THE AMAZON SYNOD IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES
by Douglas Farrow 10 . 17 . 19The Synod of the Amazon is a sign of the times. So its Instrumentum laboris says... Others are saying that the Synod is an instrument of apostasy. In the grim humor of Dom Giulio Meiattini, “if there is still something Christian in this Instrumentum laboris, that is, a few words and expressions here and there, there is no need to worry: it is undoubtedly biodegradable!”
Biodegradable Christianity—now there is a sign of the times, a sign of our times. For our times are times in which even the faith of the Catholic Church threatens to disappear into the wetlands of our own confused and decaying cultures. Our times are times when eco-theology in the Amazon basin and sexual theologies in the bowels of Europe can, with a “liberationist” flourish, flush the gospel of Jesus Christ down Leonardo Boff’s drain.
The real problem here is not, as some suggest, the expensive German plumbers who, after all, are doing the flushing for free. The real problem is the Great Apostasy..
The Amazon, we are told in the name of the Church, “is living a moment of grace, a kairos,” because it is “living the culture of encounter.” Encounter with the God and Father of Jesus Christ? No, encounter with itself and its own lands, peoples, and cultures, which are veritable sources of revelation. Encounter also with “the other,” with “love lived in any religion” and in every cultural space. Except that of the colonialists and neo-colonialists, of course, who do not know how to love. (The neo-colonialists, one would think, must surely include the European Marxists and Gramscians running this synod, but apparently not.)
In this moment of grace, of encounter, the oppressive space of “petrified doctrines” is broken open. Old wineskins, to change the metaphor, are burst, that the new wine may flow freely. Dogma gives way to dialogue, christology to pneumatology, the exclusive to the inclusive:
Many peoples of the Amazon are inherently people of dialogue and communication. There is a broad and essential arena of dialogue between the Amazon’s spiritualities, creeds and religions that requires an approach of the heart to the different cultures. Respect for this space does not mean relativizing one’s own convictions, but recognizing other avenues/pathways that seek to decipher the inexhaustible mystery of God.
