You must read this from Edward Pentin (HERE). He gives a somewhat more useful roundup of things discussed in the Synod than the presser provided.
Also, Pentin shows how some can… skew the report of what was discussed.
Sample with my emphases:
Questions Raised Again About Official Synod Briefings
At a Vatican press conference on the synod yesterday, language attachés for the meeting highlighted a number of subjects that appeared to take precedent in the opening debates.
To take the English language attaché, Father Thomas Rosica, as an example, he placed a special emphasis on the need to end “exclusionary language” saying a synod father, (or was it synod fathers?) said the Church should “embrace reality as it is and not be afraid of new and complex situations.”
Father Rosica was particularly focused on “homosexuals or gay persons,” saying “we don’t pity gay persons, but we recognize them for who they are — they are our sons and daughters and brothers and neighbors and colleagues.”
He later returned to the subject of homosexual relationships, saying the subject “came up several times” and that a synod father asked, “How do we speak about them and offer a hand of welcome to them?”
It wasn’t clear who said what under the synod rules, but neither was it clear how many synod fathers addressed the issues Father Rosica, or the other language attaches, had mentioned.
In effect, this meant the public were left with a skewed interpretation of what was said at the opening debate, as happened throughout the last synod.
Thankfully, reliable sources have shared with me a few of the subjects covered by other synod fathers, helping to provide a more rounded picture of what was discussed:
* A number of synod fathers spoke in support of Cardinal Peter Erdo’s introductory speech, including one who underlined the importance of keeping fidelity to truth about marriage, the family and the Eucharist.
* A synod father asked “What are we doing here?” and stressed the synod is about the family, not other relationships such as homosexual ones. He also stressed that if the synod accepts the divorced-remarried issue, the Church effectively “supports divorce”.[…]
There are more bullet points. Read the rest there.
And don’t forget…. HERE
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What’s driving me nuts is that this is supposed to be an examination of what can be done to improve marriages and family life, and all the talk is gay, gay, divorce, divorce. Since gays can’t be in a marriage, what’s that subject even doing here? Instead of trying to figure out how to make it more acceptable and easy to get divorced, shouldn’t we want to create strong marriages where that is less likely to happen?
“we don’t pity gay persons, but we recognize them for who they are — they are our sons and daughters and brothers and neighbors and colleagues.”
Perhaps there is a definition or colloquialism associated with pity I don’t understand, but is it so wrong to pity those afflicted with SSA? It is a cross they must bear, just as others do with their own afflictions. Do we not pity all who are afflicted by addiction, phobias, paranoia, or other such disordered thoughts and feelings? Should we not pity, but recognize addicts for who they are? After all, “they are our sons and daughters and brothers and neighbors and colleagues.”
Pity, it seems to be, should not be decried as a vice, so long as properly intended and directed. And pity for those suffering from SSA seems appropriate.
Father Rosica is the head of “Salt & Light” TV in Canada, which is pretty much a “National Schismatic Reporter” for TV, the only discernible differnce is that you can’t wrap fish in “Salt & Light”.
Edward Pentin is doing a fantastic job covering the Synod. He’s clearly got great sources and he’s willing to ask tough questions. Remember, last Fall he was the one who asked the question that caused Cardinal Kasper to utter his nastiness about Africa. I make a point to read each and every thing his writes.
No doubt in my mind who Pope Paul VI and Pope Benedict XVI were referring to when they warmed of “the smoke of Satan” and “the wolves” in the Church.
” Do we not pity all who are afflicted by addiction, phobias, paranoia, or other such disordered thoughts and feelings?”
Well, yes, we do, but I think part of the intervention is to claim that homosexual attraction isn’t to be pitied, but celebrated. One doesn’t pity someone for winning the lottery, or for paying his bills on time, or for having a beautiful wife and obedient children…… so why pity those who have same-sex attraction: “we” are just like everyone else.
It will be very interesting to see how Pope Francis reacts to all of this. It is clear that many with homosexual tendencies and their supports feel emboldened and are coming out and being identified.
I only see two paths forward here:
1. Pope Francis reaffirms traditional marriage. Personnel changes happen silently, but quickly, over the next few years. Those who want to regularize sodomy or adultery no longer will hold positions of influence or importance.
