The Decline of the Catholic Church in Latin America Accelerates Under Francis

 

The decline of Catholics in Latin America continues unabated. It increased under Pope Francis.

(Rome) For decades, Latin America was considered a “continent of hope” for the Catholic Church. In fact, it is losing ground there day by day. The reasons are complex but partly homemade. At the 2013 conclave, a well-meaning section of the pope's electorate was convinced that the election of the Argentine to the throne of Peter would halt the process of erosion. This was suggested to them by interested parties. The reality looks not only sobering but devastating. The most visible “response” so far has been the Amazon Synod. Church leadership seriously believes that this is the solution. Meanwhile, Catholic Latin America continues to erode.

The election of Pope Francis was engineered by European cardinals who were not primarily concerned with Latin America, but with the West. Their program is that of the '68, which they want to push through in their own countries. To do this, they chose the detour via Latin America. The Amazon Synod was driven by the same agenda. There is talk of Indians and the rain forest on the equator, but the desired program is that of the ecclesiastical 68ers with the aim of pushing through their agenda somewhere outside the European horizon in order to then re-import it into the old Occident. This strategy follows a clear logic after the direct route was recognized as having failed.

The eroding process of the Church in Latin America as far as the part of the Church is concerned, goes back to the wrong course that was set by European missionaries on the Iberian-influenced subcontinent. This includes, above all, Marxism and its thought pattern. This is how Liberation Theology developed and other currents. They are accompanied by a latent or open hostility to Europe. A paradox? It seems so. In reality, it reflects a partly consciously, partly unconsciously intentional decomposition, as practiced in Europe. It is the rejection of one's own identity, carried out with gradually varying degrees of intensity, and thus radically or to some extent also of Christianity, in Europe as well as in Latin America. 

The fact that the 500th anniversary of Christianization is partly "forgotten" is an alarming portent, after all, it was only then that civilization found its way onto the continent. In 1492 the discovery by Columbus, a man of deep Catholic character, was commemorated. However, the commemoration was overshadowed by polemical interference.

In 2019, the Mexican bishops extended an invitation to Pope Francis to come to Mexico for the 500th anniversary of the evangelization of mainland America. The first church on the American mainland was built in Tlaxcala in 1521 and dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. However, Pope Francis showed no interest in traveling to the celebrations – and that had nothing to do with Corona, which then messed everything up a bit.

The Tlaxcaltecs could never be subdued by the cruel Aztecs. It is historically no coincidence that they allied themselves with the Spaniards and also quickly mixed with them through marriages. Together, the Spanish-Tlaxcaltec coalition defeated the Aztec Empire and ended its cruel cult of human sacrifice and cannibalism.

While the occasion was not sufficient for Pope Francis to travel to Latin America, Mexico's leftist leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, called for an apology from the Church to the "native peoples" (the term indigenous is used by political correctness is avoided) – for Christianization. However, the same Obrador considers Pope Francis to be “one of the finest popes” in Church history.

media and source

Telemundo, part of NBCUniversal ( USA), the third-largest media company in the world, and other media outlets, yesterday published reports on the decline of the Catholic Church in Latin America. The headline and tenor of Telemundo are exaggerated. No regrets can be expected from the authors. Rather, they indicate that the Church opposed abortion and euthanasia, but that its erosion entails socio-political changes. Thus, with the help of massive and planned pressure from the US and European NGOs, several states have legalized the killing of unborn children and "gay marriage". The same movement is also taking place toward the introduction of euthanasia.

The published figures come from Latinobarómetro and are certainly worth considering, albeit with a caveat. The market and opinion research institute based in Santiago de Chile is described by Wikipedia as an "independent private non-profit organization", but where it says "independent" today, independence is rarely to be found. Founder and Director Marta Lagos serve on the Chilean Board of Directors of Women's World Banking ( headquartered in New York), Advisor to the World Bank based in Washington, the United Nations Development Program UNDP based in New York, the Inter-American Development Bank Washington-based IADB and member of a UN Expert Committee on Public Opinion. The advisory board of Latinobarómetro includes a representative from Eurobarometer, a not at all "independent" institution of the EU Commission.

