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Did you know that in several native Indian tribes in Brazil,
newly-born children are buried alive, strangled, or simply
abandoned in the jungle to die?
* Did you know
that the Government agency charged with helping
the Indians, the FUNAI (Fundação Nacional do Índio – National Foundation
for Indian Affairs) agrees with this hideous practice, in the
name of respect for “Indian culture”?
* Did you know
that the Catholic agency charged with helping the Indians (the
CIMI – Conselho Indigenista Missionário – Missionary
Indian Council) agrees with the FUNAI approach to infanticide
and refuses to help the Indians to abandon such practices?
The
denunciations are many. The
facts are easily verifiable. The
truth is there for all to see. Only
those choosing to blind themselves cannot
(or refuse to)
see. Many Indian themselves are
already opposed to the killing. Nevertheless,
both FUNAI and CIMI ignore them and
oppose a bill that aims to stop infanticide.
Since the
Brazilian government wants to legalize
abortion in Brazil, it is understandable that FUNAI be in favor
of infanticide in the name of respect for the “Indian culture”.
Naturally. Abortion is
simply
pre-born infanticide, after all.
One example:
The February 20,
2008 edition of Istoé
magazine published an article titled "The
Indian boy who was buried alive"
– "Amalé was
nearly killed in the name of Indian customs. And FUNAI looks the
other way from infanticide in some tribes.
"The dramatic story of that little Indian boy is
the visible face of a cruel reality,
repeated
in many tribes scattered throughout
Brazil. Many
times, it counts on the connivance of FUNAI, the government
agency charged with looking after the Indians. …
"FUNAI hides
many cases like this one, but researchers
have already detected the practice of infanticide in at least 13
ethnic groups, such as the Ianomamis, the Tapirapes and the
Madihas. In 2004, the Ianomamis alone killed 98 children. The
Kamaiuras, the tribe of Amalé, kill between 20 and 30 children
every year…
"The execution
rituals consist in burying alive, drowning or strangling the
babies. Generally, it is the mother herself who is expected to
execute the child, although there are cases when she can be
helped by the witchdoctor.
“The Indian
themselves have started to rebel against the barbaric custom…
FUNAI has been affected by the contagion of this cultural
relativism that views genocide as being correct.”
But it is simply
irrational, scandalous, inhuman, for CIMI,
of the Catholic Church, to favor the
continuation of the practice of infanticide in the name of
“respect for the Indian culture” and oppose a bill that aims to
end infanticide.
“The CIMI missionaries do not consider
infanticide as a savage practice of the Indians and defend the
view that this culture makes senses in the tribes with little
contact with the Western culture. .
. A few years ago, the agency inaugurated a new
method of evangelization. They do not baptize Indian children
and accept the theology and rituals of those peoples”.
('Correio Braziliense'
newspaper, July 24th, 20089).
Hakani:
the little Indian girl who was buried alive but survived
thanks to her brother. In the photo with her adoptive
mother, Mrs. Márcia Suzuki, spokesman for the movement
for the abolition of Indian infanticide, the ATINI. In
the other photo, the same Hakani when she was saved by
her brother. (www.atini.org)
And why is this
Catholic Agency CIMI in favor of such a inhuman status quo?
Could it be that, although they
call themselves ‘Catholic’, they belong to another religion, a
relativistic and neo-pagan one, which denies the revelation of
Jesus Christ and replaces it by the most barbaric tribalism?
The electronic
book “THE SILENCED TRAGEDY:
NATIVE INDIAN INFANTICIDE”,
authored by Raymond de Souza, aims to enlighten all people,
especially civil and religious authorities, in Brazil and
beyond, in order to encourage them to make a compromise with the
Culture of Life and help to bring to an end the hideous practice
of infanticide among native Indian tribes.
Native
Indian children are human beings too! They are Brazilian
citizens by right of birth and must have their right o life
respected according to the Brazilian constitution, Natural law
and God’s law.