2. Pope Francis is silent or does not oppose these radical ideas. Any talk of homosexual activity and adultery by clerics as disordered is suppressed.
If number one happens, Pope Francis will be THE MAN. He will have done in public what so many for a century have tried to do with stealth.
If number two happens there will be a great schism between the western Church and rest of the Catholic Churchs. Even within the western church there will be a great schism. Those that accept the traditional, biblical view Christ handed down and those that are willing to ignore what Christ laid down in favor of inclusive language that will be used to accept and justify immoral behavior.
I sure hope number one happens. The scandal that is happening to ordinary Catholics in the mean time is just horrific.
Sometimes, it just seems so strange that priests and bishops, and even cardinals, forget that the number one call that we all have is to holiness, and they should be discussing how best to help families achieve that. Hint: holding up comtemporary alternative models of family as a good thing, is not going to acheive it.
I am being constantly surprised at the level of either, inability to see the reality of what is going on at the Synod and in the church right now, and/or the unwillingness to openly state the obvious. We are all exactly like that frog in the pot. All of us. If someone told us ten years ago we would hear a Bishop speak like these men do, we would have said this was impossible and could not happen.
One thing is sure. The men who are this close to getting what they have wanted for decades are going to do whatever it takes to get it. Whatever, it takes. These are angry, conflicted, probably ruthless men. And there are a number of them working together. They are aided by the weak.
We are going to have to be open about the problem. The longer it hides, the stronger it gets.
It is hard to see how fence sitting will be able to continue. We are nowhere near out in the open, but hopefully eyes are beginning to see, and minds beginning to grasp.
We cannot go on denying the obvious for much longer. The culmination of this bizarre Synod will result in something official from Pope Francis.
And then we’ll all know.
“embrace reality as it is and not be afraid of new and complex situations.”
I keep hearing this phrase “embrace/accept reality as it is.” I recently came across a quote attributed to Bugnini’s secretary, Abbot Boniface Luykx, “He [Bugnini] accepted and embraced secularism because he said it was reality, and it was necessary to accept reality.”
Is there a list of talking points I haven’t received yet?
“The culmination of this bizarre Synod will result in something official from Pope Francis”
Will it? The whole thing strikes me as having gone completely beyond Francis’ control. Its probably true that the Pope’s sympathies are on the side of those who want to see the divorced and remarried admitted to communion, but if he had a reasonable strategy for doing that, he wouldn’t have bothered getting the synod involved. Not he’s caught in the middle between those with a completely different set of priorities from his own (the traditionalists), and the radicals in Germany and elsewhere.
The possibility of this Synod passing with little in the way of formal pronouncement afterward strikes me as increasingly likely
Two ideas keep getting a lot of play: 1) mercy and 2) “inclusive” language. Fr Roscia said we shouldn’t talk about pitying people with SSA, we should show them mercy.
Doesn’t showing them mercy imply pity? If I was living an active homosexual life and demanding that the church “accept me as I am”, I think I’d be highly offended by all this talk of mercy.
To me, that contradiction is a sign that many who shout “mercy” don’t really mean it; it’s just a cover for a bare exercise in power.
“Show me mercy but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me!”
No panic here.
The liars / liberals always try to put their agenda out there at the beginning of any event but the church is not a political organisation that seeks the flavour of the day.
Man can try and change things but God will not be mocked or defeated.
It was the same for Moses onwards each time many have tried to interfere and pervert the reality of truth but they have all failed.
At the moment the scumbag satan wants to spread confusion and discouragement to those seeking the truth of the faith and many that should know better seem to be falling into the snares.
The problem Fr. Rosica has with “pity”, I suspect, is the same as modern society’s–that is, modern society has (for some unknown reason) decided that when someone says “I pity you,” what they mean is really “I find myself superior to you and am being smug about it.”
So we get this bizarre position of “pity bad, compassion good,” even though the two words mean practically the same thing.
As one of thousands of SSA Catholics striving to live the Gospel’s call to chastity, I am not looking for pity.
