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Graças ao Acordo que recentemente virou lei, a Igreja - presonalidade jurídica reconhecida - entrou com ação para barrar a divulgação de notícias sobre a remoção do vigário da catedral de Limeira.
Li isso na Folha, que ainda informou que, segundo a Igreja, o padre não fez nada; trata-se de decisão interna.
Padre Toninho - há muitos. Qual deles?
Esse Toninho é Antonio Francisco Ribeiro que, no último domingo de setembro de 2005, se despediu de seu rebanho na Paróquia São José do Jardim Europa (pertinho da N. S. do Brasil), aqui, em São Paulo, capital.
O que ele fez? De novo, ninguém dizia nada. Uma paroquiana, a Sylvia, que não perdia uma missa de Antonio (como eu) me disse: "Sei por que ele saiu. Mas preferia não saber. Eu gostava muito dele, mas ele teve de ir, porque Deus jamais quis divisão na igreja". Com isso, ficava esclarecido para mim que o motivo era mesmo os debates teológicos entre mim e o Antonio. Sylvia ouvira algo distorcido do Pe. Roberto Pires, o vigário, mas, claro, não sabia a verdade.
Sua ordem religiosa, a Premonstratense, postou na internet que Antonio é que decidira se afastar com uma licença a pedido.
Em abril deste ano, quase quatro anos depois, uma paroquiana disparou para mim: "Afinal, o filho era mesmo dele"?
Vejam... Inventaram um filho para ele!
Antonio não era nem mais homem, coitado. Tinha virado gay!
O texto abaixo foi escrito logo depois que ele foi "despachado", ninguém podia dizer para onde.
Espero que você saiba muito bem inglês - é um texto muito, muito bonito, já foi elogiadíssimo por uns poucos que foram capazes de apreciá-lo.
Antonio ainda me faz falta. O povo, ignorante, que engole qualquer história que ouve, mesmo sem nexo, e toma algumas dessas histórias até como a "palavra de Deus", não me fará falta jamais.
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FATHER TONINHO:
The now more disguised Sword of the Church
and the eternal, ever stronger Word of Love
Mariangela Pedro
and the eternal, ever stronger Word of Love
The Church has been missing opportunities for illuminating paths leading to the rebirth of earthbound visions and of others aiming at the transformation of the world.
Gilberto Dupas (original in Portuguese)
On June 12, Father Toninho defended the distinction between "people of God" and "family of God", based on Jesus Christ, what is to call no attention to the ones not in tune with critical analysis, indoctrinated, and by default unable to assess what a priest states.
Father Toninho himself, in that sermon, was faithful to the 't' to a piece of Catholic theology, which, almost certainly, he had never thought over critically before. I hear he has studied theology in Rome for four years.
I later made up a comment on that; Father Toninho was already used to my sending him articles, prose, etc. Besides, the head of the parish, Father Roberto Pires, had declared our parish "a democracy" just a few days before.
As I know Father Toninho for quite a long time, I can assure he, with my comment on what he just reproduced according to what he had been brainwashed into, realized that was pure discrimination Jesus, let alone God, would endorse. He would – I am pretty sure – never repeat that again, now that he had been exposed to the view of "the world outside".
This leads us to the very point for his being shut away. Father Roberto Pires could not , it seems, any longer stand my working against Intolerance, carried out in the name of God..
Father Toninho, more than three years ago (March 2002), visibly under strong pressure, told me, 'Our worlds do not communicate'. Now we can grasp what is behind such declaration, that coincided with Father Roberto's freezing me, isolating me from the parish and thus, as a first step, from the priest whose flock I had joined.
As a result of Father Roberto's stigmatization, I and Father Toninho – not to be seen, never, ever, having a conversation – would occasionally communicate through my writings and his 'answers' in the sermons.
In my comment on the sermon, in June, I, among other things, argued that God, through Jesus, certainly did not mean to have that people (the Jews) looked down on as just "creatures", in contrast with the Sons.
