Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 1:15am

PopeWatch: Sham Synod?

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Is the upcoming Synod a sham with the outcome already predetermined?  Rorate Caeli in the following post believes the evidence pointing to a rigged process is becoming more evident:

Summary: Italian journalist Marco Tosatti reveals that A SECRET PARALLEL SYNOD has been established in Rome, a cabal composed almost exclusively by Jesuits, with the occasional Argentinian presence (easy to guess who), to draft the necessary post-synodal documents to implement whatever the Pope wants to implement. And they will implement it, no matter what, as the secret committee to draft the Annulment reforms has shown; what everyone supposed was true in fact is true: the Synodal process is a sham.

 

 

 

Update: A final observation is in order. As Pentin and other observers have noted, it has been said that the Pope may wish to avoid a typical post-synodal EXHORTATION, which has been the typical papal document following the creation of the post-conciliar format of the Synod of Bishops. These exhortations have typically been papal lists of the majority decisions of the synods, as guided by the popes, and interpreted by them, and have guided future decisions. This is obviously not what we mention above. Considering the character of Francis, it is not surprising that he now wants to avoid a wordy exhortation that leads nowhere. No, the post-synodal documents being prepared secretly should obviously have an executive or legislative nature and would be promulgated with a different shape and weight than that of a mere exhortation. It would obviously make no sense for the Pope and his allies to go through this immense process and get absolutely no palpable result (text) from it, right?…

Remember in Evangelii Gaudium where the Pope praised collegiality and decentralization for the Church?  If you do, your memory is probably better than the Pope’s.

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Paul W Primavera
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 8:01am

After the Vatican’s back tracking on the report of the Pope having met with Kim Davis, I would put no faith in this Synod or the Pope or anything from the Vatican.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 9:11am

I would love to know what “the proper boundaries of papal power are.
“If anyone, then, shall say that the Roman Pontiff has the office merely of inspection or direction, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the Universal Church, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal part, and not all the fullness of this supreme power; or that this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the Churches and over each and all the Pastors and the faithful; let him be anathema.” (Pastor Aeternus)
Or, as Ulpian put it more succinctly in the Digest, “Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem”—“What pleases the ruler has the force of law (D 1.4.1)

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 11:44am

Hi Michael,

Are there any writings that state that a Pope can change the infallible doctrine of the Church regarding faith and morals. Is the Pope able to say that there is no hell? Is the Pope able to change the Church’s teaching on sin. Does the Pope make up the truth according to the signs of the times? Did you agree with the letters written by Saint John Paul II and his pronouncements regarding contraception? What’s your point exactly? Are you suggesting that Catholics who strongly disagree with Pope Francis are anathema? Were you anathema during the time of Pope Benedict, Pope Pious X? Or are you just a lying hypocrite?

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 2:12pm

So! The conspiracy theorists ( about some of the strange goings in the Holy Roman Catholic Church) were essentially right all along.?
/
Well. If we can acknowledge that, we can begin to get to work righting the ship.
Truth even told, please God. Nothing disinfects and scares away the cockroaches like a good dose of sunlight.
God bless Pentin and other journalists who shine a light for us Thanks to TAC.
/
The new Daneels biography will ultimately be an example of how pride, hubris eventually betray a person.

Hmmmmm
Hmmmmm
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 3:50pm

Michael Paterson-Seymour,

How do we ignore the pitched battles the Church fought diligently for centuries in order to eliminate concubinage as well as establish the universal equality and brotherhood of man under One Father? What I cannot square away are the implications of relaxing these disciplines- what does it suggest? That what we cconsider homosexual men and women do not really engage in sexual activity? Are we not just smuggling old pagan sexual morality through the backdoor: that their are active/dominant partners and passive/submissive ones, and only the active ones can perform sexual activity? If that’s the case, does that mean that only men can be sexual and women can’t? And if that’s the case, then there is no equality between the sexes. And if there isn’t equality amongst the sexes, how can different sorts, or temperaments, of men be equals?

