‘Jesus was not a yogi’: Bishop refutes theories spread by priest

Madrid, Spain, Feb 4, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The bishop of Orihuela-Alicante in Spain, José Ignacio Munilla, warned about the theories spread by Father Pablo d’Ors that suppose a “syncretistic conception of Christianity and Buddhism” and a “crazy interpretation of the Gospel.”

At the request of a group of religion teachers, the Spanish prelate refuted the approach that the priest, founder of the Friends of the Desert association, presented at the first Ibero-American meeting for religion teachers held in Madrid in May 2022 titled  “Jesus of Nazareth, Teacher of Consciousness.”

Munilla began by explaining the central idea of ​​d’Ors’ presentation: “We know Jesus through the Scriptures and from the tradition of the Church, but his thesis is that we have to forget all that, because this knowledge we have of Jesus confuses us more than it enlightens us: We have to deconstruct, like start from scratch, to know Jesus.”

The prelate specifically noted that d’Ors advocates that “in the 30 years of hidden life, Jesus most likely did not remain in Nazareth but went to India or other countries where he learned Eastern wisdom” in such a way that he can be described as “a yogi.”

For Munilla, this position constitutes “an assumption that arises from the projection of an ideology onto Jesus, or a syncretistic theory between Christianity and Buddhism, which, as it has no basis in the Gospels, has to force a crazy interpretation of the Gospel.”

“To affirm that Jesus’ wisdom comes from his stay in India or Tibet before beginning his public life at 30 years of age is a lack of respect for the Gospels and also hides other errors, for example an erroneous conception of Christology,” he added.

In this regard, he pointed out that to affirm that “it doesn’t seem reasonable to maintain that Jesus learned this wisdom directly from God his father” as d’Ors claimed, clashes head-on with the Scriptures, as in the Gospel according to St. John (5:19-20; 7:16-17, or 12:49).

For the prelate, the priest “projects onto Jesus his claim to fuse Christianity and Buddhism, and for that he needs it to be true that Jesus’ wisdom does not come from the Father but from India or Tibet.”

“In no way is there room to extract from the Gospels the nonsense that Jesus was a yogi. Because, in addition to being false, it represents a great Christological error,” Munilla emphasized.

Secondly, with regard to d’Ors’ statements, the prelate addressed the idea expressed by the priest in his bestseller “Biography of Silence” that “Jesus is a wise man who helps us to know ourselves and to discover that within us is all the truth, goodness, and beauty to which man aspires.”

Munilla explained that “the Gospel does not record a word from Jesus that says ‘whoever has seen me has seen himself.’ The Gospel says: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ Jesus is the one who reveals the Father. Knowing God intimately is a supernatural knowledge that God reveals.”

This error about revelation leads to a third affirmation that, according to the bishop, is contrary to Catholic doctrine.

D’Ors said that “we call this metaphor of the kingdom of God unitary consciousness. We are one. Let all be one as you in me and I in you, says Jesus. A non-dual unitary consciousness.”

In response to this, Munilla recalled that “the Christian faith proclaims that our encounter with God is a personal encounter, one on one,” which implies a duality.

“If it were unitary, we would be [entering into] Buddhism because there is no concept of a personal God with whom you speak, but rather everything is reduced to reaching a state of nirvana in which you encounter yourself and the entire universe,” he explained.

For the prelate, the proposal to get beyond the biblical paradigm of the personal God, also defended by authors such as Jesuit Father Xavier Melloni, is equivalent to “denying the most specific aspect of the Judeo-Christian revelation,” which involves the covenant of love with a personal God and tries to reinterpret Christianity in an effort “to fuse Christianity and Zen in the parameters of the New Age.”

This claim, he added, “cannot be carried out without seriously betraying the uniqueness of Christianity, without emptying it of content, without turning one’s back on the very ontology of Jesus Christ.”

The bishop of Orihuela-Alicante encouraged people to delve deeper into these issues by reading the document from the Spanish Bishops’ Conference “Theology and Secularization in Spain” as well as “Jesus Christ, Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the New Age,” prepared by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/261983/jesus-was-not-a-yogi-bishop-refutes-syncretistic-theories