UNDP and IADB, the Ibero-American Summit OEI and the Development Bank of Latin America CAF, as well as the Norwegian and Swedish governments, are among Latinobarómetro's major donors.

The latest numbers

Latinobarómetro compares the development from 2000 to 2020 in ten-year steps. The number of Latin Americans who describe themselves as Catholic fell from 76 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2010 and 57 percent in 2020. This is double the decline compared to the previous decade.

In return, the Protestants and the non-religious have grown. The proportion of Protestants in Brazil grew from 13 percent (2000) to 25 percent (2020). If you add the proportion of those who waver, according to other institutes, the proportion of Protestants in the largest Latin American country is as high as 31 percent. In Guatemala, their share has even risen from 19 percent to 41 percent since 2000, while that of Catholics has fallen to 41 percent.

At the survey's launch in Mexico City on Wednesday, the only reason given for this development was that "young people now have a wider range of options to choose from," that Protestant groups have increased their recruitment; that New Age movements incorporate pre-Columbian traditions and that faith in the Catholic Church is at an all-time low.

Nevertheless, Catholicism continues to be influential because it is socially rooted in culture and folklore, "even among non-practicing people". This even applies to Uruguay, the least Catholic country in Latin America, where only 34 percent call themselves Catholics. Nevertheless, Catholic holidays are held, such as Holy Week, which has been called “Tourism Week” since 1919, when a law of strict separation of Church and state came into force.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : Wikicommons/MiL

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Lutheran Church: "Homosexuality is Part of Creation"

Edit: despite the fact that there are quite a few German Catholic Bishops pushing for  the legalization of aberrosexual marriage, it's going to be very difficult to justify the upcoming ecumenical celebrations celebrating the Protestant Revolt. Here's the translation from Junge Freiheit:

[Darmstadt] The Synod of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN) has largely assimilated the blessing of homosexual couples with the traditional marriage of a man and woman. As the EKHN announced on Saturday, the Synod decided to upgrade the blessing of same-sex partnerships.

The intention of the Church Parliament for such blessings are to be certified in the future church records. It will also consider whether the ceremony can also be called a marriage.

"Homosexuality can be seen as part of creation"

Delivered up by a large majority in the regulations of the Synod, it is described by Hessian Broadcasting, among other things: "Today, it is assumed that the same-sex orientation belongs to the natural conditions of life. Homosexuality can be seen as part of creation. "

Church President Volker Jung praised the decision of the Synod for the blessing: "Here the current practice of the blessings of registered partnerships which is consistently integrated into the portion of the ceremony," he said. The Protestant understanding are both acts of blessing and not [yet] sacraments. (Krk)

Link to Junge Freiheit [One of Germany's conservative political weeklies.]...

Leftist Bishop Assigned to Diocese of 250,000 Catholics in Feldkirch

Fr. Elbs was the desired candidate of the media. As the anti-Catholic newspaper "Der Standard” saw it in the autumn of 2012, he should have become the Bishop of Graz-Seckau. But now it’s the bishop of Feldkirch.

Left birth certificate holder, hopes for a change of course in the diocese by Bishop Elbs [screen shot: Presseconferenz / vol]

Fear of “Conservative Bishop" Ends

This means that the "fear" for another conservative bishop is over, who had expressed in a letter to the nuncio from 2,300 holders of a Catholic baptismal certificates. They had made statements against Fr. Thomas Fields, a priest of the "Spiritual Family The Work", and against Fr. Anton Lasser, founder of the conservative radio station "Radio Horeb" and head of the seminary Leopoldinum in the monastery of Heiligenkreuz.

The left and anti-church camp hopes for the "golden boy" Bishop Elbs would cause the "Orthodox cells,  conjured by (Bishop) Fisher, [will] go again."

“At last, the Allgäu boasts an ultra-Catholic broadcasting station in the country, Lefebvre supporters celebrate their Latin Masses, SSPX brothers have their followers, and the discrete network of Opus Dei has not fled Lower Austria with Klaus Küng," thunders a pro-Semitic newspaper.

