Synod & Francis Set to Change the Faith?

The Holy See has announced the establishing of a commission to look at reforming the annulment process. As Rorate Caeli says (here), this ‘somewhat preempts the Synod on this path (the Synod propositions will certainly mention it anyway), leaving the New Kasper Doctrine as a focal point of discussions’. Indeed it leaves the Synod free to focus on debating the nature of marriage and sexuality as its primary focus. With so many bishops and priests currently watering down the Church’s teaching on these by favouring Communion for the Divorced and civilly ‘remarried’, as well by supporting homosexual civil ‘unions’ under the guise of protecting civil rights, the Synod is in great danger of denying the Gospel and Christ.

Though it is becoming increasingly difficult, I am always encouraging people to hope and trust that Francis will not allow the Synod to deviate from the established doctrine that marriage is a permanent union between one man and one woman, exclusive of all others, open to the procreation of life. I encourage this hope because it is a teaching consistently taught by the Church right up until and including the so-called ‘Vatican II Catechism’ (formulated as recently as 1992 by the entire hierarchy of the Church and their theological advisors, and promulgated as the sure norm for teaching The Faith by Pope John-Paul II). If the Synod holds to this Faith, all will be fine. If the Synod recommends allowing Communion to the remarried Divorcee, cohabiting couples, and/or supports civil ‘unions’ for homosexuals even in order to protect their civil rights, then Pope Paul VI’s ‘smoke of Satan’ will have surely entered the Church, because the bottom line is this: if Francis and/or the Synod declare a change to Church teaching on marriage and sexuality they do not actually change the Faith, they actually abandon the faith. It is useless to say the Pope is our Supreme Teacher and that we must give submission of will and intellect to his teaching, because that holds only when he holds himself bound by revelation and defined dogma, of which he is but the custodian, not the originator.

I cannot bring myself to believe that Francis will allow an attempt to change doctrine happen because it would take the arrogance of hell to proclaim that the faithful and the Popes have been wrong for over two millennia, and I am unwilling to ascribe such arrogance to any man. Can we really ascribe it to Francis and our Bishops? And if not, can we ascribe to them simple stupidity, or a faithlessness that has seen them fall into relativism? I hope not.

If the Synod and Francis do attempt to impose a new teaching which contravenes defined teaching, we are at rights to decry that new teaching for as long as it takes to have it declared erroneous -and not only the right, but the duty. Let us hope and pray that what the Synod does is look for the reasons why the world fails to accept the importance of family and natural sexuality, and find ways of addressing that failure so that Gospel Truth can once again be valued by the Church and by the world she is sent to teach.