Topsy and Tuptim Discuss the Synod Doc as a Propaganda Piece Outside the Washington Post

Washington Post building on K Street

Tuptim: It's kind of appropriate that we're sitting at an outside cafe near the Washington Post building. I always call it Pravda East! Did you know that K St. is a big center for lobbyists?

Topsy: Really?

Tuptim: Yup! When Mitt Romney was running for president, he called K Street the center of "influence peddling." What better place to talk about the Amazon synod. Influence peddling... that's what it's all about -- peddling the influence of the (making quote sign with her fingers) "progressive" wing of the Church.

Topsy: (Rollling her eyes...) Hmm...You mean the heretic wing!

Tuptim: The Post calls K Street the "grid of access." I guess that's why they moved here several years ago -- gotta be among all the movers and shakers. Maybe they can get some of that lobby money too so they can keep peddling their fake news.

Topsy: (Laughing and looking around..) Well you know what they say about the concrete jungle. I've seen a few exotic animals covered with tattoos among the professional looking population. And look at all the Starbucks cups! Gotta stay awake to be on top of your game I guess! I've gotta admit it's a great place to people watch. I didn't think coming into D.C. to discuss the synod was such a good idea when you brought it up. But I stand corrected. Notice all the suits, blazers, high heels, briefcases, and sunglasses? I feel like I dropped into a filming of men in black.

Tuptim: Don't be so sexist, Topsy. (Nodding in a direction with her head.) See the woman in the black suit? She lightens it up with her gold blouse and gold jewelry. And that is definitely a high-powered hair color and make-up job!

Topsy: We better stop ogling the local natives and get on with the synod doc.

Tuptim: (Groans) Back to penance! What did I do to deserve this?

Topsy: Want me to make you a list?

Tuptim: Now-now, don't be mean! I'll start. Before we leave Part 2 some things in the last few chapters are too ridiculous not to highlight. Paragraph 88 which is actually 84, they couldn't even get paragraph numbers right, is on health. It talks about the natives' "integral sense of life not contaminated by economic materialism." (Looks up...) Part of that economic materialism is our incredible health system. There's plenty of diseases among the indigenous people including terrible dental problems, hepatitis, and STDs related to immoral sex practices, but we wouldn't want to "contaminate" them with our "economic materialism" by giving them penicillin.

Topsy: Hey, they don't need it because the document tells us the Amazon rainforest's flora and fauna contain "veritable 'living pharmacopoeias' and unexplored genetic principles." Who needs penicillin when you have "living pharmacopoeias?" I wonder how that works with malaria and leprosy which are major problems there. But seriously, lust seems to be the universal sin. When I was working at the crisis pregnancy center, we sent lots of women to the health department for STD testing. I'm glad they didn't have to depend on the rainforest "pharmacopoeias" for treatment.

Tuptim: Listen to paragraph 87. Talk about absolute nonsense:

Indigenous rituals and ceremonies are essential for integral health because they integrate the different cycles of human life and nature. They create harmony and balance between human beings and the cosmos. They protect life from evils that can be caused by both human beings and other living beings. They help to cure diseases that harm the environment, human life and other living beings.

Do you think those "other living beings" are aliens from the cosmos? Don't roll your eyes at me, it's rude. And note how they put human life after the environment. The document continually treats the environment -- the ants, and fungi, and rats -- as if they're equal to people.

Topsy: (Starts laughing...) That reminds me of an article William Kilpatrick wrote about the synod. I ran it off to show you because it was so funny. (Rifles through her stack of papers, finds it and gives it to Tuptim.) He compares some of the working document to the song from Oklahoma about Jud Fry. Here, I'll read it.

Tuptim: I love the title, Pan-Amazon Pandemonium. He sure got that right.

Topsy: Listen. (Reads...):

There’s a funny scene in Oklahoma in which Curly sings a slyly mocking song about Jud Fry, the menacing hired hand. Curly assures Jud that though people dislike him now, they’ll miss him when he’s gone. To make the point, he imagines Jud’s funeral and how people will lament his passing. And so the audience is treated to the hilarious “Poor Jud is Dead.” 

In the spoken part of the song, Curly conjures up the preacher’s recollection of Jud’s bigheartedness:

He loved the birds of the forest
And the beasts of the fields
He loved the mice and the vermin in the barn
And he treated the rats like equals.

Curly sings to Jud Fry: Is Jud Fry the icon for the Synod Fathers? He was in
eco-solidarity with the mice and the vermin in the barn and treated the rats like equals.

Tuptim: I loved that musical and I remember that scene. You know, Rod Steiger played Jud in the movie version.

