People’s Resistance in Brazil

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The warning issued by Church Militant about financial contributions asked by the bishops' conference seems to have echoed beyond our frontiers. In Brazil, reportedly the largest Catholic country in the world, the local bishops' conference launched this year's "Campaign of Fraternity" in an extremely "ecumenical" and secular way, which has nothing to do with the Catholic Church.

The response of the laity has been amazing: petitions, demonstrations, pronouncements, open call to boycott, etc., the whole works! Against the fundraising campaign, the secretariat of the conference, known for decades for pro-communist attitudes in promoting Liberation Theology, now is in the throes of utter despair!

The crisis generated by the dissemination of the ideological heresies of the basic text of the Campaign of Fraternity provoked such a revolt in the Catholic people that their excellencies had to appeal to the only argument left to them: the argument of "authority" sponsored by a message from Pope Francis.

It turns out that, in the text, Francis makes only a bland endorsement of the theme of the campaign, saying nothing about the pro-homosexual declarations. Thus, Francis only shies away from the boiling issues, much in that Jesuit style currently known throughout the Catholic orb, and lets the Brazilians hold their hot potato.

In fact, the conference's secretariat is desperate! The hemorrhaging of criticism has become uncontrollable, and the only alternative they have left is to try to cover up for this blunder and pray (if praying goes through their heads at all) so that the boiling tension calms down.

Meanwhile, through the social networks, the faithful stand firm and strong. The movement of opposition to the campaign that occurred in recent days came from the bottom up, and even attracted the support of some priests and bishops. That is, the pastors only met the cry of their faithful and decided to position themselves according to them. It is not an articulation of the hierarchy to mobilize the people, but exactly the opposite; it is the people who are provoking a healthy attitude in the clergy. Everyone in Brazil knows that it will be impossible to silence the cry of the faithful.

On the other hand, Francis himself says that shepherds must smell of sheep and that they need to follow the sensus fidelium, rather than impose a direction on them. It seems that now he leaves the field even more open for the controversy about the points that really matter: gender ideology, gayzism, religious syncretism and, above all, the money that is under it all.

What they didn't expect was for the people to be as awake as they are. The cry of alert was given, the people are angry, the crisis is irreversible, the Campaign of Fraternity has had its greatest loss in history, and the whole event only served to leave people even more vaccinated against Liberation Theology, which will continue to take place despite papal letters or episcopal tears.

Today, the pope's popularity in Brazil is lower than the Dead Sea. His attempt to save the skin of his Brazilian friends will only leave the faithful firmer in their determination to stop the fundraising campaign. It would be much easier to apologize, delete the problematic texts or even move away from the basic text and replace it with a more Catholic, or at least, consensual one. But these people really are there to divide, and cynically use the discourse of "union" as a method to silence the dissenting, orthodox voices.

How is it possible for the bishops' conference to endorse a basic text that adopts homosexual language, which assumes data from the Gay Group of Bahia (a state in Brazil) and still attribute violence against them to "religious fundamentalism"?

See the quote from paragraph 68 of the text:

Another social group that suffers the consequences of structured politics in violence and the creation of enemies is the LGBTQI+ population. The 2020 Atlas of Violence shows that the number of reports of violence suffered by the LGBTQI+ population recorded in Dike 100 in 2018 was of 1,685 cases.

According to data from the Gay Group of Bahia presented in the Atlas of Violence 2020, in 2018, 420 LGBTQI+ people were murdered, of these 210, 64 were transgenders. It is noticed that in 2011, five homicides of LGBTQI+ people were recorded. Six years later, in 2017, this number increased to 193 cases. The increase in the number of homicides of LGBTQI+ people between 2016 and 2017 was 127%.

These murders are the effects of hate speech, religious fundamentalism, voices against the recognition of the rights of LGBTQI+ populations and other persecuted and vulnerable groups.

It is worth noting that the acronym LGBTQI+ is also used by the bishops' conference in Brazil, whose language is Portuguese, not English. Thus, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queers, intersex and the + includes any other gender that may be yet to be designated. The only thing missing is that "B" stands for bestiality, to complete the spectrum of their perversion, alongside a "P" for pedophilia.

The bishops' conference of Brazil is throwing into the trash the Campaign of Fraternity and is responsible for this demoralization before the Catholic people.

There's no point in them trying to blame the critical groups. They need to beat their chests and take the blame for this nonsense! How did such a text end up in a document that is the very basis for the Campaign of Fraternity? Who did this? Who approved this? Was it the president of the conference? Was it the permanent council? These are the questions to ask, and that is what needs to be faced.

Until they do so, it is no use for bishops to play victims and appeal to their "authority as successors of the Apostles," for they are the ones who are unworthy of this excellent role. They shame themselves by their ambiguity and subservience to the most macabre ideologies of our times.

It is worth noting that Cdl. Joseph Ratzinger stated that "ambiguity is the mark of the demonic." (The Ratzinger Report, Ignatius Press, 1985, p. 150). Indeed. The bishops of Brazil, as well as those of the United States, may learn from this teaching and speak with clarity and fidelity to the gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the reaction of our Brazilian brethren in the Faith may help to spur even more our reactions here in defense of morality against the likes of "Father" James Martin and his pro-gay supporters in the clergy and hierarchy in America.

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