Edward Pentin’s next installment about last year’s Synod

“Innocent III could say crazy things, and almost no one would know until a year or so later! Now it’s two clicks and it’s gone around the blogosphere.”

Everyone should pay attention to a new installment of Edward Pentin’s wrap up of last years Synod.  HERE

Pentin spoke with Prof. John Rist, who is a collaborator in the Fine Cardinals Book™ and is a great expert in Patristic Theology, Late Antiquity, and ethics.  He destroyed Card. Kasper’s so-called basis in the Fathers for his “tolerated but not accepted” plan to admit adulterers to receive Communion.  Full disclosure, I had courses from John Rist at the Augustinianum and we are friendly.

Thus, Edward…

In my new eBook “The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family”, published this week by Ignatius Press, Professor Rist lays out the controversial meeting in the context of the Church’s history – a perspective for which many readers have noted their appreciation. He also explains the way in which it marks a break with how such assemblies have been conducted in the past.

Here is an excerpt.  Believe me, you want to read it all, if nothing else, to hear the mind of John Rist at work:

“I suspect that Kasper, at least, and possibly the pope, didn’t really expect the kind of intense opposition that they’ve actually run into”, he said. “Cardinal Burke might have been thought to be one such person. ‘[He’s a] nuisance, get him out of the way.’ But I don’t think they expected the wholesale opposition of most pro-life groups. That they didn’t again shows they don’t really understand the world they live in.”

He continued: “Again there are parallels in the not too distant past. I mean when Pope Paul VI promulgated Humanae vitae [his encyclical confirming the Church’s opposition to contraception], he seems to have been genuinely surprised at the hostile reaction in the Church. Again, he shouldn’t have been! And again it shows how those at the top are blind: that maybe they are doing the right thing, but they don’t understand the world they’re living in. The same problem we are coming up against now.”

Although Rist does not fully agree with Cardinal Burke’s culturally more traditional side, he does see the American cardinal as acting contra mundum [against the world], like Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, the fourth-century saint who fought the heretical Arian bishops (and emperors) in defense of orthodoxy.

“It’s a very good thing that there are people like that”, Rist said. “But I think what really annoys some of the people around the pope, if not the pope himself, is that they really didn’t expect to find that kind of resistance. Well, Henry VIII didn’t expect Fisher to resist either.”

He added: “It seems to me that among both bishops and people there are three groups. There are the people like Burke who want to maintain a traditional line. There are liberals. In between, there are people who are just watching the wind and will do what they think the pope wants them to do. When Benedict was in post, they did what Benedict wanted them to do.”

Read the whole thing and get the ebook.

It’s Cold War stuff.

The Rigging of a Vatican Synod?
An Investigation of Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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45 Comments

  1. Joseph-Mary says:

    What bring tears to the eyes and an ache to the heart to those that love the Church is all the lying, proud proclaiming of heretical things with impunity, and manipulation, among other -even public-sins of some in the very high hierarchy. They should be good shepherds conforming to our Precious Good Shepherd but instead they are blind leading the blind and all are heading for a pit. To call the desire for sinful things, because ‘the world’ champions those things, a sensus fidelum (sp?) is a travesty. A Cardinal should be willing to shed his blood for the The Truth. But we have so many willing to compromise, at the very least, with the world and the growing darkness. I know such things have happened before and there are only a handful of saints that stood against the juggernaut but the souls in peril is something that should drive all good faithful Catholics in the know to their knees.
    To put a focus on the climate or other things is a rabbit hole we need to avoid…the Church is to be an instrument for the salvation of souls, not an offshoot of Greenpeace.

  2. majuscule says:

    I’m so glad to see that published as an article! I had just gotten to that section in the book last night.

    I hope more people see it.

  3. Kathleen10 says:

    Since mass communication is what helped prevent the heretics from getting what they wanted at Synod 2014, we see that social communication (its speed) play a role. For all the evil social media has brought about, how nice to see it actually help us out for a change.
    They are this close, so they think, to getting what they want. It is at this point tyrants pull out all the stops.
    I can’t remember the “adjustments” made to this year’s Synod, in terms of procedure. I would anticipate very tight control of the process, in order to sculpt the desired outcomes one way or another. It would be expected that witnesses to the process must be kept outside the process, so that the predetermined conclusions and outcomes from the Synod (probably already written) can be achieved. Are Michael Voris and similar media going to be allowed inside, or has that already been taken care of.

