THE LISTENING CHURCH AND THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD WITH A STUNNING LOGICAL CONCLUSION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE…

 We know from the John Jay Report on the sex abuse scandal in the USA, that the highest number of Priests abusing minors, mostly adolescent boys, occurred around 1975, perhaps the Zenit of what the sexual revolution of the 1960’s initiated with a conclusion toward not only abuse of the 6th Commandment but also of minors in the most dastardly and victimizing way and thus victimization of the entire Church.

Part of this revolution, included the “summer of love” where tenderness toward victimizers, be they rapists, murderers or thieves, eclipsed the tenderness towards their victims. Thus bishops sent abusing priests to cushy psychiatric facilities for these priests and after a time of rehabilitation to include therapy and mind altering drugs, were returned to ministry, but strict silence and confidentiality maintained concerning their abuse, in some cases, serial abuse. This is mercy run amuck. 

Today, with Pope Francis recovering the ethos of the 1960’s both in the culture and the Church, we see a redefinition of sin and in some cases making what was once called mortal sin a virtue. 

Thus, when that Pandora’s box is opened, we see all kinds of sins, now virtues, coming to light and being confirmed by leaders of the Church who listen to the sinners who think their sins aren’t sins but virtues. And mercy, of course, is at the core of this, even for actual perversion and victimization. 

And now a lay liturgical theologian who holds much sway in the Vatican for things liturgical and otherwise, Andrea Grillo, shows us the way to pervert the word of God and the 6th Commandment and stunningly he links that perversion as a renewal in much the same way Vatican II initiated the reinterpretation of the pre-Vatican II Mass and its ecclesiology:

“The analogy between the Tridentine rite and marriage nullity is based on the need to translate tradition. What was delivered to us by the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century no longer has any structural evidence. The ‘fiction’ of nullity is only an extreme case of a theology of marriage conditioned not by Scripture or theology but by the Tametsi Decree. The inability to distinguish between these levels is the ‘meanness’ at play. That only marriage justifies the use of sex is a Pauline view that history has profoundly altered. And it calls for a profound rethinking, even as the Second Vatican Council inaugurated with the liturgical reform and with the rethinking of the Church, the Word, and the relationship [of these] with the world.”

THERE IS A PATTERN HERE…

 

This damnable scandal going on now for decades in the post-Vatican II Church is exacerbated when the clergy involved in destroying a soul’s life is a bishop or cardinal. We saw that with Mr. McCarrick and to date, none of those in high places who enabled McCarrick for decades have come clean nor has the Vatican. Many of those are still in high places in the Church. 

And now, the victim of Cardinal Riccard in France, who tried to deal with things in a less than international way, tells a Dominican nun, who is the head of men and women religious conference in France, that she had written Pope Francis twice and with no response from His Holiness.

You may not be able to read the full interview with the Dominican nun, but below the quote is the link to the full LeCroix interview.

Here is the pertinent quote:

Before confiding in you, had the victim already spoken of these facts to other religious or clerics?

Yes, this woman had written to the pope twice: the first time about five years ago, then, having received no reply, a second time last May-June via the apostolic nuncio. The nuncio acknowledged receipt of her letter in October. Fortunately, she had also spoken to her relatives and friends, some of whom are priests.

Read more at: https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/transparency-essential-for-healing-abuse-victims-says-leading-nun/16881

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE…

 METAMORPHOSIS 

OUCH! FATHER RAYMOND DE SOUZA’S COMMENTARY ON THE SYNOD ON SYNODS…DID I SAY OUCH?

 My comment first: Why in the name of God and all that is holy would the pope initiate a process so controversial, so schismatic, so heretical, so apostacizing, when the Church has been in crisis since about 1965 already before this insult to Catholic intelligence? Then on top of that, the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which still is giving without ceasing, is pushing people out of the Church to non-denominational sects, conservative in their ideology or pushing Catholics to become nones, meaning practicing agnostics. Why is the pope doing this? His Holiness has to know how polarizing his papacy has been, how dysfunctional it is and in rupture with that of the previous two papacies. Why is His Holiness doing this? Will a Saint Catherine of Siena type saint come forward and demand the pope to return to Rome?