The Church struggled mightily to instruct and influence the cultures she came in contact with to associate “maleness” and “femaleness” as anatomical characteristics alone based on the reflections of the divine facts Christ himself put before us. While I can appreciate that our reflections may have been misguided or incomplete theologically and pastorally over the centuries, they have been so fixed for so long as the custom, and so tightly associated with the precepts of Christ, how indelicate would it be to toss that away in the span of a year?

The issue, to me, looks more and more like the push for female priests: it is only because we are immoderate and imprudent that we confuse the fact that a case can be presented with its righteousness. “Passion bestirred, damn the consequences!” is the folly of those on a mission to destroy themselves.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 4:15pm

Thank you MPS for referencing that encyclical. Here is a link for those who may be interested
http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html

In response to your note, I say we are just as threatened by his more “collegial” approach given the way he selects those members he will work with on the questions he wants to advance.

Franco
Franco
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 7:05pm

Another secret organization to transform the
Church at the Vatican. The Masons must be
delighted.

Meanwhile, there are reports the Vatican
no longer cares for the Clerk of Rowan
County and rejects her extreme views.
They also tell us her meeting with the
People’s Pope was a minor nothing, which
has been exploited by the naughty county
clerk.

Hmmmmm
Hmmmmm
Friday, October 2, AD 2015 10:47pm

What it boils down to is a new form of Febronianism, perhaps pan-European instead of nationalistic, but with all the same old presumptions. What these cardinals who are pushing for reforms wish for is for our church to acquiesce to the mores of the times in Europe and their cousins scattered across the globe. The unquestioned premise behind this is a confidence of a European supremacy on all matters, that a collegiality of European thought trumps the universal church for they are the directors of progress and in possession of enlightenment.

Whatever the role and opinion of the Pope is, I cannot judge it. But as seen in the imbroglio between Cardinals Muller and Marx and the German Church, there is a contingency who clearly believes in some form of the above. So are we supposed to listen to these men who reside over the doomed and are asking for us to join them for company’s sake? The Church has receded greatly under their watch, it is far too intertwined with their secular states and the people under their watch have given up on life- they despise and rebuke their forefathers and they have no interest in the future- and are breeding themselves out of existence in existential despair between fits of hedonism. None of this engenders confidence.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 1:44am

Keith Goode and Hmmmmm

Cardinal Manning’s question is very much in point: “The first and final question to be asked of these controversialists is: Do you or do you not believe that there is a Divine Person teaching now, as in the beginning, with a divine, and therefore infallible voice ; and that the Church of this hour is the organ through which He speaks to the world ?” Thus, he insists that “The enunciation of the faith by the living Church of this hour, is the maximum of evidence, both natural and supernatural, as to the fact and the contents of the original revelation. I know what are revealed there not by retrospect, but by listening.”
When he was still an Anglican, Mgr Ronald Knox asked himself a simple question: “Why did those who anathematized Nestorius come to be regarded as “Catholics” rather than those who still accept his doctrines?” He realised that we do not have to concern ourselves with the theological arguments at all; the short answer is that the “Catholics” had the bishop of Rome in their party and the Nestorians did not.
As he says, “if you ask a Catholic “What is the Catholic Faith? ” and are told it is that held by the Catholic Church; if you persevere, and ask what is the Catholic Church, you are no longer met with the irritatingly circular definition “the Church which holds the Catholic Faith “; you are told it is the Church which is in communion with the Bishop of Rome.”
It is a real test, not a vicious circle and one that is is remarkably easy of application; just what one would expect of the criterion of a divine message, intended for all, regardless of learning, capacity or circumstances.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 2:34am

Anzlyne

You are confusing Pastor Aeternus (a decreeof the First Vatican Council, with Leo XIII’s encyclical, Aeterni Patris.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 6:45am

Ha! you are right ! I read too quickly! I wondered briefly about missing your quote I there! – chagrin? I have never read the one from Vatican II
I appreciate your other notes this morning – they help me to look at this whole series of events in the Church with trust.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 6:46am

