Thoughts on the Amazon Synod
Yesterday at Mass, my wonderful young priest, Fr. Daniel Cruz, referenced a 1537 encyclical from Pope Paul III. In my opinion, this nearly 500-year-old document is beautifully relevant not only for Mass on Columbus Day, but it also serves as a sharp contrast and corrective to the shocking activities and discussions currently underway at the Amazon Synod in Rome. The encyclical is short and sweet (I love that! Can we go back to that?), and so I reprint it here in its entirety, with my own emphases added:
Sublimis Dei
On the Enslavement and Evangelization of Indians
His Holiness, Pope Paul III
To all faithful Christians to whom this writing may come, health in Christ our Lord and the apostolic benediction.
The sublime God so loved the human race that He created man in such wise that he might participate, not only in the good that other creatures enjoy, but endowed him with capacity to attain to the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good and behold it face to face; and since man, according to the testimony of the sacred scriptures, has been created to enjoy eternal life and happiness, which none may obtain save through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, it is necessary that he should possess the nature and faculties enabling him to receive that faith; and that whoever is thus endowed should be capable of receiving that same faith. Nor is it credible that any one should possess so little understanding as to desire the faith and yet be destitute of the most necessary faculty to enable him to receive it. Hence Christ, who is the Truth itself, that has never failed and can never fail, said to the preachers of the faith whom He chose for that office ‘Go ye and teach all nations.’ He said all, without exception, for all are capable of receiving the doctrines of the faith.
The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction, beholding and envying this, invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith.
We, who, though unworthy, exercise on earth the power of our Lord and seek with all our might to bring those sheep of His flock who are outside into the fold committed to our charge, consider, however, that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it. Desiring to provide ample remedy for these evils, We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.
By virtue of Our apostolic authority We define and declare by these present letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, which shall thus command the same obedience as the originals, that the said Indians and other peoples should be converted to the faith of Jesus Christ by preaching the word of God and by the example of good and holy living.
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How do we reconcile these truths (and, yes, they are truths) with the deeply disturbing pagan, idolatrous, and even depraved things that have been seen in and around the Vatican over the past several days? I won’t link to all of it, but you can surely find enough to shock the Catholic senses and conscience here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
If you can only pick one thing to read or watch, this Taylor Marshall video has enough to give you a good background and understanding of the situation unfolding in the Church at the moment (and a few laughs!). And yes, we are in the Twilight Zone, apparently!
Through it all, of course, there are signs of hope—so don’t despair:
These are weird but exciting times, and we are living through an incredible and unprecedented moment in Church history. Who knows if we will see an end to this craziness in our lifetime? Just hang on tight and keep the Faith! I’ll leave you with Catechism #675-677, which is really speaking to me these days! Ha!
The Church's ultimate trial
675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.
677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.
Pray the Rosary every day, and get to Mass daily, if at all possible.
God bless!
Edited to add (October 17, 2019):
Cardinal Brandmüller: Everything is at Stake at the Amazon Synod
Edited to add (October 21, 2019)
Two Men Remove Controversial Amazon Statue from Church and Throw it in the Tiber River
