Meltdown Countdown: Fishwrap on the Synod
The Synod on the Family will start in October. Already the dissidents at the National Schismatic Reporter (aka Fishwrap) are whining. They have twigged to the fact that they are not going to get what they want.
Today there is an editorial which shows that they are starting to panic.
Editorial: Obstacles riddle synod on the family’s path
Editor’s note: The 50-page instrumentum laboris, or working document, that was released June 26 and will guide the discussion during the October Synod of Bishops on the family was dry and impersonal, lifeless almost, and that confounded us at NCR.
From personal experience [You see... it's all about "experience".] and from listening to colleagues, readers and friends, we have experienced marriage and family life as life-giving and joyous. Marriage and family life is not without its challenges and struggles; [and, since I'm not married dare I guess, "experiences"?] it offers ample lessons in humility and forgiveness, but that, too, at the best of times can be nurturing. [Just what does that mean? Lessons are "nurturing"?] If the writers of the instrumentum laboris, which is now supposed to be being studied in dioceses throughout the world, had begun with the fundamental experience of people who have lived in marriages and raised families, we wondered, how different would it have been? [And just imagine the difference had the experience been intermediate or even advanced!][...]
Accordingly, the instrumentum laboris for the upcoming extraordinary session (a second, ordinary session dealing with the same subject will be held in October 2015) bears some remarkable observations and questions on such topics as natural law and divorced and remarried Catholics. [When dissidents start mentioning "natural law", you know that they are soon going to say that deviant sex is just fine, or maybe even a "nurturing experience".]
It is imperative, however, to first understand [to first split an infinitive] the culture in which the synod mentality is rooted. [Do you pick up the scare word? If you said "mentality", you got it right!] As diverse as the issues and personalities involved in meetings of bishops from around the world, a common thread binds all of these gatherings. They have been, without exception, organized by, participated in and interpreted for the world by a tiny representation of humanity, celibate and exclusively male, [as opposed to... partially male? hermaphroditic?] whose careers [Oooo! Pope Francis would like them!] have been largely dedicated to maintaining the status quo [Oooo! BAAAD. We want change!] in a very exclusive fraternity. [C'mon. "Very"? It's either exclusive or it ain't.]
The disparity between those who will be doing the talking and deciding and those who will be talked about — the instrumentum is concerned primarily with married men and women, as well as homosexual persons [DING! You knew it was coming.] — is, in this instance, particularly glaring.
[...]
They are lowering expectations, I guess. But wait! There’s more:
Finally, [not really - There's another "Finally," several paragraphs later.] how effective might a synod be in its consideration of marriage and the family when, again, the celibate men of the institution insist on rules regarding contraception that much of the community has consistently rejected for more than 50 years? [Decoded: The majority opinion (of the so-well-informed) should determine the Church's doctrine.]
A section of the document abounds in the church’s soaring rhetoric about marriage, analogizing it to the Trinitarian love of God and Christ’s relationship with his church. Marriage is called “the great mystery” and a fundamental “community of love.”
But when discussing sex, the deepest human expression of enduring love between two people, humans are reduced to the level of baboons, their only legitimate purpose for engaging in sex the production of more little humans. Love and procreation are reduced to biological necessity. And if that is not the primary intent of every sexual act, then the marriage is fundamentally flawed in the church’s eyes. [You can sense what this is driving at, right?]
The working paper for the synod claims the reason the teaching is rejected is because of lousy catechesis. Lots of married people would tell the synod it’s because of even worse theology and anthropology. [So much for Catholic Doctrine!] The men making the rules really don’t understand the profound joy and endless implications of conjugal love in an enduring, committed relationship. They don’t understand, in any ongoing, experiential way, that fundamental “community of love.” [Get it?] It is about far more than producing offspring. Responsible parenthood involves so much more than making certain that each instance of sexual expression could result in another child. [See it?]
Nor does the paper address at all what marriage could mean for those unable to conceive, or those who marry beyond their childbearing years. And dare we mention the reality that keeps pressing on us with a logic that seems to be accepted more and more by segments of the community — homosexuals in a committed, loving relationship? [DING! There it is! You knew it was coming, didn't you. Decoded: If a whole bunch of Catholics want to stick what they have anywhere they want then, hey!, the Church had better change its bad theology and lousy anthropology.]
[...]
I see that the Catholic League also picked up on this whine. Here is what they say:
What accounts for them acting out? They are alternating between rage and depression. They thought Pope Francis would usher in their dream—the Protestantization of the Catholic Church—but instead they have come to the conclusion that they will not get their way this fall. But only a baboon would have thought they were going to win in the first place.