I mean Vatican I

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 7:27am

Michael,

Your response is not very helpful to me. Clearly, you have more knowledge than I do, so please take your time to help a less informed brother in Christ. What exactly is your point? Would you kindly answer my questions regarding whether or not you believe that the Pope can change what the Church has always taught? Does the faith chance fundamentally according to the discretion of one Pope to the next. If a Pope contradicts the teachings of a previous Popes am I cursed for not abiding by the novel teaching? I’m not a fan of sophistry. Let’s not hide behind words. Be honest Michael. The truth is not complicated. Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 10:02am

Keith Goode asks, “Would you kindly answer my questions regarding whether or not you believe that the Pope can change what the Church has always taught?”
We know and can only know what the Church has always taught through “[t]he enunciation of the faith by the living Church of this hour,” which is “the maximum of evidence, both natural and supernatural, as to the fact and the contents of the original revelation.”
As the Holy Office explained in the case of Father Feeney, “among those things which the Church has always preached and will never cease to preach is contained also that infallible statement by which we are taught that there is no salvation outside the Church. However, this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Saviour gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church.”
As Socrates said: “Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing”
Really, the only alternatives are the submission of faith to a living authority, speaking now, or a reliance on private judgment. An appeal to the records of the past is always and inevitably an appeal to one’s own interpretation of them for, “ἐὰν δ᾽ ἀνέρῃ τι, σεμνῶς πάνυ σιγᾷ” – If you ask them a question, they preserve a solemn silence.

cpola
cpola
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 10:25am

Here is an example of the Church institution teaching and practicing evil on the premises of a Catholic Cathedral with the approval of papal appointed Vatican officials.
http://popeleo13.com/pope/2014/06/02/category-archive-message-board-51-sodomy-in-cordoba/
Now the question: must Keith Goode go along with such abominations, (of lewd homosexual acts being performed in the sanctuary of the Most High God), in order to consider himself Catholic?
Now Mr Patter-Seymour lets hear your take.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 11:09am

MPS, it would be nice if instead of copying and pasting text from documents which seem to not be directly addressing the question put to you, you once made an attempt to offer your own interpretation of the documents in order to explain how the quoted source text applies. This is what is known as scholarship. A doctoral thesis or dissertation that offered nothing but out of context quotes with no analysis would not get a pass. So, perhaps give it a nice college try to offer up your own unique analysis.

Otherwise, by all means keep offering comments that demonstrate little other than the fact that you’ve read a lot of stuff.

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 11:25am

Michael,

My question was to you directly. You have not answered my questions and are being deliberately obtuse. In my opinion, you are deriving pleasure in seeing many Bishops in our Church contradict the relavence of magisterial teachings, and Catholic Dogma. If I’m right, then I feel sorry for you. Why would that make you happy. You have not given your opinion regarding the teachings of Saint Pope John Paul II. It seems to me that the only truth that you will submit to is the one that you have created according to your own individual conscience. When Popes disagreed with you, I’m sure you did not remain silent, and followed your own conscience. If I am wrong please correct me. I don’t think I am wrong about you Michael. Just be honest. Did you use the same arguments during the time of our last Pope. If you did not then I submit that your are more interested in promoting your own truth, and poking at those who don’t submit to your beliefs, than abiding in the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We don’t get to make Jesus according to our own image. He gave His Truth to us, and it doesn’t change, or surprise us.

Tamsin
Tamsin
Saturday, October 3, AD 2015 6:01pm

Fr. Hunwicke wrote in a blog post entitled Pope or Tradition?,

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote: “After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything … especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council … In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope’s authority is bound to the Tradition of faith … The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition.”

And this is what Vatican I had defined: “The Holy Spirit was not promised to Peter’s successors so that by its revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but, so that, by its assistance, they might devoutly guard and faithfully set forth the revelation handed down through the Apostles, i.e. the deposit of Faith”.

B John Henry Newman, Patron of our Ordinariate, brilliantly characterised the charisma, the genius, of the Roman Church as its capacity to act as a remora, a breakwater, a hindrance, a stopper against innovation. That’s what the Pope’s job is.

