Madrid, Spain, Feb 4, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The bishop of Orihuela-Alicante in Spain, José Ignacio Munilla, warned about the theories spread by Father Pablo d’Ors that suppose a “syncretistic conception of Christianity and Buddhism” and a “crazy interpretation of the Gospel.”
At the request of a group of religion teachers, the Spanish prelate refuted the approach that the priest, founder of the Friends of the Desert association, presented at the first Ibero-American meeting for religion teachers held in Madrid in May 2022 titled “Jesus of Nazareth, Teacher of Consciousness.”
Munilla began by explaining the central idea of d’Ors’ presentation: “We know Jesus through the Scriptures and from the tradition of the Church, but his thesis is that we have to forget all that, because this knowledge we have of Jesus confuses us more than it enlightens us: We have to deconstruct, like start from scratch, to know Jesus.”
The prelate specifically noted that d’Ors advocates that “in the 30 years of hidden life, Jesus most likely did not remain in Nazareth but went to India or other countries where he learned Eastern wisdom” in such a way that he can be described as “a yogi.”
For Munilla, this position constitutes “an assumption that arises from the projection of an ideology onto Jesus, or a syncretistic theory between Christianity and Buddhism, which, as it has no basis in the Gospels, has to force a crazy interpretation of the Gospel.”
“To affirm that Jesus’ wisdom comes from his stay in India or Tibet before beginning his public life at 30 years of age is a lack of respect for the Gospels and also hides other errors, for example an erroneous conception of Christology,” he added.
In this regard, he pointed out that to affirm that “it doesn’t seem reasonable to maintain that Jesus learned this wisdom directly from God his father” as d’Ors claimed, clashes head-on with the Scriptures, as in the Gospel according to St. John (5:19-20; 7:16-17, or 12:49).
For the prelate, the priest “projects onto Jesus his claim to fuse Christianity and Buddhism, and for that he needs it to be true that Jesus’ wisdom does not come from the Father but from India or Tibet.”
“In no way is there room to extract from the Gospels the nonsense that Jesus was a yogi. Because, in addition to being false, it represents a great Christological error,” Munilla emphasized.
Secondly, with regard to d’Ors’ statements, the prelate addressed the idea expressed by the priest in his bestseller “Biography of Silence” that “Jesus is a wise man who helps us to know ourselves and to discover that within us is all the truth, goodness, and beauty to which man aspires.”
Munilla explained that “the Gospel does not record a word from Jesus that says ‘whoever has seen me has seen himself.’ The Gospel says: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ Jesus is the one who reveals the Father. Knowing God intimately is a supernatural knowledge that God reveals.”
This error about revelation leads to a third affirmation that, according to the bishop, is contrary to Catholic doctrine.
D’Ors said that “we call this metaphor of the kingdom of God unitary consciousness. We are one. Let all be one as you in me and I in you, says Jesus. A non-dual unitary consciousness.”
In response to this, Munilla recalled that “the Christian faith proclaims that our encounter with God is a personal encounter, one on one,” which implies a duality.
“If it were unitary, we would be [entering into] Buddhism because there is no concept of a personal God with whom you speak, but rather everything is reduced to reaching a state of nirvana in which you encounter yourself and the entire universe,” he explained.
For the prelate, the proposal to get beyond the biblical paradigm of the personal God, also defended by authors such as Jesuit Father Xavier Melloni, is equivalent to “denying the most specific aspect of the Judeo-Christian revelation,” which involves the covenant of love with a personal God and tries to reinterpret Christianity in an effort “to fuse Christianity and Zen in the parameters of the New Age.”
This claim, he added, “cannot be carried out without seriously betraying the uniqueness of Christianity, without emptying it of content, without turning one’s back on the very ontology of Jesus Christ.”
The bishop of Orihuela-Alicante encouraged people to delve deeper into these issues by reading the document from the Spanish Bishops’ Conference “Theology and Secularization in Spain” as well as “Jesus Christ, Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the New Age,” prepared by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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That Fr Pablo D’Ors, heretic extraordinaire [what else if Jesus is made to be a disciple of the Buddha] is simply admonished by Bishop Munilla speaks to how weak and vulnerable we’ve become. Then after all we’ve had worship services at the Vatican for the goddess of the Andes. Where have all the exorcists gone? Selling books every one.
The name might constitute fighting words for some, but allow me to take the risk and mention it anyway. Even Thomas Merton, in his farthest-out-on-a-limb dreams of fusing Catholicism with Zen, never went so far as to suggest that Jesus learned His wisdom in the East. (Actually, several years ago I read some of Merton’s “Zen” writings. Though I can see how they might have raised eyebrows 60 years ago, I found them fairly tame, even to some degree restrained.)
What is the problem with the weakness of this Bishop that he would not discipline this priest, forbid him from publicly spreading this heresy, and even move to remove him from the priesthood if he persist in this error? Why has he essentially done NOTHING to stop this in it’s tracks? I have heard people suggest unfounded lunacy that Jesus was an alien too. Such crazy assertions have no proof, and certainly no biblical evidence. Therefore the question remains why do the bishops allow such people to continue to spread such errors among the gullible with no consequence? Pathetic.
That’s a very astute observation as well as a disturbing one and it would not be so disturbing if this was an isolated case. I guess the Bishop is emulating the pontiff who’s embraced and affirmed similar heresies. Compare this to how St Paul reprimanded Peter after he committed a far less serious offense (Playing favorites and carrying on a pretense) I’m sorry to say that the current state of the Church has strayed far away from following the examples set out in the Gospel’s and Epistles
How active has the Holy Spirit been in the history of the world’s peoples? The Holy Spirit is our counselor whisper what each ought to do and what each ought not to do promoting virtue, rejecting vice, promoting the good rather than evil, promoting wisdom in accordance with Natural Law and Reason at the expense of ignorance.
Bible scholar Bart Ehrman has an informative and entertaining blog posting about the origin of the idea that Jesus went to India: Did Jesus Go to India? A Modern Gospel Forgery.
Excerpt (link omitted):
One of the most widely disseminated modern forgeries is called The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ.[2] From this account, we learn that Jesus went to India during his formative teen years, the “lost years” before his public ministry, and there learned the secrets of the East. The book made a big splash when it appeared in English in 1926; but as it turns out, it had already been exposed as a fraud more than thirty years earlier. The reading public, it is safe to say, has a short attention span.
Just a verbal rap of the knuckles? If he was offering the Mass of the Ages, suspension and removal to the lay state no bother!!! Look, the only true yogi was the one who found Nirvana through picnic baskets!!