Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Sign Petition to cancel upcoming Extraordinary Synod on the Family

Sign Petition to cancel upcoming Extraordinary Synod on the Family   
August 26, 2014Posted by Tantumblogo 
 
Over at The Remnant Newspaper’s website, Christopher Ferrara has a loooooong article about the upcoming Synod and all the many, many reasons faithful/traditional Catholics might want to oppose it. Some of the reasons are mere annoyances or doubts caused by TFG’s behavior, while many others are quite detailed and deserve serious consideration. Because the post is so long and detailed, it’s a bit difficult to excerpt, but here’s a couple of extracts (my emphasis and comments):
First they came for the Roman Rite, which they destroyed. Then they came for the Church Militant, which they disarmed and surrendered to the spirit of the age. Now, at the Synod, which threatens to become Vatican II rebooted, progressivist bishops and their apparatchiks will be coming for the moral law itself under the guise of a search for “pastoral solutions” to “challenges facing the family” [This is a point Christopher Ferrara and Michael Matt have argued extensively in other settings. Suffice it to say, the argument, I believe, proves beyond a doubt there is certainly a large segment of the hierarchy that does seem set on that last bit, which is the unwinding of the Church's entire moral law, or whatever remains after 50 years of concerted assault. I will say that Cardinal Kasper and his greatest ally have been almost diabolically wise in their choice of point of attack, because if one undoes the current belief surrounding marriage as one time union of man and wife resulting in a radically new and different union that simply can't be undone, while simultaneously turning the Blessed Sacrament, the reception of God in the Flesh Himself, into something to which every person has a positive right, irrespective of their sinfulness......if you do these two things, the entire moral Doctrine of the Faith can be completely unwound and destroyed, along with much of the remaining positive theology in other areas. The Church would be left a totally prostate liberal protestant sect, about on the par with the episcopalians. And look at how well they're doing, with their average congregation size of, I kid not, 67 souls]
But the proposal to find “solutions for remarried divorcees” is only part of the looming threat posed by the Synod—a Synod for which there is no more actual need than there was for the disastrous Second Vatican Council itself. The entire Synod project smacks of an effort to determine Church practice on the basis of what people who reject Church teaching would like to see. In that regard, the Synod’s Instrumentum Laboris(working document) refers to the earlier “Preparatory Document” containing a survey filled with loaded questions which give the impression that Church teaching is a matter for debate and discussion at the “pastoral” level. While the questionnaire was directed solely to the bishops, many bishops promptly distributed it widely or posted it on diocesan websites to obtain “input” from any priests and members of the laity who wished to speak for “the People of God.” The result, quite predictably, was that a questionnaire intended for the bishops became an opinion poll generating what the Instrumentum Laboris calls “significant reflection among the People of God” regarding “new demands of the People of God.” Demands! [So, after 50 years of catering to the absolute lowest common denominator in the Church, from aggrieved liberals to apostate priests, how has that worked out? Has the Church, through this debasing of Herself, at least attracted scads of liberal converts and reverts into the fold? Absolutely not. In fact, it is the liberals who have left, or stayed gone, in the greatest numbers. Because liberalism/leftism is a competing religion in its own right, one our secular friends much prefer to any worldly version leftists in the Church can trot out]
It seems, however, that “the People of God” have a problem with the Law of God. Half a century after the imaginary “renewal of Vatican II” supposedly began, the Instrumentum admits: “[t]he People of God’s knowledge of conciliar and post-conciliar documents on the Magisterium of the family seems to be rather wanting,” that “many Christians, for various reasons, are found to be unaware of the very existence of this teaching,” and that “even when the Church’s teaching about marriage and the family is known, many Christians have difficulty accepting it in its entirety.”[Ha! That's a mild understatement! How about stating the Truth, which is that a whole great swath of people are deeply mired in sin, and don't want to be reminded of that fact, so they demand the Church change Her beliefs in order to assuage their own consciences. It still won't work, because God is God and sin will remain sin - all that will happen is the continued destruction of the Church and condemnation of millions of souls] It is of course inconceivable to the ideologues of Vatican II that what the Instrumentum describes is a catastrophic failure of the attempt to “update” Church teaching by restating it in more accessible language. Yet the very title of the document, “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization,” is an implied admission that fifty years after the Council it islapsed Catholics who must be evangelized because they are more or less apostates, producing the “silent apostasy” John Paul II lamented. Instead of admitting the Council’s utter failure to “renew” the Faith, however, the drafters of the Instrumentum—one can only laugh at the suggestion—call for yet another “updating” of Church teaching…..[Well, of course. As I’ve said recently, the post-conciliar Church represents a competing religion, the religion of secular leftism, trying to exist within the Church. That is impossible, which is why these “spirit of…..” types are irrepressibly hostile to the traditional practice of the Faith. And as Ferrara notes, they are dogmatic ideologues, so they are completely closed to any contradictory evidence – they are literally blind to the destruction their project to redefine the Church has caused. Or, they secretly see it as a feature, and not a bug. Either way, they press ahead with one “new evangelization” and “new catechesis” project after another, only to see Church attendance, donation, vocation, and other indicators slip, yet again. And then we’ll have another “new” program, more slip, etc., ad infinitum, until……..? But I will say this Synod represents one of the gravest threats to any possibility of true restoration in the Church in the past few decades. And it won’t take a formal “change” to Doctrine, Doctrine can be obliterated in practical terms by secular pastoral approaches
So I almost put a question mark at the end of the lede, because while I fear this upcoming Synod (while retaining confident hope of a miracle), I don’t think a petition is going to accomplish very much – especially one with only 1000 signatures. It would take 1000 times that many to attract any serious attention. But, in conscience, I thought I would go on the record as putting forth my wish that it be stopped. I am very concerned that even some subtle “pastoral” changes that seem innocuous at first could have enormous repercussions that are impossible to discern in advance. Certainly we’ve seen that with regard to many pastoral “advances” made in the past 50 years.
You can sign the petition at the bottom of the Remnant link. Whether you sign or not, prayer is an even better response.

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