From the National Catholic Register’s Father Raymond De Souza:

Peeking Inside the Synod on Synodality’s Boardroom

COMMENTARY: Austen Ivereigh and the other ‘experts’ at the recent synodal summit in Frascati act as if John Paul II’s papacy added nothing constructive on the lay faithful, families, clergy and other topics related to Vatican II.

And if you want to read more from a heart-broken and now cynical Catholic about a dysfunctional papacy, read this if you dare:

HERE

And if that isn’t enough about dysfunction in the Vatican’s highest echelon, read this if you dare:

 

Ex-Vatican auditor, threatening to reveal all, sues church, alleging damage to his reputation

MY FORMER PARISH IN AUGUSTA, THE CHURCH OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY, LEADING THE WAY IN THE RENEWAL OF THE MODERN ROMAN MISSAL MASS

On the 32 Sunday of the year, I returned to my former parish and found in the sacristy closet the vestment I am wearing which I acquired for the parish in 1991. Like the vestment, I have held up very well, no? And the restoration of the interior of the church accomplished in 1996 still looks like it did in 1996. Conrad Schmidt did it and used a fiberglass reinforced plastering of the ceiling and walls and he told me it would last a couple of hundred years. Not a crack anywhere and the paint and decorations still look new!

As I have reiterated before and continue to promote today, the way forward with the New Liturgical Movement is the re-enchantment of the stripped down Modern Roman Missal. I continue to decry that the Dicastery for Divine Worship has not enabled Latin Rite Catholics to have what Ordinariate Latin Rite Catholics have with their Missal, Divine Worship. These are the options of PATFOTA, the traditional order of the Mass, the option of the Gradual and/or Tract/Alleluia, Traditional Offertory Prayers, rubrics for the Canon more like the TLM and the Last Gospel. 

But short of these concessions, the Church of the Most Holy Trinity is a shining star of how to reenchant the Modern Missal as it is given to us.

This parish in Augusta has always had what was called a traditional Mass since the 1970’s. I inherited that tradition when I became pastor there in 1991. Their 10/10:30 AM Mass has always been a High Mass, albeit, the Modern Missal. All the parts are chanted, incense is used and bells are rung. 

But in all that time until recently, Holy Communion was standing at multiple stations with the chalice and thus a parade of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. Today, due to the pandemic and the common chalice a threat to public health, the chalice is no longer offered. 

The altar railing was never removed, but since the late 60’s not used. Not so today. Kneeling for Holy Communion at MHT is the norm. Those who wish to stand still do. And the laity recieve in the hand, if they so choose, either kneeling or standing. Their unity isn’t in the uniformity of how they receive, but the reverence of Whom they receive, Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, aka, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Godhead. 

The choir chants the propers of the Mass in Latin but also include vernacular metrical hymns at the procession and recessional.

Actual/active participation is palpable. 

The Mass was facing the congregation, but easily could be celebrated ad orientem at the historic altar, now detached from the reredos. In fact, the historic altar has been in continuous use since 1863! In the mid 60’s the table part was detached from the reredos and brought slightly forward in order to celebrate facing the people. No additional altar was ever added!

DO ORTHODOX CATHOLICS COME CLEAN WHEN THEY COMMIT SINS THAT ARE ALSO CIVIL CRIMES, COMPARED TO HETERODOX CATHOLICS WHEN THEY DO THE SAME?

 A Tale of Two Cardinals, well, right now, one Cardinal and one layman:

This horrible scandal, which continues to give, of perversion and sexual abuse of minors by clergy and religious is so sad and disedifying. It continues to erode the clergy and laity’s confidence in the post-Vatican II Church and now the synodal process that seems to accept sin as good and accompanying sinners by not calling out sin and seeking Divine Truth and conversion, but enabling sin as a virtue which exacerbates the concupiscence of the weakest among us.  

I predict that the lax morality promoted by the synodal process which confirms sinners in their mortal sins, and calls sin, virtue, will increase the disease of abuse we are already seeing. 