"To
be a missionary in Brazil is mainly to take the Gospel to the
Indians. It is also to carry the supernatural means to them so
that, by practicing the Ten Commandments, they may reach their
celestial goal. It is to persuade them to free themselves from
superstitions and barbaric customs – such as infanticide - that
enslaved them in their millenary and unhappy stagnation.
Consequently, it is to help civilize them.
"It is fitting
to insist: while it is proper for Christianized and civilized
man to progress continuously in the upright and free exercise of
his intellectual and physical activities, the Indian is a slave
of stagnant immobility, which, from time immemorial, has
hindered all possibilities of true progress for him.
"Presenting
himself to the Indian, the true missionary of Jesus Christ has
the right to say, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall
set you free" (John 8:32).
Plinio Correa de
Oliveira
www.ArtPress.com.br
I
feel called to be an Apostle, I should like to travel the
world over preaching Thy Name and planting Thy glorious
Cross in heathen lands. A
single mission would not suffice for me, however; I should
want to proclaim the Gospel to the four corners of the
earth, to the most distant and forgotten islands, all at
once. I should want to be a
missionary not just for a few years, but rather from the
creation of the world unto the consummation of the ages."
Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus, Patroness of the Missions
CIMI
SPEAKS – PAST AND PRESENT
SOME
EXAMPLES AMONG MANY
Since its inception in 1972, the CIMI has
maintained
the same “Indian theology”, the same “Mystic
Utopia” and their “new logic”.
“The
Bishops defend the view that the main mission of the Church is
not to catechize and convert the Indian but to guarantee his
values and to
guide his cultural process such as to avoid
conflicts and syncretisms”.
(Pastoral Plan of
the Bishops of the
Amazon,
(in “O Estado de S. Paulo” newspaper, May
26, 1972)
“The Indians already live the
beatitudes. … Indian communities are a future prophecy for this
new way of living, where man is the most important.”
1st
National Assembly of the
Indian Pastoral Action.
“The
Indians are the true evangelizers of the world ... “ We are
persuaded that they live the Gospel of the Beatitudes”.
...”[Native Indians must not] lose their communitarian,
religious, and tribal values.
“Missionaries work with them without any
pretension of Catechesis...Without
professing the name of Christ, the Indians live in a much
greater fullness of the life announced by Christ, like a gospel
of liberation, than we who live like pagans in our relations
with each other” … “We do not understand catechesis as in the
past...We must beat our breasts in mea
culpa because for a long time, at [least] until John XXIII, the
Church mostly served colonialism, ignoring the principles that
She now defends”
Bishop Tomás Balduíno.
“To a certain extent, Anchieta was
a transmitter of a colonizing Gospel. The Church should do
penance [...] it is evident that the discovery of America was in
many aspects a colonialist crime.”
Bishop Dom Pedro Casaldáliga.
“'It is our civilization that is barren and
condemned, and not that of the Indian.'... “we can only learn
from them...Our Indians have a History as
worthy and sacred as the sacred History of God’s people, revered
by Jews and Christians.”
Fr.
Egydio Schwade.
“The
Indian communities should be received as evangelizers so that
they may become a model for our society that has much to learn
from them'
Archbishop Dom
Fernando Gomes de Oliveira.
“Rare are the missionaries who respected the
culture of' the Indian and did everything to preserve it. Rare
are those who became Indians with the Indians. But fortunately
they exist...
Friar
Betto, O.P., who lists the “errors” of the Missionaries of
teaching Christian virtues to Indians.
CIMI
SPEAKS - TODAY
As presented
on the CIMI website by Bishop Franco
Masserdotti, the Agency’s President, the "Pastoral
Plan" reads: “"he
men and women missionary of CIMI do not seek to persuade the
Indians to abandon their religion, either individually or
collectively.
"CIMI … assumes
the Indian Theologies as a departing point of an inter-religious
dialogue, and admires their cosmo-visions which may be
considered as the soul of their cultures.
To evangelize,
she [the Church People of God] must allow herself to be
evangelized."
