>>”...shouldn’t Christians conclude there’s something very wrong with the Catholic Church when almost two-thirds of its leaders vote to approve homosexual union?”
FaithPressesOn, I can appreciate your good motives.
However. There are sevferal false underlying assumptions as well as factual errors in just that one partial sentence above-— I don’t say “lies” because I think surely they were inadvertent. You really should read the news more carefully so you don’t fall into the traps set by reporters with an agenda.<<
Mrs. Don-o, just for the record, I actually do read things carefully. I knew it was a vote of some hundred plus bishops and didn’t think there were so few as that worldwide. In something of a rush yesterday, I wasn’t as accurate about that point as I would have liked to have been, and didn’t realize I’d put it that way until you mentioned it, but I have to say how you describe it seems an attempt to inaccurately minimize many things, including what the actual numbers mean. Are you familiar with Titus 3:10-11, or did you go read it?
**10 After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, 11 realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned. **
So, what is a heretic? And are there open heretics in the Catholic Church, including in leadership?
I will also say that I’m familiar with everything you wrote about here. I haven’t felt led to temporarily set aside everything else and investigate all this as completely and thoroughly as I could, but I have nonetheless looked at things with sufficient thoroughness while picking things up day-by-day. And by looking at a lot of different things about the situation, again, the conclusion has to be reached that the Catholic Church is taking steps to accept homosexual unions, and in part, already has. You can not ignore the glass being either half-full or half-empty.
There have already been many de facto changes. And for the record, I haven’t believed that the 2015 synod would make any substantial changes in official doctrine. I believe a Catholic-written article posted here predicted no such changes, but that the actual changes would be de facto ones for the forseeable future. And the “duping” part, I may add, is that it seems many Catholics will take “no changes” in official doctrine as all that matters, despite the de facto changes - which is heresy allowed to room to oerate - that will continue to take place.
Now, I’m not going to take the time to go over Pope Francis’ many unorthodox words and actions, which have been reported on here. I know you participate here regularly so of course you’ve seen them. I will highlight, though, one remark that I posted an article about - Pope Francis, seemingly in the context of making “progressive” change - said that change takes time. And it has taken decades to alter people’s views on sexual matters as much as they already have been up to now. And I will also mention the Pope’s remarks at the synod’s conclusion, in which he didn’t hold himself with the traditionalists (not sure if he used that term for them) or seem scandalized by heretical liberals. He also spoke of traditionalists being rigid and about God “doing new things.”
On what you linked to from Wikipedia, I haven’t read that article, but just might sometime. But I will also add that the “no suggestion” quote in itself means nothing, and that part of the Wiki article violates Wiki policy about “no original research” on the part of editors there (in this case, the editor used a primary source, a cardinal’s remarks - and pulled out that quote - instead of using a secondary source with some expertise on the subject, who very well might have interpreted the quote differently). I’ve edited extensively at Wikpedia in the past, so I have a pretty good understanding of how this page on the synod would be written, including the politics involved. The “Talk” page discussions will give a reader quite a clear picture of how an article got to its present state.
Now, on the statements about homosexuality that weren’t adopted but Pope Francis included, I’ll say first that despite what you mention about that part not reflected in the actual discussion, it still almost got 2/3 approval of the voting bishops!
And as you gave your overall interpretation, I will give mine. Like much of what takes place where a leadership is involved, the synod was scripted for public consumption, as part of a larger agenda which the leadership knows will take time. You mentioned a passage that said something along the lines that coercion shouldn’t be used to promote “gay rights.” This, in your interpretation, is evidence of the faithfulness of your leaders. But has that conclusion been rigorously tested, or is it instead something to grasp at because it supports what those who believe in the Catholic Church’s infallibility want to believe? If someone has a change agenda and they’re committed to gradualism, doesn’t it benefit their agenda to concede many of the things they aren’t strong enough yet to defeat, because it provides them some cover to give their opponents something meaty which, if they want to keep believing in the leaders, they will grasp onto?
“Gay marriage” is close to being the law of the land, and even though it’s not, many people have already paid a price for not accepting it - yet wasn’t it only a few short years ago that Obama and Hillary Clinton came out in favor of it, and the Presbyterian USA only tentatively approved it this year. Prior to their approvals, they all officially disapproved. Yet everyone knows it was all a ruse, and there were many unofficial changes made before the official ones that all had a real impact. And with the Catholic Church, too, you can not simply assume that what’s going on is faithful and never seriously doubt it while never honestly and seriously investigating the scenario that what’s happening is unfaithful. There has been more than enough to trigger suspicions.
This is the link I posted in which Pope Francis talks of change taking time (as well as making other remarks that suggest he rejects many orthodox Christian beliefs).
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/19/pope-francis-church-cant-interfere-with-gays/
And again, keep in mind that de facto changes can be as real in their effects, including their harmful ones, as official ones.
POpe Francis' support of the Humanum Conference on Male-Famale Complementarity was tremendous, and he's set up yet another conference to trumpet the same messages: the World Meeting of Families 2015, in Philadelphia, which will come right before the 2015 Synod in Rome.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I see method in his madness. I think the denouement is that he's goingt to assert the truth about sex and gender, marriage and sacrament, God and man, in a big way.
Let us pray?