JORGE BERGOGLIO and his Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family dropped a heavy load of incendiaries yesterday with the synod’s mid-way report, Relatio post disceptationem, which urges the Catholic world to see positive elements in the sins of divorce, cohabitation, homosexuality, same-sex unions and even polygamy and arranged marriages. The smoke is still rising above the debris. Vatican II’s adulteration of Catholic worship, with rock masses and Holy Communion in the hand, leads inevitably to the adulteration of Catholic doctrine — and now to the ultimate project of trashing the Catholic family. Confirming all the worst fears regarding its revolutionary intentions, the Synod report, written by Cardinal Péter Erdő, affirmed the need to proclaim the “Gospel of the Family” with “profound conviction” and then proceeded to bury it in an avalanche of cultural relativism and psychotherapeutic talk of “fragility” and “dialogue:”

Anthropological and cultural change today influences all aspects of life and requires an analytic and diversified approach, able to discern the positive forms of individual freedom.

With its reference to “anthropological change,” the synod report, which does not have the support of all the synod participants, suggests that human nature itself has changed. In fact,”diversified approaches” to sin and “positive forms of individual freedom” were discovered by Adam and Eve. The Church emerged during a period when divorce, adultery and contraception were common and were a major factor in the downfall of the Roman Empire.

The modern world’s sexual chaos is caused by …. heavy taxation:

The most difficult test for families in our time is often solitude, which destroys and gives rise to a general sensation of impotence in relation to the socio-economic situation that often ends up crushing them. This is due to growing precariousness in the workplace that is often experienced as a nightmare, or due to heavy taxation that certainly does not encourage young people to marriage.

Polygamy and arranged marriages of non-Catholics in Asia and Africa offer multicultural potential — not grave danger as the Church has always asserted — for Catholics married to non-Catholics:

Some cultural and religious contexts pose particular challenges. In African societies the practice of polygamy remains, along with, in some traditional contexts, the custom of “marriage in stages”. In other contexts the practice of “arranged marriages” persists. In countries in which Catholicism is a minority religion, there are many mixed marriages with all the difficulties that these may lead to in terms of legal form, the education of children and mutual respect from the point of view of religious freedom, but also with the great potential that derives from the encounter between the differences in faith that these stories of family life present. In many contexts, and not only in the West, the practice of cohabitation before marriage, or indeed cohabitation not orientated towards assuming the form of an institutional bond, is increasingly widespread. [emphases added]

Notice the morally neutral language with which the report describes the conflict and lack of trust between men and women in relationships without the solid foundation of marriage:

Many children are born outside marriage, especially in certain countries, and there are many who subsequently grow up with just one of their parents or in an enlarged or reconstituted family context. The number of divorces is growing and it is not rare to encounter cases in which decisions are taken solely on the basis of economic factors. [Economic factors? But divorce is expensive. It is always more expensive to run two homes than one.] The condition of women still needs to be defended and promoted, as situations of violence within the family are not rare. [We are feminists too!] Children are frequently the object of contention between parents, and are the true victims of family breakdown. Societies riven by violence due to war, terrorism or the presence of organized crime experience deteriorating family situations. Furthermore, migration is another sign of the times, to be faced and understood in terms of the burden of consequences for family life. [Huh?]

The report suggests that a legitimate purpose of the family in the modern world is self-fulfillment:

Faced with the social framework outlined above, a greater need is encountered among individuals to take care of themselves, to know their inner being, and to live in greater harmony with their emotions and sentiments, seeking a relational quality in emotional life. In the same way, it is possible to encounter a widespread desire for family accompanied by the search for oneself. But how can this attention to the care for oneself be cultivated and maintained, alongside this desire for family? This is a great challenge for the Church too. The danger of individualism and the risk of living selfishly are significant.

There is not even a mention of eternal life in the above passage. Here’s more:

Today’s world appears to promote limitless affectivity, seeking to explore all its aspects, including the most complex. Indeed, the question of emotional fragility is very current: a narcissistic, unstable or changeable affectivity do not always help greater maturity to be reached. [Sometimes they do help greater maturity?] In this context, couples are often uncertain and hesitant, struggling to find ways to grow. [Translation: Sin is an effort to “grow.”] Many tend to remain in the early stages of emotional and sexual life. [Translation: Cohabitation is a stage of life.] The crisis in the couple destabilizes the family and may lead, through separations and divorce, to serious consequences for adults, children and society as a whole, weakening the individual and social bonds. The decline in population not only creates a situation in which the alternation of generations is no longer assured, but over time also risks leading to economic impoverishment and a loss of hope in the future. [Compare this weak anemic language with Pope Pius XI’s condemnation of the “haphazard unions of men.”]

Pastoral challenges

11. In this context the Church is aware of the need to offer a meaningful word of hope. [No, in this context, the Church should offer the truth.] It is necessary to set out from the conviction that man comes from God and that, therefore, a reflection able to reframe the great questions on the meaning of human existence, may find fertile ground in humanity’s most profound expectations. [Man will “reframe” God’s laws.] The great values of marriage and the Christian family correspond to the search that distinguishes human existence even in a time marked by individualism and hedonism. [Modernist claptrap.] It is necessary to accept people in their concrete being, to know how to support their search, to encourage the wish for God and the will to feel fully part of the Church, also on the part of those who have experienced failure or find themselves in the most diverse situations.Explosive!!] This requires that the doctrine of the faith, the basic content of which should be made increasingly better known, be proposed alongside with mercy. [Here’s the Nod-to-Sin in a nutshell. Doctrine is “proposed” to those living in sin, but they are welcome to receive the sacraments while unrepentant and declining to change.]

As predicted, the Synod will seemingly lead to divorce, homosexuality and contraception becoming, even more than they already are, openly acceptable phenomena in once Catholic parishes. The report proposes processes to make it easier for couples to invalidate their marriages and for prelates to consider allowing divorced and remarried couples to receive Holy Communion on a case-by-case basis.

The bishops’ report contends cohabitation expresses “seeds of the Word:”

Realizing the need, therefore, for spiritual discernment with regard to cohabitation, civil marriages and divorced and remarried persons, it is the task of the Church to recognize those seeds of the Word that have spread beyond its visible and sacramental boundaries. Following the expansive gaze of Christ, whose light illuminates every man (cf. Jn 1,9; cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22), the Church turns respectfully to those who participate in her life in an incomplete and imperfect way, appreciating the positive values they contain rather than their limitations and shortcomings.

The report urges parishes to welcome homosexuals.

Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?

There is much more to say about this document, but the bottom line is marketing, not of the Catholic Church and Natural Law, which is written on the hearts of men, but of a new religion that is a clever synthesis of Catholicism and Modernism. It’s dumb marketing. It will lead to more empty pews.

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