WHO IS INSPIRING FRANCIS ON ECOLOGY?

WHO IS INSPIRING FRANCIS ON ECOLOGY?

By: Atila Sinke Guimarães (TIA)

 As soon as Francis’ coming encyclical on ecology was announced on March 2014, it was reported that Bishop Erwin Krautler of Xingu, Brazil, had been chosen by the Pope to give his insight for the new document. 

Bishop Erwin Krautler in his diocese,
an example of inculturation

In fact, Krautler was invited to the Vatican and had a meeting with Francis on April 4, 2014. The Bishop of Xingu engaged in other encounters with Card. Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical for Justice and Peace, who was charged with preparing its first draft. He also gave a press interview advancing some of the encyclical's guidelines. The two principal ones were:

• The rights of indigenous tribes – Bishop Krautler told the Austrian daily Salzburger Nachrichten on April 5, 2014: “First of all I informed the Pope that the constitutional rights of the indigenous peoples in Brazil were once again massively being called into question now.” (News report in English here)  

 

•  The ordination of "proven" or "tested" married men (viri probati) to say Mass and administer the sacraments – Krautler declared to the press: “I told him [the Pope] that, as Bishop of Brazil’s largest Diocese with 800 church communities and 700,000 faithful, I only had 27 priests, which means that our communities can only celebrate the Eucharist twice or three times a year at the most.” Then, he concluded: “The ordination of viri probati … came up when we were discussing the plight of our communities. … The question was how things could continue in such a situation. It was up to the Bishops to make suggestions, the Pope said again.” (News report in English here)

Another inspirer of the coming encyclical on the environment is Leonardo Boff, one of the main stars of Liberation Theology. In a recent interview to a Brazilian TV show on April 21, 2015, Boff gave his general input on the “crisis of the planet,” which he transmitted to the Pope:

“I believe that we live in singular time where we are not just close to a greater dominion of capital or progress, but we are [also] near the abyss. If the devastation of the planet Earth continues and global warming continues – the Pope has repeated this several times – the Earth may continue, but without us. So, we are living in times of great urgency, where political problems become relative. Everything has to be turned toward ecology in the sense that all must play a part to guarantee the physical-chemical base of life’s sustainability, which has been threatened.

“This is for me the great challenge to be analyzed by the States. I am deeply sorry that the majority of the heads of States and decision-makers do not take seriously these questions, which have been reported by renowned scientists. They say that if the Earth experiences – as has occurred in History – a leap, a sudden warming of 4 to 6 degrees [Celsius], none of the known forms of life will subsist. We, who have technology and can create ports and islands of salvation, also run a great risk of disappearing. 

Boff: Bogus scientific data dramatically presented
in order to advance a communist agenda

“So, I believe that the situation today is totally different. First, because it is global; it encompasses all countries – the life system, the earth system. [Second], a person very attentive to this situation, who is calling more attention to this problem, is Pope Francis.

“It is not by accident that he took upon himself [to write] – and it will be published shortly – an encyclical whose objective is how to save the life on the planet.” (our English translation of this part of the interview is here; watch the video with English sub-titles here)

Further, Boff gave interesting behind-the-scene details of his communication with Francis a propos the encyclical. He reported how he delivered information straight to Francis:

“Indirectly, through the ambassador of Argentina to the Vatican, I was asked by the Pope to send him material about ecology. He said: 'Do not send it to the Vatican, because they will not deliver it to me. Send it to the ambassador who will place it in my hands. Otherwise they will make a sotto sedere, they will sit on it and forget to deliver it.'

“I sent material three times. He especially asked for a document that I helped to write, which would be a new configuration of the United Nations. Its theoretical nucleus is the common good of the earth and mankind. Not as sustainable development or something like that, but as the common good of the planet earth and mankind. We elaborated a whole conception of a unified planet that distributes the few resources we have in a decent and egalitarian way. I sent all these to him. I hope it was useful.”

So, I surmise that the general lines of Bergoglio’s green encyclical most probably are these:

• A full endorsement of the scientific fraud of global warming or climate change presented in dramatic apocalyptic language;
• A full acceptance of the communist agenda of class struggle: the poor against the rich; indigenous peoples against civilized people, the landless against land owners, the waterless against those who own lands with water;
• Another full endorsement of the United Nations’ Masonic plan of establishing an egalitarian universal republic served by a pan-religion;
• Another condemnation of Capitalism and private property, to be added to the long list of similar anathemas issued by the conciliar Popes;
• A list of “sins” against nature to replace the 10 Commandments, for which Pope Bergoglio has little regard, and
• Taking advantage of the initiative, a blessing in passing of the ordination of married man to assist the dioceses with few priests.

 
These guidelines are what seem to logically proceed from the statements of the two men Pope Francis invited to give their insights for his encyclical.

After this conclusion, allow me to report as a post-scriptum to this article a significant fact that confirms that Jorge Bergoglio is a longtime partisan of Liberation Theology. In the same interview mentioned above, Leonardo Boff answered a question about why Rome had condemned him and his theology before Francis’ pontificate.

Boff affirmed: “I believe with all sincerity that Cardinal Ratzinger and John Paul II never understood Liberation Theology. They condemned the version presented by the military and the more reactionary groups of Latin America. Then a new head of the Holy Office entered, Cardinal Müller, who said: 'Liberation Theology is a Catholic theology.' ... I would say that today this theology is perennial. It is the most important theology at this moment.

Argentine Jesuit Fr. Juan Carlos Scannone initiated
Fr. Jorge Bergoglio in Liberation Theology

“This is so much the case that this Pope represented in Argentina one of the tendencies of this theology, which was the Theology of the Oppressed People or the Theology of the Silenced Culture. This was the Argentine way during the military dictatorship to not use Marxist classifications, of class, etc, in order to explain poverty.

He was one of the first to adopt this theology. His professor is still alive today – Juan Carlos Scannone – who says that he [Bergoglio], when he was a student already with a Chemistry degree, had committed to continuously visit the Vilas Miserias – which are their favelas [the Brazilian slums] – and made a personal vow of poverty. In this he has been coherent until today.

“Thus, I believe that Liberation Theology has earned respectability today. He [the Pope] invited Gustavo Gutierrez, who is the founder of this theology, to converse. I was in Italy and he invited me, but on that particular day I was opening a large congress of spirituality in Turin.

 I said: “Holiness, I cannot.” He said: “Holiness, no! Holiness is the Dalai Lama. I am the Bishop of Rome. It is fine [that you cannot meet me now]; I will call you another time.”

“So, he is trying to re-establish [annul] those unjust condemnations that offended so many of the poor, who said, “We are working here in misery, and the Pope is working there with the rich. But when we read the Gospel, Jesus is in our side, and we would like to understand this.”  

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