Pope Francis and the family, the next step

April 15 was the deadline given to dioceses to return the questionnaire to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in preparation for the up-coming Synod. Then, beginning on April 15, Pope Francis dedicated his address in two consecutive general audiences to the complementarity between man and woman. In his speeches, Pope Francis defended the traditional family, and attacked gender ideology, emphasizing that “difference is the solution, it is not the problem.”

Those who believed that Pope Francis’ pastoral revolution presaged a doctrinal change in terms of marriage and family heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing his latest words. As far as family issues are concerned, it turns out that Pope Francis adheres to traditional Church teaching. His push toward a more pastoral approach does not necessarily mean he is going to water down doctrine, as was commonly thought. It now seems that those who were claiming the Pope’s support for such changes were probably trying to manipulate him.

[This] is the latest signal that the Pope’s “revolution” has step by step reverted back into something more established. Those who had pushed for the revolution are very much aware of this fact.

Prior to the last meeting of the Council of Cardinals, Cardinal Rodriguez [Maradiaga] went to Madrid and took part in a round table with Spanish journalists organized by the weekly ‘Vida Nueva’. One of the questions asked was about the synod. The Cardinal explained that the synod’s method is that of “observing, judging and acting,” and that this method may also lead to a decision to add a third leg to the synod. “We do not know if at the end of the coming October synod, the process will end, or the Pope will convoke a third synod. This could be the case, because the synod deals with very important issues…”

But even these words show that the hoped for doctrinal revolution is stalled. As bishops’ conferences from all over the world are electing their representatives to the upcoming synod, it becomes clearer that the conservative line will be upheld by a wide majority of the participants. None of the bishops is against a pastoral approach; often such an approach is already underway in the Church. But none of the bishops wants to denature the Church’s teaching in favor of a major pastoral innovation.

Seemingly, Pope Francis does not want to do so either. His last two general audiences, dedicated to gender and to complementarity between man and woman, are but additions to the many similar pronouncements he has already made – for example, when in the Philippines he warned about the ideological colonization of family.

Pope Francis’ words on gender are on track with the anthropological struggle that the Church is fighting.

As the President of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute on Marriage and Family, Msgr. Livio Melina, put it, “man is not an isolated individual, he lives in a network of family relationships, his essence is to be a family. Inside these relations he is free, he defends his truth. When he is outside of this relationship he is simply an individual manipulated by powers, which grant him the hedonistic pleasure of sexuality, but which do not grant him to love truly and to be bound by love. In this reduction of man to sexuality, these powers can control the person. Even [the Marxist sociologist Herbert] Marcuse is aware of this reduction of human sexuality in order to control man.”

This is the huge struggle being fought within the synod’s debate on the family. This struggle is even wider than what the media report, and goes beyond the issues of the divorced and remarried as well as that of pastoral care for homosexuals.

Now is the time for Pope Francis to carry these issues into the international arena. And on these issues he will achieve consensus. It was while addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg about the family that he earned the most sustained applause. He will certainly speak about the family before the United Nations General Assembly on September 25.

Pope says Man + Woman = Vive la Difference!

As I said before, Cardinals Rodriguez Maradiaga, Marx, Kasper and crew are slowly realizing that the Synod will not go their way. That's why Kasper has been saying that no matter what happens at the Synod, the German hierarchy are not a "subsidiary of Rome" and they will do their own thing regardless.

If Kasper thought the Synod was going to go the way of doctrinal or pastoral revolution, he would have tried to insinuate that its final documents would be binding!

The Gang of Nein is just exposing themselves more and more as the Party of '68. I think they're rapidly moving toward obsolescence.

Watch and pray!

I have only hope and absolutely no assurance. We will see. Have your read the lifesite.com front page today?

Another cardinal, of the very few, broaches the subject of a “split”. He defines Pope Francis as rather an “autocrat” and discusses the danger of an synod outcome that would separate theology from the practice of the priest— that without theology, of which he says the pope seems not to be a reader, the priests would be left with little to actually teach.

The cardinal opines that the banishment of those assigned by Pope Benedict from the Vatican has said a great deal about Francis, and reminds us that the John Paul II group on the FAMILY has been EXcluded from the next synod, (an unnecessary exclusion, given the subject of the synod, imho.)

My own hope is if the pope is getting the message of a split, perhaps he will back off from any further entertaining of the ridiculous posits of obviously dissident cardinals, in the name of “dialogue” and “clearing the air”.

This synod business has scandalized and injured so many of the faithful on many levels. We have heard him marginalize Traditional Catholics, which has caused a set back for all those trying to bring the preferred piety of the Extraordinary Form into dioceses who have none. (In my diocese, we are left dead in the water with a stubborn bishop, who is of like mind as the pope and who has no regard for Summorum Pontificum by Pope Benedict.

We are harmed by all the confusion and the proverbial remarks made off the cuff by Pope Francis only add more.

The cardinal in the article has much more to say.

This synod business has scandalized and injured so many of the faithful on many levels.

No surprise, considering the heretical tendencies of he who is running the show:

"Argentine Cardinal kneels to receive Protestant 'Blessing'"

http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A306rcBergoglioBless.html

This pope is the worst in my lifetime. Not surprising in a time of universal deceit, but this one should be a lesson to catholics from Christ himself.

"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind," - Romans 1:28

Those who prefer paganism and goddess worship to the Lord Jesus Christ will follow their demonic leader and his homosexual cohort in their red dresses right into Hell, lauding their false church all the way.

I don't necessarily differ with anything Prof. Spaemann says (he's an academic ethicists, and evidently a great one --- not a Cardinal): we're in a dangerous time with a leader at the helm whose words and actions seem at times erratic. If there's going to be a split, it looks like it would come in the next 12 months.

But the upshot of the article I posted, is that the Kasper-Marx team sees the Synod is not going to go their way. They see the conservatives on the ascendency, and they see Pope Francis increasingly siding with them, especially on sex and gender issues (which are the hot items now, of course.)

So I am cautiously hopeful --- not optimistic -- that the patrimony will survive and even be strengthened and clarified in the open conflict.

In a way, open conflict may have its positives. We have already seen the Kasper faction openly say their pastoral practice will be whatever-we-think-best, thank-you-very-much, which can only rub Pope Francis the wrong way, to their detriment.

Pray.

Fasting would help. too.

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