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<h1 class="gmail-article-title">Benedictine theologian calls Amazon Synod working doc ‘biodegradable Christianity’ in searing new critique</h1>
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<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/benedictine-monk-calls-amazon-synod-working-doc-biodegradable-christianity-in-searing-new-critique">https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/benedictine-monk-calls-amazon-synod-working-doc-biodegradable-christianity-in-searing-new-critique</a><span></span><span></span><span></span><a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/tags/tag/instrumentum+laboris"><br></a></p>
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<p>ROME, July 10, 2019 (<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/catholic">LifeSiteNews</a>)
—<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> A Benedictine theologian has joined the chorus of voices criticizing
the working document of the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon,
calling it “<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">biodegradable Christianity.</span>”</b></span></p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2019/07/02/sinodo-amazzonico-ed-ecco-a-voi-il-cristianesimo-biodegradabile/">analysis</a> published by Italian journalist Aldo Maria Valli on July 2, Dom Giulio Meiattini, a monk of the abbey of <em>Madonna della Scala </em>in the southern Italian province of Bari, <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>said the <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>proposes and contains nothing less than<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> a “reversal” of </span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">the “very idea of Church and Christian faith.”</span></b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>“The Person of Christ and His Gospel</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>disappear; they are literally
swallowed up by <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)">the lush tropical forest” of repetitious reflection on
ecology and sociology,</span></b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"> </span>Dom Meiattini writes. </p>
<p>“In reading this hymn to the Amazonian paradise on earth,” the
Italian monk adds, “it is difficult to understand how and why this
portion of humanity needs faith in the Incarnation.”</p>
<p>Commenting on the document’s focus on the Amazon as an “epiphanic”
source of revelation, Dom Meiattini says<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b> the apostolic, scriptural, and
liturgical tradition of the Church</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>“are covered by <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)">vines and tropical
molds</span> or sunk in <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)">marshy quicksand.</span></b></span>” Yet he notes that the authors of the
document do not seem “concerned at all about giving theological and
scriptural plausibility to what they say.”</p>
<p>Praising German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller’s recent <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-critiques-amazon-synod-working-doc-as-heretical...apostasy-urges-bishops-to-reject-it">critique</a>
of the working document, Dom Meiattini said “it’s hard to blame him”
for calling it “heretical.” But, he adds, <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>“more than heresy, we should
speak of <em>apostasy.</em>” </b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>The <em>Instrumentum laboris </em></b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>“is not </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>a Christian document,” </b></span>the
Benedictine theologian insists. “Let this be clearly stated: a few
biblical quotations inserted as the title to several paragraphs, or the
use of words like ‘Church’, ‘conversion’ and ‘pastoral,’ are not enough
to guarantee the evangelical character of a text.”</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>The working document for the synod on the Amazon,</b></span> he says, <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>represents
an “abandonment o</b></span>f <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>the biblical faith</b></span> for something different, with
only a counterfeit label of Christianity. A bit like products bearing
the EU [European Union] mark that are manufactured in China.”</p>
<p>In his analysis, Dom Meiattini also claims that the working
document’s fascination with the “world of the primitive,” i.e. the
“childhood of mankind,” betrays an infantile regression. </p>
<p>“After the attempts of the flower children, <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>what is now being
proposed is a cultural model which is ecologically more sustainable and
as minimally neurotic as possible: life brought back to its beginnings,
to bows and arrows, to shamanic healing rituals,”</b></span> he writes. </p>
<p>He further argues that we should not underestimate the connection
between such infantile regression and “homo and trans ideology” which is
founded on the idea of spontaneous self-determination coupled with a
rejection of reason. </p>
<p>However, according to the Benedictine theologian, the most
interesting aspect of the document is that “things become clearer,
compared to the previous ambiguous formulations that were supported by
erroneous quotations of St. Thomas in order to be able to claim that
everything was ‘completely Thomistic.’”</p>
<p>“Here <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>it is clear</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>that </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>St. Thomas </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>has nothing to do with</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> it,</b></span>” he
writes, adding it is equally clear “that<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b> the Bible</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>has nothing to do
with</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>it</b></span> either. If there is still something Christian in this <em>Instrumentum laboris</em>, i.e., a few words and expressions here and there, there is no need to worry:<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> it<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> </span></b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>is undoubtedly biodegradable!”</b></span></p>
<p><em>Here below is an English translation of Dom Giulio Meiattini</em>’s <em>commentary on the Instrumentum laboris. The original Italian may be read <a href="https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2019/07/02/sinodo-amazzonico-ed-ecco-a-voi-il-cristianesimo-biodegradabile/">here.</a></em></p>
<p>***</p>
<p><strong>Promoting a biodegradable Christianity</strong></p>
<p>For some time now, we have known or imagined that the Synod on the
Amazon would hold some surprises and create further reason for division.
