Munilla responds forcefully to Pablo d’Ors

On May 6, 2022, the priest Pablo d’Orsauthor of various books where he is looking for a confluence between Buddhism and Christianityoffered the inaugural conference of the I Ibero -American Congress of Religion Teachersunder the title Jesus of Nazareth, master of consciousness.

Although almost three years have passed, the echo of what he then said about Christthat on numerous occasions he has synthesized in the phrase “Jesus was a yogi or yoga teacher” has not been extinguished, and many people, mainly religion professors, went to the bishop of Orihuela-Aliante, José Ignacio Munillaasking for a “discernment.”

This Friday, Monsignor Munilla satisfied that demand with an intervention disseminated through his YouTube channel, which he has graduated rounded Jesus was not a yogi. (See the full video below.)

In this intervention, point by point to statements of d’Ors responds showing that they oppose the gospels. And also extends his discernment to the works of other theologians, such as the Jesuit Javier Melloni or another priest, Andrés Torres Queirugaor of its most famous precedent, Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), all coinciding in an immanentist vision of Christianity and in a denial, explicit or implicit, of the divinity of Jesus and the veracity of the gospels.

The “syncretism” of d’Ors “is sowing a lot confusion In many people, ”says Munilla.

Two mistakes of Pablo d’Ors

D’ors- explains the bishop- affirms that it must be “deconstruct“What we believe about Jesus through the Scriptures and the tradition of the Church.

And he does it conscientiously with two mistakes.

Jesus was a sage that in his hidden life was probably In India or in the Tibetwhere he learned oriental wisdom, says D’Ors.

But making such statements “supposes Do not respect the Gospels”Said the prelate Donostiarra and is a mere“ projection in Jesus of a syncretist ideology between Christianity and Buddhism. ”

But “it is enough to look at the gospels” to see that this ideological statement “has no lace” in them.

Puts Three examples:

For all these reasons, Munilla concludes, “affirm that the wisdom of Jesus comes from his stay in India or Tibet before starting his public life is a disrespect for the gospels”

But in addition, Pablo d’Ors’s thesis implies “a wrong Christological conception“Because” it does not seem to be sensible to maintain that Jesus’ wisdom would have learned directly from his Father God. “

“Is A tremendous statement“, Munilla describes, because in the gospels it is explicitly said that” the wisdom of Jesus comes from the Father. ”

This is how Jesus says: “Truly, I really tell you: the Son can do nothing on his own but What I would do to the father. What this does, that also does the son, because the father loves the son and shows everything he does ”(Jn 5, 19-20).

Or also: “My doctrine is not mine, but of which has sent me”(Jn 7, 16).

Or also: “Because I have not spoken on my mind; The father who sent me is who I have ordered what I have to say and how I have to speak ”(Jn 12, 49).

Torres Queiruga’s mistake

What underlies these two errors? The background of the matter, says the bishop of Orihuela-Aliante, is “How we understand revelation of God “.

Theologian Andrés Torres Queiruga, explains, extended an error of very serious consequences in his book Rethink revelationerror according to which revelation are not truths that God dictates from the top, but an awareness: Jesus does not come to reveal a message, an ad, but helps you discover What nests within you: “It’s an interpretation Subjectivist of revelation, a conception immanentist And not transcendent of revelation, ”denounces Munilla, who adds that, in this perspective, revelation is to fall into the account of the truth that is in you, not that God, for his mercy, shows you a truth that is transcendent.

Joseph Ratzingeras a theologian, he made a severe criticism of this theory because, says Munilla, “this conception of revelation He completely moves her away from the Catholic conception” On March 30, 2006, the Spanish Episcopal Conference responded to this error with pastoral instruction Theology and secularization in Spain (PDF opens).