  4. JMGriffing says:

    Speaking as an Orthodox Christian and regular reader of this blog, it seems that Cardinal Kasper and his compatriots tend to not point something out when it comes to the Orthodox Church and remarriage after divorce. Most Orthodox Churches (all?) require divorced persons to get an ecclesiastical divorce from a church tribunal. From what I’ve seen, the acceptable grounds tend to be the same as for a declaration of nullity. I would say then that his “Orthodox solution” has nothing to do with Orthodoxy.

  5. frjim4321 says:

    most pro-life groups

    pro-birth groups.

  6. Phil_NL says:

    Well, Fr Jim, birth is pretty much a necessary condition to life (unless you’re happy with perpetually frozen embryos), and the place where the rub is…

  7. SaintJude6 says:

    No frjim4321. PRO-LIFE groups. PRO-LIFE. PRO-MARRIAGE. PRO-FAMILY. PRO-CHRIST.
    All other charity towards individuals flows from not slaughtering them before they can even take their first breath. We will feed, house, educate, comfort, and cherish as we are called. It’s pretty damn hard to have a life without a birth.

  8. benedetta says:

    frjim4321 I take it you are involved in one or several such pro-birth groups? I’m curious which. You evidently have some first hand, personal knowledge?

  9. benedetta says:

    To my mind there is nothing quite like the macabre spectacle and scandal of a priest ridiculing believers for their faith and hopes for the flourishing lives of all God’s children and people.

  10. fionam says:

    The sad thing is that it seems to me that there are many who don’t want to see what’s right in front of their noses, especially priests. If I bring up this topic with my local priests, I am told to trust in the Holy Spirit. Taken at face value, there is certainly nothing wrong with this advice. However, I am becoming tired of priests using the Holy Spirit, with reference to the current situation, as some sort of aethereal panacea Who will make everything right with the wave of His hand. I have no doubt that He could do so if He wished, but it seems that people forget that the Holy Spirit is not some vague, helpful ethereal being wafting around, smoothing over everyone’s faults but is indwelling in those who are open to His movements. It appears that there are presently very few priests, bishops or cardinals who are truly open to Him. I thank God for those who do stand up for the Truth and make themselves heard, but it seems that there are all too many are scared, apathetic or too willing to please their temporal superiors to be of any use in this situation.

  11. MrTipsNZ says:

    With all due respect to the clearly fine mind of Prof. Rist, he has missed the 4th group. The one unknown to all other 3 groups and repeatedly used by God during the ages to ensure Divine Providence.

    The forgotten and left-field have always been the conduits for Heaven’s vitality. And that is what makes it even more the beautiful and powerful.

  12. Praynfast says:

    “In between, there are people who are just watching the wind and will do what they think the pope wants them to do. When Benedict was in post, they did what Benedict wanted them to do.” There are far too many of these chameleons.

    While I was in seminary at a very well-known U.S. seminary, a well-known priest was extremely frustrated with such behavior. He called it “politicking” to become bishop, and he claimed it to be a very common practice.

    The practice was evident in one particular popular U.S. priest who was just named bishop. Others that politic Pope Francis can be found tweeting and re-tweeting Pope Francis gibberish non-stop. If you take Pope Francis’ name off of the words, no priest in their right mind would repeat such nonsense. See: Pope accepts communist “crucifix”! See also: Pope drinks coca-leaf tea! See also: Laudato si.

  13. Nan says:

    @JMGriffing, to what Orthodox Church do you belong? I’ve been told by my Greek Orthodox friends that one may be divorced and remarried once, but if there’s a second divorce with a third marriage in the offing, there must be good reason and discussion with the priest. Note also this parish had a divorced priest who had a year to decide whether he’d continue as a celibate priest or whether he’d resign from the priesthood and be free to marry again.

  14. frjim4321 says:

    No frjim4321. PRO-LIFE groups. PRO-LIFE. PRO-MARRIAGE. PRO-FAMILY. PRO-CHRIST.

    Ideally that would be the case, but it’s not. Most of the anti-choice people I come across are pro-birth and don’t have much interest in the other life issues.

    Case-in-point, now we have “authorities” bandying about the term, “Seamless Garment Heresy.”

  15. marcelus says:

    “I suspect that Kasper, at least, and possibly the pope, didn’t really expect the kind of intense opposition that they’ve actually run into”, he said. “Cardinal Burke might have been thought to be one such person. ‘[He’s a] nuisance, get him out of the way.’ But I don’t think they expected the wholesale opposition of most pro-life groups. That they didn’t again shows they don’t really understand the world they live in.”

