Pray for the coming Synod

I haven’t been a Catholic long enough.  I didn’t become a serious Catholic until less than a decade ago.  So, I wasn’t paying attention when much of the craziness occurred in the past.  But I have to say, I have not seen such a heavy, fevered push for changing what I am convinced is unchangeable Dogma since I’ve been committed to practice the Faith.  I am referring to the huge push by the German bishop’s conference to somehow pretend the Blessed Sacrament isn’t the Real Presence, or that sin defined by Christ isn’t sin, by accepting the divorced and remarried (without annulment) to Communion.  This act is a refutation of so much of what the Church believes it is stunning.  That princes of the Church, like the notorious Cardinal Kasper, are advocating for this, is simply stunning.  Especially given the tremendous self-interest that is motivating these bishop’s actions, I am simply left floored.

Lifesitenews has an article relating yet another PR push by Cardinal Kasper which is both breathtaking in its audacity as well as in its intent.  The intent, plainly, is to use the media to coerce the upcoming Synod on marriage and the family to arrive at the conclusion preferred by the German bishops, so that they can continue to receive the fat Church tax that keeps their broken, doctrinally obtuse dioceses afloat:

Despite a recent strongly worded clarification from Rome, confusion is continuing to be stirred up over the Catholic Church’s practice of refusing Communion to those who are divorced and remarried.

A prominent curial cardinal, and favourite of Pope Francis,  [This has been widely misreported.  LSN should do better.  The “favoritism” Pope Francis has shown has to do with a book on spirituality Kasper wrote, not his doctrinal writings.  It was misreported in the press that Francis liked Kasper’s frequently dissenting, highly troubling theology, but that has been refuted.] has defied the Vatican’s doctrinal office, saying that he expects a change.

Cardinal Walter Kasper has said bluntly, and in direct opposition to the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), that the rules will shortly be changed to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to be admitted to Holy Communion.  [Kasper has been saying this garbage for 20 years.  Apparently, he doesn’t think very much of Our Blessed Lord’s commands, nor of the Dogmas made so plain by St. Paul regarding receiving the Blessed Sacrament unworthily.]

In an interview with the German language paper Die Zeit, which was later picked up by Vatican Radio,  [ I have to ask why Vatican Radio would seemingly help publicize this naked push to change the unchangeable. Someone at the Vatican obviously agrees with Kasper] Cardinal Kasper (who is himself a member of the CDF) said, “Christians who want to live by faith with the Church, who acknowledge that they have made ​​mistakes by the breaking of the first marriage, which they also regret – for them it should be a way back fully to participate in Christian and ecclesial life.” [Well, they could always try to get an annulment, although the German bishops, despite their manifest problems, have not yet made a mockery of the annulment process as has occurred in this country.  The alternative these people have, if they truly have this great hunger for the Blessed Sacrament, is to repent of their bigamist marriages and either strive to save their valid marriage or lead a chaste, single life.  That is what the Church counseled for 2000 years. But in reality, this talk of mercy is nothing but fluff, cover for the real objective – getting more Germans to claim the Catholic Faith on their tax forms, so these bishops who have done so much to destroy the Church in their country can continue getting the monetary benefit of involuntary tax receipts.]

The Church, basing its teaching on Christ’s words in the Gospel of Luke, does not recognize the existence of divorce. Persons who have divorced civilly and remarried, therefore, are considered to be objectively in a state of grave or “mortal” sin as adulterers, and therefore precluded from receiving Communion.

The controversy was rekindled in October this year when the Archdiocese of Freiburg released a document laying out plans to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion if they promised to enter “a new moral responsibility” with their new spouse. [What a crock. And what will this “new moral responsibility” entail? “A serious examination of conscience!”  Oh dear, send them to the rack, it would be more merciful!]

In response, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, prefect of the CDF, published an article in the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano saying that the practice of withholding Communion from those in a state of mortal sin would remain in place. This was followed by a letter to the German bishops ordering them to revisit their draft document.

The German bishops responded to this with more defiance, with Bishop Gebhard Fürst of Stuttgart saying in November they had voted to adopt the guidelines and expected them to be approved at their next plenary meeting in March 2014. [If they do so, they will be just as schismatic, if not more so, than the hated SSPX.  This kind of disastrous behavior has not occurred since the 70s.  It is incredibly troubling, but it won’t  be the first time a bishop’s conference has rejected Church Doctrine.  Think of the “Winnipeg statement.”]

