By MAIKE HICKSON
(Editor’s Note: Maike Hickson holds a doctorate in French literature from the University of Hannover. This edition of The Wanderer was published October 16, three days before the conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops.)
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On the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, October 13, the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family released a midterm report on its discussions in Rome — and that release has caused some havoc in the Catholic Church.
Wide-ranging Catholics all over the world were shaken about some unofficially proposed revolutionary changes of the traditional moral teaching of the Catholic Church in matters of marriage and the family. This document constitutes at least a grave provocation; perhaps it is even a strategic, not just a tactical, provocation.
Many Catholic organizations and laymen fittingly requested that the synod fathers reject that interim document and return to the fullness of the teaching of Christ on the nature and sacramentality of marriage, as it has been handed down to us throughout the centuries.
The coalition The Voice of the Family posted on its website (voiceofthefamily.info) a strong critique of the midterm report. John Smeaton, the cofounder of the coalition, to which Human Life International and LifeSiteNews also belong, forthrightly stated:
“Catholic teaching on human sexuality and the family has been dramatically and disastrously undermined by the Vatican’s midway report on the synod. Catholic parents worldwide will be feeling bewildered and betrayed.”
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, as well as other participants in the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, such as South African Wilfrid Fox Cardinal Napier, have come out into the public and criticized the document.
Cardinal Burke, the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, declared that the mid-term report to be “manipulated” and said that it represents neither the content, nor the true proportions, of the various discussions and individual presentations of the past week.
“It seems to me that information is being manipulated in a way that gives comment to only one theory instead of faithfully reporting the various positions expressed,” Burke said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Foglio.
His Eminence also said to Catholic World Report that the synod fathers cannot accept these changes because they are not based in Scripture or the Church’s authoritative magisterial teaching. He continued:
“In a matter on which the Church has a very rich and clear teaching, it gives the impression of inventing a totally new [teaching], what one synod father called [a] ‘revolutionary’ teaching, on marriage and the family. It invokes repeatedly and in a confused manner principles which are not defined, for example, the law of graduality.”
At the Vatican’s October 14 press conference, Cardinal Napier observed: “The message has gone out that this is what the synod is saying, this is what the Catholic Church is saying, and it’s not what we are saying at all.”
He added: “No matter how we try correcting that . . . there’s no way of retrieving it,” as it will just appear to be damage control.
The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported some leaked comments that had been originally made by the prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller. He is quoted as briefly commenting on the report with these forceful, trenchant words: “unworthy, disgraceful, completely wrong.”
His comments were aimed especially at those parts of the report that dealt with the questions of previously divorced and now remarried couples, with homosexuals, and with the larger matter of cohabitation.
Cardinal Müller had previously argued that speeches of the bishops at the synod should be published by the Vatican, as has been the practice with previous synods. (This year, the Holy See Press Office released only daily vague summaries of the presentations without naming names. That office [http://press.vatican.va], however, did release a summary of reactions to the midterm report.)
Müller said: “These interventions should be published as before. All Christians have the right to be informed about the interventions of their bishops.”
A modest and magnanimous friend of this writer, very well educated in the faith, said the following, and from his heart:
“The relatio from the ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ synod which has no doctrinal standing whatsoever is the least pastoral document that one can imagine. It will sow the seeds of confusion and lead people into making perhaps death-dealing decisions (both physically and spiritually).”
That friend serves as a consultant to more than one Vatican dicastery.
Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, founder and editor of Ignatius Press, who has just published four books in defense of the traditional moral teaching of the Church on marriage and the family, also expressed in a recent interview his concern about the possible effects of the midterm report’s soft tone concerning the topic of homosexuals:
“On the negative side, I see it as being wrongly interpreted to mean that same-sex attraction is not a serious affective disorder. . . . The most debilitating spiritual disease,” Fr. Fessio said, “is to think something is a gift when it is a disorder. There are, for example, some who think that abortion is a positive good.” He thinks that the Church should approach those people who are engaged in illicit love, and lead them “toward the fullness of the true life that Jesus intends for them.”
“We should invite them to the marriage feast as did the king in Jesus’ parable,” said Fr. Fessio. “But we also have to help them make sure they have the proper ‘wedding garments.’ And that means — though we are sinners ourselves — leading them from sin to virtue.”
Brother André Marie, MICM, of Catholicism.org has the following incisive set of observations and recommendation concerning the midterm interim report:
“A quick glance at the relatio reveals, not only some very troubling commissions by the compilers of the document (e.g., on the subject of homosexuality), but also some stunning omissions. The word ‘mother’ is mentioned but once, and only refers to the Church. The word ‘father’ appears seven times: once in reference to the First Person of the Trinity, and six times when mentioning the ‘synod fathers’ themselves.
“In other words, the mothers and fathers of families are not even mentioned by a synod on the family. Instead, the synod refers to ‘couple[s]’ in the singular or plural — once in reference to homosexuals! Implicit in this shocking omission is the error that the family is headed, or merely produced, by a sort of diarchy. The father and mother have distinct roles in the family, willed by God and taught in Holy Scripture.
“Numerous pastoral problems — some highlighted by the bishops in the synod, such as absent fathers in Africa — involve grave social phenomena that have impeded the proper living of these roles. Also, it is not surprising that, in a document favorable to unions built on unnatural lust, mention of the father as head of the family is completely absent. Yet, so many of the problems we are seeing in society result from the ‘decapitation’ of the family. A rapid return to the lucid doctrine of Pope Leo XIII’s Arcanum is in order.”
No Room To Maneuver
Many observers of the synod in Rome, moreover, are astonished not only about these developments, but also about the revolutionary methods applied by some of the modernist actors. Moreover, the Italian newspaper La Stampa had already reported before the synod (on September 20) about a high-ranking representative in the Church who spoke at a dinner party about the strategy to manipulate the upcoming discussions at the synod of bishops.
He further reportedly explained to journalist Marco Tosatti about how the expected resistance from conservative bishops and cardinals would be deftly distracted and diverted and then pushed to the margins; and how, indeed, it was even planned to give them very little room to maneuver in the debate.
Looking back at this September article in the context of the midterm report, it seems that there is monitory truthfulness in this journalist’s disclosure. Moreover, it would not be the first time in history that a well-organized minority has tried to manipulate and subvert a diffuse majority with the help of refined strategies and tactics.
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