At first, it seemed that perhaps the thorniest issue to arise at the
synod would concern married clergy. It must be said that the publication
of the <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>has far exceeded these
expectations and the liveliest imagination. The document, in fact,
points towards a much more ambitious and radical goal. It is the most
daring move that could be conceived and attempted by the secretariat of a
synod of the Catholic Church. The document proposes and contains
nothing less than a reversal <em>ab imis fundamentis </em>[in its deepest foundations] of the very idea of Church and Christian faith.</p>
<p><strong>Diluting Christianity: wine turned into water </strong></p>
<p>I say “Christian” and not “Catholic” with good reason, because in
fact the method and contents of this text, which is full of repetition
and quite cumbersome, have actually liquidated the fundamental elements
of Christianity. Naturally, the operation is carried out with the usual
system, which I have pointed out on other occasions: not by denying but
by keeping silent, not by contradicting but by diluting. In this way,
the reader can also be favorably impressed by all the interesting
reflections on ecology, ethnology, health and sanitation and sociology
that it contains, and many of which are in themselves also right. But in
the midst of these lush and redundant empirical analyses, which say
nothing new and which a specialist could say in a better and more
substantiated manner, the Person of Christ and His Gospel disappear;
they are literally swallowed up by the lush tropical forest.</p>
<p>The relationship between faith and culture should be illustrated
using the classical Christology expressed by the first ecumenical
councils, which affirm the transcendence of the divine Person of the
Word with respect to the human nature that it sustains, assumes and
transforms, not vice versa. The <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>expresses,
in fact, in its general logic, a completely inverted conception that no
longer conforms to Christological orthodoxy. In reading this hymn to
the Amazonian paradise on earth (which is presented as a new Eden of
innocence and communal and cosmic harmony without stain, except those
brought by Western civilization; cf. n. 103), it is difficult to
understand how and why this portion of humanity needs faith in the
Incarnation. The myth of the great Amazonian river as the source of life
replaces the great Christological and Paschal image of the river that
flows from the Temple (according to the prophet Ezekiel) and that
“brings life and heals wherever it flows.” Instead of asking how the
proclamation of the Gospel can be brought to these peoples, and how the
living water of Christ can heal and bring life to the lives of these
peoples, it is taken for granted that they already live, thanks to their
ancestral traditions, in an Edenic condition by which, if anything, the
Church must allow herself to be converted. It is said several times
that the Church must take on “an Amazonian face,”but the document does
not understand whether, and how, the Amazon can or should assume a
Christian face, and whether this is desirable or not.</p>
<p>The <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>expresses opinions which some may
like, but it is not a Christian document. Let this be clearly stated. A
few biblical quotations inserted as the title of several paragraphs, or
the use of words like “Church”, “conversion” and “pastoral,” are not
enough to guarantee the evangelical character of a text. They look like
protective screens, but the Word of the living God does not constitute
the foundation and inspiration on which the document is built. By way of
example, consider Part I, Chapter 1, which is dedicated to the theme of
life. The title is inspired by John 10:10: “I have come that they may
have life and have it in abundance.” It would seem to be an excellent
starting point. But what follows never says what this life that Jesus
came to bring consists in, nor that John speaks of “eternal life” and
that this life is the same Trinitarian life given by the Holy Spirit. In
commenting on this verse from the Gospel of John, the text is content
to illustrate Amazonian biodiversity and the rich hydrography of the
Amazon basin, and to praise the “good life” of the indigenous people,
which — an astonishing discovery — “means understanding the centrality
of the relational-transcendent character of human beings and creation
and includes ‘doing good’” (n. 13). Of course, it is not clear whether
the Cross of Christ and his Resurrection are still necessary for the
sort of “good living” that is here being presented as a model. The Cross
is mentioned only twice, and it is understood that it never refers to
the redemptive Cross of Christ, but to the “history of the Cross and
Resurrection” which consists in the Church’s solidarity with the
struggles of indigenous peoples in the defense of the territory (n.
