Created: 10/29/2015 1:09 PM KSTP.com
By: Dave Aeikens
Edit: when George Neumayr gets critical like this... Is the Apocalypse coming? Even Neocons are angry at this Pope. Still, he doesn't go far enough. Surely, anyone who's tried to be a faithful Catholic at some point has experienced a spiteful leftist who can't contain his contempt for the faithful Catholic?
The Pope's Caricaturing Conservatives
[Spectator] The scandalous synod on the family skidded to a stop last weekend in Rome but not before Pope Francis got in a few more licks at conservatives, whom he caricatured in his final remarks as heartless.
The speech was notable for its nastiness, displaying the very lack of charity he routinely assigns to conservatives. The synod, he said, had exposed “closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.”
He continued: “It was about trying to open up broader horizons, rising above conspiracy theories and blinkered viewpoints, so as to defend and spread the freedom of the children of God, and to transmit the beauty of Christian Newness, at times encrusted in a language which is archaic or simply incomprehensible.”
http://spectator.org/articles/64482/pope%E2%80%99s-caricaturing-conservatives
The Final Report of the second session of the Synod on the Family, published on October 24, 2015, far from showing a consensus of the Synod Fathers, is the expression of a compromise between profoundly divergent positions. Of course we can read in it some doctrinal reminders about marriage and the Catholic family, but we note also some regrettable ambiguities and omissions, and most importantly several breaches opened up in discipline in the name of a relativistic pastoral “mercy”. The general impression that this document gives is of confusion, which will not fail to be exploited in a sense contrary to the constant teaching of the Church.
This is why it seems to us necessary to reaffirm the truth received from Christ (1) about the role of the pope and the bishops and (2) about marriage and the family. We are doing this in the same spirit that prompted us to send to Pope Francis a petition before the second session of this Synod.
As sons of the Catholic Church, we believe that the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter, is the Vicar of Christ, and at the same time that he is the head of the whole Church. His power is a jurisdiction in the proper sense. With regard to this power, the pastors, as well as the faithful of the particular Churches, separately or all together, even in a Council, in a Synod, or in episcopal conferences, are obliged by a duty of hierarchical subordination and genuine obedience.
Cardinal Carlo Caffarra |
Edit: this aberrosexual enabler is beside himself with glee.
[National Catholic Reporter] think that the truth is that Communion was not mentioned because that was the only way the paragraphs could get a two-thirds majority. Like the Second Vatican Council, the synod achieved consensus through ambiguity. This means that they are leaving Pope Francis free to do whatever he thinks best.
Hats off to the drafting committee that found exactly the right language to achieve consensus even if it does not give a definitive answer to our questions.
Josh McElwee also reports that the document touches on artificial contraception, quoting Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae that prohibited the practice. But the Synod document also calls for a "consensual dialog" between spouses when considering children.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/synod-remarried-catholics-consensus-ambiguity
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/10/what-did-the-synod-really-say-some-analysis-of-the-final-report/What Did The Synod Really Say? Some analysis of the Final Report.“[IF] If the Pope decides to publish this section of the Final Report in whatever document he issues, and if he, too, leaves out that section of FC 84 that bars civilly divorced and remarried from Communion, then this section will become magisterial teaching. [Get it?] Will that mean that the civilly divorced and remarried can be admitted to Holy Communion without promising to live “as brother and sister”? In my view, …without the benefit of much time for reflection, it could very well mean that. IN OTHER WORDS the Kasper Proposal has come into the Final Report through the back door.”Concedo: you could give a Kasperian interpretation of this document.Distinguo: a Kasperian interpretation of this document does not mean that the document itself supports the Kasper Proposal.Of course Cardinal Kasper also interprets the Scriptures in an “interesting” way to support his thesis.That does not mean that Scriptures support the Kasper Proposal.And a Kasperian interpretation of this document cannot become a “Magisterial” teaching when the Kasper Proposal is clearly not guided by the Holy Spirit – because1. It would be in contradiction to the Teaching of Christ on the Indissolubility of Marriage.2. It would be in contradiction to the Teaching of the Council of Trent on the Indissolubility of Marriage.3. It would be in contradiction to the Teaching of St John Paul II on the Indissolubility of Marriage.4. It would be in contradiction to Sacred Tradition on the Indissolubility of Marriage.The Pope cannot make a Magisterial declaration that is clearly false. He cannot solemnly define that 1 + 1 + 3. But that is what he is trying to do. It is totally illogical and crazy.He would be very unwise to plunge half the Church into schism.I think even he realises this – which is why he threw his toys out of the pram again the other day.Hopefully that the letter of the 13 Cardinals will have given him a wake-up call.If Pope Francis does issue false doctrine, please God the next Pope will revoke the false teaching.I think that the whole of this document needs a Hermeneutic of Continuity – especially as it claims to be building on the Magisterium of Vatican II, Paul VI, John Paul II & Benedict XVI.And furthermore in Chapter II the second section is entitled “Indissolubilita e fecondita dell’unione sponsale” begins “I’irrevocabile fedelta di Dio all’alleanza e il fondamento dell’indisolubilita del matrimonio.” (48)A pity Ed Peters was not part of the Synod to introduce some logic. [Amen.]
