teeth who are stammering again).

I don’t think too many explanations are needed to understand that this aspiration to infantile neoteny, a kind of lack of distinction potentially open to any possibility of totipotent “self-determination” (for this reason representative of Nietzsche’s desire for power), goes magnificently well with a homologating culture that tries to promote the delay of sexual differentiation (a necessary phase for access to adulthood), remaining in prepubescent indeterminacy. Homo and trans ideology are related to this secret nostalgia for the fusional beginnings that bind one to the mother, a need instinctively felt by the post-modern western alogical and anomical world. The fact that it is now called “Mother Earth” (another beloved expression in the Instrumentum laboris, used six times compared to only one reference to God as father) and Mother Nature matters little.

Unfortunately, however, the Amazon described in the pre-synodal document is not real, except marginally: it is a construction of Western make-believe searching for substitute myths made to measure, after liquidating its own, especially the Christian narrative. In singing the wonders of the Amazonian territory, the document betrays an endless naivety. The writers should have reread at least a few pages of Leopardi on Mother Nature, so as not to be seduced in such a blatant way by the sirens of Rousseau.

Conclusions: Biodegradable Christianity

The objections I made to the postulates of Evangelii gaudium (especially to the first: the superiority of time over space) pointed to the theoretical weakness of that pastoral program, which already showed a certain tendency to remove the role of logos (also scriptural) in favor of reality (considered superior to the idea), renouncing in substance the mediation of theology in the name of the immediacy of practice (initiate processes). My criticism of Amoris laetitia focused on highlighting the reduction of what is specifically Christian (summed up in sacramental life) to universal morality, in line with the currents of theological liberalism previously mentioned.

It seems to me that the Instrumentum laboris for the upcoming synod on the Amazon represents a coherent maturation of these premises. The reduction of the sacraments to morals is now being replaced by the exaltation of indigenous “good living” (naturist morals, more than natural), the choice of the people as a “mythical category” and of the people’s myths in place of the biblical narrative. Above all, the preference given to the environment (territory-space) over history (time), also because indigenous peoples have no history and live in a cyclical time or (in some cases) are devoid of the concept of time. Yet we were told the opposite!

The most interesting aspect is that, in this document, things become clearer, compared to the previous ambiguous formulations that were supported by erroneous quotations of St. Thomas in order to be able to claim that everything was “completely Thomistic.” Here it is clear that St. Thomas has nothing to do with it, and as has been said, the Bible has nothing to do with it either. If there is still something Christian in this Instrumentum laboris, i.e., a few words and expressions here and there, there is no need to worry: it is undoubtedly biodegradable!

Dom Giulio Meiattini, OSB

Translation from the Italian by Diane Montagna of LifeSiteNews.

New Book: Pope Benedict is the One and Only Pope, and Bergoglio is the False Prophet Forerunner of the Antichrist

The last "piece" missing from the famous Fatima prophecy

"ARE YOU THAT, OR WE HAVE TO EXPECT ANOTHER?" A BOOK BY SERGIO RUSSO ON THE TWO POPES 

Marco Tosatti

This book, of its kind, is certainly unique; and intended to arouse long and intense discussions between those who reflect on the role of the Pontiff, and the singular historical anomaly we are experiencing. We leave the word to the author, to try to explain the meaning of his creature. Sergio Russo talks about himself in the third person presentation.

“The Author starts from a thesis, so simple, as today forgotten in the contemporary Catholic Church, and that is that the body-church can have only one and only head (visible) at its top, otherwise, that same” body “, if have more than one “boss” (and here it does not matter if one is “emeritus” or whatever) said “body” would obviously be a monstrosity!

How fundamental and indispensable it is for the Catholic Church to absolutely have a univocal successor to Peter, is demonstrated, without a shadow of a doubt, by two millennia of ecclesial history.

In 2013, Benedict XVI, after his sensational “renunciation” (the seventh, which occurred throughout the entire history of the Church), retired to “private life”, but did not return to being Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, but inexplicably, he continues to wear white (the only prerogative reserved for the Vicar of Christ alone), to keep his papal coat of arms, to still sign himself with the papal name, etc.