33-34; 145).</p>
<p><strong>The removal of the scriptural principle: apostasy, rather than heresy</strong></p>
<p>Cardinal Brandmüller, in his widely circulated commentary on the <em>Instrumentum laboris</em>,
states in no uncertain terms that the document is heretical. It’s hard
to blame him. But one thing must be noted to better understand the type
of “heresy” we are dealing with. Church history teaches us that heresies
normally develop out of a controversial interpretation of scriptural
texts. The heretic always believes that he is giving a more correct
interpretation of Scripture, whose authority he does not question.
Therefore, it was to the sound of biblical quotations that controversies
were generally fed. In other words, from Arius to Luther and beyond,
the assumption that united orthodoxy and heresy, Catholics and
non-Catholics, beyond all division, has always been the undisputed
authority of Sacred Scripture, recognized as the inspired word, and to
whose scrutiny every teaching and every theology had to submit. </p>
<p>But there is no longer any detectable trace of this scriptural premise in the <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>for
the Pan-Amazon synod. The authors of the document are not worried at
all about giving theological and scriptural plausibility to what they
say; it seems that, to them, the only “theological locus” (venerable
terminology dating back to the illustrious Melchior Cano) is the
“territory” or the “cry of the poor.” We read: “Territory is a
theological place where faith is lived, and also a particular source of
God’s revelation: epiphanic places where the reserve of life and wisdom
for the planet is manifested, a life and wisdom that speak of God” (n.
19; cf. 144; 126e). Of course, it is not said anywhere that Scripture
and the Liturgy, within the great apostolic and ecclesial tradition, by
order of importance, are the first theological places from which all
other possible minor <em>loci theologici</em>must be verified, nor are they used as primary sources. <em>Dei Verbum</em>and <em>Sacrosanctum concilium </em>are covered by vines and tropical molds or sunk in marshy quicksand.</p>
<p>This is a phenomenon that must not escape us, because it is the most
important indicator that allows us to grasp the true nature of the
deviation or “paradigm shift” that the <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>introduces.
In modern times there have already been illustrious precedents of a
removal of the scriptural principle in favor of the primacy of other
entities. The so-called liberal theology from the 19th century onwards,
in the Protestant sphere, was basically an attempt to justify
Christianity (or its cultural relics), in the face of the multiple
criticisms of modern culture, reducing it “within the limits of reason
alone” or to a particularly high form of unsurpassed ethics or leading
it back to universal religious sentiment. Faith and the Church were
reduced to their universal comprehensibility through a process of
rational homologation. The key words and concepts of Christianity
remained, but their meaning was completely secularized. This removal of
the scriptural principle was the consequence of the new confrontation
that Christianity had to sustain: no longer through internal divisions,
but with a rationality emancipated from revelation, which could only
accept what was within its parameters.</p>
<p>This anthropological dilution of Christianity into ethics or reason
or religious sentiment (which was felt in Catholic circles with the
modernist crisis) no longer considers Scripture as a theological <em>locus. </em>It
is the great Christian “symbols” (the Church, worship, the cross and
the resurrection, moral norms, etc.), now extrapolated from their
original ground, but still living by inertia in European civilization,
that must find some justification and reinterpretation. A great thinker
like Ernst Troeltsch could thus argue, on rational bases, that the
Christian religion represented the highest form of universal morality
and religiosity. But nothing more than this! Central dogmas thereby
became “myths” to be overcome in a universally acceptable “logos.”
