Infanticide in the Amazon. There Are Those Who Defend It, Even in the Church

At the jam-packed press conference on Tuesday October 8 on the synod for the Amazon, the Swiss journalist Giuseppe Rusconi posed the following question:

“One of the leitmotifs of this synod is the representation of the Indian peoples as if they dwelt in the earthly paradise before original sin. They are lauded for their primitive purity and exalted for their harmonious relationship with nature. From them we are supposed to learn to coexist with the environment. However, still today, around twenty of the Amazonian peoples practice infanticide. And on a website of the Brazilian episcopal conference there appears a contribution in which this practice is justified. So I am asking if for you human rights have a universal application, or if they are valid for some and not for others.”

The first to reply was one of the twelve “special guests” at the synod - on a par with Ban Ki-Moon, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Hans J. Schellnhuber  - the Filipina Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpuz, special rapporteur at the United Nations on the rights of indigenous populations, who recognized that “not all the indigenous, the original peoples, are perfect.” And she added: “Some have practices not consistent with human rights. We have discussed the question at length. In the declaration of the UN it is emphasized that, if states must respect the rights of the indigenous populations, the indigenous must act in such a way that their traditions may be in keeping with international law on human rights. The indigenous have said that they will seek to change certain traditions of theirs.”

After her spoke Peruvian cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimenez, archbishop of Huancayo, Jesuit, vice-president of the pan-Amazonian ecclesial network and co-president of the synod, who also recognized that “it’s not all a bed of roses with the indigenous peoples.” For which one cannot speak of “primitive purity, because that would mean disowning human nature,” and yet “we must recognize their ancestral wisdom, because they have enriched this biome which Europe is using.”

Then, however, the cardinal denied that the Amazonian populations practice infanticide: “I have never heard of it.” And, taking off his headphones, he added that “those who make such statements must present docuмentary evidence.” He did however observe that “every human life is sacred. If someone affirms that  such practices are possible, he is disowning the message of the Gospel. One must defend life always.” And he stated: “I have been evangelized by the Indians, and they continue to evangelize me.” At the end of the press conference, while conversing, Cardinal Barreto once again refused to believe that on a webste of the Brazilian Church a statement has been published in defense of infanticide among the Indians.

But he was wrong. At dawn the following day, Rusconi put online on his blog “Rossoporpora” precisely that “docuмentary evidence” which Cardinal Barreto was demanding, and which he condensed as follows, in four points:

1. The Brazilian parliament is discussing the bill PL 1057/2007 by member of parliament Henrique Afonso, which aims to prohibit the practice of infanticide in indigenous areas. The proposal was approved by the chamber of deputies on August 26 2015 with 361 for and 84 against. Now the senate is considering it. In the debate, which was rather lively, the universal rights of the human person recognized by the Brazilian constitution were contrasted with the rights of the Indian communities, in particular the most isolated, to preserve their practices and customs. The opposition to the bill was made up above all of anthropologists extreme in their devotion to Indian identity.

2. Among the best-known anthropologists n opposition to bill PL 1057/2007 is Rita Laura Segato of the University of Brasilia, whose statement before the human rights commission of the chamber of deputies can still be read on the website of the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI), “organismo vinculado à Conferência de Bispos do Brasil.” The title of Segato’s hearing is: “Que cada povo trame os fios da sua história [That every people may weave the strands of its history],” the text of which states among other things: “What state is there today that presumes to legislate on how the indigenous peoples must protect their children? What authority does such a state have?”

3. That infanticide is a practice still in use among some indigenous peoples of the Amazon has been noted by the sociologist and anthropologist Giuseppe Bonazzi during a visit to the Consolata missionaries among the Yanomami people. Interviewed by “la Repubblica” on November 16 2010, Bonazzi said: “Among this people the frailest newborns, or those the mother cannot attend to because she is still occupied with the siblings born before, are not accepted and they die.” And this is the opening of another article published on “Lettera 43” with the title “Will Brazil change the law that allows the indigenous to kill children?” “Some indigenous tribes in Brazil practice infanticide. And as strange as it may seem, Brazilian law permits them to do so. Now, however, the South American country is discussing a bill that, if approved, could make this practice unlawful. The debate is very heated. […] The journalist Cleuci de Oliveira has written an interesting analysis for ‘Foreign Policy.’ It must be said however that the issue concerns only a minority of the Brazilian tribes: according to the estimate of ‘Foreign Policy,’ only 20 groups out of about 300 practice it: among these are the Yanomami and the Suruwaha.”