As we learn from the Episcopate

Fr. Elbs addresses in a press conference on 8 May 2013 in Vorarlberg his appointment as bishop of Feldkirch, a small diocese established in 1968 with almost 250,000 Catholics.

With an "Buona sera I can’t well say, so instead I say Grüss Gott", said Fr.Elbs at the press conference. Within, he was going "haywire".

It was "a little downer" for a Bregenzerwälder as one put it, that he was just in Montafon. After a church service with the Linz (Auxiliary) Bishop Ludwig, he learned "in a parking lot with beautiful flowering trees” that in a call from the Nunciature,  he was appointed bishop.

Whether or not all traffic regulations were met on the way back to Feldkirch, he did not know.

Gratitude of the new bishop

He feels great gratitude for the many people who are involved in the Diocese of Feldkirch. He thanks his parents and all the “close companion and companions", also  "Bishop Elmar (Fischer) as his predecessor Bishop".

Important to him personally were:

• "That the Church has essentially the order to make the kindness of God visible to the people and what moves people - the fears, the hopes, the joy - that are also places, situations where the Church has a place and I am pleased that the new Pope Francis here in a very spontaneous and good job reaching out to people is with them, accompanying them and strengthening them. That is the one, which is very important to me at this moment, to say so.
• And the second is the friendship with God or the friendship of Christ. I must make the experience personal in life and also know from many conversations with people in different life situations, that this friendship with God, this relationship with God carries them, gives them support, is hope, is a perspective, opened a horizon of hope, and that is something that I very much wish for our diocese that we can continue to go well on the way in this sense. "

“For me it’s become completely personally important to me, Blessed Carl Lampert (note: he was the highest-ranking cleric who was executed by the National Socialists; beatification on 13 November 2011) since the beatification - then I promised that I would pilgrimage every day to Göfis until the issue of the bishop is settled in Feldkirch  that I had to drive so often to Mont Fort, I had not considered." 

Career

Hw. Elbs was born in 1960 in Bregenz, he attended  Bregenz Bundesgymnasium, then he studied theology in Innsbruck with a thesis (1986) about: “Penance instruction and religious education: a critical analysis of current teaching materials and catechetical / religious education aspects for a responsible practice."

In 1982 Fr. Elbs concluded the study of psychology. He received a diploma in Logotherapy and Existential Analysis by Viktor Frankl.

He was ordained a priest by Bishop Bruno Wechner 16 May 1986, then a chaplain in Bregenz Mariahilf and religion teacher.

By Bishop Küng first as a chaplain in (1989), held the Diocesan Boarding School the Marianum (rector from 1990), and the Pastoral Office.

From 1993, he also worked as a psychotherapist.

In April 2003 Fr. Elbs was chaplain to His Holiness. Two years later, on July 4th 2005, Bishop Elmar Fischer appointed him Vicar General. Since 2008, Fr. Elbs carries the dignity of prelate.

Since 16 November 2011, he led the diocese after election by the College of Consultors of the Diocese of Feldkirch as diocesan administrator.

The consecration as bishop of Feldkirch is on 30 June 2013 was performed by Archbishop Alois Kothgasser, Cardinal Schönborn and the Nuncio Archbishop Zurbriggen. The left ORF is so pleased, that it has transmuted his consecration as bishop on Austrian television.

The new bishop

When the (from now on, old) Bishop Fischer described homosexuality as in reality as curable, Fr. Elbs soothed the media's aberrosexual lobby by relativizing the episcopal statement.

The new Bishop sees himself as a "team player", a renewal of the Church "must come from below," says the left's quote from him. He hopes for a stronger "dialogic interaction".

"Small communities to read the Bible together and become socially engaged" to help conceal the priest shortage. There are "base communities" of the Church to breathe additional life. Let us recall here a warning of St. Curé of Ars: "Leave a church 20 years without a priest, and they will pray to animals ..."

Bishop Elbs expressly presented the leftist Bishop Erwin Kräutler as a model.

Cardinal Schönborn said to the newly appointed "It is an encouraging signal that the first episcopal appointment in the German speaking world by Pope Francis is a man who will truly act in his country very credibly and well beyond the borders of the church also." - Apparently the previously appointed Bishops do not  seem "really very credible."