I am very much looking for the Church to affirm my struggle, our struggle, which is difficult and for many is studded with stumbles and falls, over the agenda-driven yapping of self-righteous liberal prelates, priests, religious, and journalists. The Courage Apostolate does this well, but I have to go to another diocese for it, while “gay-affirming” New Ways Ministry seems to be well tucked in to my diocese.
While I don’t want to steer the conversation away from everybody else’s pet talking points (as long as they’re consistent with the faith), can we at least agree that SSA Catholics aspiring to remain faithful and chaste deserve more than the back of the bishops’ hands?
If people would like to understand “welcome” in the Church nowadays they should declare themselves an apostle of the Gospel of Life to their pastor and offer assistance on prolife and then report back on what it is like to be a pariah. There is no one less welcome in secular society today than a mother committed to raising children in the beauty and communion of orthodoxy fully. I think it would be important for this Synod to understand better the needs of Catholic mothers attempting to raise their children in the Faith today amidst a secular culture that directs open acts of hatred towards Catholics. In a public school, who is more welcomed, a gay American or a youth who declares that they believe in the Living God? Let’s be honest and cut the publicity stunt propaganda. But you know what, these guys, these seminary profs and others who fed off the fat of the Church for so long and then turn around and harsh on her, and obviously there are a great many like them still doing exactly that, while our schools, parishes are in disarray, confusion, chaos, crumbling, everyone still paying off the lawsuits for the teen abusers? Bishops and diocesan directors who cut out whole swaths of generations from the protection of the sacrament after several generations of faith, all to feed their own ideas, agenda and sacred calves? Here is what they may now look forward to:
Qui autem negaverit me coram hominibus, negabo et ego eum coram Patre meo, qui in cælis est.
I suspect, Peter Stuart, that too many prelates and clerics have ‘tried to remain faithful and chaste’ and found it easier to follow along after worldly things, abandoning the integrity of their vocations. Oremus pro invicem!
“Another intervention noted the flock are too few, and that one should show respect for families which battle and try to remain faithful, those who in particular remain faithful to their marital vows given before God, although there are controversies and difficulties.” May God bless and keep the bishop who made this statement. I often feel that our Archdiocese lets flagrant scofflaws pass in review while ignoring the families who struggle to live our faith–at least until the annual archbishop’s appeal.
Meanwhile, the real victims of the sexual revolution are ignored. Surely God hears their cries even if their parents and prelates don’t.
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/09/30/the-invisible-child/
Let’s be honest, in North America over the last say thirty years, for the most part, only a very few sorts of people are “welcomed” in the parishes — those with money, prestige, power, and, those in some sort of self defined insular in crowd. And for those who have programs made for them or their particular needs, let’s face it, these are all extended through the pity factor nevertheless, and moreover through the “look at how socially just I am” narcissism that pervades American politics and animates battles and division and partisan malice. I don’t ever remember feeling “welcomed” at any of the places where I worshipped, as a child, as a teen, as a single, working woman, as a mother, as someone interested in supporting life in all its stages of development with kindness, generosity, inclusion, or as someone interested in prayer, in regular reception of sacraments, reverent worthy liturgy for myself and children, and just the basic teachings of the Church conveyed to young people in a usable format that can sustain them and give them hope in this bitter ugly world we are now living in. Perhaps the Church after all cannot give what she does not have. How do people exactly expect this special welcome, not of pity, but something else, to work when no one has first received the benefit of that love and affection in the first place — indeed the very actors who one demands give this to special interest groups have long since abandoned the church or been driven away, have thrown up their hands in exhaustion and futility, not knowing what exactly it is that our leaders want. If the parish priest whose hand you shake at the conclusion of Mass looks at you as being odd because you were here, last week, and therefore, you must be going through, cancer, or death or something grave in order to take the very drastic step of attending, every week, and if whole parish teams are set in motion to prevent people from organizing from 40 Days for Life or teaching a solid catechesis or if priests don’t show up for regular confession time or if the liturgy communion song is from a secular opera then really what is it that we are supposed to expect? The messages is always for us to just go away, that it doesn’t matter, that no one makes any progress along the spiritual life, and we have no need for anything. Parish workers tend to be, sigh, don’t bother me types for the most part who then chase their pet projects for all get out at the neglect of the core, essential things, the very few things needed.
