Posted on 09/15/2014 2:00:37 PM PDT by NYer
We are now just weeks aways from the commencement of the Synod on the Family.
Due to the words of a Cardinal Kasper earlier this year during a speech in preparation for the synod, and the praise it received from the Pope, many have begun to suspect that the Synod on the Family will introduce novelties that will contradict the Church's (and Jesus') clear teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. Some even think that such an event could provoke a schism.
I want to go on record that I do not expect that.
Actually, what I expect is that the Synod, by design, will be quite anti-climactic, if for no other reason that to disarm the myriad critics of Kasper both in and out of the Bishops conference.
See, Cardinal Kasper's speech was a full frontal assault on the teaching of marriage and as a result there was considerable public push back by many Cardinals and others. This is not how things are done. I actually believe that his speech was a strategic assault to test defenses. When introducing doctrine undermining change into the Church, the last thing you want is to be clear that is what you are doing. That is why I don't expect the synod itself to be a disaster. Rather, I expect it to be like that nice crisp autumn night, the perfect sleeping weather, something so comfortable you fall asleep, even though it is a clear sign that winter is approaching.
It is for this reason I believe that they have broken the synod into two parts, part this year and part next. They want anti-climactic.
So what do I expect?
Rather than a direct assault on marriage, I expect the opposite. What I expect is a nice flowery document re-stating the Catholic doctrine on the indissolubility of marriage. It will include language about the pastoral care of souls in troubled situations, but it will be generally orthodox. But at some point, whether this year or next, or in a post synodal document by the Pope, they will recommend the Bishops conferences to study and implement pastoral guidelines to help those in this situation.
No mandate, no direct assertions on what to do, but just a call for Bishop conferences to study the problem and implement pastoral practices in line with the synodal documents. That is when the horse will be permanently out of the barn.
Then certain conferences will run wild either directly allowing it or allowing the pastor to decide. You know they will. (See German Episcopal conference)
The traditionally minded will scream bloody murder while the "everything is awesome" Catholics will only refer to the document of the synod as the mostest wonderfulist re-statement of Catholic teaching ever, ignoring what his happening on the ground.
In the meantime, the Vatican will move at a glacial pace to correct any abuses. After a few years, it will issue some weak document asking the Bishops not to abuse things. This document will be completely ignored in praxis and will only serve the purpose of throwing it in traditionalist faces when they complain about the obvious. You know the drill.
After a few more years, the obvious abuse will be so commonplace, that people will think you a sedevacantist for even bringing it up.
This is how it is done. This is how you introduce radical novelty into the Church without provoking schism.
So don't expect a synodal disaster or schism. Expect the synod to be that nice calm cool night that lulls you to sleep even as winter furiously approaches.
Catholic Caucus Ping!
Quite an interesting forecast from Patrick. Hmmmm
I tend to agree with him. This reminds me of what has happened wrt allowing pro-abortion politicians to receive communion.
I have no reason at this juncture to doubt this writer.
I came to the Church an ignorant protestant, Bible literate, eager, but not naive. In the short span of 13 years even I can see, hear, smell and on one occasion even taste the disturbing differences and reconfigurations of the Novus Ordo.
I can only imagine the totality of the real damages since before Vatican 2.
Less is never more.
Latin is gone, as well as Old English.
Prayers are halved, or more.
Friday fast is, for all practical purposes, wiped out.
Communion fast is reduced to 60 minutes.
Communion rails are gone.
Communion is self delivered as a wafer in the hand, not as a feeding from the Father, God.
Readings are at the 2nd Grade reading level.
Homilies are blow bubbles to vanity.
Nevermind the laity flying around the tabernacle dressed for nothing holy, carrying the Cup and purificator as a cocktail and napkin, and the plate of the Precious Body as an appetizer.
Now Kaspar?
” When the Son of Man comes, will there be any faith on earth?”
That in itself speaks volumes about the current climate of confusion and uncertainty.
True.
**Prayers are halved, or more**
No prayers are halved. I have no idea what you are talking about.
What you described was the blueprint used by the Episcopal Church of the US.
**Latin is gone, as well as Old English.**
Latin is not gone. Does your congregation sing Adeste Fidelis, Agnus Dei, Kyrie Eleison?
Prayers are halved, or more.
I already addressed this. Find another parish if you don’t like what your priest is doing.
Friday fast is, for all practical purposes, wiped out.
The Friday abstinence from meat was never wiped out by the Vatican. Individual Bishop Conferences did that. I still continue to abstain from meat on Fridays — read the GIRM.
Communion fast is reduced to 60 minutes.
This one is true.
Communion rails are gone.