Bultman’s demythologization was one of the most famous variants of this
homologation of faith in an existential dimension that is easily
digestible.</p>
<p>It is in the light of this history (which has not yet ended) that a phenomenon such as the <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>on
the Amazon should be considered. It is the dilution of Christianity to
anthropology, or rather to ecology to be precise, in order to give it
again a semblance of acceptability in the United Nations assembly and in
environmentalist, post-modern, anti-Western and biodegradable
naturalist thinking. That is why Cardinal Brandmüller’s diagnosis is
correct, but immediately adding, as he himself does, that more than
heresy we should speak of <em>apostasy</em>. The removal of the
scriptural principle (which is like saying the renunciation of theology
and mission), the abdication of a reading of the phenomena and mission
of the Church in the light of the Word of God, replacing it with the
uncontaminated and mythical “theological locus” of the environment, of
territory and of the poor (as if all this were immune to original sin,
and therefore a “pure word” of God that can do without the two
Testaments), is equivalent to the abandonment of the ground of faith,
which for Paul and the Apostolic Church comes from listening to the <em>kerygma </em>and
not from the “ecological conversion” to the territory (an expression
that is repeated nine times in the text). The Apostolic Church, and the
one that followed, transmitted the proclamation of Christ the Son of God
who died and rose for sins. That is why it was missionary. But there is
no trace of this proclamation in our document. Here, therefore, we are
not faced with a variant, albeit heterodox or heretical, of
Christianity, but with a phenomenon of abandonment of the biblical faith
for something different, with only a counterfeit label of
Christianity. A bit like products bearing the EU [European Union] mark
that are manufactured in China.</p>
<p>I will say more. The great representatives of theological liberalism
to whom I have referred at least kept Christianity in a privileged
position: it remained for them the highest expression of the human <em>ethos </em>or
religion of humanity. In their own way, “they could not but call
themselves Christians.” In the new mythical reduction presented by the
pre-synodal document, something more radical happens: this privileged
position is lost. It seems that the Church now has the sole task of
protecting what good the Amazonian people already possess. Therefore,
that high vision of Christianity as the most evolved religion or, if you
like, as man fully realized, also disappears. Here the problem <em>of true religion </em>no
longer has any reason to exist. Nor does the question of the true God
whom religions venerate. In fact, we read: “Insincere openness to the
other, just like a corporatist attitude, that reserve salvation
exclusively for one’s own creed, are destructive of that very creed.”
(n. 39). As if to say: believe what you want, you are saved all the
same. We had already read something like this in the Abu Dhabi document.
Evidently it was not a slip of the tongue!</p>
<p><strong>The cultural phenomenon: an infantile regression</strong></p>
<p>Having ascertained this, there is another fact to be noted, equally
important and of considerable proportions, concerning the cultural
operation underway here (given that we can now only deal with culture
and no longer with Christian theology). The interesting thing is that
what is privileged in the <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>is no longer the adult <em>logos </em>that illuminated and dissolved the <em>mythos </em>of
the infantile and primitive eras of humanity, including the
Judeo-Christian “myth,” as happened in the interpretation of liberal
theology and in all the enlightened or positivistic reductions of
Christianity, such as that of Kant, Lessing, Hegel, Bultman and so on.
Now the fascination with the emancipated adult age, as the “age of
reason” which has guided much of modernity has dissolved for the
westernized world; it has lost its appeal. </p>
<p>Taking its place once again is much-despised <em>mythos</em>, the
world of the primitive; in short, the childhood of mankind, the good
savage with his ancestral animistic wisdom (which the sad <em>homo technologicus </em>envies,
but without really knowing what it is). After criticizing and
eliminating the “myth,” even the biblical one, as a remnant of the
infantile age of humanity, and consequently desacralizing the ritual
practices of the Church (which is accused of a magical and superstitious
mentality), now an attempt is being made to replace the void produced
(more than deforestation!) by resorting to the shamanic myths and
rituals of the indigenous Amazon, to a pre-Christian repertoire, so
that they become the new paradigm in which to water down the true wine
of the uniqueness of Christ.</p>
<p>One cannot but notice that, from the psycho-cultural point of view,
this is a classic phenomenon of post-modern infantile regression typical
of the Western world, which no longer aspires to the adult age of
enlightenment or positivistic memory. It’s too demanding or too boring
to be an adult. Enough with pure and absolute reason, enough with the
fatigue of the concept. Better to be carefree and instinctive like
children, simple and spontaneous like them. Not the age of reason, but
of dream and play. Too bad that this childish aspiration camouflages,
behind the enchanting innocence of the <em>puer</em>, the deepest nihilism. Recall that the Nietzschean Superman, who decrees the end of the <em>logos</em>,
has the appearance of a child; he is innocent in his playing (beyond
good and evil) with the wheel of eternal return. The child mentioned in
Friedrich Nietzsche’s novel, <em>Thus Spoke Zarathustra, </em>for those
who do not know it, is Dionysus, “Dionysus against the Crucified”! The
pagan myth replaces the Christian God. Today, what is childish
fascinates, because it impersonates an innocent and irresponsible
instinct that the adult cannot allow himself.</p>
<p>Let such diagnoses not seem excessive. Rather, note the strange and
fatal attraction between Westerners with their decadent bad conscience,
disappointed by the longed-for emancipated adult age (which soon turned
into unwanted old age) and lost childhood, the land of gold, which
cannot be found except in the pre-civilized tribal cultures, since we
have also robbed our techno-children of their childhood. The myth of the
uncontaminated, the neopagan naturalism of childlike innocence of the
natives is an entirely western and post-modern regression. Where can we
find salvation from hyper-technology? How can we escape an increasingly
less manageable urbanization? How can we heal the wounds of increasingly
fragmented relationships? After the attempts of the flower children,
what is now being proposed is a cultural model which is ecologically
more sustainable and as minimally neurotic as possible: life brought
back to its beginnings, to bows and arrows, to shamanic healing rituals.