But, let me ask this question or make an observation. The more left-leaning laicized priest, bishop and cardinal McCarrick never has come clean about his serial abuse. He has not confessed it or taken responsibility for it. 

Compare that to the still Cardinal Riccard of France, a Cardinal friendly toward Tradition and the Traditional Mass and Sacraments. He has confessed and taken responsibility for his mortal sins, which I think in France is also a crime. 

Are Catholics who love Tradition more honest than synodal Catholics who think anything should go because they are influenced more by the lies of the culture rather than Divine Truth?

I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE: ALL THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS PRIOR TO VATICAN II GAVE THE MEANS BY WHICH THOSE COUNCILS SHOULD BE INTERPRETED; VATICAN II DID NOT DO THIS AND WE ARE STILL PAYING THE PRICE!

TWO SAINTED POPES AND ONE STILL LIVING EMERITUS POPE HAD TO AND DID GIVE THE KEYS TO INTERPRETING VATICAN II; POPE FRANCIS HAS IGNORED THIS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT FROM POPES SAINTS PAUL VI AND JOHN PAUL II AND THE CURRENT POPE EMERITUS I

This is a must read short article from Catholic World Report’s George Weigle:

Three pontificates and Vatican II
Pope Francis has spoken of his respect for the Council.  Yet the present pontificate has diverged from the Council’s teaching in several ways.

On the morning of October 17, 1978, the newly-elected Pope John Paul II concelebrated Mass with the College of Cardinals and pledged that the program of his papacy would be the full implementation of the Second Vatican Council. That was his “definitive duty,” for the Council had been “an event of utmost importance” in the two millennia of Christian history. As I explain in To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books), the next 26-and-a-half years saw John Paul II fulfill that pledge, for his pontificate was an epic of teaching and witness that helped provide the Council the interpretive keys it had not given itself.
Unlike the previous 20 ecumenical councils, Vatican II did not articulate or identify a definitive key to its proper interpretation: something that made clear that “This is what we mean.” Other councils had written creeds, defined dogmas, condemned heresies, legislated canons into Church law and commissioned catechisms. Vatican II did none of those things, which was one reason why a donnybrook over the Council’s intention and meaning ensued.
Read the rest there…

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, SO THEY SAY…

 

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL AND I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT IT ON MY BLOG!

 Even before any synodal documents, like the most recent insult to faith and reason, as faith and reason should walk hand in hand by the way, I have reacted to various commentaries written by people who should know better, aligned with this damn synodal process, who never mention God, Jesus, conversion, repentance and holiness of life. Nothing whatsoever. If this is the kind of Church Pope Francis wants, then damn the Church. Join a civic organization that includes everyone and does good works. 

Posted by Rorate Caeli:

Dutch Bishop: “God is out of the picture in this damned synodal process. The Holy Spirit has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

MUST READ BLOGGING FROM THE DEACON’S BENCH!

My comment first: If Ross Douthat thinks that rank and file Catholics, because of Vatican II, believe the Church, meaning the bishops, don’t know what they are doing. I would propose that the synodal way is putting that on steroids and creating the bizzaro church of nonsense, self-referential, a closed circle with little room for Jesus, The Most Holy Trinity and salvation. Narcissism on steroids. Just my most humble opinion:

ROSS DOUTHAT: HOW VATICAN II ‘EVISCERATED A CULTURE OF OBLIGATORY PRACTICE’

 Ross Douthat of The New York Times has taken aim at Vatican II — again — with some followup ideas to a column published last month. (This time, he writes in his newsletter, available only to Times subscribers.)

He begins by describing an encounter with a Catholic at a cocktail party, which led to a discussion about the difficulties of getting to Mass and making the Sunday obligation, leading to this moment:

He looked at me with a friendly sort of mystification. “Oh,” he said, “but you know the church got rid of that after Vatican II?”

Too many Catholics just don’t know what they don’t know.