Topsy: (Shushes her and continues reading):

I was put in mind of the scene by something I had just read in—of all places—the working document for the Amazon Synod. Here’s the relevant passage:

[They respect] the sisters birds, the brothers fish,
and even the smallest sisters like ants, larvae, fungi, or insects. (20)
Call me insensitive, but I couldn’t help but make the connection to poor Jud’s love of vermin. This passage lacks the punch of Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics, but the sentiments are the same. 

The only difference is that Curly is making fun of Jud’s slovenly habits and brutish behavior, whereas the document’s authors are completely serious. In a sense, treating “the rats like equals” and the ants like sisters is what the Amazon Synod is all about. Excuse me, make that the “Pan-Amazon Synod.” That’s “pan” as in pantheistic. Some critics say the document authors are trying to sneak in pantheistic and neo-pagan ideas under the guise of concern for the environment. But there’s nothing terribly sneaky about it. There are so many clues that even Inspector Clouseau couldn’t miss them.

Isn't that great. I'll let you read the rest on your own, but he really pegs it! He asks later whether Christ died for the larva and the bugs.

Tuptim: You're not a specieist are you?

Topsy: Guilty as charged.

Tuptim: There's actually a true statement in chapter 8 on education..."we need to provide an education which teaches critical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values.” Of course anyone who's a critical thinker and has mature moral values will see this entire document as a betrayal of the faith filled with pantheistic hogwash. And the end of that quote says the education needs to be "an education open to interculturality." I looked up the definition because I had no idea what that means. This is how the European Union describes it:

Interculturality describes a set of multi-faceted processes of interaction through which relations between different cultures are constructed, aiming to enable groups and individuals to forge links between cultures based on equity and mutual respect. It is also linked with the idea of hybrid identities and fusion cultures, in which people and groups create and recreate new cultural patterns that take up elements of formerly distinct and separated norms, values, behaviours and lifestyles. 

Topsy: (Thoughtfully...) Well that makes perfect sense coming from the European Union because, let's face it, they are all about one-world government fusing everybody together in a glob where the most perverted lifestyles and evil values are equal to those taught by the Judeo-Christian ethic. We've said it already, but I'll say it again. The synod is all about advancing one-world religion under one-world government.  It's been going on for decades -- "the long slow march through the institutions!"

Tuptim: The last two chapters in Part 2 are pure environmental wackoism. We've all got to be educated in "integral ecology" whatever that is. They use all the buzz words and call for everyone to be reeducated to value a "sustainable ecology" which I guess is linked to the "integral ecology." All of us have to be re-educated so, instead of just looking at technical solutions, we think in solidarity and (reads from the document) "discover the educational task as an integral service for all humanity in view of an 'ecological citizenship'"(LS 211). Got it?

Topsy: Umm....(thinking)....uh...well...NO!

Tuptim: (With mock disgust...) You clearly need the remedial reeducation camp. The suggestions make it very clear. They are all about teaching "Amazon indigenous theology" because we need "ecological conversion" so we can hear the "cries of pain of the earth." Really, you can't make this stuff up.

Topsy: I think this section of the document is really alarming, because it has all the earmarks of brainwashing propaganda using the word ecological "conversion" to mask what they mean. We have to "unlearn" our bad thoughts and actions and develop "new attitudes and mentalities." And now, for the first time I recall, they bring in Jesus to hammer home all the sins of modern man for which we need to be punished and reeducated.

Are you guilty of ecocide?

Tuptim: Sin according to the "progressive" dictionary -- which excludes abortion, contraception, euthanasia, sodomy, adultery, fornication, and on and on. The only real sin is to be climate denier. People like us who fail to be sufficiently sensitive to integral ecology and our responsibility for "ecological citizenship" must attend the "seminar" on integral ecology until we repent of our past failure to recycle.

Topsy: (With a rueful laugh...) Well, hey killing people isn't the big sin. Just look at the suggestions in chapter 9. It's "ecocide." I looked that word up as well. It means "destruction of the natural environment." Gosh, my husband has been cutting back the bamboo in our yard and we cut down some trees leaning toward the trampoline where the kids play. Are we guilty of ecocide?

Tuptim: Absolutely. For your penance, copy this sentence 100 times:

Pope Francis, I am heartily sorry for failing to be in "eco-solidarity" with the indigenous people in the Amazon, and I firmly resolve, with the help of your wisdom,  to commit to "recycling and reuse of waste" in the future.

Topsy: (Laughing...) I'll get started on it right after we go to St. Matthew's Cathedral for noon Mass. We can offer a prayer of thanksgiving that we made it through Part 2 of the working document.

To be continued....