RC Synod on the Family, October 4-25, 2015

[Michael Slusser]

The October Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will address an issue that concerns women deeply. The list of "Fraternal Delegates" from "sister" churches appears not to include any sisters.  I admit to questioning whether the participation of women will be such that they will have "worked work jointly" with church leaders during the general assembly, which is, as Steven correctly states, is a meeting of bishops and other church leaders. 

I have no doubt that women/wives/mothers will have an opportunity to offer their thoughts on the vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the contemporary world.  Will they have joined forces, teamed up, banded together, worked together,  jointly participated, combined their unique insights into family related issues and put their heads together with church leaders?

What "collaborators" means in the context of the Synod isn't answered very well by the official documents. The compulsives on this Forum may read the whole thing; I recommend using the "Find" function in your browser.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_20050309_documentation-profile_en.html

Women are more prominent in another Vatican venture, the "World Meeting of Families" about to open in Philadelphia. Check out the speakers on the first two days, for example: http://www.worldmeeting2015.org/about-the-event/adult-congress-sessions-tuesday-wednesday/

"Bottom line" (as Dave Likeness might say): the RCC encourages its members* to be taught by women.
*except bishops 


Peace,
Michael

[mariemeyer]

In this and other areas the RCC is far ahead of the LCMS.   

My earlier comments were in part triggered by a recent NY Times article , "Apple Aims at the Heart of the Home."    Seems as if Apple is working on how to get the gaming business in our living rooms.  The goal is 40 inch multi purpose screen where families can gather in the living room and game to their hearts content.

I read this with dismay.  I like to think of the dining room as the "heart" of the home where families pray, break bread together and talk.  The idea that the "heart" of the home being a place where, as the picture shows, Mom, dad and the kids, are gaming in front of a big screen is so sad.

This may be a perspective women share, thus my mind wondered to how women might share this and similar concerns at this congress. In my experience families are so important to women. In many instances it defines what, other than faith, is most important in their life.

Marie

[George Erdner]

I am constantly amazed at how people whose vocation includes the task of explaining the meaning of things ignore connotative meanings when harping over the definitions of words.

[Harvey_Mozolak]

maybe it comes, George, from the many of us in these parts who had to do too much translated from Greek, German, Latin and Hebrew and the object was precise definition because it was graded right, wrong, ABCDF, pass or fail stuff.... now if we had to translate English or a Biblical Language into a just recently written language of some far off country as missionaries.... connotative understandings might be more important.  I have heard a story or two of Biblical Translation committees work on English translations from the original tongues and the arguments that ensued and the compromises made...  shucks done with hymnals more often...  when we write poems, scripts, sermons, letters, we are frequently editing, crossing out, rewriting and certainly changing words... no wonder... 

[Michael Slusser]

The Synod starts tomorrow. The format will be different from last year's Extraordinary Synod. In Vatican Insider's article there is a brief summary of the new procedure:

Where in the past the Synod saw weeks of open discussion among the hundreds of bishops before they broke into small discussion groups separated by language, this year the Synod will be broken into three parts.

Each week will begin with open discussion on a theme and conclude with small group discussions on that theme. The bishops will repeat the cycle for the three weeks of the Synod.

The small discussion groups will present written observations, to be made public, at the end of each week. At the end of the entire synod, the bishops will vote on a final document summarizing all their discussions, also to be made public.

The Synod, which is bringing some 318 people to Rome for its discussions this month, has attracted wide interest for its expected focus on a number of pressing issues facing families -- including some controversial matters like contraception, same-sex marriage, and divorce and remarriage.

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/famiglia-sinodo-43723/

Peace,
Michael

Something rang a bell in that release: "318 people." Any deliberate connection to Gen. 14:14? I'd be astonished if there were, but the juxtaposition is neat.

[cssml]

The Synod is underway.  The full text of Cardinal Erdo's introductory report is here:

  http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-cardinal-erdos-introductory-report-for-the-synod-on-the-family-67404/

John Allen's coverage of the same is here (I think the title is a bit overstated, but as always an insightful and good analysis by Mr. Allen.):

  http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/10/05/on-day-one-of-synod-2015-conservatives-land-the-first-blow/

[Michael Slusser]

A couple of interventions by lay auditors--both women--at the Synod have been striking. One I have in its original English text:

Intervento della Dott.ssa Anca-Maria CERNEA, Medico presso il Centro di Diagnosi e Trattamenti Victor-Babes e Presidente dell'Associazione dei Medici cattolici di Bucarest (Romania)

Your Holiness, Synod Fathers, Brothers and Sisters,

I represent the Association of Catholic Doctors from Bucharest.

