Welcome to the “Spirit” of the Synod

Following the same tactic honed by decades of use/abuse, Church progressives are already calling on the “spirit of the Synod” to put forth shameful, dangerous, heretical views.  And I am not speaking of lay people writing in the Heretic Reporter, nor even grey and bent hippie priests with shaggy ponytails, but even bishops of the Church, heirs to the Apostles.   Just as we have been told for 50 years that, even if the documents of Vatican II did not call for this heresy or that abuse, the “spirit” of the Council certainly did.  We also suddenly found the Church with millions of confused souls suddenly possessed of the incredible ability to divine exactly what the Holy Spirit demanded of the Church at a particular moment, even when the alleged spirit was blatantly contradicting its previous promptings.

Bishop Robert Lynch of Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg has long been reported – not rumored, but reported – to have had a series of adult male lovers while in office, upon whom he likes to shower many gifts and expensive trips at the expense of the souls of his diocese.  I suppose we should not be surprised, then, when he takes the misleading and false declaration of the mid-term “Relatio” of the most recent synod, and runs with it to his own prurient ends in a recent op-ed responding to Florida’s approval of sodomite simulation of marriage (emphasis from link, my comments):

“However, together with Pope Francis and in light of the discussions at the recent Extraordinary Synod on the Family held in Rome, I also recognize that the reality of the family today, in all its complexities, presents the church with pastoral challenges as the church strives to accept people in the specific circumstances of their lives and support and encourage them in their search for God and their desire to be members of the church. [The problem with the “meet the people where they’re at” mentality which has been predominant in the Church over the past 50 odd years, is that while sure, some people are met in their sinfulness and fallenness, they are never challenged and certainly not required to improve in any substantive way.  This is not what Christ taught, he didn’t teach his Apostles to leave the people in their sins, but to lift them up to conversion and change of life.]

“Therefore, I do not wish to lend our voice to notions which might suggest that same-sex couples are a threat incapable of sharing relationships marked by love and holiness and, thus, incapable of contributing to the edification of both the church and the wider society. [So now we are to be taught about love and holiness by the example of sodomites, those fallen into the sin which God has constantly said in Scripture cries to Heaven for vengeance?  See what I mean about leaving people in their sins?  And how has that unthreatening, indifferentist mentality worked out for the Church over the past 50 years?  Has all this false mercy resulted in millions of converts, or has it convinced people the Church has nothing worthwhile to say?  How has even more eager and thorough embrace of modernist indifferentism worked out in episcopalianism and other sects?  Are they thriving?  This is a fast train to a dead and useless Church]

“In the midst of changing societal definitions and understandings of marriage, there may no doubt be some confusion. However, with patience and humility, our church must continuously strive to discover what the spirit is saying and respond to the Synod Fathers’ suggestion to discern what pastoral response faithful to church teaching and marked by respect and sensitivity might be appropriate for same-sex couples, even as God’s creative designs for and the church’s sacramental understanding of marriage are affirmed.” [You can just sense the glee in this guy’s writing.  Validation at last!  Not that he has been particularly ashamed about his behavior.  Don’t you like how only now, 2000 years in, is the Church finally “wise” enough to discern what the “spirit” is saying?  That’s pretty convenient for his side, is it not?  Witness how this self-serving prelate bends the truth, claiming now that the Synod positively embraced the dastardly comments inserted in the Relatio regarding sodomy, when those comments were in fact not approved by the Synod bishops for inclusion in the final report of the first session.  But those noxious statements, at Pope Francis’ behest, wound up in the final document anyways, so as far as the vast majority of people are concerned, there is some basis for Bishop Lynch’s claims.  We will never be rid of those statements, until some future, holy pope formally repudiates them. Like, 10,000 years from now.  Lord, have mercy.]

The above is really important, as is what I am about to say.  For the purposes of the modernist-leftist cabal in the Church, the Synod has already been a resounding victory.  Even if the second session accomplishes nothing more in terms of radical opposition to constant Church belief and practice, there is now an official document from a Church Synod (whose authority is open to question, if it has any at all, but they’ll never tell you that) stating incredible things and redolent of the  most diabolical errors.  It’s even better than Vatican II in many respects, they can point to this thing forever as being the lodestar for the direction the Holy Spirit – according to their own faulty interpretations – wants demands the Church go.  We’ll never be rid of it: it’s already happened, and we’ll be seeing prelates, priests, and laity throwing out the statements of the Relatio as an ideological trump card for years to come in their battles to change the Church into something She cannot ever be.

What has also already happened is that Pope Francis put those terribly dangerous and destructive parts put into the final report of the Synod – even though they had not gained the approval of the bishops present! – as a sort of appendix.  So they have that added level of “authority.”

This is all about smoke and mirrors, spreading confusion, and advancing the ball a few yards further in the progressive-modernist cause. While you and I and the relative handful of other well-formed Catholics know that Lynch’s claims, and the incredibly foul statements from the Relatio are nonsense, contrary to Doctrine, and so bereft of authority they can be completely ignored, the vast majority of Catholics don’t know that.  For modernist priests and bishops, the Relatio is a gold-mine, the gift that never stops giving.  It will take decades of orthodox presentations and refutations from future popes and others to even begin to undo the damage (just as years of Ratzinger’s/Benedict’s efforts only barely managed to undermine the post-VII errors) – if we are blessed enough to have a future pope who desires to do so.  It is incredible how far just these few brief statements go in advancing the modernist agenda.

And who knows what the future holds?  They’ve only really begun, they have a whole second session upcoming and we can be sure the deck is being stacked to insure there will not be even the relatively weak opposition encountered at the first session.  There is opposition building, there was a small setback in the first session, but the modernists at this point hold the whip hand and can manage events to their liking.  And, as we see above, they have already gotten a document produced that lets them attack the Church’s entire approach to morality.  So there is much to be concerned about.

We had all better get ready to start refuting all the errors that are going to be promoted en masse, using the Synod as a hook upon which to hang them as somehow authentic, just as they have been doing with Vatican II for 50+ years.  And we have to refute them, we can’t just pray for conversion, there are too many souls that are going to either fall into error or into severe temptation as a result of just this kind of false exegesis above. And we have to point out the errors and their source no matter where that leads us, even to the highest level of authority in the Church. Charity and justice demand those with the ability to do so make clear where heresy lies and what the Church really believes.  We cannot let these errors be promoted and expounded without rebuttal. The cost is simply too high, the risk too great, to allow these errors to stand without contradiction.

We are in for the most trying of times.  I cannot recommend recourse to deep prayer, meditation, and penance enough.  Many who are now solid in the Faith will be led astray, and we will be shocked at some who fall away.  Stay strong. Stay close to Our Lady, she will see us through this.  Constantly appeal to God’s mercy, beg Him to strengthen you for the trial to come.

h/t FCA, who notes the lunacy of Lynch’s second paragraph.  Can you imagine the same applied to other sins and perversions?