If you ask me this laundry list to the Synod drawn up by known Church haters to begin with is just one more way of dumping burdens of encouragement on already exhausted and reeling Catholics who don’t know what or who to trust anymore. It’s just a bunch of “leaders” in the Church taking up the persecutory and prosecuting fanatical mission of the modern media and elites to harsh on good believing people just trying to live their lives and make their way in a world animated at its core by evil violence, aka the culture of death, but of course we just scoff at that because it’s the mere culture war which means nothing and we don’t exist and nothing and no one matters, except, our special elitist agenda. After decades of shrill screaming at ordinary families, their children, believers, that we must do this, we must do that, we must pay for this, we must vote that, who actually believes that we are now doing to flagellate ourselves for pitying people, for not welcoming? Come on. Welcoming starts in the womb. If we get that wrong, you can kiss goodbye your hopes to force people to be nice to each other. That’s reality in the big city in 2015. That’s modernity. Let’s deal with that, first things first.
@Moon1234: or it could be that Pope Francis will remain silent, and we will simply wait for the next Pope to clean up this mess. I am following the lead and example of Archbishop Chaput on these matters.
Sorry above and an important one, “discouragement” ^. Quite obviously.
How on earth has someone like Father Rosica been permitted to wield this amount of power and influence at the Vatican? I know he wields influence in Canada because of “Salt and Light” and him being behind World Youth Day 2002, but all of a sudden since Sede Vacante 2013, he and his bully tactics, and his unbelievable agenda have no limits, he’s essentially the English-speaking voice of the Vatican. He seems very secure with himself, as if plenty of people in power have his back. Just who is this man and how did this happen? I hope, for the good of the Church, that this man is never given a miter.
mburn16, in my humble opinion it has not gone past the pope at all. To me it seems very well orchestrated. This Synod seems like a manipulated setup to get exactly what these progressive Cardinals are asking for. Synods aren’t called for to decide settled doctrine, but clearly it’s not settled. We’ve seen lots of words and actions that indicate “humility”, but then the hammer comes down with reminders of who’s in charge. All the right players are in place, and the ones who might say something inconvenient are sidelined, with some notable exceptions. I guess it’s all up to them.
And Peter Stuart, I don’t know what SSA people want, but we all want more than we are getting in most diocese today. I don’t believe SSA people should get more or less than anybody else. We’re living on bread and water here, not fed at all by our guy. There are no Latin Masses within an hour’s drive from where we live, and our churches are emptying. Bulletins from the Chancery are weak, insipid, and touting the progressive party line. We aren’t NONE of us getting fed, and regular old heterosexuals are trying to make it too, and finding it rough going. I’m pretty cynical anyway, but I’m concerned about all the many people whose comments I keep reading that show how vulnerable many Catholics are, in their inability to comprehend what these men are up to. They keep trusting, trusting. God help the good Cardinals and Bishops set things right again, if it’s possible. And help us too.
“While I don’t want to steer the conversation away from everybody else’s pet talking points (as long as they’re consistent with the faith), can we at least agree that SSA Catholics aspiring to remain faithful and chaste deserve more than the back of the bishops’ hands?”
Amen, and God bless you, man!
From the standpoint of a married woman, doing my darndest to raise my children to be faithful Catbolics in this insane world that tells them, and me, and my husband, that anything should go so long as we want it, and that we can all just turn our backs on our solemn vows and commitments as soon as things get the least bit difficult, I concur with your assessment. These suggested changes in language and practice (or whatever they’re trying to call it now) is absolutely a slap in the face to those of use who are trying to live and be faithful to Christ, and many of us suffer enormously while doing so. There is a huge burden in the way of social disapproval and ostracization that genuinely faithful Catholic suffer and the proposed changes say to us that our struggles and sufferings for the sake of chastity, purity, fidelity, etc and so on, have all been in vain.
I really want to see some affirmation for those of us that are genuinely trying to do the right thing and aren’t trying to bend the teachings of Church and his Church to our own will. Alas, I see a heck of a lot of wolves in the hen house right now. I’m just doing my best to remember God ultimately wins and I need to rely on Him completely.
