[Salvation]

In complaining about episcopal discussions over forty years ago, Sheen warned that “concentration on a non-essential—while priests leave and nuns secularize and catechetics declines—will not win heaven’s smile.”

[Salvation]

Catholic Ping!

[defconw]

"What is so very different about the situation of the Church today? And why is true marriage—and therefore the family as a whole—incomprehensible to the modern world?"

Two very excellent questions.

[afsnco]

This whole synod thing (I’m not Catholic) appears to me to be an effort to move the ball left. They’re dribbling out all sorts of trial balloons and watching the reaction. The actual determination will likely not be as bad as what’s been leaked, but it still moves the ball to the left just the same. And I think that was this pope’s goal all along.

[Alex Murphy]

Pope Francis possesses a very different personality. It is clear that he is unafraid to push the Church in the directions he thinks necessary, but he also wants to emphasize a process of listening, to see what bubbles up from below. This in itself is an extension of the work of John Paul II in recovering the vision of the Council, which rightly foresaw that the bishops would have to come into their own again as vital leaders, indeed vicars of Christ in their own dioceses, for effective renewal to be achieved. So Francis does not want the Synod to do nothing but follow a curial script; he wants the participants fully engaged; and he hopes to hear among them some prophetic voices. To encourage this, he has forced the bishops to confront the situations in their own dioceses through a questionnaire, and he has insisted that they are to speak absolutely freely without worrying about what they think the Pope wants to hear. Before we worry about this, we should first recall that St. Paul, who was not afraid to resist Peter to his face when he thought he was behaving contrary to the Gospel, would be the first to approve. But this approach, in such a large group engaged in proceedings which everyone wishes to scrutinize closely, is bound to result in a greater preliminary chaos.

"Catholic Culture" PFL

[married21]

There was a telling picture in today’s WSJ, next to an article with a headline about the Church softening its stance on divorce and gays. The bishops and cardinals are shown leaving the building, some holding papers in their hands.

Not one of them looked happy or even neutral. They looked grim. I think they don’t like how this this going and there will be a backlash, bigtime.

[Friendofgeorge]

Has anybody heard about this

http://www.christian-faith.com/23hrs-dead-she-saw-famous-people-in-hell-michael-jackson-pope-john-paul-ii-others/

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

At bottom, a synod is an advisory panel to the pope.

While the words "synod" and "council" usually refer to a transitory meeting, the term "Synod of Bishops" or "Synod of the Bishops",[2] is also applied to a permanent[3][4] body established in 1965 as an advisory body of the Pope. It holds assemblies at which bishops and religious superiors, elected by bishops conferences or the Union of Superiors General or appointed by the Pope vote on proposals ("propositiones") to present for the Pope's consideration, and which in practice the Pope uses as the basis of "post-synodal apostolic exhortations" on the themes discussed. While an assembly of the Synod of Bishops thus expresses its collective wishes, it does not issue decrees, unless in certain cases the Pope authorizes it to do so, and even then an assembly's decision requires ratification by the Pope.[5] The Pope serves as president of an assembly or appoints the president, determines the agenda, and summons, suspends, and dissolves the assembly.