    Problem with this is:

    It seems to be sort of focuse don Burke. where the rest of the world does not know who he is.

    And honestly, stating again that there is a battle between burke and the Pope and the rest of the world is poor.

    If PF wants to go one way, he will do it no matter what, Burke or not . You have seen that.He just does not care. He is a lone wolf and as we say, seen in political terms, he does not marry anyone, Reason he was chosen in first place.

    Not to offend anyone but Crdl Burke if you like to portray him as you are or this author is, the main “head” of the opposition to a so called “revolution”, lead by Francis and Kasper!!! he is just not strong enough,

    Please, then do not go crazy if papers of TV stations show Crdl Burke in a bad light, Do not forget he, no matter how virtuous a man, is not a force to be reckoned with, when sided against a Pope. The Latin american Chuch fully backs PF. and that is at least 50% of the RCC worldwide

  16. Ann Malley says:

    “…Case-in-point, now we have “authorities” bandying about the term, “Seamless Garment Heresy.””

    Thank God for that, Fr.jim4321. If the Catholic Church is indeed to operate like a field hospital, as the Holy Father says, then triage must be exercised. A broken leg, much as it may pain the patient, is not the same as a perforated jugular.

    One must exercise intellectual honesty, Father, for that is no doubt why our Lord gifted us with Intellect and Will. To use them.

  17. CatholicMD says:

    A Catholic priest who refers to opposition to dismembering unborn human beings as “anti-choice” is truly scandalous.

  18. JKnott says:

    Frjim4321. I think you are crying out for our prayers. And no doubt you are receiving them from many of us.

  19. jacobi says:

    More and more, it seems the Church is in a mess. The 4th century Arian heresy is often mentioned. This heresy seems to me increasingly relevant.

    Kasper clearly comes into the Relativist school of thought, using Gradualism as his weapon. What is puzzling is that the present Pope, while not actually supporting him does not, either, clearly contradict him.

    Innocent III is mentioned. It is a pity we could not have another such Pope at present. At least he believed in the the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and incidently he got a few other priorities, such as the very real danger of Islam, right.

    There are still other groups left in the current reduced Catholic Church. There are Catholics, concerned with the Cross and Resurrection, and with the Scripture, Revelation, Tradition, all as expressed in the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

    But not to worry. The Holy Ghost will ensure it all works out, in perhaps one or maybe two hundred years or so?

  20. Muv says:

    Fr Jim, How about anti-death?

  21. benedetta says:

    frjim4321 obviously intended it as an uncharitable slight and a stereotype, why who really could imagine, but the fact is that it is still ultimately better to be “probirth” even as a mock from frjim4321 than to be “prochoice” which leads to death in tens of millions of cases in which the trauma and violence could have been avoided, and the life supported.

    It’s a strange thing when an American liberal lacks confidence in the social safety net or Democratic policies arrayed to support human life and believes that the “choice” of death would be a good and meaningful and excellent option in, well, how many cases or souls is he talking exactly there? Of course he never answers the tough questions. He dishes it out but he is unable to face the situation with courage like 100% of the prolifers I know.

  22. SaintJude6 says:

    I’d like frjim4321 to come to my church in Texas and say what he did about “anti-choice”. I’m sure there would be a line at the confessional right after the men (and some of the ladies with canes) finished showing him the error of his ways. A collar only goes so far in earning you respect.
    (What am I saying? Priests like that don’t wear collars. It’s pastel polo shirts.)

  23. Fr. Vincent Fitzpatrick says:

    If an old lady came to me and confessed that she had beaten a priest with her cane for calling pro-life people “pro-birth,” and “anti-choice,” I’d say, “That wasn’t a sin.”

  24. Chris Garton-Zavesky says:

    In reference to the upcoming visit of His Holiness to the other shore, and to the upcoming Synod on the family, my family and I will begin praying the older/fuller prayer to St. Michael on the 15th, Our Mother of Sorrows, and (currently expect to) finish praying it on the day the Synod ends.

    To Fr. Jim’s point, it’s true that there are people who only care about hurting other people. Some of these are in the halls of government, some are professional protestors, some are misguided amateur protestors. Anti-choice isn’t the proper way to describe them, though, since those who promote abortion are only “pro-choice” when the choice selected is destroying an unborn child. Ask Planned Parenthood or its supporters if they would support abstinence programs, adoption, crisis pregnancy centers, building up intact families and such. I would (truly) be interested in their answer.

