Pope's fingerprints all over the effort to control the synod!

An Extraordinary Synod...

...in more ways than one. 

You need to read the entire article to understand how bizarre the synod has been. Think of all the pressing issues and ask whether Communion for the divorced and remarried is the most important item:

The issue of remarried divorcees is a real pastoral problem in Western Europe and North America but is not the only one, nor the most pressing one. And yet it became the focus of an intense pre-synodal debate, distracting attention from more central issues such as widespread cohabitation, child welfare, and pornography in the West, polygamy in Africa, or interreligious marriage in Asia. What is most strange is that the whole area of so-called artificial reproduction (IVF, surrogacy, etc.) never surfaced in any report.

"Most strange" is right! Not to mention the manipulation surrounding the synod to suppress any protest to the liberals' "proposed agenda":

Confirmation of the fact that the voice of those who opposed the proposed agenda was ignored or silenced was the secret ballot to elect the moderators of the smaller language group discussions. The majority of those elected were known opponents of Cardinal Kasper’s agenda: Cardinal Raymond Burke, for example, was the first to be elected. Their election evidently caught the organizers off guard – but they reacted quickly. Moderators would normally have the task of drawing up the official recommendations. But within days, Pope Francis unexpectedly appointed five other Bishops (three from Latin America) and one priest—the Jesuit Superior General—to write the final recommendations, thus bypassing the moderators.

Pope Francis' stacking the writing group reminded me of FDR's attempt to stack the Supreme Court. If you want your agenda to prevail, that's one way to do it, but it sure tips your hand. And there's more:

The most extraordinary, and alarming, aspect of the Synod to date was the report on the first week’s discussions presented by Cardinal Erdö last Monday. At the press conference presenting the report, Archbishop Bruno Forte stressed that those who drew up the report were “a team of heroes”. In other words, they had shown real courage. What kind of courage? It turns out to be the courage to say what the world would like them to say in opposition to the opinion of a significant number of bishops. This is hardly the courage which St Paul advocated. As Joseph Ratzinger once wrote: “The apostle’s frankness consists of saying the truth in a world dominated by appearance, even though it involves him in conflict [with the world].” The content of the second report caused widespread dismay—not to say a deep sense of betrayal—among faithful Catholics. 

“What rang out clearly in the Synod was the necessity for courageous pastoral choices,” the report claims. These choices were presented in terms of “the law of gradualness”, the only reference to the rich teaching of St Pope John Paul II, otherwise ignored by the Synod. But it is used in a way that contradicts what he meant.

Betrayal is right and it has the pope's fingerprints all over it. Many of us have been giving Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt over the scandalous interviews and phone calls and confusing statements, the draconian suppression of the Franciscan Friars of the Immacualte, as well as the elevation of the most liberal prelates. The pattern has become more than alarming!

Pray for Holy Mother Church. She faces challenges in every generation. If once most of the world was Arian, today most of the world is modernist. And when the hierarchy is filled with modernists promoting error the people suffer.

Lord Jesus, please raise up saints like Athanasius, Anthony, Gregory, and Basil to fight against the modernist heretics and confirm your people in the truth.