Belém do Pará, Brazil, Aug 21, 2019 / 02:51 pm (CNA).-
A long-time missionary bishop of the Amazon River delta has said that the working document for an upcoming synod of bishops on the region does not address the actual problems faced by the Church in the region.
Bishop José Luis Azcona, is the missionary bishop emeritus of Marajó, a diocese that includes dozens of islands in the Amazon River Delta. During his years of service in the region, Azcona lived under death threats for denouncing human trafficking and for defending the human rights of indigineous people.
In remarks recently offered to ACI Digital, CNA’s Portugese-language sister agency, Azcona criticized the Instrumentum laboris, or working document, for October’s Pan-Amazonian synod of bishops, which he said fails to address the Church’s most pressing challenges: a growing Pentacostal majority; child labor, abuse, and trafficking; and a spiritual crisis.
Azcona said that synod must address a sobering reality: “the Amazon, at least the Brazilian Amazon, is no longer Catholic.”
He questioned the central points of the synod’s preparatory document, which he said focus unduly on “a distorted vision of the so-called Amazonian face,” “interculturality,” and the ordination of married men.
The Face of the Amazon
According to Azcona, “the Amazon, at least the Brazilian Amazon, is no longer Catholic.
“This point of departure is crucial for conducting the synod. If the Amazon has a Pentecostal majority, it is necessary to address that reality thoroughly.”
“Any nostalgia for an Amazon that no longer exists is fatal to its integral evangelization. Even in some areas of the Amazon the Pentecostal majority reaches 80%,” he said.
“A Pentecostal penetration into several indigenous ethnic groups, overrunning cultures, ethnic identities, indigenous peoples in the name of the Gospel, is a serious phenomenon in today’s Amazon, which with its fundamentalist and proselytizing connotations has a profound impact on the indigenous peoples.”
“This is today’s Amazonian face!”
“There’s not one word about this point in the Instrument laboris,” Azcona said.
The bishop added that “the long experience of years confirms that in many Amazonian dioceses the faith is not lived out in society nor in history. The chasm between the confession and celebration of faith in beautiful liturgies and the social, environmental, cultural and political reality has not yet been overcome.”
Child abuse
Azcona next pointed the pervasive problems of child abuse in the Amazon region.
“Unfortunately, the synod doesn’t know, or knowing doesn’t understand, the significance, for the present and the future of the Amazon, of the faces of anguished, re-victimized and denigrated children, [abused] by their own parents and relatives, subjected to a slavery that forms an essential part of the abandoned and destroyed face of Jesus in the Amazon.”
“This entire document is straw if it doesn’t understand or doesn’t commit to the spirit and letter of the Gospel: ‘He who receives a little one like this receives Me and he who receives Me, receives the Father who sent Me.”
In that regard he continued, “in Pará alone in one year there were 25,000 reports of crimes of this kind [Editor’s note: pedophilia]. According to experts in this area, for every reported case of pedophilia there are four others besides. If during approximately one year there were 100,000 abused children in Pará, isn’t this face of destroyed children an essential part of the Amazonian face?”
“Where is the pastoral sensitivity, so evident and so firmly expressed by the Holy Father Pope Francis, expressed by those responsible for the Instrumentum laboris?” Azcona asked.
“Where is the defense of the Amazon, of its children, in the Instrumentum laboris, and, therefore, in the synod? Let’s stop these false projections about the Amazon, and instead make possible new paths for it.”
“What is the Amazonian face? Can a synod next October of this magnitude be built with a presentation so far from reality, from identity, from respect for what is different, when pre-established schemes of interpretation of reality deform what is real?” he questioned.
Inculturation or ‘Equalization’?
Azcona also criticized “the themes around the inculturation of the Gospel in the Amazon and related areas,” which he said “are presented in a context of immanence, Neo-Pelagianism, leveling out the Gospel with Amazonian (indigenous) cultures, ecclesiologically devoid of theological and pastoral foundations, annulling the Gospel of salvation.”
Recalling the Ad gentes decree of the Second Vatican Council, the bishop pointed out that “the words of the Gospel proclaimed by the Church decide the destiny of persons, of peoples, cultures and nations.”
