Bishops in Bolivia call on authorities to act against land seizures

St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology in Steubenville, Ohio. / Credit: Thomas Payeur

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jan 20, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, founded by renowned Scripture scholar and longtime EWTN host Dr…. […]

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles speaks at the USCCB’s fall meeting in Baltimore, Md., Nov. 11, 2019 / Christine Rousselle/CNA

Denver Newsroom, Nov 4, 2021 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

On Thursday, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles discussed the rise of new secular ideologies and movements for social change in the United States during a virtual address to the Congress of Catholics and Public Life in Madrid. 

He asserted that it is “important for the Church to understand and engage these new movements—not on social or political terms, but as dangerous substitutes for true religion.” 

“Today’s critical theories and ideologies are profoundly atheistic,” Gomez said Nov. 4. “They deny the soul, the spiritual, transcendent dimension of human nature; or they think that it is irrelevant to human happiness.”

Gomez’ thesis, he said, is that the new social movements that exist in the U.S., such as “social justice,” “wokeness,” “identity politics,” “intersectionality,” or “successor ideology,” should be understood as “pseudo-religions, and even replacements and rivals to traditional Christian beliefs,” and can result in tribalism. 

“They reduce what it means to be human to essentially physical qualities—the color of our skin, our sex, our notions of gender, our ethnic background, or our position in society,” he said during the address.

“With the breakdown of the Judeo-Christian worldview and the rise of secularism, political belief systems based on social justice or personal identity have come to fill the space that Christian belief and practice once occupied,” Gomez said. 

Gomez approximated today’s social movements to that of Marxism and noted that they resemble other heresies found in Church history. 

“Like the Gnostics, they reject creation and the body,” Gomez said. “They seem to believe that human beings can become whatever we decide to make of ourselves.”

“These movements are also Pelagian, believing that redemption can be accomplished through our own human efforts, without God,” he said.

Gomez criticized groups of people involved in social movements for prioritizing a “global civilization, built on a consumer economy and guided by science, technology, humanitarian values, and technocratic ideas about organizing society,” and that they have “no need for old-fashioned belief systems and religions.” 

Gomez also noted a “shrinking space” that Christians, Church institutions, and Christian businesses are allowed to occupy with the social changes at work.

“We recognize that often what is being canceled and corrected are perspectives rooted in Christian beliefs — about human life and the human person, about marriage, the family, and more,” he said in the address. 

His message, which was delivered in three parts, discussed the global movement of secularization and de-Christianization, and the impact of the pandemic; a spiritual interpretation of the social justice and political identity movements in the U.S.; and evangelical priorities for the Church.

The COVID-19 pandemic, Gomez said, accelerated the pace at which social issues are being addressed, but it was not the pandemic that caused these movements. He referenced the murder of George Floyd as a tragedy that “became a stark reminder that racial and economic inequality are still deeply embedded in our society.”

“The new social movements and ideologies that we are talking about today, were being seeded and prepared for many years in our universities and cultural institutions,” he said. “But with the tension and fear caused by the pandemic and social isolation, and with the killing of an unarmed black man by a white policeman and the protests that followed in our cities, these movements were fully unleashed in our society.” 

Gomez said that, while there are unique conditions in the United States, “similar broad patterns of aggressive secularization” can be seen in Europe. He called those who are active in such movements “an elite leadership class” that “has little interest in religion and no real attachments to the nations they live in or to local traditions or cultures.” 

He suggested that social movements offer an explanation for events that occur in the world, along with a sense of meaning or purpose—space previously occupied by the Christian worldview. 

“Like Christianity, these new movements tell their own ‘story of salvation,’” Gomez said. 

Gomez presented the Christian story of salvation in contrast to what he called the “woke story,” which “draws its strength from the simplicity of its explanations—the world is divided into innocents and victims, allies and adversaries,” he said. 

“Clearly, this is a powerful and attractive narrative for millions of people in American society and in societies across the West,” Gomez said. “In fact, many of America’s leading corporations, universities, and even public schools are actively promoting and teaching this vision.”

Gomez said that people who buy into these social movements are often motivated by noble intentions and “want to change conditions in society that deny men and women their rights and opportunities for a good life.” 

“We all want to build a society that provides equality, freedom, and dignity for every person,” Gomez said. “But we can only build a just society on the foundation of the truth about God and human nature.”

To address the social movements, Gomez said, the Church needs to “proclaim Jesus Christ. Boldly, creatively.” 

