Synod’s Final Report Lacks Bishops’ Consensus on Controversial Topics

The synod fathers agreed with a 2/3 majority to all 62 paragraph in synod report except those on communion for the divorced and “remarried” and on welcoming homosexuals.

VATICAN — In an electronic vote this afternoon, the synod fathers approved the final report — relatio synodi — of the synod of bishops, with two paragraphs on administering holy Communion to divorced and “remarried” couples and one on welcoming homosexuals failing to reach a two-thirds majority.

The final document of the Oct. 5-19 extraordinary synod on the family contains 62 points and the voting numbers for each of these was published. The most contentious paragraph, on allowing some remarried divorcees to receive communion after a period of penitence, received 104 votes in favor and 74 against.

A second paragraph on divorced and remarried persons, spiritual communion and a call to deepen understanding of this question received 112 votes in favor, 64 against — also failing to make obtain a two-thirds majority.

A third paragraph on the same issue, which states that situations of married divorcees “require careful reflection and respectful accompaniment, avoiding the kind of language and attitudes that may make them feel discriminated against,” received over a two-thirds majority (155 votes to 19).

A point on homosexuality received 118 votes in favor and 62 against. No longer did it say, as the interim report proposed, that homosexuals have gifts to offer the Church. Instead it says they must be “received with respect and gentleness” and that “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

Another issues that received a large number of negative votes concerned cohabitation and the matter of declarations of nullity, commonly called annulments.

The most contentious paragraph, on allowing some remarried divorcees to receive communion after a period of penitence, received 104 votes in favor and 74 against.

Big trouble ahead. This issue received a majority vote in favor when it should have been rejected out of hand. The bishops are split down the middle.

Over the next 12 months, +Francis and Kasper will be pushing this hard. It's hard to see anything but some form of a split or schism.

It is awkward to have certain texts approved by a majority but not a two-thirds majority. Is it merely the wording?

Plus, it seems to me certain implications need to be addressed. If a cohabitating couple not married in the eyes of the church to show themselves, and ask that their child be baptized, is the father to be recognized and indirectly the relationship condoned or even sanctified?

Ditto with respect to homosexuals. If a pari of homosexuals show up with a children, perhaps adopted as to civil law, is the church going to pledge itself to help those two people to raise the child in the faith?

> If a pari of homosexuals show up with a children, perhaps adopted as to civil law, is the church going to pledge itself to help those two people to raise the child in the faith?<

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Of course it will, for the sake of the child.

But the Church cannot deny the child the teaching that homosexuality is not a God-approved lifestyle.

Respectfully, I would suggest that you review your Catholic history. The man you are referencing to “lead the orthodox among us” is the same man that led the leaders of the Catholic Church into this present morass during the early 1960’s. Did Benedict ever do any good? Of course he did. But due consideration as to just who this man really is cannot be overlooked.

This is the man who was at the very heart of ratifying and embracing the modernist movement that defined the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. It was Joseph Ratzinger who urged the Church Fathers at the time to abandon the traditional teachings of the Church and to follow the voice of modernism. He later attempted to distance himself from Hans Kung and other modernists, but it was this former pope who disgracefully refers to the 16 Council documents as a “Counter-syllabus”––an underhanded and unfair criticism of Pope Pius IX’s timeless and correct Syllabus of Errors.

Perhaps, by comparison, former Pope Benedict XVI may look better than the current occupier of that position, but quite often, bad things appear to look better when compared to things that are even worse.

Those that struggled valiantly to hold fast to the truths of the Catholic Church in the days of the Council are no longer with us; and sadly, those attempting to carry forward their message of traditional Catholicism are treated as outcasts and anti-catholics by many of those Catholics who now support that other pope.

This Synod is merely a tool that Pope Francis and the modernist bishops are now using to draw the faithful even further away from the true teachings of the Catholic Church. But unfortunately, even if Benedict regained his position as pope, I doubt seriously if he would have the courage or inclination to stand up for the true faith, even if he believed in it himself.

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