Douthat went on to talk about the point he was trying to make in his colum:

What I tried to emphasize, with some nods to the work of the French historian Guillaume Cuchet, was that the problem with Vatican II probably wasn’t any given change, any specific controversy that followed — whether over religious liberty or the use of the vernacular in the liturgy or the moral status of artificial birth control. It was instead the sheer scale of the changes, the evisceration of a whole “culture of obligatory practice” (Cuchet’s phrase), which severed various threads binding people to the faith, undermined confidence that the church really knew what it was doing and made people more dismissive of the obligations that officially remained.

The question of Sunday Mass-going is a good example. Technically, the church never said what my friendly interlocutor believed, never lifted the weekly obligation. But when an array of customs that reinforced that obligation were relaxed, from the requirement to fast before Mass to the emphasis on regular confession, the tacit message was the one he received — that the time of stringent rules was over, that henceforth the church would be defined by a more, well, American sort of flexibility.

The idea was not simply to make Catholicism easier, of course; the hope was that a truer Christianity would flourish once rote obedience diminished. But the policy and the results, not the hopes, are what we should be interested in three generations later. And in and of itself, a policy of easing burdens was hardly a crazy idea of how the church might adapt to modernity and keep Catholics in the pews. Spiritual issues aside, from an institutional perspective, you can see the logic of saying, the world is making it harder to be a Catholic, so let’s make it easier to practice the faith.

Indeed, I will say that the relaxed style of the contemporary church offers useful concessions to my own situation as a busy professional juggling an assortment of secular obligations for myself and my family, and operating in numerous environments — familial, social and professional — where many people aren’t Catholics.

He adds:

… A key obstacle to getting modern Catholics to actually practice their inherited Catholicism isn’t whether they disagree with church teachings or feel adequately welcomed (as much as those issues matter). It’s that the church is in competition with a million other urgent-seeming things, and in its post-Vatican II form it has often failed to establish the importance of its own rituals and obligations.

For example, my guess would be that more American Catholics skip Mass because of the demands of youth sports, the felt need for a more relaxed “family time” or the competing pulls of work and entertainment than because of any theological or moral issue. And over time, this pattern compounds: The children of those families become couples who don’t bother to marry in the church and parents who don’t baptize their kids, and so decline continues because of cultural priorities rather than beliefs.

Read more.  There’s a lot to chew on. I “gifted” the link, so anyone should be able to read it.

THIS POPE CONTINUES TO ANGER, BAFFLE AND ALIENATE CATHOLICS WITH HIS FOOT IN MOUTH DISEASE

 This disease seems to be exacerbated at high altitudes and has become traditional for this pope during off the cuff interviews in low oxygen jets which then overshadow his various pilgrimages.

He praises a pro abortion woman he appointed to the pontifical academy for life, nothing short of bizarre but said in a low oxygen place.

And then this about the Russians humanitarian record which the brave Archbishop of the Ukraine was able to rebuke the pope in person this very day after the remarks made under the influence of no oxygen: Good for the infusion of fresh oxygen this Archbishop gave to  the pope:

Ukrainian archbishop tells pope Russia wants to destroy, not negotiate

O MOST HOLY TRINITY, AUGUSTA! MASS THE WAY VATICAN II’S BISHOPS WANTED IT!!!

 Unfortunately, you cannot view the video directly, but press the video button to go to the Facebook feed. Start the video at 9:50 or so. The pipe organ is marvelously played by the organist. It is an 1860's Jardine Tracker Pipe Organ installed at Most Holy Trinity in 1866 after the priest poet of the Confederacy and Associate Pastor of Most Holy Trinity, Fr. Abram Ryan, procured funds from his poetry readings in Augusta to get the organ from New York to Augusta. Because of the Union blockade, the organ was not in place for the April 1863 Consecration of the Church!

It was Sunday, November 6th, and I celebrated The Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta’s 10:30 am Solemn Mass with the proper antiphons and parts of the Mass in Latin. Kneeling at the altar railing for solemn Holy Communion. I was the pastor here from 1991 until 2004. This was the first time I had a Sunday Mass there since 2004, 18 years ago. What a glorious place if I do say so myself.

CARDINAL ZUPPI’S THUMBING OF TC CRITICIZED BY PROGRESSIVE LITURGICAL THEOLOGIAN, DR ANDREA GRILLO….

