Just take it. It’s for your own good, and mine.
Pat Archbold has a post at the Remnant that does what Pat always does, applies a reality-check and much-needed perspective to the spindom that is FrancisChurch.
I am reminded of the famous Maginot line today as I saw a flurry of stories these past days about how the “conservatives” are standing up at the synod, closing the door to this or that innovation in doctrine. Case in point, Cardinal Vingt-Trois (fittingly a French Cardinal) said that those expecting “spectacular change” of Church doctrine will be disappointed.
O goody.
We see breathless stories from those who would like nothing more than spectacular change, crowing how the “Conservatives Struck First”
In his 7,000-word opening address on Monday morning, intended to set the tone for the synod’s work, Erdő seemed determined to close a series of doors that many people believed the last synod had left open — beginning with the controversial proposal of German Cardinal Walter Kasper to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to return to Communion.
That Communion ban, Erdő insisted, is not an “arbitrary prohibition” but “intrinsic” to the nature of marriage as a permanent union. Mercy, he said, doesn’t just offer the possibility of forgiveness, it also “demands conversion.”
So the conservatives have learned the lessons from the first synod, we are told, and they will not let THAT happen again. They will not allow an interim document like THAT again. They will make sure to argue against changing doctrine on this matter and some may even argue against changes in discipline.
The conservatives are ready this time; they will not allow Germany to invade from the east again!!
The Pope’s opening words at the Synod were a powerful defense of Catholic teaching on marriage, for nine paragraphs. Then surprise, he closed with two paragraphs of FrancisGospel. The pathetic bone he threw to his orphaned Catholic social conservatives last week by covertly meeting with Kim Davis, was immediately swamped in a barrage of gay propaganda and deceit from Rome. Once in a while Francis does something Catholic. It’s a game.
Cardinals say things. Everyone reassures. These people aren’t your friends.
***
Closer to home, I was just starting to appreciate my obnoxious liberal pastor after years of pain and disgust, until this Sunday. During the desperate lap around the Church he always makes to being Mass, in mock of any type of procession, he stopped to harass my wife about her chapel veil and pretended he would tear it off. I think his mic was turned off this time. (He usually keeps it on for his candid mumbles and jokes.)
Our relatively old 1960 church has eleven televisions, two of them twenty feet across in front, and six tower speakers to hear Father’s tone-deaf shouts and growls. It’s the loudest parish in the world. He calls it a ‘megachurch’ but it’s really just about 135 suffering people with a mega A/V system.
Father refuses to let us have missals but apparently the Gospel reading was on marriage. Then in his homily he told us that, despite what Our Lord said about divorce, regrettably sometimes it is necessary, of course.
That was a new low. Separation can be necessary under threat for example, but divorce? Perhaps a ‘legal’ divorce to protect your rights, but there’s certainly no such thing as an actual divorce. Besides, divorced people almost always think what they did was ‘necessary.’ “We just couldn’t live together.” “We’d grown apart.” “It was best for the children, so they don’t grow up with an example of an unloving couple” It goes on and on. Father might just as well have said, “This way to Hell. Let me help you.”
Next, among the frightening prayers of the faithful we prayed for ‘all those who have had to divorce!” I felt like I’d slipped down the street to the Methodists.
If you celebrate and disseminate changes in Church doctrine, you reveal yourself an apostate with no faith at all. The Church can’t be wrong then and right now, or right then and wrong now. If you believe it’s only right now, then you’ve put your faith in ‘now’ and not the Church. Faith in ‘now’ is not faith at all. It’s just a nervous need to run with the pack, like pigs over a cliff.
Finally during Communion, the band at the side of the altar sang one of the most sickening love songs I’d ever heard. I only remember one line though:
“The fragrance of your presence intoxicates me”
That may be in the Bible somewhere but I’m starting to feel like I’ve been captured by some homo-Church and pinned down with a knife to my ear.
***
At morning Mass today, the Prayer of the Faithful asked us to pray that the Synod would provide relief for those who can’t receive Holy Communion because of some ‘obstruction’ in their marriage.
Lector: Please, God remove those obstructions from our marriages.
All: Lord hear our prayer?
Is this Mars?
(We then prayed for the ship lost at sea in the recent hurricane. Why do we have to pray for something on the TV news all the time? Aren’t there ten people locally who just had their throats cut or were shot? Why does it always have to be a TV tragedy?)
Tomorrow we’ll probably pray for all those who are obstructed from getting a divorce for some rigid reason.
I don’t know what fiends provide input to Prayers of the Faithful, but it must be injected somewhere at a national level. Not only is the Synod false and pre-concluded, they already have all their propaganda lined up for the old people and remaining victims who are dim enough to appreciate an hour and fifteen minutes worth of repulsive ‘worship’ on Sundays.