“In no part of the Instrumentum laboris is anything similar explicitly affirmed. On the contrary, the tendency to equalize the indigenous cultures with the Gospel is overwhelming. This is a point of departure which cannot be dispensed with in a synod.”
“Forgetting this fundamental principle renders the synod useless and nullifies the specific and unique power of God in the Gospel, as well as all missionary dynamism in the Amazon and from the Amazon,” he said.
Azcona pointed out that “in no part of the Instrumenum laboris is the presence of demons spoken of, or their influence, their malice in persons, peoples and cultures, as well as the victory of Christ, his deliverance and the destruction of the power of the Evil One.”
“The document forgets the luminous and guiding pages that speak of the Evil One and his presence in history, to which Pope Francis devotes numbers 158-164 in last year’s apostolic exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exultate.”
He also warned that “the Pelagianism spread throughout the document, leads to attributing to the Amazonian man, to his ethnic and cultural groups, more than what belongs to them, because they are realities created and marked by sin, and it supplants the solid conciliar doctrine about the Gospel and the mission of the Church in the power of the Risen One, as found in Lumen gentium 16.
“Finally, the utopian ideo to revitalize the pre-Colombian religions, separating them from Christ and the universal Church, would not be progress but regression,” he said.
Ecological conversion
Addressing the question of ecological conversion, the bishop argued that “the need for repentance for the forgiveness of sins is the fundamental challenge that the Church has to face in the Amazon. Without this absolute priority of the being and action of the Church there is no future for the Amazon, because we thus forget the presence of the Kingdom of God in the world.”
“In the absence of the repentance that ‘makes exist that which does not exist’ for the generation of the new Amazonian man, the document does not experience the hunger, the thirst for the Holy Spirit.”
According to the bishop “the document, forgetting the New Pentecost encouraged by Pope Saint John XXIII in the preparatory prayer for the Council, sets aside the nucleus of the mission in the Amazon. Is this mission in the Amazon like a land and water mission? Or is it the missionary dimension which, as the Church in the Amazon, is called and sent out to the world? Let us be guided by the inspired teaching of Pope Francis in Evangelii gaudium.”
“What the Holy Father proposes is evangelization and therefore an Amazon very different from a set of tasks carried out, projects, pastoral plans, inculturation, ecology.”
“Why doesn’t the document cry out this truth, the only truth that can save the Amazon?” he asked.
Viri probati
Azcona said that “the ordination of “viri probati” is going to be useless,” since “it’s placing a piece of new cloth on an old fabric. The tear is bigger!”
On the other hand, he observed, “the clergy in the Amazon need, as does the entire Church, repentance, conversion, the faith that saves in the strict sense. Experience offers this evidence. The meaning of the priestly ministry and specifically in the Amazon, is lost or is dead in the lives or in the authentic pastoral conversion of priests.”
“Why ordain viri probati within a priesthood in crisis?” he asked
“The perfect and perpetual continence of the Kingdom of Heaven will continue being, a sign of encouragement of pastoral charity and the original source of spiritual fruitfulness- within the Amazon,” he said.
“We may ask: Does this attitude of prayer exist for the gift of celibacy in the priests of the Amazon? “Does the entire Church pray that this sublime gift be poured out on the whole Body of Christ? The facts answer: ‘No’!’”
“And also, and principally, deciding this issue is something completely inopportune in a context in which the current trends of large groups of Catholics, the so-called conservatives, are questioning the Magisterium of the Church, specifically in the Supreme Pontiff himself. Some are publicly calling him a heretic demanding his immediate resignation. Others are demanding his resignation for the lack of consistency on the issue of pedophilia in the Church! Let’s not entertain a discussion on the legitimacy of these questions. What is certain is than an affirmative response would open up the risk of a division, of a real schism in the Church.”
He thus stressed that “it’s not about the victory of the so called ‘conservatives’ or the ‘progressives.’ It’s about what is greatest in the Church: charity. In the face of charity, any concept or sociological label ought to pale.”
“Recognizing that the venerable institution of priestly celibacy belongs to the disciplinary area of the Church and therefore subject to changes, I considerate it disadvantageous, even dangerous at this time for ecclesial unity, to open up the possibility that the document is asking for,” Azcona said.
