{"id":5455,"date":"2015-09-10T16:20:15","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T20:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=5455"},"modified":"2015-09-10T22:25:04","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T02:25:04","slug":"francisannulments-are-just-the-softening-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=5455","title":{"rendered":"FrancisAnnulments Are Just the Softening Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"If<\/a>

If that marriage is invalid, let’s make this one valid. Call it a merciful ‘renullment’ or something.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Eye-Witness blog has some rare truth about FrancisAnnulments, but it’s only common sense, really<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is a dangerous business.<\/p>\n

I am not alone in being concerned that the Pope’s new instant annulment process is just a part of the stage-management that has been going on by the movers and shakers of the upcoming Synod. It seems clear enough – especially by the timing – that this is a maneuver to both win some hearts and minds – uncritical hearts and minds, that is – while at the same time greasing the skids for the more radical moves that are intended for October.<\/p>\n

Even Cardinal Burke, who is more than a little familiar with the annulment process and was active in that arena in its liberalized state, is uneasy about this, calling the easing of the annulment process “sentimentalism and false compassion.”<\/a> \u00a0What His Eminence did not say is that it was already far too easy to get one, and even on the flimsiest of pretexts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sentimentalism.\u00a0 That’s what’s Islamicizing Europe right now.\u00a0 We are truly a debased, de-natured people.<\/p>\n

Let us face some cold, hard facts. \u00a0The annulment process in recent decades has been an absolute farce. \u00a0In America especially. \u00a0It is so farcical that critics of the Church have rightly called it “Catholic divorce”. \u00a0A good example: a man and a woman (known to this writer) married seventeen years and the parents of seven children were granted an annulment. \u00a0No wife-beating was involved. \u00a0The husband was far from perfect but the wife had had enough of him. \u00a0So their marriage was declared to have “never existed in the first place”.<\/p>\n

Whether the husband was a bounder or not, they were still sacramentally married.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many of us in the active Catholic community have such stories.<\/p>\n

That is one story among thousands. \u00a0The number of annulments granted in recent decades is by any standard ridiculous; in the past 2,000 years there were probably 82 annulments given by the Church. \u00a0Now they give out 82 per day. \u00a0It is as if the Marx Brothers were put in charge of marriage tribunals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the Eye-Witness sees something even more sinister at work than the destruction of society through this institutional malpractice.<\/p>\n

The cheers from Catholics anxious to dump their spouses is deafening. \u00a0The cheers from supine clergymen supporting this new Francis edict are also deafening. \u00a0Fence-sitting Catholics, always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, are cautiously optimistic by this. \u00a0But all of these souls are falling into a booby-trap which will explode next month. \u00a0By their cheers of support they are providing a faux consesus for a Pope who it seems wants to show a false mercy towards divorced and remarried people and, far worse, homosexual cohabitation. If the Modernists can gain Catholic support for this new “merciful” annulment process the laid trap will be snapped in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

The earmarks of Hollywood-style PR do seem to be all over this. \u00a0It reeks of contrivance. \u00a0Once again our emotions are being manipulated by clever men. \u00a0As far as the “merciful” aspect of this latest Francis move we remain sceptical. \u00a0Our common sense tells us that even more chaos is ahead, courtesy of the strange man who now occupies the Petrine Office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

‘Strange man.’ I see it.<\/p>\n

If the entire faithful Catholic apparatus can look the other way at this latest atrocity, they’ll be demoralized enough to sign on to anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Eye-Witness blog has some rare truth about FrancisAnnulments, but it’s only common sense, really. This is a dangerous business. I am not alone in being concerned that the Pope’s new instant annulment process is just a part of the stage-management that has been going on by the movers and shakers of the upcoming Synod. …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[676,517,530,692,96],"class_list":["post-5455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-annulments","tag-divorce","tag-francis","tag-homosexual-couples","tag-synod"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5455"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5505,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions\/5505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}