 Photo from Dr. Grillo’s blog…

It is sad that in our listening Church, Dr. Grillo doesn’t listen to a powerful Vatican Cardinal who has favor with Pope Francis. And unfortunately, neither is Dr. Grillo listening to what he is saying, as my mother describes it. Good grief!

Read Fr. Z’s translation of Dr. Grillo’s blog post. Listen to him and then scratch your head. Then, write a note and ask him, “Good grief! Do you hear what you are saying?”:

Wherein (Dr. Grillo) goes to the Zoo

Posted on 5 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

TwitterFacebookEmailWhatsAppCopy LinkGmailYahoo MailShare

Forgive typos… I am writing under time constraint and pressures.

Biretta tip to Peter Kwasniewski  – o{]:¬) – for the following from…(Dr.) Andrea Grillo, whose photo on his blog looks like – and it is exactly what he is doing – giving everyone the finger.

EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT COMMENTARY

 

Polarization in the Church: How Can It Be Overcome?

COMMENTARY: Servant of God Luigi Giussani can help us see that the road past ecclesial division does not go through some sort of political compromise, but through a deeper awareness of the heart of our faith.

Carlo LancellottiCommentaries

GOOD GRIEF! ARE YOU LISTENING TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING?

 

Pope Francis is calling for a listening Church. Listening is good when we listen to what we are saying and what others are saying.

Sometimes I have said some really stupid things and my mom used to ask, within the context of something stupid I said, “are you listening to what you are saying!”

I have asked that question more frequently recently within the context of our “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” ARE YOU LISTENING TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING??? GOOD GRIEF!”

I have been hearing some neo-traditionalists say that Vatican II should be canceled and the modern Mass suppressed as the TLM was. To those who say that Vatican II should be canceled and the Modern Mass, I say, are you listening to what you are saying! And to those who have tried to suppress the TLM since Vatican II until the present day, I say, are you listening to what you are saying?

And to those who advocate for LGBTQ+++ ideological extremism, for non binary beings to be included into Holy Orders; for Holy Communion for non-humans, like those who profess they aren’t human or those who want their pets to be included in the Church and her/its sacramental life or for same sex marriage, polygamy and any combination of animals, mammals or not, marriage, I SAY, ARE YOU LISTENING TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING?

I pray that when Pope Francis calls for a listening Church, it means what my mother meant when she said to me, “GOOD GRIEF! ARE YOU LISTENING TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING!”

THE HOLY AND “SUFFERING” SOULS IN PURGATORY

 

The dogma of purgatory can be confounding to both Catholics and Protestants. Just what is it?

Well, like heaven, like hell, like limbo and yes, like hell, our language can be confusing and often misleading. 

Purgatory is often depicted as the faithful departed burning in a “good fire” although for me as a child, there was no good fire when you were being burned. It hurt and painfully so and could destroy your skin and everything else. 

Of course, “fire” is a metaphor and in purgatory is meant to be positive, like an impure ore begin made into pure gold by fire. God knows that everyone one of us, save the Blessed Virgin Mary, have impurities within the gold that we are because we are created in the image and like of God. 

Purgatory is the ante-room of heaven, thus a part of heaven. Maybe we could call it a decontamination chamber. Anyone in purgatory is redeemed already. It isn’t a second chance for unrepentant sinners with the possibility if you don’t repent, you’ll go to hell. Purgatory is a one way ticket to heaven. 

How long, though, O Lord. We don’t know! We’re speaking about eternity here. Perhaps purgatory is the moment of our particular judgement when all justice and perfection is attained for the repentant sinner. 

Even our particular judgement, though, is at the throne of justice and mercy, not vengeance. 

The four last things are death, judgement, heaven and hell. If we die in the Lord, if we truly abhor our sins, even the ones we can’t conquer because they are so habitual, we can rest assured that if we seek forgiveness daily, live a sacramental life, to include penance, we can trust in Jesus’ Divine Mercy.