It seems that, since Father Roberto's blocking communication between the "two" worlds was not working, he eventually decided to sacrifice Father Toninho, after having tried to get rid of me, by threatening with legal action for something I had not done, nor was doing; sending guys to chase me, all of that not to prevent his declaring around I was mad. This is the method, these days, of the guardians of "faith" in the Church or, at least, at the richest parish in São Paulo, precisely San Jose of Jardim Europa, Premontre Order.
I am really glad to be alive, in my capacity to fully realize what the event means, and report it. Moreover, any one, like Father Toninho, who tries to be a better person, despite so challenging an environment, that one deserves to have an angel in flesh and bones, typing in English, for the sake of his well-being, and of Justice.
As such an angle, I proclaim,
Father Toninho has gone.
San Jose Parish will never again be the same.
San Jose is now surrounded by "the normal", imposed by a silent decree.
It is seized by the "non-spontaneous", "non-dynamic".
Without questions and criticism – that were actually threatening to become commonplace (not exactly a democracy...),
the dogma is regarded
like a corpse that has fallen to the ground,
till then hidden away in the ceiling plaster,
and now paralyses everyone with terror.
Now the dogma is all-imposing as that horrifying corpse,
that makes all a sheep just by the shock.
Amen!!
San Jose is now a place where not even the orchestras
overcome the weight of the dogma,
which has made the very air a still body.
There is no tension, no debate.
Even the commands – more or less disguised – not to think, not to react, not to smile
seem now not necessary and relaxed for a while.
"Democracy" is cautiously "out of preaching",
while the relief of Obliviousness is awaited.
Will there be an out-of-season revival of the resurrection?
Maybe. Even the tyrants smell the odor of the dead one, victim of the dogma,
even though removed, sent away. (Will he really be forgotten?)
The eucharist is just what agrees with the shadow now.
A way of disguising emptiness, repudiating doubt,
not to realize the eucharist itself is
one more dogma.
San Jose is "cleaned up" as I have never seen it.
Saint priests and short sermons
strictly strengthen "faith".
Father Toninho had been outstanding:
A priest [referring to himself] is not that righteous,
a priest is not a magician.
Jesus never made up lists of sinners, he defended in a sound,
and really enchanting fashion.
Defeated, he stated,' The environment is bad; being good? To what avail?'
Father Toninho... tried to Think. And to avoid thinking.
Considered, and reconsidered,
in a process totally despised by the tyranny of the Right God.
Father Toninho is the best in the history of San Jose Parish –
this is what I cannot dispute.
Could have been even greater,
was the environment not that bad.
He would preach, many, many times,
what pleases the "family of God".
But, at times, Father Toninho would turn into a gale,
like the ones we only see in old movies of the Passion:
the material damage is insignificant,
but "right" is of no avail, and is fiercely torn down.
Then, he would suddenly destroy the monotony of the atmosphere
with his own divided being,
his contradictions: the outside world and the orthodox theology
would tease each other.
The division of a young, sensitive man would shake the air,
even when he proclaimed 'amen'.
No more...
gales!
undesirable whispers from the outside!
tension in the air!, their superiors on earth finally proclaimed.
And then, it has been said on every corner:
"God has never wanted a 'split' Church."
So San Jose is today just the amen
with the remains of the countless – moved by a questioning soul –
burned by the Inquisition.
Only in this "troubled period", as the Church insists? Of course not.
Confiscation of property, segregation, and burning of Jews
had been in the Laws since Constantine, the Great,
Since the very beginning, to go on and on.
The Church even came to "teach" some victims of the Inquisition,
the law of Moses had been abrogated with Jesus Christ.
"I did not come to alter the law, but to have it fulfilled."
Jesus did not live for centuries to say so,
this was not an issue at his time.
That statement reflects the fact
the Jews had constantly pointed out
the Church was altering the Torah and
the original teachings of Jesus.
That, therefore, sounds an answer to "preach",
in sight of the threatening reasoning,
as ever, of the "enemy of the unity".
Jesus is confused today with the Messiah of the Torah,
added considerably with Titles and Deeds from other philosophies,
segments, so on,
to sound "universal" in a very, very peculiar sense
that chills me to the bone.
