“WHAT is this you have done?” God asked Adam and Eve after the two ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God will probably ask the same question to the select cardinals gathered for the Synod on the Family in a couple of days.
Indeed, there’s no sweeping things under the rug, the cat’s out of the bag: with only a few days to go before the October Synod, the Church is divided.
Both sides claim Christ as the source of their respective positions, but it cannot be. With their respective agenda in conflict with each other, only one has to be of God.
First a background. In October last year was held a Synod on the Family. It was tempestuous, marked by what was alleged as the brazen attempt of the progressives to railroad through the Synod “reforms” touching on the Church’s position with regard to the divorced and remarried. This faction insists that the divorced and remarried be allowed to receive Holy Communion.
Why?
Well, let’s have it from Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, Dean of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, and head of the Commission for the reform of the canonical matrimonial process. Rorate Caeli posted this on its blog Msgr. Pinto's article published in "L'Osservatore Romano."
Msgr. Pinto published in the “L’Osservatore Romano” on September 8, 2015 an article explaining the motivation behind the two “motu proprio” “Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus” and “Mitis et misericors Iesus” ordering the speeding up of requests for the declaration of nullity of marriages which caught the world by surprise on September 8, 2015.
The article was entitled “La riforma del processo matrimoniale per la dichiarazione de nullita- Voluta e decisa da Papa Francesco.” In English, that’s “The reform of the matrimonial process for the declaration of nullity- desired and decided by Pope Francis.”
Here are excerpts in English from the Italian original prepared for Rorate Caeli:
“...But there exists an essential novelty that is defining Pope Francis’ actual mission. It is no longer time for analyses. It is time for action in order to begin that work of justice and mercy so long awaited—by re-ordering the pastoral practice and canon law, to a large extent in effect for almost three centuries. Francis had already announced this at the beginning of his pontificate on July 28th 2013, at the conclusion of the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro.”
“So with this fundamental law, Francis makes a real beginning to his reform: by putting the poor at the center, that is, the divorced and remarried, considered set apart and distant, and asking bishops for a true and proper “metanoia.” That is to say, a “conversion,” a change of mentality which convinces and sustains them in following the invitation of Christ, present in their brother, the Bishop of Rome, to pass from the restricted number of a few thousand annulments to that of immeasurable [number] of unfortunates who might have a declaration of nullity – because of evident absence of faith as a bridge of knowledge and thus to the free will [necessary] to give sacramental consent—but are left on the outside by the current system.”
Here are a few things the above quote as well as the rest of the article tell us:
(1) The author of these “reforms” is Pope Francis (“Francis had already announced this at the beginning of his pontificate on July 28th 2013, at the conclusion of the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro”; likewise, in the title of the article itself- ““The reform of the matrimonial process for the declaration of nullity- desired and decided by Pope Francis.”
(1) “We are facing not a mere procedural reform but a true revolution regarding the ‘divorced and remarried,’ and the Church’s very understanding of justice and mercy.”
(2) “The reforms are described as coming from ‘Our Lord’ and from the ‘Holy Spirit,’ acting through Pope Francis.”
(3) “The ‘divorced and remarried’ are now redefined as forming part of ‘the poor’ for which the Church should have a special solicitude; anyone aware of the heightened place held by ‘the poor’ (e.g., ‘the preferential option for the poor’) in the post-Conciliar Magisterium should be aware of the magnitude of the shift involved here.”
(4) The reforms call for a 180-degree turn in the way bishops view the “divorced and remarried.” If before the bishops hesitate for the way this may go against Christ’s teachings on marriage, they are urged to ditch all doubts, even facilitate an “enormous increase” in nullities. To further faciliate this “enormous increase” in marriage nullities, lay people will be tapped, and had, in fact, started their formation course in Mexico City August 31 to September 4, 2015.
(5) “Judgment is passed on the pre-Pope Francis Church as a Church that merely spoke or thought about mercy or collegiality, but did not actually practice these.”
The silence of our shepherds as regards these developments is deafening. It is almost as if everything is business as usual in the Church.
IMO, and for all practical purposes, it is entirely possible that the faithful would wake up one morning finding their Church in either one of two situations. It may be a Church renewed, revitalized, and totally in step with the times. What a glorious moment would that be! Yet, one cannot help wondering: why isn’t there an advance word of joy, an expectant rejoicing from our dear shepherds?
On the other, it is also very possible that the faithful would wake up one morning to find their Church gone, with only a remnant of the faithful left.
Then God will ask all the Popes from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI backward “What is this you have done, failing to form the Church as I desire?”
Or God will ask Pope Francis “What is this you have done?