I am from the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.

My father was a Christian political leader, who was imprisoned by the communists for 17 years. My parents were engaged to marry, but their wedding took place 17 years later.

My mother waited all those years for my father, although she didn't even know if he was still alive. They have been heroically faithful to God and to their engagement.

Their example shows that God's grace can overcame terrible social circumstances and material poverty.

We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle.

Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis.

The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological.

Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia's errors would spread all over the world.

It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions.

Now it's being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin's sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.

Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.

Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.

This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent's offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.

It's an error of religious nature, it's Gnosticism.

It's the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.

"Seek ye thereforefirst the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."

The Church's mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or "climate change".

The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.

Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government. These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.

What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin. Salvation.

Our Church was suppressed by the soviet occupation. But none of our 12 bishops betrayed their communion with the Holy Father. Our Church survived thanks to our bishops' determination and example in resisting prisons and terror.

Our bishops asked the community not to follow the world. Not to cooperate with the communists.

Now we need Rome to tell the world: "Repentof your sins and turn to God,for the Kingdom of Heaven is near".

Not only us, the Catholic laity, but also many Christian Orthodox are anxiously praying for this Synod. Because, as they say, if the Catholic Church gives in to the spirit of this world, it is going to be very difficult for all the other Christians to resist it.

[01738-EN.01] [Original text: English]

The other, by Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia, has no official translation into English yet. I'll post it when I find it, unless you beat me to it.

Peace,
Michael

[Weedon]

https://mospat.ru/en/2015/10/21/news123870/

More along similar lines from the East.

[SomeoneWrites]

It's an error of religious nature, it's Gnosticism.

Genuine question from ignorance. 

Can you unpack for me what they mean when they say "it's Gnosticism"

I'm familiar with Gnosticism, in general, and how it relates to the early church.  Sometimes it comes up in ways where I don't quite get how they're using the word. 

[Michael Slusser]

It's an error of religious nature, it's Gnosticism.

Genuine question from ignorance. 

Can you unpack for me what they mean when they say "it's Gnosticism"

I'm familiar with Gnosticism, in general, and how it relates to the early church.  Sometimes it comes up in ways where I don't quite get how they're using the word.

I don't know exactly what she means.

Peace,
Michael

[peter_speckhard]

A couple of interventions by lay auditors--both women--at the Synod have been striking. One I have in its original English text:

Intervento della Dott.ssa Anca-Maria CERNEA, Medico presso il Centro di Diagnosi e Trattamenti Victor-Babes e Presidente dell'Associazione dei Medici cattolici di Bucarest (Romania)

Your Holiness, Synod Fathers, Brothers and Sisters,

I represent the Association of Catholic Doctors from Bucharest.

I am from the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.

My father was a Christian political leader, who was imprisoned by the communists for 17 years. My parents were engaged to marry, but their wedding took place 17 years later.

My mother waited all those years for my father, although she didn't even know if he was still alive. They have been heroically faithful to God and to their engagement.

Their example shows that God's grace can overcame terrible social circumstances and material poverty.

We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle.

Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis.

The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological.

Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia's errors would spread all over the world.

It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions.

Now it's being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin's sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.

Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.

Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.

This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent's offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.

It's an error of religious nature, it's Gnosticism.

It's the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.

"Seek ye thereforefirst the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."

The Church's mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or "climate change".

The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.

Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government. These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.

What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin. Salvation.

Our Church was suppressed by the soviet occupation. But none of our 12 bishops betrayed their communion with the Holy Father. Our Church survived thanks to our bishops' determination and example in resisting prisons and terror.

Our bishops asked the community not to follow the world. Not to cooperate with the communists.

Now we need Rome to tell the world: "Repentof your sins and turn to God,for the Kingdom of Heaven is near".

Not only us, the Catholic laity, but also many Christian Orthodox are anxiously praying for this Synod. Because, as they say, if the Catholic Church gives in to the spirit of this world, it is going to be very difficult for all the other Christians to resist it.

[01738-EN.01] [Original text: English]

The other, by Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia, has no official translation into English yet. I'll post it when I find it, unless you beat me to it.

Peace,
Michael

Testify, sister!

[Jeremy Loesch]

A couple of interventions by lay auditors--both women--at the Synod have been striking. One I have in its original English text:

Intervento della Dott.ssa Anca-Maria CERNEA, Medico presso il Centro di Diagnosi e Trattamenti Victor-Babes e Presidente dell'Associazione dei Medici cattolici di Bucarest (Romania)

Your Holiness, Synod Fathers, Brothers and Sisters,

I represent the Association of Catholic Doctors from Bucharest.

