 The Tragedy of Infanticide
* 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 of infanticide, 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 Councilthe CIMI – Conselho Indigenista Missionário – Missionary Indian Councilthe CIMI – Conselho Indigenista Missionário – Missionary Indian Council)
agrees with the FUNAI approach to infanticide and refuses to help the
Indians 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 Indians 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 Indians 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. First photo: she emraces her adoptive mother,
Mrs. Márcia Suzuki, spokesman for ATINI, the Movement for the Abolition
of Indian Infanticide. Second photo: Hakani when she was saved by her brother. (www.atini.org)
And why is the 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 religion, 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 to 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 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, 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 cultures of the Indians 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:
"The missionary men and women 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 history graduate, 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.
TThe 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.
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