Our Lady, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
Peter Stuart’s comment is an important one. None of the those pushing for change seem particularly interested in those Catholics who have made real sacrifices to live by Church teaching in difficult situations. Instead, they seem embarrassed by them. That is wrong. Indeed, such Catholics deserve support from all of us.
Want to talk about welcoming? See how welcomed you are as a Catholic in a modernist parish. There is nothing less welcoming than that.
“While I don’t want to steer the conversation away from everybody else’s pet talking points (as long as they’re consistent with the faith), can we at least agree that SSA Catholics aspiring to remain faithful and chaste deserve more than the back of the bishops’ hands?”
The above is confusing to me. In what way is the bishop giving you the back of their hands?
My understanding is that a Synod consists of very short (a few minutes statements) that express one single point. So leaving out many of the 70+ comments gives a distorted view colored by what Frs. Lombardi, Rossica and Pope Francis favor. Some of the other interventions mentioned in the Pentin article are very interesting, such as the one that noted that “the flock are too few, and that one should show respect for families which battle and try to remain faithful”.
It is difficult to understand this Synod because we already know that Pope Francis wants divorced welcomed more, although in the praxis in our parishes no one is denied communion (just ask Fr. Guarnizo). Now it has moved on to Homosexuals and who knows what next. Polygamy, female deacons, female priests, gay bishops, gay adoptions?
I would like to commend the female posters on this site. I learn so much from Benedetta, Katleen10 and Elizabeth D as well. Seems to me women have a more holistic way of looking at things than men. Thank you for you wisdom.
Pope Francis is an enigma to me but perhaps it will be good for us for him to have his way because he is bringing the Church into the sights of the secular world. He handles the media so well that today I saw a magazine cover with his picture and the headline: “A Second Roman Empire?”
Gratias that is very kind of you to say.
It seems to me that a great number of people, in the Church, as well as from without, have idealized a situation in which women are neutered of their unique feminine contribution, genius, dignity, including our maternal vocations, and would go so far as to romanticize a strange ideal which takes women out of the picture entirely, a universe in which Christ’s spouse lacks gender attributes and cancels out the complementary of the genders, giving women “ordination” as a consolation prize. This is not the Gospel. If these who have already designed things within and without the Church according to this schema, and also would take children out of the picture as problems and costs would now desire some particular special welcome and program extended besides, they may well “get in line” and join the families who have asked for sound teaching, for decades for their children that they may lead healthy lives and obtain to their salvation, no different from what their ancestors had the benefit of, and to be able to sustain through what has become a world without moral bearings entirely. The sacraments are sufficient of this, but we need worthy worship. I think that a world without the feminine genius of women, or with only neutered women with official authority as carved out by their patrons, would be a horrible situation indeed, for all, whether they realize it or not.
An apparent strength of our Holy Father Pope Francis is that he declines to participate in the sort of Church hating that has been going on within and without the Church for decades, the kind of contempt treatment of the ordinary believer just trying to make her way with the aid of sacramental spirituality. Neither did Pope Benedict or St. John Paul II engage in that sort of shrill snark and condescension to the basic believer as having to “get with it”, “do this”, “do that”, “or else”. The media would claim responsibility for the Francis Effect, as if this trait is something brand new. The reality is that the previous popes resisted the expressions of hatred and bitterness piled on the Church which the media, and to a great extent our own Catholic media has beat us down with over the years, but the media did not report that. Now, when Pope Francis displays genuine affection for and solidarity with the ordinary believer, whether in a prison, at a homeless shelter, jailed or taxed for religious faith, the media pretends to be dumbfounded at such a display of brotherly affection from a pope, no less, as if they never knew such existed. The fact is that when the clerical class closest to us joined in the beat down, some continued to look to Rome to hear a word of hope, an encouragement to continue even as all was falling around us in our parishes, to keep up the good fight — not necessarily a big political one, although that could depend on whether you lived in a totalitarian state at present or coming into one — but to keep up the quiet, good fight, in one’s domestic church, to be salt of the earth, right where you were. But while the accusers draw up their bills of particulars to indict the Catholic once more, as has happened always, as the rulers of this world try to conform us to their agendas and debts, our Holy Father takes no part in that. I think that for those of us tempted to the despair of the reality of the times, we must understand that regardless of machinations and riggings, there in the steps of St Peter is one who will consider not “the Church” as a construct for elitist disintegration and trashing, with their full venom and hatred unleashed, but one who will consider the flesh and blood human beings who are Christ’s sheep, those whom he may have embraced last week, and not let the powers of hell prevail against them. We know this for certain about the Pope. Of others involved in this process, there is a fair number of whom one cannot say the same with certainty. Thus the prayers of the memory of the Lepanto victory are still very needed.