I am from the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.

My father was a Christian political leader, who was imprisoned by the communists for 17 years. My parents were engaged to marry, but their wedding took place 17 years later.

My mother waited all those years for my father, although she didn't even know if he was still alive. They have been heroically faithful to God and to their engagement.

Their example shows that God's grace can overcame terrible social circumstances and material poverty.

We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle.

Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis.

The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological.

Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia's errors would spread all over the world.

It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions.

Now it's being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin's sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.

Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.

Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.

This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent's offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.

It's an error of religious nature, it's Gnosticism.

It's the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.

"Seek ye thereforefirst the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."

The Church's mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or "climate change".

The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.

Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government. These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.

What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin. Salvation.

Our Church was suppressed by the soviet occupation. But none of our 12 bishops betrayed their communion with the Holy Father. Our Church survived thanks to our bishops' determination and example in resisting prisons and terror.

Our bishops asked the community not to follow the world. Not to cooperate with the communists.

Now we need Rome to tell the world: "Repentof your sins and turn to God,for the Kingdom of Heaven is near".

Not only us, the Catholic laity, but also many Christian Orthodox are anxiously praying for this Synod. Because, as they say, if the Catholic Church gives in to the spirit of this world, it is going to be very difficult for all the other Christians to resist it.

[01738-EN.01] [Original text: English]

The other, by Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia, has no official translation into English yet. I'll post it when I find it, unless you beat me to it.

Peace,
Michael

Testify, sister!

I was thinking the same thing Peter.  There was great clarity in her words.

That Gnosticism thing?  I'll take a stab at it that she recognizes the devaluing of the human body.  More emphasis is given to the mystical, spiritual and the body that our Lord has knit together in our mother's wombs is thought of as junk.  How does this take place? 
-Sex selective abortions
-The eradication of those with Down's Syndrome or other issues that are discovered in the womb.
-The shunting to the side those who are worthless and cannot produce what society regards as value.
-The increasing ease to end one's life prematurely through doctor-assisted murder.

At a simple level (and you are free to say very simple), that's all Gnosticism.  The body is bad.  "See, look how bad that body is for that boy in the wheelchair with his physical and mental disabilities.  Just look at how bad the body is.  If only we could free his spirit from that living hell in that so-called body." 

That Romanian doctor spoke some pretty good words.  I was happy to read them.

Jeremy

[peter_speckhard]

Plus, the idea of choosing one's own sex has behind it the idea that who one "really" is is indepedent from who one's body is. By Christian understanding it is simply not possible to be a man trapped in a woman's body or vice versa, as though we were all souls standing in line to be born and waiting to be assigned a body like kids waiting their turn for a particular merry-go-round horse or a certain color bumper car, and some of us somehow got assigned the wrong one. That idea, that the "real" you is a disembodied you and possibly mismatched with your body certainly seems like Gnosticism to me.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Plus, the idea of choosing one's own sex has behind it the idea that who one "really" is is indepedent from who one's body is. By Christian understanding it is simply not possible to be a man trapped in a woman's body or vice versa, as though we were all souls standing in line to be born and waiting to be assigned a body like kids waiting their turn for a particular merry-go-round horse or a certain color bumper car, and some of us somehow got assigned the wrong one. That idea, that the "real" you is a disembodied you and possibly mismatched with your body certainly seems like Gnosticism to me.

So it was wrong for a man I worked with 40 years ago to feel he was trapped in his quadriplegic body - that he shouldn't consider himself to be just "a cripple" who could do nothing for himself. He earned his college degree after being paralyzed from the neck down. He progressed where he could move his right arm about 18" up and down and 12" right and left. Does his body define him? He didn't think so. Who he is, is more connected to his brain than his broken body.


Similarly with another friend who is a paraplegic - and an active ELCA minister serving a congregation. He can't stand behind an altar or in a pulpit. He can't stand at all. His broken body doesn't define him, rather it comes from his mind and personality.

[Jeremy Loesch]

That's not at all what Peter was writing about. He was talking about gender dysphoria, which is a disorder. You're talking about something completely different. People go about their business everyday without thinking their body is bad. They put in hearing aids, strap on braces, attach prosthetics, take their pills, roll into their modified car....  The Gnosticism in view in the Romanian doctor's words (I believe) is that people accuse God of making mistakes with our disposable bodies. We can do with our bodies as we wish, change them, enhance them, subtract from them. We are god and damn God for telling us what we can do with this piece of junk body. I'll mutilate it any way I see fit.

Jeremy