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Amazon Synod Preparatory Document Steeped in Liberation Theology BOGOTÁ, Colombia (ChurchMilitant.com) - The impact of liberation theology on the upcoming Amazon Synod is coming into sharper view. Concerns over the Amazon Synod's Instrumentum Laboris are being compounded by an earlier preparatory document "Towards the Pan-Amazonian Synod: Challenges and Contributions from Latin America and the Caribbean." Uncovered during a recent LifeSiteNews investigation, the 136-page work stems from an April meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, co-organized by REPAM (the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network) and Amerindia, two leading promoters of liberation theology. The Instrumentum Laboris confirms the significance of the meeting, referring to it as an important part of the synod's preparatory process.   Rife with heretical...

[Catholic Caucus] Amazon. Three More Cardinals Rebuff the Base Document of the Synod One after another, over three days, three more cardinals - like the Germans Walter Brandmüller and Gerhard Müller before them - have aimed severe criticisms at the “Instrumentum Laboris,” the base document of the upcoming synod on the Amazon, as well as at the general state of confusion into which they see the Church plunging.The first is Cardinal Robert Sarah, Guinean, prefect of the congregation for divine worship, in an interview with Edward Pentin for the “National Catholic Register” of September 23:> Cardinal Sarah’s Cri de Coeur:...

African Cardinal fears Westerners are taking over Amazon Synod to advance dissident agenda ROME, September 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – An African cardinal who is no stranger to mission territory raised concern that the upcoming Amazon Synod is being taken over by Westerners to promote an agenda contrary to Catholic teaching.  Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Guinean Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, gave voice to his worries in a recent French-language interview with the National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin.   “I have heard that some people wanted to make this synod a laboratory for the universal Church, that others said...

Cdl. Burke: ‘We must pray and fast for the Church because we are in a moment of profound crisis’ September 24, 2019 (La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana) – “The working document for the Amazon Synod is totally unacceptable; we must do everything we can to defend the integrity of the Catholic faith.”  “It is also dishonest to present a synod supposedly for the evangelization of the Amazon, when the true objective is to revolutionize the whole Church.” These are statements by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke from the United States in an interview with the Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.  He will hold the...

[Catholic Caucus] Remaking the Church Amazon Synod in the works since earliest days of Francis' papacy One month after his election, Pope Francis began laying the groundwork to refashion the Universal Church — to remake the face of Roman Catholicism around the world. Days after becoming pope, Francis met with Peruvian Abp. Pedro Barreto Jimeno and Brazilian Cardinal-designate Cláudio Hummes to discuss setting up a Church network focused on the Amazon. Cdl. Pedro Barreto Jimeno That meeting put into motion the plan which eventually produced the Amazon Synod — a plan which has unfolded over the past six years. In a stunning...

[Catholic Caucus] Pan-Amazonian Synod Participants Include Former UN Head, Liberation Theologians The appointments appear to align with the synod’s expected emphases on environmental concerns, and on indigenous spirituality. VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has personally invited Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego as well as ex-United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take part in the Amazon Synod next month, according to a full list of participants published Sept. 21 by the Vatican.  The two U.S. prelates are among 185 members to be invited to the Oct. 6-27 event, whose other participants include every bishop of...

[Catholic Caucus] Expect North American church to learn from pan-Amazonian synod Isidoro Jajoy, a shaman from Colombia's Inga tribe, blesses people in Bogota Aug. 14 during a preparatory meeting for the October Synod of Bishops for the Amazon. (CNS/Manuel Rueda) The upcoming synod on the pan-Amazon region, a broad geographic area ranging over a number of South American countries, will deal with three themes that have been consistent concerns of Pope Francis: the environment, the plight of indigenous peoples, and the need to provide effective pastoral care in local churches. The October event also highlights Francis' use of the synod...

Note to Vatican Enviro-Boosters: The Amazon Is Pretty Awful “Gatherers and hunters par excellence.” That phrase from the Amazon Synod’s solemn-sounding Instrumentum Laboris is hard to let go. Its glittering fatuity is the keynote of a Vatican syllabus for a theologized pre-industrial age in communion with “the identity of the cosmos.” A neo-neolithic age.It is impossible to think the bishops believe their own cant. Max Scheler’s classic examination of ressentiment makes more sense. The father of philosophical anthropology wrote: “A is affirmed, valued, and praised not for its intrinsic quality, but with the unverbalized intention of denying, devaluing, and denigrating...

Radical liberation theologians push for overthrow of Catholic doctrine at Amazon synod September 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of aging priests and theologians associated with Latin American “liberation theology” who are involved in the preparation for Pope Francis’ upcoming “Pan-Amazon Synod” have produced a document arguing for the overthrow of Catholic doctrine in a variety of areas, LifeSite has learned. The document, called “Towards the Pan-Amazonian Synod: Challenges and Contributions from Latin America and the Caribbean,” was produced in April of this year as a result of a meeting in Bogota, Colombia, by theologians from two organizations promoting liberation...

Amazon bishop: Synod document fails to mention area’s huge pedophilia problem, Pentecostalism BELÉM, Brazil, August 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― A retired bishop who has lived in Brazil for more than 30 years said the working document for the Synod on the Amazon neglects key problems in the region.  Spanish missionary José Luiz Azcona Hermoso, O.A.R., 79, was ordained a bishop in 1987 and served as the ordinary of Brazil’s Territorial Prelature of Marajó until Pope Francis accepted his resignation in 2016.  Azcona told CNA affiliate AC1 Digital that the Instrumentum laboris for the upcoming Synod did not address the...