“We should not be intimidated by these new religions of social justice and political identity,” he said. “The Gospel remains the most powerful force for social change that the world has ever seen.” 

Gomez said that the Church has “been ‘antiracist’ from the beginning,” but has “not always lived up to our beautiful principles, or carried out the mission entrusted to us by Christ.”

“The world does not need a new secular religion to replace Christianity,” Gomez said. “It needs you and me to be better witnesses. Better Christians. Let us begin by forgiving, loving, sacrificing for others, putting away spiritual poisons like resentment and envy.”

Gomez said he draws inspiration from the lives of U.S. figures such as Dorothy Day and Venerable Augustus Tolton. 

“Father Tolton once said, ‘The Catholic Church deplores a double slavery — that of the mind and that of the body. She endeavors to free us of both,’ Gomez said. “Today, we need this confidence in the power of the Gospel.”

He concluded his address by recognizing an “authentic religious awakening,” in the United States and asked for the continued intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas.

[…]

Pope Francis greets pilgrims at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Apr 12, 2024 / 06:45 am (CNA).

Pope Francis will travel to the Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore later this year, the Vatican announced Friday.

The 11-day multi-country voyage from September 2 to 13 will be the longest international trip of Francis’ papacy.

The trip announcement comes after the 87-year-old pope has slowed down his travel schedule in recent months as health issues have forced him to cancel some public appearances. Francis, who often uses a wheelchair, has not traveled internationally since September 2023.

Indonesia

Pope Francis’ first stop will be Indonesia, home to the largest Muslim population in the world. The country’s 229 million Muslims make up more than 12% of the global Muslim population. Nearly all of Indonesia’s Muslims are Sunni.

Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta welcomed the news that the pope will visit Indonesia from Sept. 3 to 6.

“Catholics throughout Indonesia want to shake hands with the pope one by one, but we all know that is impossible,” Suharyo said in a video message announcing the visit.

More than 29 million Christians live in Indonesia, 7 million of which are Catholic. Pope St. Paul VI visited the country in 1970 and Pope St. John Paul II traveled there in 1989.

“Hopefully, with this visit, Indonesian Catholics will become more courageous in voicing the truth and become an example for people of other religions in terms of truly religious life, namely love above all, as the pope always emphasizes,” the Indonesian cardinal told UCA News.

Papua New Guinea

Pope Francis will be the second pope to visit Singapore, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea after John Paul II.

The pope will visit the cities of Port Moresby and Vanimo in Papua New Guinea from September 6 to 9.

Papua New Guinea is a country of nearly nine million people on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. The other side of the island consists of two Indonesian provinces. Papua New Guinea is a nation of considerable cultural diversity, comprised of hundreds of ethnic groups indigenous to the island with 851 indigenous languages spoken in the country.

Nearly all Papua New Guinea citizens are Christians, and 26% of the population is Catholic.

East Timor

The pope’s next stop on his Southeast Asia tour will be Dili, the capital city of East Timor from September 9 to 11.

East Timor is a small country on the island of Timor. It gained independence from Indonesia in 1999, following decades of bloody conflict as the region vied for national sovereignty.

More than 97% of East Timor’s population of 1 million people are Catholic. It is one of only a few Catholic-majority countries in Southeast Asia.

A Catholic bishop from East Timor, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, received the Nobel Peace Prize together with the country’s second president, Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta, in 1996 for their efforts to reach a peaceful and just end to fighting in the country.

The Vatican confirmed in 2022 that Belo has been under disciplinary restrictions since September 2020 due to accusations of sexual abuse of minors.

Singapore

Pope Francis will conclude his trip with a visit to the island country of Singapore from September 11 to 13.

Singapore has the highest GDP per capita in Asia and the second-highest population density of any country in the world. The Archdiocese of Singapore has a diverse population of 395,000 Catholics, offering Masses predominantly in English, Chinese, Tamil, as well as other languages from Southeast Asia.

Nearly 75% of Singapore’s population is ethnic Chinese, according to the 2020 census, which also lists 13% of the population as ethnic Malay and 9% ethnic Indian.

The U.S. Report on International Religious Freedom states that among ethnic Indians in Singapore, 57.3% are Hindu, 23.4% Muslim, and 12.6% Christian. The ethnic Chinese population includes Buddhists (40.4%), Christians (21.6%), Taoists (11.6%), and 25.7% with no religion.

Pope Francis has long expressed interest in visiting Indonesia and other neighboring island nations in Southeast Asia. A papal trip to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and East Timor was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that the pope’s full schedule for this apostolic journey will be published at a later date.

[…]