Be very very leary of this spokesman, Rosica, he can be cunning, condescending and a clerical careerist. I have made a point to exclude his network, which has become very much “Catholic lite” from my TV viewing. He has changed greatly from his days dealing with St JPII and the world youth day. He was once very orthodox. Since March 2013 he has made a 360 degree turn and become part of the dark forces unleashed against the church after Pope Benedict’s resignation.
Our Lady of the Rosary please stop him and his co workers inside and outside the Vatican.
It all makes sense now. This is why +Francis spent the first 12 months of his pontificate trash-talking about “rosary counters” and “self-absorbed, Promethean neo-Pelagians” etc., etc. He was laying the foundations for this fiasco. The caricatures had to be painted large. “In the blue corner we have ‘Team Mercy’, fighting for minorities, the poor, those at the peripheries……”(yaaaaaaaay!!!), while over here in the red corner we have “the rules-obsessed, mean, fossilized, lovers of tradition”…….(boooooooooo!!!). Those likely to oppose the planned Synod shenanigans, first had to be demonized.
Seriously, no Pope talks like this…….ever!! This is internet combox rhetoric of the lowest order. As if that isn’t bad enough, while Christians are being slaughtered in the thousands and driven from their homes, while marriage is being destroyed throughout the Western world, we get an encyclical on the weather.
What a cheap, tawdry farce this pontificate truly is.
This is a chastisement for a faithless, rebellious church.
^ “a faithless, rebellious church”?? No.
The fact is that the secular accusers and militant elites do not start from caritas. They use a different approach with respect to Holy Mother Church, and that is to condemn, at the outset. It will be easy to distinguish in these coming weeks. On the one hand is the tactic, strong arm, modeled for us so well by the big quitter at the cafe press conference. On the other is the way of our Holy Father Pope Francis in continuity with the previous popes, which is, to start with gratitude, to say, thank you, to you mothers, to you parents, to you families, and to you young people, to be not afraid. It is really impossible to gather and walk together as a communion if we do not start from the acknowledgement in an encounter with gratitude for each other. That element has been largely missing from the strange North American church of the past decades, and certainly where it has been present it has been driven underground and banished for not lockstep conformity with the harsh shrill “you must or else” dogma of the elites and the empowered of our culture. Anyone who questions the narrative of “choice” which is the backbone of a certain lobby gets the treatment. Yet, that is not the way of Christ and it is not the way of His Church, nor of His Mother. Anyone who wishes to have a dialogue with us, the faithful, must show us first the element of respect, to recognize the dignity of our humanity. An agenda that discounts our complete existence is obviously not of the Gospel.
One thing I’d like to point out is that the Pope has said that there won’t be a final written report and that he himself will decide when and how to express the conclusions – and, in fact, there may never be a written document. So we’ve gone from the confusing, wordy vagueness of Vatican II – which permitted any interpretation that struck the liberal fancy – to the complete silence of this latest undeclared mini-Vatican III (because that’s what it is), where the Pope will claim he is acting in response to the synod, while nobody – including the participants – will be privy to the entire proceedings and the Pope and his band will be free to do whatever they want by invoking a nonexistent or at any rate not-provable synod decision.
I still can’t believe nobody among the synod fathers is objecting to this. It’s stunning and dictatorial and unheard of in our history.
I’m going to stick with the St “Padre” Pio line: Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry!
Seems there are many on here who presume to know more than what is actually knowable about what is going on in the Synod on the Family, and what will come of it. Do you really believe that the Gates of Hell can prevail over Holy Mother Church? That’s what I read from some of you.