The Agony Continues

We resume our trek through the Instrumentum Laboris for the upcoming Sham-azon Sin-Nod.  I am on page 14 of 64 pages.  That's right!  Sixty-four pages of gobblygoop!  What isn't utter fluff is actual heresy.  And this is just the working document of the October gabfest.  Can you just imagine the verbosity that will billow forth in the wake of the sin-nod?

In paragraph 17 we see the phrase "defense of life".  For close to 30 years I have been involved in pro-life efforts and currently write columns for a Maryland-based pro-life Catholic organization called Defend Life.  So I perked up when I saw that phrase, thinking that they might actually be concerned with the intrinsic evils of contraception, abortion, euthanasia.  Alas, no such fidelity to Church teaching was to be found.  Instead, we read of angst against "imbalance in the seasons" and "imbalance in the climate".  NEWS FLASH!  God alone controls the weather!  Who do these sin-nod honchos think they are to dictate what the weather should be?  We even hear some wretched nonsense about the "multinationals cutting the earth and the earth is bleeding".  The earth does not have blood.  Would that our Church leaders showed the same solicitude to the bleeding of thousands of babies everyday from abortion.

The next several paragraphs are one big politically correct lament about how the big-bad western civilization has "polluted the rivers", "burned trees", "destroyed species", ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Gosh, if one didn't know better, one might think that they copied a lot from Laudato Si, which itself is probably largely the works of pro-death Jeffrey Sachs and that bunch.

But now comes chapter 3!  We find that the Amazon is in a "period of grace".  So that means that the bishops are going to proclaim Christ and salvation from their sins, and lead them to the One True Church which is God's chosen vehicle of salvation?  Oh, silly!  Don't be so pelagian and triumphalist!  Paragraph 29 says the natives have much to teach us!  So shut up already and eternal destiny of souls be damned (I mean that literally, given the thrust of this tome).  In paragraph 30, we read that "the unique diversity of the Amazon region - biological, religious and cultural - suggests a new Pentecost."  What they are saying is that the various idolatries of the natives take precedence over the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.  As any Catholic child could have told these IL authors 100 years ago, Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit descended upon Mary and the Apostles, after which they proclaimed Jesus Christ and the Gospel of repentance, conversion and salvation.  Idolatries were sins to be cast aside, not celebrated as this piece of papal plop is now suggesting.

We see more of the same in paragraph 33, where IL claims that God's presence is to be found in the superstitions of the Amazon natives.  Such hideous spiritual poison we have encountered so far.  Mind you, we are only on page 19.  We still have 45 more pages of this sludge through which we must wade.

Moving on, we see that Chapter 4 is entitled "Dialogue".  In paragraph 36, it claims that Jesus had dialogue with the Samaritan woman at the well.  Break out your bibles and read John 4.  Jesus did not dialogue with her as with an equal.  He taught her - plain and simple.

Part 2 is entitled "Integral Ecology: The Cry of the Earth and the Poor".  My!  The earth seems rather talented!  It cries!  It bleeds!  Does it sing and dance and take a bow?  Personification much?  Apparently we need an "integral ecological conversion", according to the IL authors.  In actuality, what is needed is conversion to the One True Faith through the Catholic Church.  An "ecological conversion", by definition, renders ecology into a de facto idol.

We will resume with part 2 another time.  I don't want this to get too long.  This IL is already insufferably long.