The Extraordinary Synod of bishops in Rome is apparently toying with the idea of offering us a new pastoral approach for those actively living an active homosexual lifestyle. Instead of getting fixated on the sinful nature of their lifestyle, we would supposedly focus on the gifts and qualities they
have to offer us.
Sadly, this is the approach that was taken for many years regarding the treatment of homosexual priests, who were "helping" teenage boys to discover the pleasures and fellowship offered by the gay lifestyle. These priests had gifts and qualities to offer us, which would have been denied
the Church and the world if they had been suspended - or much worse, prosecuted.
Apparently, then, it was sadly discriminatory for us to ignore these gifts and qualities, so as to fixate on the criminal nature of only one dimension of their priestly ministries. Had we merely encouraged them to nurture their other gifts and qualities, their homosexual attraction to young boys would allegedly have evaporated due to our refusal to fixate on it.
Unfortunately, our court system aborted this process prematurely and required Church bureaucrats to pay billions in fines, penalties and reparations for their "crime" of tolerance.
In another era, we saw how Nazis had gifts and qualities to offer us to help offset the negative aspects of their genocidal practices. They provided jobs, healthcare, the autobahn and technological breakthroughs that are still blessing us today. Should we ignore all of these by allowing ourselves to
fixate on the evil of genocide?
Again, it seems that we are being urged to ignore the fact that millions of human lives are being destroyed by Catholics through medical abortions and abortifacient "contraceptives." Instead, we are apparently to be urged to focus on the positive gifts and qualities offered by such Catholics. Furthermore, we are supposed to use the Blessed Sacrament to affirm these gifts and qualities
and to help all of us to appreciate the positive aspects of contraception and abortion.
In contrast to this perspective, it is interesting to note that, traditionally, the Church welcomes people by inviting them, through repentance and the obedience of faith, to be delivered from the bondage of sin and to receive the new life of God's gracious love in the sacrament of Baptism. As a hospital welcomes patients in order to cure them, the Church welcomes sinners in order to heal them of sin and its crippling consequences. We can ill afford to start embracing the perspective of a tribe in Africa, whose inadequate diet led to a pandemic of goiters. The way they responded to this problem was to regard this enlargement of the throat to be a beauty mark. The bigger the goiter, the better the beauty.
Hopefully, the "other gifts and qualities" detour in the Synodal discussions will soon be corrected, so that the end result of the Synod will be a resounding reaffirmation of the basic truth that we should love the sinner by curing the sin. The propositions of the progressive agenda notwithstanding, abiding in lust is never therapeutic.
Here's a slightly edited prediction that appeared some weeks ago:
ReplyDeleteThe upcoming Synod on the Family will convene, only the Modernists will be allowed to say anything, the Synod will publish something that goes on and on and says little to nothing, then the Pope will issue a Post-Synodal Exhortation that will say even less, and then the green light will be given to every Modernist and unwitting Modernist priest (which, if we would be honest, is most of them today) to tell people that divorce and remarriage is no big deal and by all means you should receive Holy Communion. And if you thought that annulment was merely Catholic divorce before, after the Synod annulments will be passed out at A Kennedy Wants to Marry the Nanny speed, like ordering a quarter pounder with cheese at the drive-thru window. They’ll have the annulment burgers and fries pre-made and sitting under the proverbial heat lamps. Please pull through.
So shall it be with this Synod. I also assume that the blind eye of sanction will be turned to all manner of sodomy ratification, including the “blessing of unions” or some such hellish abomination. Nothing formal mind you, only meaningless, Jesuitical, utterly incoherent gobbledygook which the pseudo-intellectual neoconservative fanboys and fangirls will lap up like hogs at the slop trough.
Yeah. I’ve got your dialogic encounter with the tender caresses of lurv right here, you charlatans.
I fear it is a repeat of the dissent after Humanae Vitae. The encyclical (published late) upheld Church teaching, but the cafeteria was alredy open and many priests in Confession gave penitents the green-light to follow their badly formed consciences. And now here we go again.
ReplyDeleteThe worrying aspect of this synod us the twelve months or more that we have to wait for any sort of finality to these discussions.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand I am intrigued by the silence being shown by Pope Francis, not a sound. He is supposedly just listening and that makes me wonder that he is waiting for all the dissident Cardinals, Bishops and others to show their heresies out in the open.
Could it be that his heavy hand will swoop at the conclusion and justice will be served on those who have uttered these heresies and our Faith will be untouched and the three pillars actually reinforced.
Oh, how I am praying for that outcome.
Thank you Mary Ann for all of your work and teachings on this site. We "true believers" so need the backup from those who believe as we do and gain wonderful encouragement from the people who spend so much time in sending out the real message of Faith.
You're right...the 12 months gives lots of spin time. I wish I thought the pope was going to take the action you suggest, but the liberals he stacked on the writing committee, men like Cdl. Wuerl don't give me much confidence.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the kind words. I truly appreciate them.