We can only hope.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 1:24am

Keith Goode,
I developed my views in the 1960s and have maintained them consistently ever since. They were formed through contact with a number of High Church Anglicans at Oxford, whose beliefs (bating the papal office) were identical with those of very traditional Catholics.
One day, it struck me very forcibly that they held those views as private opinions; not, like Catholics, on the authority of a teaching Church. I read a good deal of Newman and Manning, who had been there in the 19th century and of Ronald Knox, who had been there in the 20th.
About the same time, I encountered the Edict of Thessalonica of 380 that made Christianity the official religion of the Empire and that stands in pride of place at the beginning of the Code of Justinian. It defines it simply as the religion “which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus…” Anyone could find out what that was; they only had to ask him.
I object to soi-disant Traditionalists, not because of their doctrines, but because of their approach, elegantly satirised by Newman: “I read the Fathers, and I have determined what works are genuine, and what are not; which of them apply to all times, which are occasional; which historical, and which doctrinal; what opinions are private, what authoritative; what they only seem to hold, what they ought to hold; what are fundamental, what ornamental…. Take my word for it, that this is the very truth of Christ; deny your own reason, for I know better than you, and it is as clear as day that some moral fault in you is the cause of your differing from me. It is pride, or vanity, or self-reliance, or fullness of bread. You require some medicine for your soul; you must fast; you must make a general confession; and look very sharp to yourself, for you are already next door to a rationalist or an infidel.” Well, sorry, unless you are seated in the Chair of Peter, I don’t trust your reasoning – and why should I? The sasme goes for their readings of past documents of the Magisterium.

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 6:50am

Michael,
Am I to take it that you won’t answer my questions because you have judged yourself as being more informed than I? My judgments regarding your absolute refusal to answer any specific questions presented to you don’t come from any pride or malice. I told that you that I may be wrong concerning my judgments regarding how you have responded to me, but instead of answering my questions, you continue to pass over them with passive aggresive insults. Did you feel the same way in about everything that Pope Benedict said and did while he was Pope? Did you use the same arguments to silence homosexual ideologues who did not like many of Pope Beneficts teachings. Have you used the same “arguments” against pro-abortion Catholics, pro legalized homo-sexual marriage Catholics, anti traditional mass Catholics. If you did not, what are we to think about you. You have held your opinions since the 1960s, but when Popes didn’t go along with your appraisal of the faith you stopped believing that. I’m sure your justification is that you knew all along that things would go your way so, in your heart you dissented from those Popes who disagreed with you, knowing that in the future the tide would turn. That being said, I don’t believe that you were quiet in your dissent. Be honest Michael, were you?. Is that being humbly silent, or proudly dishonest. You have made a lot of judgments about me. My judgments about you are proven true by your responses, and the pride in your presentation. Once again, will you answer my questions, or wil you continue to hide behind your self righteousness, intellectual pride, and intentional insincerity.

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 6:57am

Be honest Michael, and please call me Keith. Thanks in advance my brother in Christ. God bless you and yours.

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 7:12am

Am I wasting my time? So much for dialogue. Michael, if you allow this exchange to end on this note, you are truly a hypocrite. Let’s find peace. As Catholics we know that peace is found only through the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Peace is only found through Jesus Christ.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 7:19am

Thank you Michael PS. I appreciate your counsel about the pope. So far he has not made changes in what we have always known. In some ways -a leap off the barque now would be like Protestantism… A vanity. The pope today is steering us through a storm It seems like a test or him and or us. The same test was in today’s readings. He (pope) often asks us to pray for him and out of charity and Prudence we should do it.

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 8:00am

Anzlyne,

Michael has not answered many of my questions, and is talking at me. He seems to think that I have expressed some Protestant opinion, by asking questions, and posing concerns. Do you believe he has answered my specific questions. Are you accusing me of Protestant disobediecnce. If so please tell me what viewpoints that I have expressed that are Protestant. I cannot believe your take on this conversation. Maybe you can explain to me your rationale. Thanks.

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 8:05am

I believe in showing people the respect of taking the time to answer their questions. Michael is being deliberately obtuse. Why does he not answer my questions. Could it be pride? Are you accusing my of pride Anzlyne? If you are, don’t believe that your judgment is just.