[And now we get to what this is really about…….filthy lucre]…….The issue has been a high priority for the German Catholic bishops for whom much of the Church’s funding comes from the Church Tax, in which citizens identify themselves as affiliated with a particular church and the government pays a portion of their income tax to support it. The Catholic Church’s refusal to budge on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics has cut into Catholic revenues as thousands of Catholics in “irregular” situations have switched their affiliation on tax forms.  [There is nothing to substantiate that claim. I am disappointed the LSN author chose to repeat the German bishop’s talking points]

In 2012, the German bishops’ conference issued a statement that Catholics who did not pay the Church Tax would be refused the sacraments. [WAIT!! STOP THE PRESS!! What did he just say?  The German bishops, all about mercy for those in mortal sin, will deny ALL the Sacraments to those who refuse the Church tax?  It’s true, they have made this statement.  Does this not tell us ALL we need to know about the motivations of this conference, almost half of whose members have not publicly called for a change, if not openly repudiated, Church Doctrine on this matter?    German citizens are required to give an affiliation on their tax forms, and the bishops declared that changing the affiliation to one of the Protestant Churches is tantamount to a declaration of apostasy. In 2011, the Catholic Church in Germany received 5 billion euros (approximately $6.84 billion U.S.) from the government. [This tax is a really dumb idea.  It needs to go away, as we see very plainly the terribly mixed motives it creates, and the pressure to cater to the whims of an increasingly atheistic, de-Christianized populace.  Of course, German bishops, historically the very center of the many errors which were unleashed upon the Church before and after Vatican II and the source of almost all the most troubling aspects of the most recent Council, have done quite a bit themselves to drive souls from the Church with their promotion of equivocation and constant undermining of the perennial belief and practice of the Faith.  I think we’ve heard quite enough from them, save for a mantra of mea culpas, for several centuries. I jest, but not much]

The bishops have repeatedly complained of the loss of membership and blame the Church’s refusal to change teachings such as that on divorce, the reservation of priestly ordination to men and clerical celibacy. The German media, however, has pointed to the clerical sex abuse scandals as a major motivator for the refusal of Catholics to continue paying the tax levy. In 2011, 126,488 Catholics asked to be removed from registers.

I think 50 years have sufficiently proved, to all but the most ideological of minds, that orthodoxy leads to all manner of positive results for the Church and souls.  Increased Mass attendance, increased vocations, increased donations, general increase in adherence to the Faith, reception of the Sacraments, etc, etc…..choose any indicator you wish, those places that have adhered to orthodoxy have tended to thrive, or at least decline a lot less, whereas those that embrace the progressive whims of our fallen culture and leftist agitprop tend to experience an accelerating collapse.  The countries with the most progressive bishops have experienced the most profound collapses  in the practice of the Faith over the past 50 years.  Canada, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, Spain……the list goes on and on, unfortunately.

It is not an accident that the Church in Africa is the most robust in terms of growth (not that things are just swell, there, either).  The African bishops are also among the most orthodox, overall.

50 years of embrace of left wing shibboleths have left……ahem………the German Church prostrate. Rather than deal with the real causes of the collapse, many of the German bishops appear to be hoping the media pressure they gin up can somehow force the Church to “reform” a Doctrine I, and many Saints, consider irreformable. This to bail them out, even though there is essentially NO evidence that suggests doctrinal leniency will lead to vibrant growth in the Church. As I outlined above, the opposite is really true.

Please pray for the Holy Spirit to intervene!  Take advantage of this last Advent Ember day and offer up prayer and sacrifice!  There is a massive push underway to get this upcoming Synod to rule in favor of the progressives, even though this very matter has already been ruled against repeatedly at other such Synods in the past few decades.  As if the Truth changes!  But we all know the progressives are having their day in the sun, possibly, I pray, their last one. They are trying to force all those changes they’ve always wanted on an unwilling Church.  We must pray for the Holy Spirit to protect the doctrinal integrity of the Church, as He has always done so, before. We must pray for Pope Francis to publicly shoot down this foolishness, soon, before more souls fall into error.  And I don’t know about you, but I will be praying feverishly for the true reform, even conversion, of much of the German bishop’s conference, including Cardinals Marx and Kasper, away from this already repeatedly condemned doctrinal error.

Pray like mad!  Our Lady, have mercy on us, pray for Our Church!  Lord, have mercy on us!  Help us, save us, save all these souls being led into error!  May Your Truth always be proclaimed by Your Church!