Perhaps the suffering of this life, the death we all will experience, some more painfully and tragic than others who seem to die so peacefully and the anticipation of judgement is the “suffering” of purgatory. 

We do know, that if we find ourselves in heaven after having lived on earth, something is changed, we are made perfect, all of us. How that happens by God’s grace is a mystery. Is their pain involved. Yes, if this world is any sort of symbol of that. Do we remember the pain? No! 

And hell? Yes it is a dogma and exists. It is for those who love their sin, hate God and have made a “full consent of the will decision, with forethought and planning” to exclude God from their lives and to love their sin and hate God and goodness.

They will love hell and thus experience the fulfillment of what they loved in their sins. 

PAPAL MASS IN BAHRAIN

 From Bahrain National Stadium, Awali, Bahrain, Holy Mass presided over by Pope Francis

Love always

Jesus’ words today invite us to love always, said the Pope. "He knows that within our relationships there is a daily struggle between love and hatred", and in this way, too, within our hearts "there is a daily clash between light and darkness". With this in mind, the Pope noted that Jesus suffers when He sees, all around the world, "ways of exercising power that feed on oppression and violence, seeking to expand their own space by restricting that of others, imposing their own domination and restricting basic freedoms, and in this way oppressing the weak".  

The Pope went on to ask what we are to do in such situations, before responding that "the Lord asks of us not to dream idealistically of a world of fraternity, but to choose, starting with ourselves, to practice universal fraternity, concretely and courageously, persevering in good even when evil is done to us, breaking the spiral of vengeance, disarming violence, demilitarizing the heart". 

THE SILENT ROMAN CANON AND THE WAY TO SHORTEN IT TOO, IN THE MODERN ROMAN MISSAL

On All Souls’ Day, I posted a video of a 2014 Modern Roman Missal Mass at St. Joseph Church in Macon. The choir did an excellent job with Faure’s Requiem which was sung at a Sunday Mass as the 2nd fell on a Sunday in 2014.

I was astounded to see how much hair I had then.

But I digress:

I noticed that the Mass was a hybrid of Latin and English. However, I noticed too, that I prayed the Roman Canon silently for the first half. Yes, you read the correctly! I prayed the Roman Canon silently its first half only, as the choir was singing the Faure Sanctus! Yes! I did that!!!!

As the choir began the Faure Sanctus, I said the Sanctus to myself and launched into the revised Modern Missal version of the Roman Canon in Latin as the choir sang. I stopped prior to the “Hanc Igitur” to allow the choir to finish. Then the rest of the Roman Canon, I prayed out loud. Yes, I did that!

Interestingly, the laity remained standing until the end of the Sanctus as is the custom with the Modern Mass and knelt for the “Hanc Igitur” when the choir finished. (In Canada and Europe, the laity remain standing for the first part of each Eucharistic Prayer and then kneel for the invocation of the Holy Spirit and consecration and then stand again for the Mystery of Faith). 

As I watched the 2014 Mass, I realized that the silent canon increases the mystical experience of the Mass.

But more importantly, to sing the Sanctus as the first part of the Roman Canon is recited in low voice by the priest, shortens the prayer.

Thus there is no need to use the ever so-short Eucharistic Prayer II as is the case today with priests who think the Roman Canon is too long but not their 30 minute rambling homily.

Mystical experience anyone? The quiet Roman Canon, at least for the first part!

FATHER EMMANUEL AND DEACON DON WEAR THE BLACK VESTMENTS THAT I PURCHASED FOR ST. JOSEPH CHURCH IN MACON PROVING THE OLD ADAGE THAT BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL!

 These were used for All Souls Day Mass at St. Joseph, November 2, 2022.

Indeed! Black is beautiful!

EXCELLENT POINTS FROM MY GEOGRAPHICAL BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE IN WHICH I LIVE AND HAVE FACULTIES, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

 

Money byte below title, press title for Crux’s complete article:

Bishop urges Catholics to put Christianity before party in midterm elections

By John Lavenburg

Nov 3, 2022

|National Correspondent

Share

“As citizens of this great country, we have the ability to vote and engage in civic life,” Fabre-Jeune said Nov. 2. “It is a blessing that we can actively live our faith and a moral obligation to vote for those that defend the right to practice it.”

