UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Pope Francis seems to want to avoid the fundamental challenge facing the papacy — how to make the Catholic Church’s hierarchy accountable to worldwide Catholics and to the rule of law. This is well indicated by his Synod’s new preparatory outline, or “Lineamenta” (12/9/14), and the pope’s interview with Argentina’s “La Nacion” (12/7/14).
The pope’s Secretariat has issued to the celibate male Catholic hierarchy this outline for the “final” Synod of Bishops, to be held in Rome in less than ten months, on “The vocation and the mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world”.
The outline’s seemingly slanted Synod agenda, and the Synod’s expected voting bias of exclusively clerical male participants, disappoint many hopeful Catholics who expect more from Pope Francis. As with this past October’s preliminary Synod, the agenda appears to exclude the major pressing Catholic family issue of curtailing priest child abuse and holding bishops accountable.
The Synod’s voting participants also, it appears so far, exclude woman and married men. Pope Francis, as the ultimate “guarantor” in his words, has the final say on any changes to teachings, et al., regardless of any Synod bishops’ advisory voting.
Pope Francis, in effect, in the last analysis can do whatever he wants to do, which makes one wonder why the big show with the Synods? Are Catholics being “played” again? Please see, via Google translate, the Italian version of the outline, the only now available, here:
[Vatican]
and some related comments, here:
The outline certainly covers the issue central to Francis’ all important claim to personal infallibility, contraception (Sections 40-44). Purportedly, to address the Vatican’s perceived “challenge” of the sharp drop (?) in birth rates. the outline emphasizes “Blessed” Paul VI’s 1968 “ban of the pill” and stresses the “intrinsic requirement of the openness to life in conjugal love” (“Vaticanese” for no birth control other than the “natural family planning”). An overwhelming majority of Catholics have already rejected this “teaching”.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.