While instead, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, newly elected and assuming the name of Francis, he declares to the world to be “simply” the new Bishop of Rome, arrived there from the “end of the world” …

Both of them (in spite of themselves perhaps?) Are in reality making the most incredible and enigmatic Marian prophecies, together with those of numerous Catholic mystics and saints, all of whom refer to the so-called “last times” of the world and of the Church above all, in which speaks both of the Holy Father (and Benedict XVI has remained substantially so), as well as of a “Bishop dressed in white” (and unexpectedly this is how Pope Bergoglio defined himself, on the centenary of the Apparitions of Fatima, in Portugal, on the 13th May 2017), both characters who, according to the now known visions of Blessed Anna Caterina Emmerich, would have ruled – in our times, dramatically confused and tragically perverse – one, the Catholic Church of all time, while the other, one would placed at the head of a “new Church: large, strange and extravagant”, this church, which would instead have as its main objective, the reunification of all confessions Christians (Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants and sects of various kinds and titles), at the tragic price, however, of apostasy from the true Faith!

However, the author does not stop there, for he identifies in the “Bishop dressed in white”, the biblical figure of the so-called “false prophet” (also called “beast of the earth”), masterfully described in the most enigmatic Book of Christian Revelation: l ‘Apocalypse.

And this unusual (as well as unpublished) juxtaposition, the Author does it taking inspiration from a “particular” that, at first glance, might seem irrelevant: that false prophet in fact, seems to be “like a lamb, with two horns, which however speak like a dragon “.

Why a “lamb”? And what are those “two horns”?

The solution is provided by an “explanation” that the Madonna herself (obviously for those who believe, but the “whole” is remarkably coherent in itself), revealed to a charismatic priest: don Stefano Gobbi, founder of the “Mariano Sacerdotal Movement”, currently widespread in the five continents.

There is therefore a “conclusion” underlying this book, which the author intends to launch as a “lifesaver” to the many contemporary Catholics, lost and bewildered by the current pontificate: “courage – he seems to say – above souls, everything this had already been predicted … ». It therefore follows that Jesus Christ is truly the Lord: the absolute master of human history and of the destinies of the world and of his church, and nothing escapes from his hands! Therefore, to us faithful believers, however, there remains a very specific duty – which is then that famous “final test”, destined to shake the faith of many believers, and which is spoken of in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “… an apparent solution to their problems, at the price of apostasy from the truth! “- that is, the duty to remain faithful to the true Gospel, at the cost of one’s life, since even” if someone preached to you, even an angel, a gospel different from the one you received, be anathema. As for you, dear friends, persevere firm in the Faith! “.

Ann Barnhardt's Blog

Related:

Bergoglio continues to mock the Crucifix

1 John 2:²² Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?^[a] This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 

en.news Francis celebrated an exclusive “Mass for migrants” in St. Peter’s Basilica on July 8 in commemoration of his journey to the Italian island Lampedusa, six years ago.

Lampedusa is a destination point of human traffickers coming from Libya.

The Mass was by invitation only in order to avoid embarrassing pictures of empty pews, as promoting mass-immigration and human trafficking is mostly a private obsession of Francis.

Only 250 people, immigrants and agents of the immigration business, where present in Saint Peter’s church. The Ferula (picture) used by Francis was made from parts of boat used by traffickers. It looked like a piece of firewood.

September 28, 1880

Marie-Julie Jahenny assisted at a dialogue between Our Lord and Lucifer and the latter said:
“I will attack the Church. I will overthrow the Cross, I will decimate thepeople, I will deposit a great weakness of Faith in hearts. There will alsobe a great denial of religion. For a time I willbe master of all things, everything will be under my control; even your temple and all your people.”

Saint Michael says that Satan will have possession of everything for sometime and that he will reign completely over everything; that all goodness,Faith, Religion will be buried in the tomb. Satan and hisown will triumph with joy, but after this triumph, the Lord willin His turn gather His own people and will reign and triumph over evil andwill raise up from the tomb the buried Church, the prostrated Cross.


And the Head of the Heavenly Armies, St. Michael adds: “Here ismy fiery sword, I want to lend it to the friends of the Sacred Heart andoffer them this sword for the fight because the time is not far off whenall of you faithful people will have to take up the arms of Faith and courageto fight against the relentless pursuit of hell and the vengeance of men.”