Not everywhere — Communion rails are being put back in many churches.
Communion is self delivered as a wafer in the hand, not as a feeding from the Father, God.
First of all, you cannot communicate your self — so I don’t understand the “self delivered” statement.
You can ALWAYS receive the Eucharist on your tongue while kneeling down in front of the priest. He can’t refuse it.
Readings are at the 2nd Grade reading level.
Readings are from the Bible, and hopefully are being redone since the NAB was re-translated by a committee. It bugs me that some of the readings do not agree with what the priest says in the new translation — especially at the Consecration.
Homilies are blow bubbles to vanity.
After the Sacraments, homilies are the most serious part of a priest’s work. If it doesn’t draw you to a deeper faith, and a deeper love of the Eucharist, find another church.
Of course you have assumed availability exists to different churches, with different homilies, or regular use of Latin, or scripture reading based homilies in my diocese, no?
There are exactly two churches with kneeling rails available. Those rails would be found after a four drive in one direction to another state, and six hours in another direction, to the nearest Tridentine Mass in my state.
My issue is are we Catholics, or are we Conference, because there is a chasm between.
No one I know is a sedevacanist, but I see the writer’s point well made that orthodoxy of faith and practices, (and mourning the loss of much of it), may fall into the smirk file sooner than later. I have seen that reaction, actually.
I think it is rather a depressing sign, potentially dangerous.
I do envy your better experience though and the existance of choices when you confront bland and careless, milk rather than meat.
We do have a Tridentine Mass once a month here.
But the Novus Ordo Masses in all the other churches are very strict and reverent.
I encourage you to kneel to receive the Eucharist in your parish. You never know who you will influence.
God blelss
Oops
God bless
How many other churches are there? And how many of them have altar rails and the tabernacle front and center?
How many of those churches have altar servers who hold patents under the communicant's chin, should the Blessed Host be dropped by some bumbling EEM who cringes at the sight of a tongue?
“...OMalley, not addressing the question directly, said the popes notion of mercy and inclusion is going to make a big difference in the way that the church responds to and ministers to people of homosexual orientation but, like with divorce, said the church will not necessarily change its doctrine....”
http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/09/12/cardinal-omalley-pope-francis-brings-hope/
Can’t help but notice that O’Malley does not categorically deny the possibility of doctrinal change.
I was thinking more along the lines of wagging my own kneeler down the aisle. Mostly, because navigating down polished marble on an incline at my age, in dress shoes could endanger the priest, The Holy Communion, and myself.
I have actually wondered about portable plastic kneelers, light weight, like my Costco kitchen step stool ladder. As you can see, I am pretty desperate. :) I hope you have a sense of humor. :)
I do appreciate what you’re saying, and realize that it comes from your experience in a diocese where the Tridentine is not banned, the laity (mostly females) do not swarm the “volunteer” Extraordinary Ministers list, rather than the Deacons, acolytes, Sisters of orders, and men. Laity in shorts and flip flops, dresses up to here, cut down to there, balancing precious cargo in 5 inch stilettos as they negotiate 2 to 4 steps of wood or polished marble, depending which parish, down to serving level.
Sorry to rant, but large swaths of the country are bleeding Catholics since V2, on top of the general, grave decline in the Church in the USA. I believe my eyes and the “fruits” of it are broadly a scandal.
I am expecting the emergence of the Conference Catholic Church of Conferees as a title much more congruent with the modernist version of the “Catholic Church”, in the goals, practices and perfunctory movements occuring today.
I read accounts of no differences seen between Novus Ordo and a Presbyterian Church, in one example. When Catholics were Catholic, you knew it. They were the definition of a “peculiar people” and openly counter culture.
Bless you too for all your fine work. It’s extraordinary what you do, and what it accomplishes for God. Love, Rita
I know that part of this was to spare the older folks from having to kneel and then get back up. So why not just let them stand or stay at their pews. The priests always in my parish served the elderly and ill first, then everyone else.
Just like when we learn a new hymn, it just takes instruction.
The faster the priest offers Holy Communion the faster the line proceeds.
To genuflect at the point of the front pew is a precarious act and many, many seniors who can easily kneel at a rail or kneeler could never manage kneeling on the bare floor and then be able to rise without a hand support.
Why can’t a single kneeler be present in front of the priest? Then those who would object to such pious practice can certainly choose stand and receive.
There is just no ignoring the argument that the fall of pious treatment of the Eucharist and movements away from the tabernacle and toward the people has coincided with more casual behavior, fewer serious Catholics, and Catholics falling away and leaving.
Find yourself a more reverent parish. They’re out there. I go to one.
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