Posted on 12/16/2021 4:05:03 PM PST by ebb tide
The wrestling match over a link to an American LGBTQ organisation on the Synod website - put, removed, put back - reveals just how influential the gay lobby is today at the top of the Church. It amounts to the official recognition of a group disavowed by the American bishops, condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 22 years ago, but now promoted by Pope Francis.
A link is worth more than a hundred theological and magisterial documents. This is the lesson that was taught recently by the Synod on Synodality, for which the preparatory way began last 9 October. The link refers to a webinar by New Ways Ministry, an American organization of LGBTQ Catholics, which is posted on the resources page of the Synod's website. Indeed: it was there, then it wasn’t and now it is again; a real marketing ploy.
The fact is, it was there but no one had noticed it (apparently few visit the official site of the Synod) until on December 6, when the ubiquitous Father James Martin, the greatest sponsor of the LGBTQ agenda in the Church, drew everyone’s attention to it with a tweet: the webinar on the Synod website is "a small, but historic step forward in the Church's relations with LGBTQ people," he wrote. Obviously there is no mention of the webinar’s contents - a very long, exhausting dissertation by the "theologian" Robert Choiniere on the theme of the Synod and on the Synodal Church and on the contribution that LGBTQ groups can offer - meaning the achievement lies in the fact there is an LGBTQ organisation present on the Synod website.
And not just any for that matter: New Ways Ministry, founded in 1977 by Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent, was repeatedly denied recognition as a Catholic organisation, the last time in 2010 by the then president of the US Bishops' Conference Francis George. And previously it was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who "permanently" forbade the two religious "any pastoral activity involving homosexuals". The Notification of May 31, 1999, signed by Ratzinger with the full approval of Pope John Paul II, is interesting in order to understand what the core of the problem is and what the nature and purpose of New Ways Ministry is.
In fact, the document gives an account of the long, fruitless dialogue promoted by the Holy See with Sister Gramick and Father Nugent to bring them back to Orthodox positions. To no avail, the two religious rejected the Church's teaching on homosexuality, the recognition that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil and that homosexual inclination represents an objective disorder. It was clear from the outset that the true purpose of New Ways Ministry was - and is - to change the Church's doctrine on homosexuality. Just like the organisation Catholics for a Free Choice (now Catholics for Choice), founded in 1973 and also based in Washington, on the abortion and contraception front. It is also clear that the then Cardinal Ratzinger was referring to New Ways Ministry when in 1986 he denounced a powerful gay lobby within the Church, but with "close ties with those who act outside of it", which wants to "subvert" the teaching of the Church itself.
So it’s easy to understand why someone alarmed by Father Martin's tweet led on 7 December, to the link disappearing from the Synod's website. And at that point Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, decided to play his trump card: the two letters Pope Francis himself had sent to DeBernardo, one last May and the other in June: one expressing his appreciation of New Ways Ministry’s suffered history, the other expressing great participation in the pastoral work of the LGBTQ group and exalting the figure of Sister Jeannine Gramick ("a woman of worth who makes her decisions in prayer").
One can only imagine the turmoil this revelation brought to the headquarters of the Synod Secretariat. And in fact, after just a few days, Sunday 12 December, the head of Communication of the Synod Secretariat, Thierry Bonaventura, immolated himself "on the altar of hypocrisy" (Pope Francis would say) and wrote a letter of apology to the LGBTQ community, assuming all responsibility for the removal of the link due to unspecified "reasons for internal procedures".
Bonaventura, in a style reminiscent of the self-criticism sessions at the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, acknowledges that by so doing he "caused pain to the entire LGBTQ community". "I feel that I must apologise - continues the letter - to all LGBTQ people and to the members of New Ways Ministry for the pain caused, testifying with the two contributions below the firm will - not only mine but of the entire General Secretariat of the Synod - not to exclude those who wish to carry out this synodal process with a sincere heart and a spirit of dialogue and real discernment ". He continues with an invitation to LGBTQ groups to send their contributions to the Synod through a preferential route, a direct email address. And obviously the link to the webinar was immediately relocated to the resources of the Synod website.
The next day, with great magnanimity, Francis DeBernardo officially announced his forgiveness of poor Thierry Bonaventura: "These unprecedented apologies from a Vatican department - writes DeBernardo - correct the mistake made and amplify, even more strongly, the welcome that Pope Francis has extended to LGBTQ people ».
Any comment, at this point, seems superfluous, the facts speak for themselves. This going back and forth over a simple link has resulted in the Holy See officially recognising a group whose purpose is not the pastoral care of homosexuals (which the Church has never denied) but to promote the LGBTQ agenda within the Church by subverting its teaching. A true masterpiece of marketing, it is the triumph of the LGBTQ lobby in the Church. And we begin to understand better what’s the purpose of a Synod on synodality.
Ping
Sex is for sacramentally married couples, for the strength of the marriage and for childbearing. Anything beyond that is a perversion and injures the soul. Doesn’t matter if it’s het or homo.
Welcome to the club.
I was born, baptized and raised in a staunchly conservative Lutheran church. Even attended a Lutheran college. My family’s Lutheran heritage extends back to the Protestant Reformation with Martin Luther’s “95 Thesis”.
It all came to an inglorious end when the ELCA endorsed queer marriage followed by ordination of queers into the ministry. I have not attended a Lutheran service in o er 15 years. The church that raised and nurtured me for over 40 years has become a den den of sin and debauchery.
Fags, lesbians, and bisexuals have infiltrated every aspect of our lives. And as prophesized, this was foreseen and a sign of the end times.
Piss on ‘em all and may God have mercy upon their souls.
The devil is using the Christian beliefs against Christians. Like “Love your neighbor” or “Love others”. But nowhere in the Bible do I read that you have to accept or include perverts into your faith!
It didn’t take long for the ELCA to become almost an imitation of the Unitarians.
The Synod is not at the top of my church!
I can just visualize the conversation between the Synod and God.
Synod: “We should embrace the stuff you have warned us about for thousands of years.”
God: “You know, after giving it careful consideration, I’ve changed my mind and agree with you.”
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It’s Sin-Nod: as in a nod towards sin, e.g. adultery, cohabitation, homosexual activity, abortion, artificial birth control, etc. Anything goes in Jorge’s “church”.
Well said.
Not all Lutheran churches are ELCA members. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod are truer to Scripture and the historic Lutheran faith than the apostate ELCA.
The Catholic Church either stands for the truth about human sexuality or it doesn’t. There is no middle ground. The errors of liberal protestantism in this area are proof positive that once you accept homosexuality as a positive good, then it’s just a short hop to same-sex marriage, same-sex-married clergy, transgender clergy, etc. etc.
As a Catholic, I will refuse to recognize to continue to affiliate myself with a Church that features same-sex marriage, same-sex-married clergy, transgender clergy, etc. We need another St Peter Damian to come along and rid our Church of these pervs and their sympathizers.
Yeah, right?
God says: “Oops. You’re right. You all are so much more intelligent and wiser than me. Forget My Commandments. Forget My instructions. Forget the things that I instituted which have allowed civilization to progress to where it is now. Go ahead and disregard everything I said and do as you see right and proper. Just like those folks at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Millions of Catholic heretics like it that way
Understood and agreed, but out here on the left coast both of those synods are far and few between.
I have said for years that “Christian” dems and progressives think God is an idiot....
They are few and far between everywhere.
Agreed. That sums it up next nicely.
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life[a] was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power[b] by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from[c] faith for his name’s sake.
6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. 9 God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you 10 in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.
11 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— 12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,[d] that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.
14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,[e] just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”[f]
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
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