BANG! VENEZUELAN CARDINAL TELLS IT LIKE IT IS! SOUTH AMERICAN CATHOLICISM HAS LOST ITS WAY AND EVANGELICALS AND PENTECOSTALS ARE FILLING THE VOID AND FILLING THEIR CHURCHES AS CATHOLICISM LOSES SO MANY!

My comment first, take it or leave it: For the most part, the South American Church as well as the Central American Church has failed to evangelize Catholics and keep them in the true Church. The reason evangelicals have made such in-roads into Catholicism there is that the spirit of Vatican Catholicism can’t compete with the Evangelical’s emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus, the impetus to share Christ with others, what Pope Francis derides as proselytism. The Church there is more concerned with taking power away from the elites and give political power to the disenfranchised. Jesus is left out of the picture. And then to deal with evangelicalism, the Catholic Church tries to mimic its Pentecostal worship but fails because Pentecostalism is not Catholicism. Pre-Vatican II Catholicism is Catholicism. 

What I highlight in red below says it all about the crisis of Catholic identity under the current Magisterium. 

Venezuelan cardinal: Synod document strong on ecology, weak on ecclesiology

• Inés San Martín
  Sep 25, 2019
  ROME BUREAU CHIEF

ROME - According to Venezuelan Cardinal Jorge Urosa, the preparatory document for the upcoming Vatican summit of bishops on the Amazon region is “flawed, weak” because Christ is misrepresented.

Do you see the need for a synod on the Amazon?

The synod has two main objectives. The first is to promote an integral ecology for the Amazon area. And the second is to propose new paths for the Church in that area.

From the point of view of the ecological, sociological and cultural issue, a synod would not be necessary. The pope has nevertheless wanted to convene a synod for the Church to reflect on this and make a contribution. And there is the other part, ecclesiological and missionary, which is properly speaking, the ecclesial part. But of course, everything will have a synodal development.

There are several aspects that are important to highlight and have been touched upon in the so-called instrumentum laboris. I would like to distinguish between the synod and the instrumentum laboris prepared for the synod. It is a document that goes through both lines. It addresses the ecological and sociocultural issues, and also addresses the missionary and ecclesial issues.

From an ecological point of view, it’s pretty good. But as for the ecclesiological and missionary issues, it suffers from many failures. That will be a problem for the synod, because the instrumentum laboris somehow sets the tone [of the discussions].

The ecological aspect is interesting and makes a necessary defense of the Amazonian territory, the environment and the Amazonian populations that are not only indigenous. They are being subjected to an extractive exploitation of raw material that is damaging the ecology of the region which has an impact on the entire world. An unfortunate fact has been the terrible fires that occurred this year. The defense of the Amazon is very important, and thank God the Church has taken a very valuable initiative.

However, the problem of the Amazon from the ecclesiological point of view has not been well addressed. Moreover, most of those who speak of the synod touch only on the ecological and socio-cultural aspects, and very little on the ecclesiological and pastoral aspects.

There is an imbalance, because the main work of the Church is evangelization, bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, to all populations, both the indigenous and the urban population in the Amazon - there are millions living in cities like Manaus, Belen de Para, Iquitos, not only the indigenous in isolated areas.

These people require a direct, explicit, open evangelization of Jesus Christ. And that is little touched on in the document.

The document presents an almost idyllic Amazonian population, the perfect man, the noble savage of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They are normal people, human beings with the same problems, virtues and defects as all people in the whole world. And to them too we have to bring the Gospel.

The text talks a lot about accompanying, following, understanding and dialoguing with, but little about the need to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that, in some ways, explains the reality of the growth of the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches in the region, while the Catholic faith in the Amazon is not growing with the same force.

We must make a serious study, a good examination of the ecclesial reality of the population of the Amazon. We must ask ourselves why Evangelicals and Pentecostals grow, and the Church does not. That should call the Synod Fathers to reflection.

The instrumentum laboris has to be very well reviewed because it has many flaws and omissions, and we must insist on the true objective and mission of the Church, which is to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. We are not asked to bring Western culture to native peoples. We are asked to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all cultures. It is not about supplanting one culture with another, but about taking the Gospel to the original peoples of the Amazon.

It is about a strong and intense evangelizing effort in the Amazon region.