4. “O infanticídio indígena” is the object of numerous comments on the Brazilian legal website “Jus.” One reads for example in the introduction to a statement of October 2017: “The traditional practice of ‘indigenous infanticide’ consists in the homicide of creatures undesired by the group, and is common to various Brazilian tribes.” And in the conclusion: “In no way can the right to cultural diversity legitimize the violation of the right to life. Thus any attempt to justify the practice of infanticide cannot find support in any international legislation.” Moreover, the Brazilian newspaper “O Globo” published on December 7 of 2014 the results of a survey on the Yanomami. The survey confirms that, when a child is born, the mother goes with the child into the forest, examines the child, and if he has a disability, normally returns home alone. Or: if there are twins, the mother acknowledges only one. The act of acknowledgement is symbolized by breastfeeding, and the child is then considered as a living being by the community.

*
That’s all for the docuмentation published by Rusconi at dawn on Wednesday October  9. Meanwhile, however, in Brazil someone has tried to run damage control.

And how? By removing from the website of the CIMI, the indigenist missionary organism “vinculado” with the Brazilian episcopal conference, none other than the text cited by Rusconi at point 2, meaning the statement of the anthropologist Rita Laura Segato to the human rights commission of the chamber of deputies, in defense of infanticide.

Today, in fact, this statement is no longer there. But there has been left on full display, on the same website of the CIMI, another article, entitled “Estudo contesta criminalização do infanticídio indígena,” in which Segato, commenting on the essay of one of her fellow anthropologists, Marianna Holanda, calls the bill intended to ban infanticide “uma forma de ‘calúnia’ aos povos indígenas.”

In any case, the twelve pages of Segato’s statement against bill PL 1057/2007 are in the possession of Rusconi and of Settimo Cielo, photocopied before their disappearance from the website of the Conselho Indigenista Missionário of the Brazilian Church.

Condividi:


http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2019/10/09/infanticide-in-the-amazon-there-are-those-who-defend-it-even-in-the-church/

This is why we need to evangelize them. "Preach the Gospel to all the world." - Jesus

The United Nations is for infanticide...
Didn’t Pope Francis award and praise abortionists?

In regards to evangelization, the fact that most Catholics don’t know the basics of their faith prove not much leading people to Jesus.  The hierarchy of the synod has no intention of evangelizing but only to adopt and promote paganism and ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity.  There were two naked pregnant woman statues.  The future is female is the new slogan.  That is why there is push for women priestesses.  And once that door opens for married priests, it will lead to married sodomites clergy.  

I think new-rome is just trying to re-capture the South American people, many, many of whom have become Protestants.  There's lots of money to be made if they can get them back in the pews.  Pandering to their "uniqueness" by creating a new rite is a great marketing strategy.  It's all about $...

They should call it the Aztec Rite.

They have to remember Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Even the atheistic drug lords will have you hunted down if you speak ill of her.

Yes, Our lady of Guadalupe, who stamped out the stone serpent.

They are saying that with the coming of the Catholic Faith infanticide is being wiped out.

A bishop of a diocese in Brazil has said reports about infanticide being carried out by some indigenous peoples were “shocking,” but that he was unaware of any such practices continuing among the indigenous people who are part of his flock.
Speaking to reporters at the Vatican today during a break in the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region, Bishop Wilmar Santin of Itaituba, Brazil, acknowledged infanticide was a practice of the past, and that although he has not witnessed it in his diocese, was unable to say if it continues “for other peoples.”
The issue of infanticide has become a focus of discussions in the media after it emerged that the practice is continuing among possibly as many as 20 indigenous peoples in the Amazon.
Amazonian chief Jonas Marcolino Macuxí also told the Register and a Rome conference this month that infanticide is still practiced, and that it had been dying out until liberation theologians arrived in the region in the 1970s.
Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimenez told reporters Tuesday he was unaware the practice was still occurring, and challenged the media to produce evidence.
Swiss Vatican journalist Giuseppe Rusconi then published four pieces of docuмented evidence (translated here in English by Italian Vaticanist Sandro Magister).