“It’s not an exclusively indigenous ministry problem. It’s a situation of the widespread shortage of priests in the Church. The same reasons that can be invoked for this recognition asked for by the document are the same ones that can be applied to the entire Church, or to much of it.”
According to the bishop, “the problem is not just the lack of enough priests, but the examination, discernment of this great shortage for a realistic solution. The fundamental root of this shortage of vocations in the Church and also in the Amazon, including the evangelized indigenous peoples, is due to an alarming lack of faith or the absence of faith that works in practice through love and necessarily in history and society.”
Thus, he explained, “even though it’s a disciplinary issue, this becomes an ethical imperative beginning with the absolute instruction: Christ died for the unenlightened brother; your freedom is not something absolute; it is against Christ they sin, wounding the conscience of the brother; the only absolute is love; this love is that of God poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”
“Is this the love of the Church in the Amazon? Is this the love of God that sufficiently pervades the criteria for pastoral care, the ecclesial criteria, the praxis as the supreme reality or is it gnosis or Pelagius which commands the ship of the Church in the Amazon?”
“This danger of schism is not imaginary! Nor in the Amazon!” Azcona concluded.
Azcona, 79, is a native of Pamplona, Spain. He was appointed a missionary bishop in the Amazon in 1987, and retired from his post in 2016.
This interview was first published by ACI Digital, CNA’s Portugese-language sister agency. It has been adapted and translated by CNA.
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So forceps, scalpels and any other abortion tools are the problem?
And 2400 babies were murdered in the womb yesterday, and none of these pious elites thought it necessary to pray for them. How sad.
Nothing surprising here. They’ll back the state that dehumanizes but refuse to take responsibility for the consequences.
I asked the question below in the comment section of the breaking news story on CWR of the shooting in Texas. No one responded.
It’s a serious question. I hope someone can shed light on it.
Schools are soft targets. Every angry, disordered person who seeks to gain maximum attention for his suicide knows that he can do the most horrendous, most newsworthy damage in a school.
This has been the case for decades.
Yet we have not seen our leaders make any serious attempt to make schools less vulnerable to attack.
It wouldn’t take that much. Training a teacher to carry a hidden weapon to be used in emergencies is all it would take. That, or hiring armed security guards to patrol the schools.
Why hasn’t this happened?
I can’t help wondering if it’s because these tragic events further the agenda of the left.
Democratic politicians are the ones who stand in front of microphones in the minutes after these tragedies — before the bodies are even warm sometimes — spouting their prefabricated outrage.
Why haven’t they stopped this terrible carnage? Could it be because dead children will prepare the nation for the eventual disarming of its citizens?
I know how crazy it sounds for me to level this charge, but don’t you ever wonder why we don’t take these simple steps? Think about it.
Democrats advocate abortion, which costs about a million children’s lives each year in America.
Fifteen or twenty more victims every week or two might be viewed as an acceptable toll by totalitarians intending to take over a nation of 330 million people.
If that’s too nutty a possibility for you to consider, I hope you are able to come up with another possible reason for our leaders to tolerate such an unimaginable holocaust.
When these incidents would be fairly simple to prevent.
My understanding is that the Uvalde Scholl had a couple of security guards (think hired hands) whom were wounded. Some public school districts provide training and support for LTC. Truly troubled schools have officers patrolling the halls. Remember that school systems are administered dominated by liberals so schools will alway be soft targets under their guidance. At least locally, our Catholic grade school is far more vulnerable than your public schools given the liberal leanings of our Bishop. The local priest is aware that several parishioners conceal carry to services in defiance of the Bishops guidance. Certainly within Texas we have open carry but obviously not to services as priest could not overlook that
issue given that some poaerishoner would rat out that person. Granted the public schools are yet too vulnerable but the parochial schools and Catholic Churches are far more vulnerable targets, the more liberal the Bishio the more vulnerable.
I’d say you were on to something.
.
The elites no doubt keep their children safe in well guarded schools
It’s not “gun violence,” it’s demonic influence and individuals allowing the Evil One to have free reign over their lives. Whatever happened to holding people accountable for their actions?
Ask yourself this:
All across the country, Democratic politicians have taken police out of schools. Why?
School boards in cities including Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, Milwaukee — all run by Democrats — have canceled contracts with their local police and removed officers from schools.