"For CIMI, the
Indian peoples are holders and carriers of evangelical values
and are, therefore, mediators of that Word.
There is a profound reciprocity of salvation
between the Indian peoples and the evangelizing action of the
Church.
"The men and
women missionary of CIMI feel themselves to be very close to the
Indian peoples, their struggles and their spiritual experiences...Many
men and women missionaries have
re-learned to pray with the Indians.
CONCLUSION:
It is self-evident. In
our view, a new ideology of disrespect of the Brazilian
Constitution, guaranteeing the right to
life of all Brazilians – including newly-born native Indian
children – is being promoted by the FUNAI with impunity.
A new religion
is being promoted that defends
paganism, superstition and barbaric customs, including
infanticide, as though they are authentic
cultural expressions and worthy of a Christian missionary.
Natural Law no
longer counts, the Ten Commandments no longer count, the great
Mission that Jesus Christ gave to the Church to teach and
baptize the world no longer counts.
Meanwhile, under
the pretext of trying to maintain the “Indian cultures”,
thousands of innocent children are murdered.
The
time has come to stop the killing.
The decision of
certain Brazilian priests and bishops not to proclaim the Gospel
because it brings with it the ‘Christian European culture’ is
tantamount to betraying the evangelizing mission of the Church
and to condemn our Indian brethren to continue to live in
paganism and superstition.
The
time has come for all Catholic Bishops to intervene in the
ill-famed neo-“missionary” work of the CIMI, to bring to an end
their complicity with the murder of innocent children, defend
their right to life – which must be equal to all Brazilians
without exception. In so doing, the Brazilian Bishops will act
as true Successors of the Apostles of Jesus Christ.
Infanticide and Cultural Relativism
Congressman
Henrique Afonso elaborated a bill [the Muwaji Law] to combat
infanticide, protect the fundamental rights of Indian children
as well as of other children belonging to non-traditional
societies.
CIMI issued a legal opinion against the bill. In a
document imbued
with cultural and moral relativism, CIMI affirms that the
“supposed practices’ [infanticide] which the author “considers
to be harmful” and against human rights, are not considered as
such by many of the tribes.
They argue that
what can be seen as criminal and deserving of punishment by one
group may not be so by others.
Everything seems
to be relative.
Edson
Bakairi, himself a survivor of infanticide, an Indian leader
specialist in Anthropology and graduated in History, in an Open
letter to the Government in repudiation of infanticide,
declared:
We are Indians,
we are Brazilian citizens! ... Therefore, we manifest our
repudiation to the practice of infanticide and to the
irresponsible and inhuman manner in which this question has been
treated by the Government Authorities. We do not accept the
anthropological arguments based upon cultural relativism.
" We do not
accept infanticide as a justifiable cultural practice, we do not
agree with the wrong opinion of those anthropologists who
pretend to justify such acts and in so doing decide for the
Indian peoples, thus placing in danger the future of whole
ethnic communities.
“THE SILENCED
TRAGEDY: NATIVE INDIAN
INFANTICIDE” closes with a fervent
and filial appeal to His holiness
Benedict XVI, asking that he intervene
with the Bishops of Brazil to work together to
end this crime that cries out to heaven: the murder of
innocent newly-born children, under the accomplice gaze of the
‘Missionary Indian Council’ of the Catholic Church in Brazil.
The work
respectfully reminds the Pope that 121 years ago Pope Leo XIII
addressed the Brazilian Bishops asking them to work together to
end slavery in the country. The Bishops heeded the Pope’s
request, and in the end, Princess Isabel signed the Golden Law –
slavery was abolished.
Based upon this
happy historical precedent, may Benedict XVI follow the
prophetic example of his predecessor in the throne of Saint
Peter, and intervene in Brazil to end this nefarious crime:
native Indian infanticide, so shamefully supported by the
National Foundation for Indian Affairs of the Brazilian
government (FUNAI) and the Missionary Indian Council – CIMI – of
the Catholic Church.
