Your coverage of our Australian experience of the Plenary Council, fills me with optimism and hope. I hope your prediction that this experience is an indicator of what will happen in Rome next year, comes to pass. That unity was missing after Vatican II and this may be what is needed to correct what went wrong and get back on track with implementing the reforms the way they were meant to be implemented.
Unity defined as not breaking into schism "not going our separate ways" seems a pretty low bar, certainly not John 17. The report mentions unity a few times, but the rest of the text illustrates the opposite: different sides, competing agendas, etc. It seems a rather half-hearted unity at best.
The infantilism of those who refused retake their seats - because of a voting result they did not like - beggars belief. These are the people (fruitlessly) pushing for women to be admitted to positions of authority in the Church, yet they conduct themselves like children and throw their toys out of the pram if they do not get their own way. Pathetic.
One can only imagine how they would conduct themselves if they ever wielded any sory of power. They show themselves to be wholly unsuited to what they demand, but then, we knew that already.
We can well imagine what kind of impression such undignified and childish scenes make on anyone who may have been interested in joining the Church. To such any such people, I would recommend checking out any local traditional communities, where people's focus is only on Jesus Christ and not themselves and their own self-serving demands.
To the Bishops I say: as orthodoxy and Mass attendance continues to crash through the floor, is this kind of rubbish really what you should be spending time on? Give us a break guys!
Edit - I forgot to say, the pictures I have seen of the Australian synod look like a geriatrics convention or waiting room at a euthanasia clinic. These people and their erroneous ideas are not the future of the Church. Thanks be to God!
Guys, to be honest - and I wasn't there, but I've had quite a lot of feedback from people who were there for the whole thing - one reason everything went through easily on the last couple of days was exhaustion.
Some participants have said that there was, by that stage, an atmosphere of psychological abuse and 'deal fatigue' - that they were simply voting things through to MAKE IT ALL STOP, so that they could go home to their families.
You are right in that the script was not followed, and the 'progressive' rage was real. I've read all the documents that have emerged from every stage of the Plenary Council, and their lack of consistency - of any kind of coherent narrative from one to the next - was very obvious.
There was clearly a titanic struggle going on between actual believing Catholics and those who wanted to replace the teachings of Christ with the ordination of anyone except celibate men and the elimination of single-use plastics. The voice of believing Catholics would pop up in one document, only to be carefully edited out in the next.
The only Catholic news source that reported critically on the process - including this incoherence - was the 'Catholic Weekly' in Sydney. The backlash against it from prominent 'progressives' was noticeable. (The rest of the Australian Catholic media was in lockstep and singing 'Gather Us In' in a massed chorus of bland approval).
On the one hand, this has been great. Some things can't be un-seen. When the mask slipped and the benevolent 'progressives' turned into openly aggressive hostage-holders, I hope it woke some of the more sluggish of the bishops up. These people AREN'T their friends.
The terror on the faces of the bishops when the 'protest' took place - their real fear that they would be booed when they entered the sessions - has hopefully been a much-needed corrective for their collective cowardice in the past. The bishops have enabled some of these prominent 'progressives' for years, and now they're reaping the whirlwind.
On the other hand, what a waste of time and money for a damp balloon of a result. And we'll never know how much money, because the Plenary Council finances are a carefully-guarded secret.
Your coverage of our Australian experience of the Plenary Council, fills me with optimism and hope. I hope your prediction that this experience is an indicator of what will happen in Rome next year, comes to pass. That unity was missing after Vatican II and this may be what is needed to correct what went wrong and get back on track with implementing the reforms the way they were meant to be implemented.
An excellent piece of Catholic journalism. After the German experience, this is hopeful.
Unity defined as not breaking into schism "not going our separate ways" seems a pretty low bar, certainly not John 17. The report mentions unity a few times, but the rest of the text illustrates the opposite: different sides, competing agendas, etc. It seems a rather half-hearted unity at best.
The infantilism of those who refused retake their seats - because of a voting result they did not like - beggars belief. These are the people (fruitlessly) pushing for women to be admitted to positions of authority in the Church, yet they conduct themselves like children and throw their toys out of the pram if they do not get their own way. Pathetic.
One can only imagine how they would conduct themselves if they ever wielded any sory of power. They show themselves to be wholly unsuited to what they demand, but then, we knew that already.
We can well imagine what kind of impression such undignified and childish scenes make on anyone who may have been interested in joining the Church. To such any such people, I would recommend checking out any local traditional communities, where people's focus is only on Jesus Christ and not themselves and their own self-serving demands.
To the Bishops I say: as orthodoxy and Mass attendance continues to crash through the floor, is this kind of rubbish really what you should be spending time on? Give us a break guys!
Edit - I forgot to say, the pictures I have seen of the Australian synod look like a geriatrics convention or waiting room at a euthanasia clinic. These people and their erroneous ideas are not the future of the Church. Thanks be to God!
Guys, to be honest - and I wasn't there, but I've had quite a lot of feedback from people who were there for the whole thing - one reason everything went through easily on the last couple of days was exhaustion.
Some participants have said that there was, by that stage, an atmosphere of psychological abuse and 'deal fatigue' - that they were simply voting things through to MAKE IT ALL STOP, so that they could go home to their families.
You are right in that the script was not followed, and the 'progressive' rage was real. I've read all the documents that have emerged from every stage of the Plenary Council, and their lack of consistency - of any kind of coherent narrative from one to the next - was very obvious.
There was clearly a titanic struggle going on between actual believing Catholics and those who wanted to replace the teachings of Christ with the ordination of anyone except celibate men and the elimination of single-use plastics. The voice of believing Catholics would pop up in one document, only to be carefully edited out in the next.
The only Catholic news source that reported critically on the process - including this incoherence - was the 'Catholic Weekly' in Sydney. The backlash against it from prominent 'progressives' was noticeable. (The rest of the Australian Catholic media was in lockstep and singing 'Gather Us In' in a massed chorus of bland approval).
On the one hand, this has been great. Some things can't be un-seen. When the mask slipped and the benevolent 'progressives' turned into openly aggressive hostage-holders, I hope it woke some of the more sluggish of the bishops up. These people AREN'T their friends.
The terror on the faces of the bishops when the 'protest' took place - their real fear that they would be booed when they entered the sessions - has hopefully been a much-needed corrective for their collective cowardice in the past. The bishops have enabled some of these prominent 'progressives' for years, and now they're reaping the whirlwind.
On the other hand, what a waste of time and money for a damp balloon of a result. And we'll never know how much money, because the Plenary Council finances are a carefully-guarded secret.