And, incredibly, in July of 2020, some of Congress’ highest profile Democrats introduced a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds for police to protect students in schools across the country.
The bill was called the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act, and it was supported by Democrats including Sens. Chris Murphy, Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith, and Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman.
What reason could they possibly have to make children more vulnerable to attack by sick, disordered people who want to be mentioned on CNS News?
Could it be that Democrats have decided that these horrific murders are the price that must be paid to change people’s minds on gun control? So that America’s citizens can be disarmed?
Have they determined that their agenda to correct America’s injustices is worth a dozen or two children’s lives each month or so?
I wouldn’t even imagine such a thing were possible if Democrats weren’t already responsible for the deaths of nearly a hundred million children a year through abortion.
These hideous school killings don’t represent even one percent of that number.
What other reason could Democrats possibly have for leaving innocent children exposed to such obvious, inevitable danger?
Useful fools, Cupich and Flores.
The 90’s decade plus ban on so-called ‘assault’ firearms showed no effect on gun crime per the government’s own figures.
Guns are not the problem! The person pulling the trigger with a compromised heart is the problem. The murderer was well known to the local police with a history of malicious behaviors though he was probably well under below the radar of his local priest. A priest or bishop that choses not to fulfill their responsibilities are a greater threat to the general welfare of society than any weapon.
Brian Church of Catholic Vote asked this question in an email message sent out earlier today:
So what about the most predictable culprit, guns? Ask yourself why it is that left-wing partisans are quick to blame cultural “root causes” and structures of poverty, racism, and inequity when it comes to abortion or gang violence, yet rush to blame inanimate objects when it comes to senseless shootings?
I find it ironic that Cardinal Cupich is calling for scrapping the 2nd Amendment when his Archdiocese, Chicago, has probably the worst gun violence in the US, to the point of being a virtual active war zone, despite (or because of) Chicago having extremely strict gun laws that make it illegal for law abiding citizens to carry firearms even for self defence. Same applies for all the places in the US (Washington DC, Detroit, St Louis) with the worst gun violence.
Here are my thoughts about school security. All windows on the first floor level to be heavy bullet-proof glass, secured by inside locks. All entry doors to be steel with a small bullet proof window. Doors to be automatically LOCKED during class time, only able to be opened from the inside. Security camera at the entry=way door with audio. Anyone wishing to enter the building must show ID to the camera ( which should be monitored) and have an APPOINTMENT to be there. Otherwise they are not to be admitted. Delivery packages must be left on the outside to be collected by school employees later. My two sons attended a small catholic elementary school where funds were tight. They had the security camera and asked for ID if they did not know you, before they buzzed you inside. This was a low cost, low impact solution which at least would keep a stranger or shooter out for some time. The public school one of my kids attended was a revolving door. People were coming and going at all hours and the doors were wide open. High school kids were allowed to leave the building for lunch periods. This situation must be ENDED.All students should be locked into the building for the duration for the school day and anyone who needs admittance must be known and have an appointment. An immediate loud alarm with a trigger button, similar to what they have at bank teller windows, should be by the front door which should be manned by a security person. A metal detector at the entry point might be worth the investment.
We pay billions upon billions to keep Ukrainians safe.
Why not our children?
Answer the question, Democrats.
Again, excellent points, LJ.
These do not seem like impossible or even difficult steps to take.
Why is it always the Democrats who stand in the way of the safety of children? Can they really hate their own country that much?
Guns are not and never have been the problem. Redirecting blame for the free will choices made by sinful human mortals away from the perpetrator toward inanimate objects has no basis in either logic or reality.
In every single school-related mass shooting, the omni-absent persona missing from the life of each and every shooter is a strong, stable father figure. These shooters all come from broken homes and lead solitary lives imbedded in fantasy. There is no more imaginably fertile ground than this for the devl to do his worst. Yes, this is the fault of all of us. There is much that we must collectively answer for as communities and as a nation. Where do we start? I suggest that we begin with prayer, while reflecting upon the honest reality that there is nothing more manly in today’s society than a woman.
We need for women to rediscover what it really means to be a woman, as in the example of our Blessed Mother. And we need for men to become the strong, stable protector-providers that God created them to be.