  25. Susan G says:

    FrJim4321- do you have something pressing on your life that is requiring prayer from this community? Because I fail to see any other reason that you would voice support for abortion. Clearly you are in need of prayer about something and find this as the opportunity to have many of us offer your needs to Our Lord? Because surely there is no way that a priest of Christ who consecrates bread into His very Body and holds Him daily could possibly condone, let alone support the slaughter of millions of innocent lives.

  26. frjim4321 says:

    Because I fail to see any other reason that you would voice support for abortion. Susan

    No, I don’t support elective abortion and I think it is a horror.

    However I think our language should be clear and descriptive.

    The SCOTUS determined that a woman’s right to privacy trumps all else, therefore logically those who oppose elective abortion oppose a woman’s “right” to choose an abortion.

    Many people who call themselves “pro-life” favor the death penalty and oppose public policies that may very well reduce the number of abortions.

    I have stated many times here that it is the actual number of abortions that matter, and not rhetoric. Ironically under the current administration the actual abortion rate has gone down.

    If you say that I “support” abortion, you have never listened to me.

    Nor do I think that hammering away at a single issue is an effective strategy for further reducing the abortion count or bringing about any improvement in a host of other life issues.

  27. TWF says:

    Fr. Jim, even if we don’t agree with his points, deserves the respect that should be accorded to any priest…
    I believe that abortion is the greatest horror facing our society, but I agree that “pro-life” should be a holistic approach for Catholics.

  28. Chris Garton-Zavesky says:

    Fr. Jim,

    As long as the distribution of contraceptives isn’t part of the way to prevent more abortions, I’ll listen. If it is, holistic approaches aren’t really holistic.

  29. Susan G says:

    Fr Jim, I apologize that I made assumptions about your position on this issue from your comment. You are right that we cannot be pro-birth and leave it at that. I haven’t yet met anyone in the prolife movement who does… though I have seen politicians use the terminology to gain popularity while not supporting a single issue that could help save these lives. Certainly we also need to be working towards better lives for our poorest, for an end to the death penalty, for a general increase or respect of all life- the child in the womb, the teenager being bullied, the woman with an unintended pregnancy, the family struggling to put food on the table, the elderly patient with a terminal illness or the disabled individual. We need to foster a culture of life that supports all of these individuals and that reminds us that no one life has more value than another. But without the right to life, I don’t see how that can be accomplished. When sex-selective abortion targets women in the womb, when the disabled are murdered before they are born, when the solution offered to poor women with unintended pregnancies, especially those of minority groups, is abortion, I see those issues getting worse.

  30. Pingback: Reformers Use Conscience in Divorced, Remarried - Big Pulpit

  31. JMGriffing says:

    @Nan I am in the Greek Orthodox Church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate (as opposed to under the Church of Greece, Patriarch of Antioch, etc…).

    I cannot, unfortunately, speak to what happens in practice. It may be that ecclesiastical divorces are handed out improperly (actually, I’ve little doubt of it) just as declarations of nullity are. The paper norm, however, is that anyone approaching re-marriage after a civil divorce must have an ecclesiastical divorce as well. If one does not have that ecclesiastical divorce, remarriage in the Church is impossible. If one is remarried outside the Church (or married outside the Church period), Holy Communion is closed to them. Even if one does have an ecclesiastical divorce, the bishop has to give prior consent to either a second or third marriage. Of interesting note is that if an ecclesiastical divorce is given on grounds of adultery, the adulterer is not given permission to remarry.

    Part of the problem in discussion of Orthodox practice vs. Catholic practice is a differing understanding of the sacraments. In the East, the couple are not the ministers of the sacrament. The priest is the minister of the sacrament. Unless there is a reason the marriage could not have canonically taken place (blood relation, spiritual relation, a believer and an unbeliever, etc.), the East does not see a way to say “a marriage was never there.” Instead, the East relies on the power to bind and loose given to the Apostles as a means of recognizing when a marriage has been wounded past the place of non-miraculous healing.

  32. Benedict Joseph says:

    The reasons to be mortified by the behavior of the “German party” and its advocates in the highest places are countless, but on the pedestrian level it comes down to could be reduced to “cluelessness.” How it is possible for these individuals to continue in this stream of ceaseless self-gratification while maintaining their adopted pose as “wisdom figures” is astonishing. Their “stuck in the sixties” consciousness betrays a lack of awareness of what has happened over the past fifty years and an inability to critique our historical reality with the mind of the Gospel. Are such individuals qualified for their positions, let alone truly discerned to have had a vocation to the priesthood? The Roman Catholic priesthood? Where is their accountability to the people they are supposed to be serving – primarily those attempting to be faithful to the Gospel. There is no accountability, and there should be. A lot of real consequential accountability. These men, all of them subscribing to this scandalous collusion with hell, need to be sent away to whatever lives they really want to live, but not bring their disorientation to those of us who, at the admonition of Christ, are trying to enter by the narrow gate.