That document responded to a “drift“That was happening in some theological faculties. During the world day of the families that was held in Valencia that year, Benedict XVI in his encounter with the Spanish bishops, he mentioned that document and told them something that Munilla, newly appointed bishop of San Sebastián but not yet installed at his headquarters and that he was present, confesses that he was moved: “You have come out in defense of the faith of the singles and God will pay you”

Heirs of Bultmann

In the background, Torres Queiruga’s mistake repeated the Rudolf Bultmanna German Protestant theologian “that unfortunately also had Great influence on the post -contest crisis in not a few Catholic theologians”

He spoke of “demystifying Christianity”, which consists in “discarding as absurd the possibility that God will maintain a personal relationship with us.” This “Ideological prejudice“De Bultmann denied the incarnation, denied that God let himself” palpate and touch “in Jesus Christ and presented pantheism and deism as” a more modern alternative to Judeo -Christian faith. “

D’Ors, in this line, launches the idea that “Jesus invited those who met him to look at themselves To find the truth there” The reality, however, is that the Gospel “does not say that”, but the opposite: “Who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14, 9). That is, “the knowledge of God’s intimacy is a supernatural knowledge revealed by God in Jesus Christ that we cannot reach it by diving in our self -consciousness. God is infinitely superior to man and if he had not revealed in Jesus Christ we could not have that knowledge. ”

“They would run to Gorrazos”

Munilla makes another parenthesis to remember that the encounter with God in inner intimacy “is part of the Catholic tradition of all centuries and unfortunately today it seems to talk about interiority or inner silence To listen to the voice of God is like going to Buddhism. ”

“But where have we get that?” He asks: “If they raised their heads San Ignacio de Loyola, San Juan de la Cruz either Santa Teresa de Jesús And they would see how today we confuse interiority and recollection with yoga or with Buddhism, I believe that They would run us to cap: The great masters of spiritual life taught us to live interiority without resorting to Zen or yoga or anything like that. ”

It is precisely another difference with Buddhism, for which inner silence is an end in itselfwhile for Christianity “inner silence is a means for dialogue With God “:” Our goal is not self -consciousness, our goal is the encounter with God, with the three divine people. “

Another mistake by Pablo d’Ors

Munilla points out another mistake of Paul d’Ors, which is to interpret the kingdom of God in us as “a unitary consciousness.” But “the Christian faith proclaims that our encounter with God is a personal, dual encounter from you: There is a capital of God who is that of God and there is a tiny that is ours, but it is dual, it is not unitary. ” In Buddhism, however, there is no concept of a personal God with whom you speak, but “everything is reduced to reaching a state of Nirvana in which you find yourself with yourself and with the whole universe.”

“We are human people,” he recalls, “precisely because we have been created in the image and likeness of God who is a person“And that” allows us to have a relationality with God for his mercy with us. “

However, authors such as Javier Melloni and others “claim that overcome the paradigm of the image of a personal God that appears in the Bible “, which means” to deny the most specific of the Judeo -Christian relationship “and the Love alliance of God with us.

In his key work, The inner ChristMelloni proposes a “rereading of Christianity” that approaches it to “pantheism“, Because in the end” Jesus of Nazareth is a teacher who leads you to discover that Christ is you: God is you and you are God, “says Munilla.

All this “converges as a ring to the finger with the theory of religious pluralismwhich says that there is no true religion, that all religions in the background are equally valid. ” An affirmation “totally contrary to the Magisterium of the Church”, Says Munilla, who refers to the statement Dominus Jesus of the then congregation for the doctrine of faith in 2000, under the aegis of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about Uniqueness and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church.

Delivered to the new era

Munilla concludes pointing out that this “reinterpretation of Christianity” of d’Ors, torres queiruga or melloni falls “in the parameters of the New era“And” it cannot be carried out without severely betraying the uniqueness of Christianity, without emptying it with content. ”

He turns his back on the ontology of Jesus Christ “just when 1700 years of the Nicea council (325), where it was stated that “Jesus Christ is a divine person with divine nature and human nature.”

If in previous years these “heterodox theories” were in the faculties of theology, “today Errors have moved from the faculties of theology to the houses of spirituality“, Many of which are” at the service of Zen. “

For those who want to deepen all this, Munilla proposes to study the aforementioned text of the Spanish bishops, as well as the joint document of the Pontifical Council of Culture and the Pontifical Council for the inter -religious dialogue entitled Jesus Christ, bearer of the water of life. A Christian reflection on the new era.