In his comments, Bishop Santin explained how serious the practice was among the Munduruku people of his diocese until religious sisters, many working as nurses, “slowly made sure the practices disappeared completely.” He said the Munduruku people are a “bellicose” people who, before the missionaries arrived, “cut off the heads” of enemies and “took them as trophies.”

Bishop Medardo de Jesús Henao Del Río, the apostolic vicar of Mitú, Colombia, told reporters that before missionaries arrived in his diocese in 1914, children with defects were “left to die, eaten by animals or ants.” Then the Church arrived and set up “shelters for these children” and priests started “visiting communities and forming people on these topics.”
They tried to show them, he said, “that there wasn’t an evil spirit that had damaged the child, and so they then stopped carrying out these practices.”
Bishop Del Río said “semi-nomadic groups” also welcome and no longer reject twins or children with Down syndrome, although he recalled the case of a girl with epilepsy and another who had a tumor on her ear where the parents would not let priests visit them.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/amazon-synod-day-4

As President of the Vatican Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, the issues currently being discussed at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, are very close to Cardinal Peter Turkson.
Pope Francis called for this Special Synodal Assembly in 2017 indicating that the main objective is “to find new ways for the evangelization of that portion of the People of God, especially the indigenous, often forgotten and without a perspective of a good future, also for the cause of the crisis of the Amazonian forest, lung of fundamental importance for our planet”.
Speaking on the side-lines of the Synod at the start of its second week, Cardinal Turkson told Linda Bordoni that the Dicastery he heads was involved in planning for it from day one.
For me, Cardinal Turkson explained, the Synod is like a link in a chain and he said it’s been quite a long time that he has been following its development, starting with the first meetings between Pope Francis and the Popular Movements.
With the Popular Movements, he said, the focus was primarily on three basic rights: access to land, access to housing and access to work..
Here at the Synod, he continued, many of the same issues have come to light and directly regard the indigenous peoples.
“What are they looking for? Integrity of their land, jobs and ultimately human dignity,” he said.
Cardinal Turkson also spoke of the precious collaboration that has taken place between his Dicastery and the nine Churches of the Amazon region that make up the ecclesial network REPAM.  
“For us, we see a progression stimulated by Pope Francis,” he said.
The Synod is part of an ongoing process
Cardinal Turkson said that it is “a keen sense of interest in the evolution and development of everything that has happened up to this moment” that he is following the Synodal process, and he stressed “It is not a point of arrival.”
He noted that discussions and interventions are bring to the fore many different issues, “some pastoral, some social, some developmental”.
From the point of view of his Dicastery, he said that although his team is deeply involved in the pastoral needs of the people, it is also very much aware of their other needs as well.
The Cardinal said that while it is important to help the indigenous peoples safeguard their culture and their heritage, the Amazon region must not be considered a  museum: “we must help the people of the Amazon to open up”.
Leaving no one behind
“We must help them open up to modernity, to innovation, to development, “ he said, “The people of Amazonia, he said, must not be left behind”.
Cardinal Turkson expressed his belief that the Church’s pastoral concerns must include a clear vision and a programme that facilitates and promotes the growth of Amazonians in the realms of modernity and innovation .
He mentioned the possibility, for example, of offering all peoples the choice of being able to use solar energy and modern means of communications.
“I suspect that mobile phones are there… how do they charge them?” he said.
We need, he said, to recognize the very many factors that promote development and the common good, not betraying their culture, but making life easier and more fulfilling for them.
“This is also part of the vision that I think we need to set ourselves to realizing,” he concluded

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-10/amazon-synod-cardinal-turkson-integral-human-development.html

what I would like to know is what will be the reaction of these people if after opening up they decide to develop in a way that is not "ecologically approved."