In 2011, Fr. Elbs spoke against sanctions against Schüller’s break-from-Rome pastor, he pled for "talks".

The  non-occupation of the papal apartments by Pope Francis has found in Hw. Elbs a copycat: In the Bishopric, a villa on the Hirschgraben, the newly appointed bishop would not occupy it since he had already decided he wanted to "live as simply as the average in Vorarlberg".

In an interview with the “Vorarlberg news" Fr. Elbs himself the  questions that have been resolved recently and validly in Rome, such as being evasive about  the impossibility of women priests. On the question whether the “moratorium on discussion" decreed by Pope John Paul II still applies, he answers evasively, probably with a different position than the teaching of the Church, it states: "The most important thing is - I maintain - the culture of free speech. The bottom line is that you have to discuss all the issues. "

Similarly, the expressions of celibacy with references to former Anglican or Orthodox, who had converted to Catholicism, married priests.

A bishop who expressed here as ambiguously as this,  just does not show his conformity with Rome.

Appointments in Graz and Salzburg

In the Diocese of Graz-Seckau, more precisely, the press secretary of the Diocese, Plank, has also clarified the issue of succession in the Archdiocese of Salzburg and below expected in the foreseeable future in Graz-Seckau.


Link to kreuz.net….

Jesuit Superior General Reduces the Jesuits to an NGO in his Recent Sermon

Edit: While the SSPX and other Traditionalist societies are growing, the Jesuits are not only scaling back their commitment to Catholicism, but they’re all scheduled to retire by 2018 in Spain.

(Madrid) What happened to the glorious order of the Jesuits, from the spiritual forces of God on earth, the Order to its founder, the former Spanish Captain Ignacio de Loyola, organized like an army that fought in close formation, and in which every soldier a lone fighter?

The Order was feared for centuries. But his mention in some circles sparked reactions, inferior to none in Catholic circles as Freemason saying goes.

What became of the Order, that won all countries in missions or won back to the Church those lost, and almost accomplished the Christianization of China and Japan?

Its spiritual power and thus its influence was so great that they had the mighty Bourbon rulers in their corner and not just because they met the economic interests of a few grandees, stood in the way with their Indian Reductions and their defense of the dignity of the Indians. The Order survived its ban from 1773 to 1814 in the underground, existing openly only in Orthodox Russia.

The formation of a Jesuit takes much longer than in other orders. And Yet!

The signs of decay and exhaustion leaves the largest Catholic religious organization to shrink more and more. A proverb says: There is nothing, where at least one Jesuit doesn’t have his fingers in the game. So the Jesuits were heralded and outstanding defenders of the Catholic faith, but for some decades there is hardly a bizarre byway, where even the Jesuit would not tread.

The situation in Spain, the heartland of the Order, is dramatic. In 2014, the five historical religious provinces of Spain are to be merged into a single province. Currently in Spain there are still 1,393 Jesuits, a large number, but their average age is 70. Many can not or only exercise their office to a very limited extent. In five years, the Order in Spain reaching the age limit of 75 years and will probably number less than 1000 members. 2018 will force the Order to that magical retirement threshold introduced by Pope Paul VI..

The Order is leaderless. The great absentee, the "Black Pope" Adolfo Nicolas Pachon, who is the 30th General of the Order since 2008 directs the fortunes of the Society of Jesus. He seems no less absent, as God the great absentee in Nicolas' recent sermon last Sunday in Valladolid (full text) is.

According to the General’s recent sermon pdf, the Order of the Jesuits is reduced to a humanitarian NGO, whose purpose is to help others, but not to lead them to God. This is remarkable, because Pope Francis, who joined the Jesuit Order himself, has repeatedly rejected the Church's role as an NGO. In his order, the words of the Pope, have not reached the General and his fellow brothers. For Father Nicolas reduces the spiritual life to an absolute minimum, but rather a life in which everyone actually does what he wants, because everything is inspired by God somehow.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi Image: La cigüeña de la torre Translation: Tancred

Link to source katholisches…

AMGD

Newbytes: Archbishop Says Homosexual Politicians Should Stay Away from Communion

Archbishop:  Homosexual Politicians Should Stay Away From Communion

USA.  Catholics and especially Catholic politicians, who support homosexual causes, should not come to Communion.  This was what Archbishop John Myers (71) wrote to the 300,000 population city of Newark in New Jersey in a Pastoral Letter on the Feast of the Holy Cross on the 14th of September.  Msgr Myers finds it dishonest to go to Communion and deny the teaching of the Church.  Christ has strongly condemned people who lead others into error.

