Quite a tribe of themselves, yes?A pro-everything (except Pro-Life) non-Catholic UN Secretary, Moon who at least hints at his own confusion: “To those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual,or transgender, let me say — you are not alone. ... decriminalize consensual same-sex relationships, ban discrimination and educate the public” — and whose attempts to state anything profound and memorable (“Terrorism is a threat to peace and security”) do not quite attain to the Analects of Confucius ... Bishop Robert McElroy insists that “Many times, our discussions in the life of the Church suggest that chastity has a singularly powerful role in determining our moral character, or our relationship with God. It does not.” Hmmmm. The bishop, clearly, is no Biblical exegete. Moreover, consider the following, “We have to reflect upon the question as to how to assess in a differentiated manner a relationship between two homosexual persons,” he says. “Is there not so much positive and good and right so that we have to be more just?” Cardinal Reinhard Marx — oddly, much like Moon and McElroy — has an odd fixation on male genitalia: “If a same-sex couple are faithful, care for one another and intend to stay together for life God won't say 'All that doesn't interest me.” Father Eleazar López Hernández: Is an outspoken proponent of indigenous and pre-Christian “Indian Theology” (pagan spirituality) insistent on “nourishing in the faithful expectations contrary to the Magisterium and Tradition, as in the case of a permanent diaconate oriented towards a married priesthood.” Father Paulo Hess, it appears, has found no need for the Synoptic Gospels — or, far that matter, Sacred Scripture itself — which has been regressively “aufheben” or abolished by the — ready for this word? “aucthonomus” (a big word meaning nothing more than native, but sounding so much more learned!) religions and spiritualities that are held to have preceded Christianity itself — which is warrant enough to imply that it is more authentic in virtue of being presumably older (history and even historiography were not fields of study in Amazonian culture. Apart from oral tradition and crude artifacts there is no Amazonian history preceding Christianity which brought this reflexive concept with it. In this sense “aucthonomus” Egyptian religion circa 2050 B.C. with its polytheistic deities (including animals) is superior to divinely revealed and rationally articulated Christianity. Because it is older. Older = wiser = more authentic = “aucthonomus” which = native, which = older. Rather circular reasonong, but you get the point. Jeffrey Sachs — an economist? — will likely be pontificating on a religion he does not believe in the way that Francis pontificates on economies he has no understanding of. It is a matter of competence which neither seems to grasp — to say nothing of widespread perception.
“It’s the Ecology, Stupid!”In a way reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s famous mantra to his field workers, “It’s the economy, stupid!” when his political machine swerved from the central issue in canvassing for the votes that he was sure would get him elected, the absence of moral credentials in those especially invited by Francis is quite beside the point. The Synod is not about morals. Still less is it about promoting Catholicism in a continent quickly being lost to Evangelical Protestants through the religious vacuum that resulted from the absence — and in Francis's case, the prohibition against — Catholic Missionary zeal since Vatican II. In this case “it's Ecumenism, stupid”. But no one is listening. The planet must be saved! An ecological apocalypse is upon us — now! And the Amazon, we are told, has “the Lungs” even if the Catholic episcopate does not have “the Brains” to distinguish between socio-political flatus and a clearly distinguishable reality.
Must we now confess (were Confession acknowledged as a vital Sacrament since Vatican II) our “sins against Mother Earth, Sister Sun, and Brother Moon” — and will two of the three constitute ecological incest?! Perhaps that is the sin for which there is no forgiveness in the New church-of-Accompaniment that supplanted the Holy Catholic Church in 1969? — in addition, of course, to the “religious imperialism” that Catholic Missionaries in centuries past inflicted — oddly, at great cost to themselves — on this advanced culture — “with a perfectly good religion of their own”— notwithstanding human and animal sacrifice, the subjugation of women, and the enslavement of enemies with whom they warred ceaselessly.
In the meanwhile, let us strive to cultivate
“the gaze of love” on all that moves upon the earth — except
the Catholics who have kept the Faith against every persecutor
in the “church” since 1960 — you know, the gaze that
so suffuses the countenance of its principle proponent
(see above). What’s not to love?
Geoffrey K. Mondello
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