On the eve of the Synod - critiques of the Instrumentum Laboris are piling up

Rorate Caeli ^ | 10/03/2015 | Augustinus

[ebb tide]

We have already posted a comprehensive article on the growing number of critiques against the Instrumentum Laboris that will guide this month's Synod of Bishops on the family.

Impossible to excuse or explain away: How the heterodoxy of the Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod of 2015 has been exposed. In addition to our own extended critique published on June 25 and critiques from Raymond Cardinal Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Roberto de Mattei, LifeSite News and Voice of the Family, our report also includes First Things' open letter to the Pope against the threat posed to Humanae Vitae by the Instrumentum Laboris' 137th paragraph. This letter was signed by a veritable "who's who" of prelates, theologians and philosophers (61 in all) who have defended moral orthodoxy in the Church.

To these we may now add the following critiques:

"Christ's New Homeland - Africa" - Rorate book review - Cardinal Sarah and other African Prelates demolish Pre-Synod Documents - in this book, it is Bishop Barthélemy Adoukonou (Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture) who particularly subjects the Instrumentum Laboris to an intense critique.

“Unacceptable.” The Base Document of the Synod “Compromises the Truth” - Chiesa's English translation of about half of the strong critique of the Instrumentum Laboris written by the renowned theologian Fr. Antonio Livi (Dean Emeritus of the Faculty of hilosophy of the Pontifical Lateran University) and two Traditionalist priest-authors: Fr. Claude Barthe and Fr. Alfredo Morselli.

The atrocious script for the "Ordinary" Synod - by Fr. D. Vincent Twomey SVD. Fr. Twomey is no ordinary cleric; he is one of the most distinguished members of the Ratzinger Schulerkreis and known to be close to the Pope Emeritus. [NB: we link to this essay as an example of "conservative" nouvelle-theologie-guided opposition to the Synod's guiding document while emphatically opposing Twomey's gratuitous attack on the manualist and scholastic tradition of moral theology.]

We are about to see the spectacle of a Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church whose discussions will be guided by an unquestionably heterodox document. A spectacle that should shock and outrage any good Catholic; a spectacle to which we cannot afford to be numb or indifferent.

[ebb tide]

We are about to see the spectacle of a Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church whose discussions will be guided by an unquestionably heterodox document. A spectacle that should shock and outrage any good Catholic; a spectacle to which we cannot afford to be numb or indifferent.

[icwhatudo]

“the Instrumentum Laboris that will guide this month’s Synod of Bishops on the family. Impossible to excuse or explain away: How the heterodoxy of the Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod of 2015 has been exposed.”

Such inside he beltway garble that makes it impossible for normal Church going folk to understand what the heck you are saying.

[ConorMacNessa]

For what it's worth here is the passage in questions:

"137. Bishops from the Middle East mention that the task of the family in the transmission of the faith and Catholic upbringing is even more important in places where Christians are a minority. Responses from the countries of eastern Europe recount a painful experience. Older generations, having lived under a socialist regime, received the basics of the Christian faith before the advent of socialism, while the younger generation has been raised in a post-Communist climate highly influenced by secularization, which has had a negative effect on the transmission of the faith. Even though this is true, younger generations are especially affected by the example and witness of their parents. In general, families participating in ecclesial movements are the most active in seeking to transmit the faith to newer generations. Some responses indicate a certain paradox in faith-education, namely, in various ecclesial entities parents are not the ones who transmit the faith to their children, but vice versa, children, embracing the faith, communicate the faith to their parents, who have long abandoned religious practice."

INSTRUMENTUM LABORIS - VATICAN CITY - 2014

[WriteOn]

Rings true.