Edit: I think the conservatives were better organized this time, but ultimately, all of the things which the Kasperians clamoired for have been done for years by dissident parishes and evil places like, say, Collegeville. Yet it still has to be said that they at least didn't give the appearance of consensus like they have in the past when they host these teachin consensus building events where opposing groups and individuals are identified and marginalized, while the evil people, in this case the Kasperians, are made to look like the sensible party.
[Damian Thompson, Spectator] This afternoon the Vatican Synod on the Family amended and approved the final document summing up three weeks of chaotic and sometimes poisonous debate – much of it focussing on whether divorced and remarried people should be allowed to receive communion.
The majority view of the Synod Fathers is that they don’t want the rules changed. They especially don’t want one rule to apply in, say, Germany and another in Tanzania. Pope Francis has just given a cautiously worded (but also, alas, rather waffly) address in which he acknowledges as much:
… we have also seen that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent, is considered strange and almost scandalous for a bishop from another; what is considered a violation of a right in one society is an evident and inviolable rule in another; what for some is freedom of conscience is for others simply confusion.
Significantly, the Fathers didn’t back a ‘solution’ suggested by liberal cardinals, whereby divorced and remarried Catholics could consult their consciences and their confessors over whether they should follow the rules.
Edit: it's not going to happen but it's worth a try. Here's a piece by Steve Skojec exhorting faithful Catholic clergy to walk out.
[Washington Post] Over the past three weeks, Catholic Church leaders from around the world have gathered for the Ordinary Synod of the Family in Rome, the second in a two-part session that began in October 2014.
The meeting was a perfect opportunity for bishops to discuss how to strengthen the family in the midst of serious challenges — issues such as contraception, abortion and chastity in a sexually licentious culture. Instead, it has become mired in debates over long-settled teaching on sexual mores, with agendas advanced by progressive and controversial figures invited by Pope Francis himself. What we’re left with is nothing less than a battle for the soul of Catholicism.
The church’s teaching on marriage has always been that it is indissoluble. As we read in Matthew 19:6, “so they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” While annulments can be granted, those who divorce then remarry are living in de facto adulterous relationships, according to the church. This violation of the sixth commandment is, according to Catholic belief, a serious sin. It does (and should) preclude such individuals from receiving the body of Christ until they repent.
Read on:
Edit: as well he should be. Marriages between Muslim males and Christian women are worrying and this Coptic priest asks some important questions:
[Breitbart] Addressing the ongoing Synod on the Family at the Vatican, Fr Garas Boulos Garas Bishay, who serves as a Coptic Catholic priest in Sharm el Sheikh, said that mixed marriages between Christian women from Russia and Europe and Muslim men are “a profound and worrying concern”.
The problem not only applies to majority Muslim countries, Fr Garas said, but also to European nations where Muslims are settling.
He asked why Christians seem more willing to give up their culture and faith to take part in “without realizing it and with tremendous superficiality, the realisation of the Islamic plan of ‘demographic invasion.’”