In some Amazon Synod document, I read the following, which I find puzzling:
"The wisdom of ancestral peoples affirms that Mother Earth has a female face."
There's plenty there to scratch one's head about. What particularly puzzles me is the phrase "ancestral peoples".
Don't we all have ancestors? Why am I not an Ancestral Person? Talking about Ancestral Peoples implies that other, lesser, hominid groupings may not be 'ancestral'. But how can this be? Even the mighty PF, when all is said and done, surely has ancestors? Or is he, according to the Nouvelle Theologie, some sort of extra-terrestrial creation, fatherless and motherless, who emerged from a flying saucer in some American desert?
(If this were so, would he be capax Sacramenti Ordinis?)
Should we all reassert our biblical Ancestrality by reviving the Narnian expressions Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve?
Changing the subject ... I liked the video of that splendid clergyman burning a Pachamama. But we need help here, which perhaps could be supplied by some of our traddy communities of nuns. They could manufacture Pachamama statues, perhaps of papier-mache impregnated with parafin or other combustible substances, which would be very easy even for the clumsiest priest to burn ceremonially ... and, er, frequently.
For the sisters, it would be a probably welcome change from baking Altar Breads.
We need more imagination in the Church ...
You know I'm right.
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9 comments:
I know and also feel that you are right ("connatural" knowledge as the philosophers say).
Dear Father. Some clerics have condemned the action of Alexander Tschugguel, 26, of Vienna, Austria, whom they accused of stealing a few Pachamamas and tossing them into The Tiber.
Well, that is a legalistic complaint isn't it?
The atavistic Catholics ABS knows do not consider what he did as theft but, rather a liberation for those idols belong in a river or a jungle and not imprisoned in a church built by white male Christians.
Actually, most American peoples picture the earth as an animal, like a turtle, that carries everything on its back.
The Synod material has nothing to do with anthropological understanding of Amazonian peoples, and a lot to do with retired hippie Europeans making stuff up.
Profecto credit sancta Ecclesia Catholica omnes homines liberos Adae esse, et hominem solum esse capacem baptismi vel ulli sacramenti. Si Franciscus esset alienus de astris, nos oporteret bestiam comedere.
Capitol Idea! And pyromania be damned!
I wonder if burning an effigy of an idol is sufficient. Does an image of a false god start to be an idol as soon as it's made or only as soon as it starts to be reverenced?
I really wonder who is writing this stuff. Fr. George Rutler wrote a funny article in Crisis magazine about how to write your own encyclical. He gives several lists of in vogue terms to throw around: “field hospital,” “coprophagist,” “nominalist,” “soap bubble,” “rigidity,” “peripheries,” “paradigm,” “dicastery,” and “ecological debt.”
Rigidity is thrown around a lot. But what is it really supposed to mean. If the police are enforcing laws on drunk driving, should they not be too rigid? How about speeding? How about corporate pollution?
We were told that the elders of the indigenous peoples have a wisdom that calls for respect and attention. I have asked various senior clergy whether or not my Irish granny's constant advice (attend Mass as often as possible, say the Rosary every day, always have holy water in the home, pray for the Holy Souls frequently etc. etc.) qualifies as wisdom too. I have yet to receive a reply. She should have worn feathers and then they would probably have listened.
I'm very much seconding the Narnian expression!
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