Born into a Spiritist family, the son and grandson of a Spiritist, Cauci de Sá Roriz (photo) was born in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte and lives in Goiânia. He has a degree in Administration and retired from the Regional Industrial Tribunal in 2009. He works as a volunteer at the Goiás State Spiritist Federation, of which he was a president in 2011 and 2012. During the recent State of Goiás Spiritist Congress he launched the book Do Outro Lado da Letra (On The Other Side of the Letter), which discusses the transformations Christianity has gone through along the years.

How did the idea of the book come up?

In 2017 my cousin, Júlio César de Sá Roriz, an active volunteer Spiritist worker in Rio de Janeiro, sent me an article in which the author said Spiritism was not Christian because it didn’t accept Jesus as God. He asked me to write about it. I began writing na article explaining how the process of turning Jesus into a God took place. When I realised, I had already written 500 pages, which were the basis for this book.   

And what criteria did you adopt for the sequence of the book?

Even though I didn’t follow the chronology very strictly, I used the history of Christianity to develop the discussion. I began by the period after the conversion of Paul of Tarsus, or St Paul, and described the adulterations made to the biblical texts to adjust them to the new interpretation they wanted to give. And I added new questions that our dear Evangelical and Catholic brothers and sisters often present to try to label Spiritism as non-Christian, including: the matters of resurrection and reincarnation, ideas about salvation and how the Jewish practice of baptism was eventually accepted and incorporated by the Christians.

What was the main change imposed on Christianity along human history?

It is without a doubt the inclusion of polytheistic rituals and ideas. That changed the parameters and focus of the message that Jesus left in regards to the need that each one of us has to seek moral improvement. What we had instead was the liturgy and the adoration of objects that are supposed to be sacred. That has nothing to do with Christianity. The need of carrying out inner reform was replaced by external practices.

That actually brought about the expansion of Christianity in the Greek world, as it was adjusted to the level of understanding the population had at the time. But the price paid was too high. Christianity lost its bearings. It traded quality for quantity. It began serving Mammon when it incorporated pagan festivities and rituals. Some theologists say that the amalgamation of Christianity and polytheism was necessary and inevitable. Others say polytheistic practices were not necessary and were accepted too easily and willingly. One of those practices, was the abandonment of monotheism, the basis of Christianity, which gave way to the inexplicable polytheistic idea of the Trinity. In my book, I go in detail through that process the Catholic Church engaged in.

After so many adultarions along the years, how does Christianity get to our times?

The Spirit of Truth explains in The Gospel According to Spiritism, chapter VI, item 5, that “All truths are found in Christianity. The errors that have become rooted within it are of human origin.” Christianity comes to our times with the immense need to revise all the mistaken insertions and ideas introduced. If they were by any means necessary in the past, they need to be fixed so we can recover the true Christian values and ideas.

What is your understanding of the Christian period between Paul of Tarsus and Luther?

It was a sad period for Christianity. Rome, which was the Christian representative in the West, replaces the emperor and introduces the motto: “Outside the Church there is no salvation”. It creates a rigid controlling structure; it implements a central command unit, the papacy; it implements the Inquisition and the Crusades; and finally, to recover from its financial disasters, it begins selling access to heaven for the souls. When the new times of Enlightenment come, the Augustinian monk, Luther, begins reform in the Church by protesting against the sale of indulgencies. And he proclaims that we are only due obedience to the Bible. It is the emphasis on the word of the Bible, which was indeed the right measure to be adopted at the time.   

And what do we need to do now, with Spiritism?

Again, The Gospel According to Spiritism shows us the direction to take on chapter XX, item 4, when it explains what is the mission of the Spiritists: To disseminate information about reincarnation and the levels of progress the Spirits achieve once they have successfully carried out their missions or tasks. The Spiritists, like all Christians, is called upon living, putting into practice, the true teachings of Jesus. And The Spirits’ Book brings us clear explanations to the questions that have suffocated humankind for nearly 2,000 years.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

It is important to emphasise that we don’t see other religious affiliations and the institutions that represent them as stagnated, but as active parts of a process. We must show, therefore, consideration and respect to the Catholic Church, which had to deal with the problem of polytheism. We, Spiritists, didn’t have that problem to deal with. That is why the Spirit of Constantin, the Roman emperor, who adopted Christianity as their official religion, reveals in The Gospel According to Spiritism, chapter XX, item 2, that we, the Spiritists, are the workers of the last hour. We have inherited the work carried out by the early workers. So, my book does not intend to mistreat any religious affiliation, but to shed light on some teachings from the Bible that were rejected, adulterated or badly taught in an era where the consequences of such actions were not even contemplated.