Schönborn Admits: Amazon Synod Ignored Real Problems

Over half of Amazon Catholics have become Protestant or left the Faith, Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, a Synod participant, said.

Talking to LaVie.fr (October 27) he admitted that this “was not discussed much,” and “that surprised me a little.” He explains that the reason for this is that “the priest rarely comes to these remote areas while Pentecostals are there.”

This explanation contradicts claims, also repeated by Schönborn later in the interview, that the far-away communities are run by wonderful laypeople and women in total “connectivity with nature” who therefore need to be ordained deacons and priests.

Schönborn says that he was “struck” by a few remarks, made several times, saying that the Pentecostals “proclaim Christ directly” and “we [ultraliberal] Catholics are sometimes too shy in proclaiming.”

Delegates at the Synod noticed that there was a lot of talk about “defending the natives” and little about proclaiming the Gospel, so Schönborn.

Now when the Synod is over, Schönborn says that this [crucial] aspect “would need a clarification.”

Picture: Christoph Schönborn, © Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk, CC BY-NC-SA, #newsPfgfvyscfa