  33. benedetta says:

    Herein, frjim4321 finally articulates the dogma to which he and American partisans in the Church have embraced to the domination of all others, longstanding. The “choice to kill” that he alludes to is even triumphantalized to the point of trumping freedom of religion, and frjim4321 is obviously ok with that.

    But what is truly fascinating in his latest defense of “choice” in this post is that he affirms the real core evil about abortion in this country. He parrots the propaganda that under his president the “number of abortions is reduced” — frjim4321’s slogan is therefore something along the lines of “only some lives matter, who by arbitrary agreement with greed and the elites who rule over us somehow manage to make it through, but not of course the nearly half statistically babies who are of color who do not manage to squeak by even though policies reducing overall the number”.

    No one here brings up social safety net policies , yet frjim4321 claims that “many prolifers” do not support these. That is just a vile calumny that he continually trots out in a self serving manner to attempt to justify his position and actions. One could ask frjim4321 his sources of knowledge — in all likelihood these sources are, comboxes, blogs, foxnews (?) whereas the sources of knowledge that the great majority of us have is first hand involvement in the prolife movement. He just simply does not know what he is talking about. That “overall numbers of abortions” under Obama are reduced simply does not prove that prolifers only care about “birth” and nothing else. It is bizarre that frjim4321 would remain so very personally invested in attacking prolifers here and on other threads even now. As I said, there is nothing like the sad spectacle of a priest mocking the prolife movement.

    frjim4321 would have women coerced to abort, and many others, attach a greed and consumerist price tag upon their child’s head, and attach opposition to it to a political party, one only. This is so contrary to humanism and basic dignity that it shocks the moral sensibilities.

  34. benedetta says:

    Perhaps for frjim4321’s morning meditation he should picture a young person, involved in his or her activities or work this day, and the prolifer who saved his or her life, together in our communion, and be grateful for that. I sure am. Would he trade some babies saved for an eternal public shaming of prolifers to deter them from their important salvific work? What priest would be content with this?

  35. GreggW says:

    PRO-BIRTH groups. Fr. Jim, may our Lord bless you richly in your ministry and use you mightily in the salvation of many souls.

    But to clarify from my own experience and knowledge, thinking offhand about pro-life people that I personally know of who have been active in pro-life groups….in addition to being anti-abortion, they also (in no particular order): gladly welcome into the world their own children who have special needs, adopt children with special needs, adopt children who are orphans in other countries, pray with people they meet while on the street in front of Planned Parenthood (the needs of the passersby vary greatly), walk to the local convenience store with those who need a handout and buy them food, run a food pantry from their own home, work in soup kitchens and city missions, volunteer at food distribution centers, advocate politically at the state level, participate in prayer vigils for our state and our nation, participate / help coordinate post abortion healing sessions, counsel people who have undergone mental trauma (of whatever cause), work in prison ministries for those inside and their families and other loved ones outside, teach others about pro life issues, advertise pro life activities, volunteer in crisis pregnancy centers, give clothes to local thrift shops, offer their time and talents to a single mother who needed help with her house, donate money to Food for the Poor and other like organizations, use their time and money to go on missions trips to less fortunate countries to help provide education, infrastructure and medical care, take people with serious illnesses or disabilities on pilgrimage…my goodness, these are all things that I can think of offhand as I think about individuals that I know who are active in some way in pro-life groups.

    I am certain I am missing things, but the point here is not to be exhaustive. The point is that “pro-birth” is FAR too narrow a descriptive term to use for these people, and I honestly do not think that these people are outside the norm for pro-life individuals. I think this is the norm.

  36. benedetta says:

    People like frjim4321, well, let’s face it, priests like him, would force Catholics into a one-party ghetto and relinquish our autonomy to the state. Perhaps he will now explain to us why “prolife” or even “probirth” has been chased from open, honest and free participation in the Democratic Party. I’m no shill for one party or the other, but it says something when they tell you as a prolifer you are never welcome and that NARAL and abortion expansion trumps your belief that murder in the womb is wrong formed by your free conscience.