Thanks the Inactivity of the Bishops

Germany.  In the Diocese of Munich and Freising, there are 24 priests and deacons who've just established the dissident club "Munich Circle".  This was reported by the German Church-tax agency 'KNA'.  Many of these clergy are inactive.  The ring leader is the Old Liberal Parish Administrator Christoph Nobs of the 20,000 population community of Ottobrunn in the Upper Bavarian suburb of Munich.  The group is made of other dissident socieites from Passau, Limburg or Austria.  Fr. Nobs favors a less "bitter" approach than other Old Liberals.

Navy Against Abortion Ship

Morocco.  A Moroccan warship has intercepted the abortion ship 'Women on Waves' and blocked its path.  The ship was sent by progressive countries, which claim to save human life actually murder children.  A Moroccan police order is preventing on land  monstrous Moroccan abortion propagandists from coming to the ship.

Cardinal: Anti-Catholic Charity Society Rebuffed

Canada.  Catholic aid organizations may directly or indirectly support abortion and contraception in developing countries.  This was explained by Cardinal Peter Turkson, the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, at a meeting of the Canadian Bishops' Conference.  It is yet to be seen if the words of he Cardinal will not have some effect.  The Canadian Catholic aid organization 'Development and Peace', which belongs to the international 'Caritas', finances the murder of children in the Third World.

Council of Catastrophe: Decline Without End

"The lower birth rate has manifested itself in a decline of the number of priests. In 1990 there were 19,707 priests, in 2011 there were 14,800.  In this time frame the number of church members has also shrunk from 28.2 million to 24.2 millions, still not at the same rate as the priesthood.  In the year 2010 126 young men in German wanted to become Catholic priests.  Ten years previously there were almost twice as many.  In the Archdiocese of Berlin there wasn't a single priest ordained."

From an article in the anti-Church Berlin news, 'Tagesspiegel'.

Link to kreuz.net...

Nuncio Complains that German Church Does Not Listen to the Pope

Bonn (kath.,net/KNA)  The ambassador of the Pope in Germany is concerned about the future of the Catholic Church in the Bundesrepublik.  "The Pope suffers from an persistently closed attitude toward him in Germany," said the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Jean-Claude Perisset, in an interview published in the "Zeit" on Wednesday.  It is a "great loss", that the Church in Germany hears the Pope so little.

The Nuncio expressed himself critically about the dialog process in the Catholic Church. "Conflict in the Church is the wrong way.  But dialog is not a conflict, but the opposite".  Whoever only values his own position,  doesn't engage in dialog.  It would be a courageous step of the Bishops, to seek a discussion with the people of the Church.  "Only those who want to turn the Church on its head, are those who do not want dialog."

With a view to the debate surrounding the Kirchensteuer [Church tax], the Nuncio said, the Church in the Bundesrepublik is "sometimes is too concerned with managing resources and forgets the announcing of the good news.".  As to the question for the reason for empty churches and few priestly vocations Perisset recalled that this is not a malfunction of the institution of the Church;  the reasons lay in the mentality of people and in erroneous beliefs.  "We need a new culture of community, of believing together.  For that reason we need also great celebrations like World Youth Day or Papal Masses in the Olympiastadion.  They show: you are not alone."

At the same time, Perisset insisted that the Church must adjust itself in its announcing the faith in today's environment.  "We say things that people don't understand any more.  We must return to the basic elements of the Faith and freshly explain these with simple words in colorful language."  The restoration of the faith has to "come again from the family, so that we might remake the Church.  If the grandparents don't take their grandchildren along, if the adults do not discuss the faith, if the faith is not developed in the family, then there is no future."

Link to kathnet....