[Catholic Caucus] The synod and the sex scandal: two time bombs threatening Pope Francis’s moral authority This week’s Holy Smoke podcast discusses two looming disasters for Pope Francis. The first is the ‘Amazon Synod’ in October, at which the world’s bishops will discuss a bizarre plan to ordain Amazon ‘village elders’ as priests. The framework for the synod has already been published; my guest Dr Ed Condon uses the word ‘Orwellian’ to describe the language it employs.  The second threat to Francis is more personal. When he became Pope he lost no time making his friend Gustavo Zanchetta a bishop in...

[Catholic Caucus] Defrocked Priest Is the Primary Influence of Amazon Synod … Defrocked Priest Is the Primary Influence of Amazon Synod The laicized Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff is the primary source of inspiration upon the working document of the upcoming Amazon Synod. The title of Boff’s book "Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor" is even a subheading in the Synod document. Boff is also widely quoted in other parts of the document. Roberto de Mattei calls Boff the reference “theologian” of the document. Monsignor Nicola Bux thinks that Boff was an advisor for the document. Boff as a...

In Colombia, bishops, religious listen to Amazonians before synod Isidoro Jajoy, a shaman from Colombia's Inga tribe, blesses people in Bogota Aug. 14, 2019, during a preparatory meeting for the October Synod of Bishops for the Amazon. (CNS/Manuel Rueda) Bogota, Columbia — Bishops, nuns, priests and residents of the Amazon basin met in Colombia's capital city in mid-August to prepare for a special Synod of Bishops for the Amazon this fall at the Vatican. The meeting gave bishops who will be attending the synod a chance to develop proposals and listen to residents of the Amazon region, before they head...

[Catholic Caucus] Swiss bishop warns against ‘destruction of the priesthood and of the sacred character of the Church’ August 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Marian Eleganti, the auxiliary bishop of Chur, Switzerland, delivered a video message on his Kath.net blog defending the sacred character of the priesthood, which is not a “profession like any other.” Eleganti points out that the mission of the priest is threefold: “to govern, to preach, and to sanctify.” Any attempt at separating these three offices of the priesthood, he adds, would lead to “the destruction of the priesthood and of the sacred character of...

[Catholic Caucus] What Benedict XVI Would Say To the Synod For the Amazon The forward march toward the synod for the Amazon is increasingly construed as a pitched battle with its epicenter in Germany and with very high stakes: the essence of Jesus' mission, and therefore of the Church as well.Of German language and stock, in fact, are the leaders of both formations. On one side Cardinal Cláudio Hummes and Bishop Erwin Kräutler, the biggest promoters of the synod. On the other cardinals Gerhard Müller and Walter Brandmüller, very severe critics of how the assembly has been set up. With...

[Catholic Caucus] Viganò: ‘Christ is Absent’ From Amazon Synod Working Document Warns Instrumentum Laboris reflects 'post-Christian Catholic theology' ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is sounding alarm over the upcoming Amazon Synod. Speaking to Dr. Robert Moynihan, founder and editor-in-chief of Inside the Vatican, Abp. Viganò said earlier this week that the Instrumentum Laboris — the synod's working document — is an alarming sign that post-Christian ideology is gathering strength inside the Church. "Where is the Christian message here?" he asked. "In fact, the figure of Christ is absent. The Synod working document testifies to the emergence of a post-Christian Catholic theology,...

What might a truly Catholic Amazon Synod look like? July 29, 2019 (The Catholic Thing) — On Friday, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller — former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) — published a second commentary on the Synod for the Amazon, to be held in Rome this October. It follows an earlier critique of his, both of them blistering about the radical nature of what is largely a German "paradigm," not only for the rainforests of South America, but for the whole Church. The good Cardinal begins by noting something that has been widely reported but not...

[Catholic Caucus] Müller Strikes Again: Amazon Synod Will Turn Church Upside Down The Synodal Process of the German bishops is about changing the priesthood into a system of well-paid, preferably female functionaries.This is Cardinal Gerhard Müller's assessment in another ten page statement (July 26) published on LifeSiteNews.com.Müller wonders why the “desolate” German Church feels called to be a model for the rest of the Church, pointing out that the protagonists of both, the German Synodal Process and the Amazon synod are “nearly identical."They are a “wrecking ball“ and “financially and organizationally connected“ by way of the rich relief agencies of...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Barreto: A Surprise (perhaps) Now Explained The nomination as cardinal of the Most Rev. Pedro Barreto Jimeno, Archbishop of Huancayo, Peru, in May 2018, was a capital surprise. Some compared it to a small atomic bomb. Indeed, Peru has always had only one cardinal, that of the primatial see of Lima, the country’s capital, which thus became a point of reference for the Church at the national level. Other seats such as Arequipa, Trujillo and Cusco could have aspired to this honor, given their historical and cultural importance. With all due respect to its citizens, certainly not...

[Catholic Caucus] Retired bishop of Amazon's most sprawling diocese defends synod Erwin Kräutler, 80, says women, as well as married men, should be eligible for priesthood Emeritus Bishop Erwin Kräutler received the Right Livelihood Award in 2010 for opposing the controversial Bel Monte Dam. Photo: Right Livelihood AwardsThe Synod of Bishops' special assembly for the Pan-Amazon Region, which is set to take place next October at the Vatican, will be not be derailed by those who have harshly criticized the assembly's working document (Instrumentum Laboris).That's the promise of Bishop Erwin Kräutler, an Austrian-born Precious Blood Missionary who has spent most of...