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Bishop Prohibits Prelature from Accepting Aid from Those Damaging Amazon
Catholic Sentinel ^ | 5/12/22 | Lise Alves

Posted on 05/20/2022 6:58:54 PM PDT by marshmallow

SAO PAULO (CNS) — A Catholic prelature in Brazil's Amazon has decreed that its parishes will not accept donations from any person or company that displaces minorities or damages the earth.

Bishop José Ionilton Lisboa de Oliveira of Itacoatiara has prohibited parishes, pastoral communities, groups and movements linked to the prelature -- similar to a diocese — from receiving financial resources from those he says "damage the Amazon."

"We decree, for an indefinite period, that in parishes, communities, pastorals, groups and movements of the Prelature of Itacoatiara, we will not receive financial resources, in currency or other goods, from politicians, loggers, mining companies, oil exploration companies and gas, which contribute to deforestation and the expulsion of Indigenous people, quilombolas (Afro-descendant communities), riverside communities and small farmers from their lands" says the document.

The decree, addressed to priests and coordinators of Catholic groups within the prelature, reproduces several quotes from "Querida Amazonia," Pope Francis' 2020 apostolic exhortation after the 2019 world Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.

One of those quotes considers "the possibility that members of the church have been part of networks of corruption, at times to the point of agreeing to keep silent in exchange for economic assistance for ecclesial works."

Bishop Oliveira told Catholic News Service Pope Francis recommends "special attention be paid to the provenance of donations or other kinds of benefits, as well as to investments made by ecclesiastical institutions or individual Christians."

"Our goal was to bring to the local church a greater awareness that we must be committed to the Amazon. Our prelature includes 99,000 square km (38,224 square miles) of forest area," Bishop Oliveira told CNS.

He said at first the decree was only about suspending resources given by politicians, but he decided to make the decree also include companies.

(Excerpt) Read more at catholicsentinel.org ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Religion & Culture; Theology
KEYWORDS: gaiaworship; luddite; oliveira

1 posted on 05/20/2022 6:58:54 PM PDT by marshmallow
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