The bishop also mentions the importance of Catholics forming consciences before voting, and weighing each candidate’s stance “on the moral hierarchy of issues.”

“We must elect lawmakers who uphold and promote the common good, reject intrinsically evil acts, and protect the weak, undeserved, and vulnerable,” Fabre-Jeune said.

“We do not vote from social pressure or selfishness, but from a well-formed conscience. We vote for love of one another which flows from God, the creator and giver of life,” he added. “Let us pray for our state and nation as we seek the intercession of the patroness of South Carolina, Our Lady of Joyful Hope.”

FASCINATING RECOLLECTIONS OF VATICAN II TO INCLUDE POPE EMERITUS I’S UNDERSTANDING….

 Unfortunately I think CNS screwed up the editing of this as a lot of the Italian commentary is not translated into English captions!

DOES THE SYNODAL CHURCH = A POLITICIZED CHURCH OF LOBBIES WHO TALK PAST EACH OTHER, LISTEN TO THE MORE POWERFUL LOBBIES AND ARE DEAF TO THE WORD OF GOD, TRADITION, NATURAL LAW AND THE PERENNIAL MAGISTERIUM AND DEPOSIT OF FAITH?

 The political processes of synodality and the powerful lobbies it will exacerbate will certainly create a Church of winners, whiners and losers when their political lobby fails to deliver regardless if one is heterodox, schismatic, apostastatic, or orthodox, faithful Catholics…

This is from a commentary in that ever so faithful to Pope Francis and especially to Pope Benedict XVI, the National Catholic Reporter:

To start, this is a stark contrast from Francis' 2013 comments on women's ordination: "The Church has spoken and says no … that door is closed."

Now, the church is speaking through the synodal process and saying: This is part of our discernment. The Vatican's admittance that the teaching on women's ordination is not a consistently held belief among Catholics reveals a spirit of openness and accountability to the people of God. The very fact that those challenging voices — many of which were filtered out at the local level — broke through means this call is strong and clear.

We at the Women's Ordination Conference engaged faithfully in the synod process, providing educational resources and spiritual tools, and hosting eight listening sessions ourselves, following the guidance of the synod preparatory documents. We submitted our report to the Vatican directly, and also registered as part of the so-called "Region XVI" with the U.S. bishops' conference so that our report, spanning voices beyond one diocese, could be included.

My Comment: The synodal process will place on steroids powerful religious/political lobbies to push for what they want. And at least this powerful lobby knows how to get what she wants, a heterodox Church can only be accomplished by listening not to God, Scripture, Tradition and Natural Law, but by listening to people, especially the most organized Catholics, powerful lobbies, who overshadow the true sensus fidelium, the actual Catholic Faith of quiet, sincere, bread and butter Catholics, who believe in God and listen to Him.

Mike Lewis of “Where Peter Is” more or less highlighted what I am saying about a political process in the Church with some leaving sad in a comment he made on my blog on another post:

I think those who go into the synod with the idea that it will change the Church's doctrine on sexuality, contraception, or women priests (for example) are going to be quite disappointed. I think the synod is a good opportunity to bring the Church together and to understand the concerns of our fellow Catholics and to help the Church to understand the perspectives of different people, so we can better respond to each other.

My Final comment: I am glad that Mike Lewis believes that the more heterodox comments coming from the listening sessions will enable the pope and the bishops in union with him to correct and reprove heterodox positions.

But I’ve been a listening lay Catholic and priest since the Second Vatican Council and I see through the synodal process, a resurgence of arrogance from the heterodox because they feel Pope Francis and goodly number of bishops have their back and prefer a Church that is wildly horizontal, self-referential, self-absorbed and a closed circle. This closed circle leave little for Scripture, Tradition and Natural Law, let alone the Deposit of Faith developed over the last 2,000 years and faithful Catholics willing to die for the faith, to be martyrs. 

I fear the real losers in this political process of listening will be the entire Catholic Church leaving only a remnant of truly faithful Catholics. Oh, well.