"No split within the Church!"
Once again. This time, Father Toninho.
San Jose is today a grave,
shockingly over decorated,
housing orchestras when it is no time at all
for that beat.
There, "right" masses are performed,
Father Roberto, the local emperor,
now in the place of Father Toninho.
Matters urged – no other priest could arrive so soon.
San Jose is today the Symbol of a persistent shut-away policy.
By excommunicating Father Toninho from San Jose,
God itself has been excommunicated.
What do I mean by God?
Let's see if I make it clear by saying that
San Jose was outbreaks of genuine Tolerance,
when the brainwashed theology would not rule over
Father Toninho's sermon.
San Jose today is Dryness the exuberance of the Spring
cannot compete with – not even in the district of Jardins [Gardens]
Father Toninho would be Himself.
And would not.
Thus he was testimony of God,
and testimony of the dogma of the Saint Tyranny.
In one of his last sermons, he declared, 'Life has to follow its "normal" course.'
A testimony of God, or of the policy "all the same face"?
No other priest shall ever say what he said in sermons.
Now the holy, textbook "Brothers and Sisters" is heard in every mass,
as predictably as the sun rises.
Father Toninho, sometimes, would be
that so rare flash of Grace that makes the dogma
step down without a single drop of blood.
Perdition, more than ever, is now recorded in history.
It is now also recorded in my living.
How shameful this history of 'homo sapiens' comes to be!
And goes on:
The sapientence of Father Toninho's torturer: let go the priest who most exposed our inconsistent theology in his sermons (just because trusted it most and studied it). It is not convenient to have sermons enriched with so many details. Mine is pretty enough:
"Watch out!! (3 times) Watch out against the one, on behalf of ... – you all know who, I do not need to name it –, who comes with something that is not the Holy Gospel.’
(Pause) Watch out, all right?'
Exactly. The Non-Catholic especially, and the Non-Christian in general are the Devil, according to the torturer. And Father Toninho was the one to leave...
The sapientence of believers: "We know why Father Toninho had to leave; but would rather not have known".
Then I ask, 'Are you aware of a comment... etc.?' "No!"
No? No... No questions about it. Then: "I am sure about the reasons."
Father Toninho, at times, would put forward dilemmas to the ones who still had ears to listen to. Dilemmas, actually, is quite a deal, in a same-faced world,
headed with no single 'split' for...
Joke? No way!
This is my Sorrow.
With Father Toninho, and his departure too, I have grasped
what it means to be run over
in the name of the interests of the mean and narrow-minded.
With Father Toninho, I have grasped how a 'split' being
talks of God much, much more than a compliant amen in unison.
That chorus sound is the same of Intolerance. And this is not God´s.
If San Jose is one "house of God", a human being that, at least for instants,
really takes God into account [as I meant before],
reacts just as Father Toninho,
more regularly still once under the tough discipline of...
As a result, Father Toninho was the best of San Jose Parish ever.
Now the best is gone.
The mass finishes earlier,
with virtually no theological points.
People like that.
The Devil and other "mere" macumbas are still
in the "outside world".
The "normal"...
My view is not official, is not shared by the majority.
Not even my god is these things: official, backed by the majority. Would it be not true because of that?
I have learned god does give up such features, in opposition to most
human beings, obsessed with the 'pseudo-essential'.
All of the "pseudo" is still at San Jose, safe and sound.
The essential...
Good-bye, Father Toninho.
San Jose Parish is now per-fect for my Sorrow to the point of death.
Before, my church would not be a 'mount of olives' in the psychological sense – it wasn't a place that supports growth, and your dismissal turns my thesis unquestionable.
Today, my church is a mount of olives in the theological sense. It is the place of Sorrow to the point of death.
I close by suggesting that you write as well.
What you have said, all that is in my mind, perhaps for good.
Your words at times would be the Word of Love, I have made eternal.
All that is left to do is
to struggle with Sorrow.
Happy Birthday to you, Father Toninho.
Only to you: God had a spare camel. And when he sent it to me, I could not, as usual, say "no, thanks".
October 2005
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