Posted on 02/03/2020 7:46:25 AM PST by ebb tide
German Synodal Way: The “Discussions” Are Only Window Dressing
Last week, the first session of the German Synodal Way met in Frankfurt. Gloria.tv spoke with several insiders belonging to the conservative minority faction. They draw the following picture: The German Bishops' Conference and the anti-Catholic Central Committee of German Lay Catholics form a single ideological block. This block prevents any discussion, has already prepared the outcome, and will present predetermined results to the Synod for approval.
The outcome of the Synod is already established
The results of the synod are in theory elaborated in four forums on the four topics: celibacy, women priests, sexual immorality and lay hierarchy. In each forum, there are about 30 people who belong almost exclusively to the block of the bishops. The papers which will be presented at the end as alleged result of the synod are already written and now used as the basis for the so-called discussion. The authors of the texts are unknown. A moral theologian who saw the text on sexual morals said that, from the Catholic point of view, it is - quote: "absolutely unacceptable".
The hopes of the fig-leaf bishops were shattered
There are only five dissident bishops at the synod. They are from Cologne, Regensburg, Eichstätt, Passau and Görlitz. In the run-up to the first session they harboured two hopes. The first, published on Gloria.tv, consisted in a motion by Father Picken, the dean in Bonn, and by the medical ethicist Woopen. They demanded transparency in personnel decisions and in the creation of the texts. Their motions were presented beforehand to several synod delegates. However, they were only allowed to presented their proposal to the synod for five minutes. No discussion followed. The matter was simply ignored.
Failed: Five conservatives per forum
The second hope of the dissident bishops was to place at least five representatives of the conservative wing in each of the four forums. They failed with that as well. Now the dissident bishops sit alone in their respective groups. A single sister who was on the list of the dissident bishops is allowed to participate in one of the forums.
Nice window dressing on "culture of debate"
A simple majority is sufficient in the four forums in order to approve the texts. Even with allies, the five dissident bishops would therefore not have achieved a majority. The anti-Catholic block nevertheless prevented the introduction of conservative allies. Firstly, because the bloc wants voting results with as few dissenting votes as possible, as is customary in totalitarian systems. Secondly, because, from the outset, every discussion and thus a possible dissent should be prevented. Despite this, the bloc bishops are all around the media full of phrases like "culture of dispute" or "culture of debate".
Ping
How very Stalinist of them.
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