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 11:11am

I confessedy sins today before mass. I asked if it is a sin to feel that many of our shepherds are letting down my family, and I was told that it is not. I prayed that our Lord would hear my petition through the Holy Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ that our shepherds would be feed His sheep with His Word, empowered by the Holy Spirit. We don’t need to be fed by the words and solutions of man. We need to be fed the Manna from Heaven. There is no division or discord in the Truth, in the faith, in the body of Christ. We are called to be one. Let us not refuse the wedding feast of our Lord. Let us not hide the lamp, due to worldly fear, due to the worlds judgment. We are called to spread the Gospel of God, not the gospel of this world. The Truth does not change according to our worldly desires. We are called to deny ourselves, and faithfully follow the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Is it pride to deny the ways of this world? Should our shepherds speak the language of those who deny God, while neglecting to speak the Truth with Love. I am trying to be a true faithful son of Gods Church. As a faithful son, I don’t believe that I should be ashamed to proclaim the entire Gospel with love. When shepherds are silent about those parts of the Gospel that the world refuses to hear, our the being merciful and loving? Who are any of us to condemn one another? Let’s not accuse those who believe that the Gospel should be proclaimed in the fullness of the Truth that Christ has given His Church falsely, by stating that they are proud and judgmental. We are called to be meek and humble of heart. Who are any of us to spurn the grace of God, for our own selfish desires, who are any of us to believe that we are greater if we are not ashamed to desire to be a faithful son of the Church, by speaking the Gospel for the salvation of souls. Is it judgment to be concerned about our brothers and sisters not believing in the Wedding Banquet of our Lord? Do we hide this from those who are athiest, Muslims, Protestants, to those who continue to proudly live enslaced by their sins? Let us pray for our shepherds to faithfully feed the sheep, to prepare them for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray for God to give our shepherds the strength to defend our families according to His Will, not the will of the world.

.Anzlyne
.Anzlyne
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 11:46am

Hi Keith, My response to Michael was a response to Michael’s input about the pope place in the Church and that the Church is identified to questioners particularly by that place he holds I did not mean to jump into your conversation with hi.m.

.Anzlyne
.Anzlyne
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 11:47am

I am also worried about our pope but am trying to follow the biblical advice not to worry. But to pray. I struggle because the pope seems to come at issues from a totally different perspective than I do . He almost seems to bring the Church to a tipping point. … Careening almost and makes us wonder if the captain can steer this ship –
/
I am remembering john bosco’s dream – and how we must turn to Mary and Christ in His gift of the Eucharist. “Confidence” means “with faith”. And that is how I want to try to approach the tumult in the Church and world during the Synod and following.
I read tamsin’s thoughts and agree –

Keith Goode
Keith Goode
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 12:03pm

Anzlyne,

Thanks for getting back to me. We are all in this together, and I don’t want to cause any division or hurt. God bless you and yours. We are praying together.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 1:58pm

I am also worried about our pope but am trying to follow the biblical advice not to worry. But to pray. I struggle because the pope seems to come at issues from a totally different perspective than I do . He almost seems to bring the Church to a tipping point. … Maybe that’s what we need now?
/
I am remembering john bosco’s dream – and how we must turn to Mary and Christ in His gift of the Eucharist. “Confidence” means “with faith”. And that is how I ant to try to approach the tumult in the Church and world during the Synod and following.
i read tamarins thoughts and agree –

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 2:01pm

Sorry I just got back from planned parenthood and didn’t realize I had already hit “send”

Murray
Murray
Sunday, October 4, AD 2015 10:39pm

Keith, join the club. Michael is remarkably averse to actual discussion, preferring merely to paste the same verbose walls of text over and over again. You’ll find him doing the same thing all over the Catholic internet. I’ve found it’s generally not worth the time to try to engage with him.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, October 5, AD 2015 4:32am

Keith wrote, “when Popes didn’t go along with your appraisal of the faith you stopped believing that.”
Absolutely not. I have never held an opinion formally condemned by the Holy See. Where the Holy See has not pronounced, I treat theological opinions as just that, opinions more or less probable, that each Catholic is free to accept or reject.

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