Fr. Z's Blog

Think of a hungry wolf pack and a cornered bear. As the wolves lunge in the bear swats them away with some damage. They keep testing the bear, now this side and now that, one at a time, then two. Eventually the bear gets tired and one of the wolves scores a substantial gain. Eventually Yogi fails.

Imagine Yogi’s thought as he fights for his life.  “Why are these funny looking sheep attacking me?  Something is wrong here.”

Chess works the same way, by the way: if you can attack on both the queen side and king side and have a strong or attacking center, “GG” to your opponent.

Another example.

Think of creeping incrementalism. I remember a scene from Windswept House in which the Card. Bernardin real-life character told a hapless bishop, the Bp. Raymond Lucker real-life character, to make some crazy proposal. The Lucker character balked because he knew he would get shot down. The Bernardin character said that he should then just walk it back. The goal of shifting the needle in their direction just a little would have been accomplished. Peck away. A little at a time.   US HERE – UK HERE

Also, I come from a caucus state in these USA. Quickly you learn that the people who come early, network, are active and vocal, and stay to the end are the one’s who prevail.

This is from the National Catholic Register…

Flemish Bishops’ Document Undermines the Spiritual Quest of Homosexual People, Belgian Theologians Warn

[…]

The Flemish bishops of Belgium announced Sept. 20 the creation of a specific liturgy to bless homosexual couples, as well as the establishment of a “contact point” in parishes for homosexual Catholics.

It’s a project that some theologians consider deeply harmful to the spiritual life of homosexual believers, as well as being in contradiction with the content of the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), on which it claims to be based.

The three-page document, entitled “Being Pastorally Close to Homosexuals: For a Welcoming Church That Excludes No One,” also directly contradicts a March 2021 opinion from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which stated that the blessing of homosexual unions “cannot be considered licit.”

This initiative of the bishops of Flanders, which has crystallized the current dissension in the Church over the ways in which the same-sex attracted should be welcomed, was somehow foreseeable. Indeed, the outcry that the Vatican congregation’s document caused last year among a very large part of the Belgian episcopate suggested that the debate was far from being closed in that country.

“I feel a vicarious shame for my Church,” Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp wrote in an opinion piece following the publication of the Vatican’s responsum. “I want to apologize to all those for whom this response is painful and incomprehensible. […] Their pain for the Church is my pain today.”

As early as 2014, during the preparation of the Synod on the Family, Bishop Bonny — who represented Belgium at the synod — had announced that he would advocate for the blessing of same-sex couples.

Many other Belgian Catholic leaders also have publicly declared themselves in favor of the blessing of same-sex couples in more recent years, starting with the primate of Belgium himself, Cardinal Jozef De Kesel. The archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and president of the Belgian Bishops’ Conference had indeed already reflected, in 2018, on the possibility of “prayer celebrations” to seal a lifelong union of homosexual couples.

Moreover, the recent text of the Flemish bishops actually echoes a project launched by the Francophone Diocese of Liège in December 2021, which proposed a special prayer for same-sex couples that must be conducted by “a priest, a deacon, a religious or any other layperson mandated for this purpose by the dean or the parish priest of the pastoral unit.”

[…]

That’s part of the landscape.

One of the best reactions I’ve seen is at the Padre Pio Press blog:

Belgian Waffling

Those stalwart Belgian prelates have really done it. Actually, they only have kind of done it. Who likes a half-baked waffle anyway?

Their patriarchal minds are still half-closed. Pity.

Although we all appreciate their attempt at blessing same-sex unions, one is forced to ask, “why should blessings be confined to them?” in other words, why blessings only for sodomites but not for everyone? After all, we all need accompaniment – except those, you know… Trads.

Of course, these blessings can’t be distributed without true accompaniment and discernment which ought to be accompanied by accompaniment. After all, we have standards. Fidelity is the word.

Just imagine what those close-minded Flems couldn’t imagine: arsonists who faithfully pledge their troth to a particular zip code; johns who promise exclusivity to their cocotte, thieves who refuse to steal from more than one store. But don’t lose hope, little flock. The God of surprises isn’t done with them.

— Fr. Cliff Ermantiger

Once it starts, it doesn’t stop.