A new beginning! Today everyone wants to have a new beginning, or
another chance, as they say. The other possibility for westernized man
is to turn to those who have remained at the beginning for millennia.
This is the new myth presented by <em>Instrumentum laboris</em>, an
excellent example of this post-modern infantile regression, a real
complex or syndrome of European origin, even if it is cloaked in love
for the peripheries and anti-Westernism. Like all regressions, this one
too is not fully self-aware, otherwise it would be ashamed. Instead, it
is said openly with impressive naivety, imagining it is doing prophetic
work. But usually prophecy is “outdated.” The boring pages of the <em>Instrumentum labori</em>s
are a smoothie blended with obvious things; it is suitable, in fact,
for children (or perhaps for old people without teeth who are stammering
again). </p>
<p>I don’t think too many explanations are needed to understand that
this aspiration to infantile neoteny, a kind of lack of distinction
potentially open to any possibility of totipotent “self-determination”
(for this reason representative of Nietzsche’s desire for power), goes
magnificently well with a homologating culture that tries to promote the
delay of sexual differentiation (a necessary phase for access to
adulthood), remaining in prepubescent indeterminacy. Homo and trans
ideology are related to this secret nostalgia for the fusional
beginnings that bind one to the mother, a need instinctively felt by the
post-modern western alogical and anomical world. The fact that it is
now called “Mother Earth” (another beloved expression in the <em>Instrumentum laboris</em>, used six times compared to only one reference to God as father) and Mother Nature matters little.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, however, the Amazon described in the pre-synodal
document is not real, except marginally: it is a construction of Western
make-believe searching for substitute myths made to measure, after
liquidating its own, especially the Christian narrative. In singing the
wonders of the Amazonian territory, the document betrays an endless
naivety. The writers should have reread at least a few pages of Leopardi
on Mother Nature, so as not to be seduced in such a blatant way by the
sirens of Rousseau.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusions: Biodegradable Christianity</strong></p>
<p>The objections I made to the postulates of <em>Evangelii gaudium </em>(especially
to the first: the superiority of time over space) pointed to the
theoretical weakness of that pastoral program, which already showed a
certain tendency to remove the role of <em>logos </em>(also scriptural)
in favor of reality (considered superior to the idea), renouncing in
substance the mediation of theology in the name of the immediacy of
practice (initiate processes). My criticism of <em>Amoris laetitia </em>focused
on highlighting the reduction of what is specifically Christian (summed
up in sacramental life) to universal morality, in line with the
currents of theological liberalism previously mentioned.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the <em>Instrumentum laboris </em>for the
upcoming synod on the Amazon represents a coherent maturation of these
premises. The reduction of the sacraments to morals is now being
replaced by the exaltation of indigenous “good living” (naturist morals,
more than natural), the choice of the people as a “mythical category”
and of the people’s myths in place of the biblical narrative. Above all,
the preference given to the environment (territory-space) over history
(time), also because indigenous peoples have no history and live in a
cyclical time or (in some cases) are devoid of the concept of time. Yet
we were told the opposite!</p>
<p>The most interesting aspect is that, in this document, things become
clearer, compared to the previous ambiguous formulations that were
supported by erroneous quotations of St. Thomas in order to be able to
claim that everything was “completely Thomistic.” Here it is clear that
St. Thomas has nothing to do with it, and as has been said, the Bible
has nothing to do with it either. If there is still something Christian
in this <em>Instrumentum laboris</em>, i.e., a few words and expressions here and there, there is no need to worry: it is undoubtedly biodegradable!</p>
<p><strong>Dom Giulio Meiattini, OSB</strong></p>
<p><em>Translation from the Italian by Diane Montagna of LifeSiteNews.</em></p></div>
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