I promised blogs on
Sunday Mass readings, but I thought I should first say a few words about the
2018 Synod on youth, and what I expect from it.
Well, as a faithful
Catholic what I expect is direction on how to hand on to the youth the Deposit
of Faith received from Christ and His Apostles. I think we have failed to do
this for decades. Catechesis for children went from study of the catechism scaffolding
upon which to build) to a fluffy Christ who just loves everyone, while out seminaries
taught real call to conversion from sin because God loves everyone ‘wherever
they are at’. What we have in the Synod then is a group of souls who do not
appear to be well formed but think that to love the sinner is to celebrate and welcome
the sin or, at the very least, tolerate it. It does not bide wel for the souls
of the youth or the participants of the synod.
Many today repeat
Our Blessed Lord’s advice “Do not judge” (Matt.7v1), even among the highest of
ecclesiastics, but they do so without any reference to His related injunction
“When you judge…” (Jn.7v24). So while as a faithful Catholic I expect the synod
to affirm the fact that God loves all people and calls them to Himself by a
life of virtue, as a realist what I think what we will get will be a
demolishing of Catholic moral teaching in order to become ‘relevant’ to, and ‘inclusive’
of, today’s pagan world. The members of the synod talk about listening to the youth,
but the youth are not well formed, if indeed they are formed at all. It is a
sad thing that young people from Australia have felt the need to write to the
Synod all-but correcting them, rightly saying that the youth cannot help form
the Church until the Church forms them. Their excellent letter states:
“We can’t hope to take shape amidst confusion
over issues such as contraception, sexuality, communion for divorcees and
non-Catholics, married priests and female ordination. Such confusion is borne
from senior prelates purposefully employing ambiguous language when addressing
such issues, even in the face of Christ’s teachings, the Church Fathers and the
clear dogma of the Church. Such ambiguity is neither charitable nor desired by
the youth and needs to be addressed by this Synod.
“Some of the Synod Fathers wish to avoid a Church
of ‘rules’ which fail to encourage a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
However these rules lead us to Christ, they always have. We need the Church to
explain why and how this is.
“When the Church eschews the truth for
policy-speak, young people are left with only superficial banalities to express
their beliefs. Deliberately unclear words are, ironically, relied on and
repeated with rigidity. The Church should not discourage young people following
its rules in love, nor its priests from teaching them.” (see LifeSite News, here).
In light of the
2015/15 Synods we may well see the current Synod walk down the road of pagan
sexuality rather than Gospel virtue, LifeSite News reporting that
Cardinal Maradiaga of Honduras is asking that the Church pay more attention to
homosexuals and the “realities” they face, specifically mentioning “marriage,”
surrogate pregnancy, and adoption, and Pope Francis again claiming that too
many Catholics (I assume he means Traditionalists) are ‘rigid’, see LifesiteNews: “Be careful around those who are rigid,” he said. “Be careful
around Christians –be they laity, priests, bishops– who present themselves as
so 'perfect,' rigid. Be careful. There’s no Spirit of God there. They lack the
spirit of liberty…”. And thank God for that -who wants to be liberated from the
Gospel? Who wants to be liberated from the salvation it brings?
And may I note an
assumption Francis makes? He states that Traditionalists see themselves as
perfect, but I think the Confessional is more frequently visited by the Traditional
Catholic who knows how imperfect he or she is; it is modern liberals who have
abandoned the Confessional and appear to think they are doing well because they
are involved in social justice, environmental issues, immigration issues, and
the promotion of inclusion of those who are in public adultery or living out disordered
sexuality.
By calling for
liberty in morality one would only be asking the Church to play ‘footloose and
fancy-free’ with Divine Revelation; thus as faithful Catholics we may rightly
ask Francis to positively re-label ‘rigidity’ as ‘Commitment’, and the ‘rigid
person’ as ‘committed; loyal’. That would, of course, be dangerous, because
such positive labels show the modernisers to be lacking in commitment and in loyalty
to the Gospel. We can only pray for the Synod members to hold fast to the
teaching of the Ten Commandments and the Tradition handed on through 20
centuries of faith, rather than fall into being those who forget that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today
and forever; do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings” (Heb.13v7-9).
Clearly there is no new teaching to be found; no ‘God of Surprises’, no matter
how many times we are told there is. It seems that many of our shepherds (and
sheep) are being carried away from the Divine Revelation by the novelties of
today’s pagan society; by those who “follow their own desires” and “look for
teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.”
(2.Tim.4v3). Perhaps there are some shepherds who are happy to hear (or to be) such
teachers, because it allows the living out of unnatural proclivities? Let us stay
rigid (committed and loyal) Catholics; let us continue to speak the Truth which
is Christ Himself (Jm.14v6) and not try to remake Him into a God of Surprises
who, rather than being “the same today, yesterday and forever”, is submissive
to and tossed about by man’s changing ideologies.
Let us pray for the
Synod and for our shepherds, that the Holy Spirit will take their good intentions
with their compassion for those who feel marginalised and focus them on helping
the youth by a strong defence and promotion of the Gospel and its unchanging
teachings; let us pray that they will have the courage and the will to present
these teachings to the youth and the world with compassion and understanding,
but with a firm yet kindly challenge. Let us pray that they do not fall prey to
the enemy who seeks to make moral truth abhorrent and have our shepherds propagate
his lies about what is good, beautiful and true. If our shepherds do not listen
to the Holy Spirit and uphold established Catholic morality they are going to
lead the youth down the road to perdition. As the above letter indicates, even
good Catholic youth have seen that. I recommend their letter to readers -and to
our prelates, especially those attending the synod.