  37. Mike says:

    When I stand before Christ the King as my judge, I expect to be called to account on (among many other things) what I have done with regard to promoting His social reign. The papal promulgators of Rerum Novarum, Quas Primas, Miserentissimus Redemptor, Evangelium Vitae, etc., as well as dedicated pro-life people, have done much to advance that reign. It is difficult to say the same of the proponents of modernistic Gnosticism, anti-Catholic statism, and other “progressive” philosophies, especially when wrapped in the euphemistic tissue of “choice,” “pro-birth,” and other cheaply used terms.

  38. benedetta says:

    This partisan rabbit hole attacking prolifers was brought to you today by frjim4321. We now return to our regularly scheduled pre Synodal coverage.

  39. robtbrown says:

    FrJim4321 says,

    Case-in-point, now we have “authorities” bandying about the term, “Seamless Garment Heresy.”

    Who has used that phrase?

    I’m not a promoter of capital punishment, but it has next to nothing to do with the question of abortion.

    Also: The purpose of anti-abortion law is not to reduce the number of abortions, although that is a hoped for consequence. There are other factors (e.g., the state of the economy) that affect the statistics.

    The purpose of anti-abortion law–and for that matter, all law–is the promotion of the Common Good, which of course has both a material and spiritual component. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the latter has become little else than a notion of individual rights that has been stretched beyond the Natural Law. Not only is Natural Law referenced in the Declaration of Independence, but it is considered the basis for individual rights. Thus, they are Natural Rights.

  40. Imrahil says:

    So, for making the point clear, let’s put it in extremist form. It would probably be unwise to do so in a political discussion, for yes, we highly value the life of the babies, and yes, all indications indicate that banning abortions would actually succeed in reducing their numbers.

    But for all that,

    the firm principle is:

    It is forbidden to do evil so that good may come of it.

    So, suppose you’d be approached with the (credible) plan to hinder all abortions – each one of them. And all you had to do was officially accept that people have the choice to abort – as second best, sure, but as a legally and morally legitimate choice. Accept just that, and (by some mechanism set up for hypothesis sake) there is no single abortion any more.

    There is only one possible answer, of course. “Get off me, tempter!”

    As Newman said, “The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.” (Apologia V)

    Now we have made the principle clear, let’s get back to the fact that, as all indications indicate, banning abortions would reduce the number of them.

  41. Athelstan says:

    It saddens me that we have reached the point where a Catholic priest will actually use the term “anti-choice” – in public, no less.

    Killing babies is never a valid choice. Taking an innocent life is never a valid choice. If we can not establish that, nothing else really matters.

  42. Athelstan says:

    “There are the people like Burke who want to maintain a traditional line. There are liberals. In between, there are people who are just watching the wind and will do what they think the pope wants them to do. When Benedict was in post, they did what Benedict wanted them to do.”

    One interesting and unexpected benefit of this pontificate is finding out just how many “in between” bishops and lay figures there really are out there.

  43. Athelstan says:

    Ironically under the current administration the actual abortion rate has gone down.

    Unfortunately, the CDC and Guttmacher abortion statistics do not count many self-administered chemical abortions through drugs like RU-486 – and the ones they do count are actually increasing, despite the decline in surgical abortions.

  44. stephen c says:

    Athelstan – the church was worse in this respect, when I was a child, than it is now, as far as I can tell. (Check out the sinful entry in the aging “Catholic Encyclopedia” regarding the rich elderly abortion supporter Daniel Moynihan – not a word about his Henry the Eighth level of treason and contempt against the innocent unborn). Anyway, there is no guarantee that someone who claims to be a Catholic priest on the internet is actually a Catholic priest. Anyone who chooses to use the word “ironically” when trying to be clever about the effects of the tragically sinful Obama presidency is, in the moment where he or she gives in to the temptation to be clever about a devastating harm that has apparently not yet affected them, no better representative of the Catholic priesthood than, in their day, the Jew-hater priests (not many, but they existed – one or two or more even repented before dying, and are celebrated as martyrs), the pro-slavery priests, the simonizing priests, or other men who, at one time in their lives, received the word of God with love in their hearts, but later decided to brag about abandoning it. Well, God love Jew-haters, slave traders, and the people who loved Him once and forgot that love, but, I am sure, he loves them too much to let them stay that way. I pray every day for abortion supporters and people who joke about abortion, God loves them too, just as he loves me, in my sinful nature. I hope he replaces all our cold hearts with hearts of love.

  45. Mike says:

    Case-in-point, now we have “authorities” bandying about the term, “Seamless Garment Heresy.”

    What “authorities,” frjim4321? Your allegation smacks of McCarthyism. Substantiate it or withdraw it.

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