Dramatic move as Synod Fathers set out new pastoral care for gays, cohabiting couples and divorcees

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OraLabora said:
Do we belong to an exclusive club for the righteous, or are we in a hospital for sinners?

If the latter, which I believe we are, how do we minister to those at the fringes of the Church who have never really been made to feel welcome? How do we inspire a genuine conversion process in their hearts?
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We are a hospital for sinners. But a hospital that welcomes in wounded and sick people, hugs them, talks to them and is friendly to them while never actually informing them of what’s wrong, much less offering any treatment to HEAL them isn’t much of a hospital, is it? That’s the effective danger here if our leaders don’t correctly read the public and preach to them accordingly. A doctor who is so afraid of offending his 350 pound alcoholic smoker of a patient that he needs to eat better, exercise and quit the sauce and smokes is NOT helping any. The trick is to walk the tightrope between discouraging/alienating them (mistake on the right) and enabling their continued self destruction (mistake on the left). Narrow road, you know…
 
Is anybody else as deeply worried as I am over this document? I’m not sure if this against the forum rules mentioning this… I’m starting to doubt whether we are the true Church… 😦
 
I don’t find much drama or think of this as an earthquake. Most of it seems to be pretty standard stuff, reflecting what people have said so far (people say lots of things). Prepare people for marriage. That seems to be the point of the whole thing. I see little to get excited about, as if this document is all new and so much better than everything ever said before. Was the Catechism that bad? Was Familiaris consortio nothing but condemnation? I don’t think so. On the other hand, is this document the banana peel on which the Church will slip into the grave? I don’t think so.

One thing I could not at all understand, though, was in regard to homosexuals: “accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony” (n. 50). What, exactly, is to be valued in it? So, I looked at the Italian and Spanish and it seems a better word would have been “evaluating.” But, I am not fluent in either Italian or Spanish and don’t know what is to be “evaluated” either.

Dan
 
Stephen_says said:
“The Synod’s document also turned to several other important questions related to families, including birth control, here reminding the church of the “the need to respect the dignity of the person in the moral evaluation of the methods of birth control,” that is, the need to respect the personal conscience of the individual.”

“The need to respect the personal conscience of the individual” is a faulty analysis of the meaning of “Dignity of the person in the moral evaluation.” The dignity of the person refers in context to all church teachings on the subject of sexuality, and that any artificial separation of sex and procreation is contrary to God’s plan. I can deal with media outlets reporting on this, but when they start putting in their own opinions on the meaning, they always get it wrong!
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I am not so sure this is a faulty analysis. To me it looks a lot more like a “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.”

It looks a lot to me like “We will officially acknowlege HV and condemn people who use birth control because we can’t take it back now with out upsetting the apple cart. But we aren’t really going to enforce it.”
 
manualman said:
The trick is to walk the tightrope between discouraging/alienating them (mistake on the right) and enabling their continued self destruction (mistake on the left). Narrow road, you know…
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Exactly. But can this kind of language and the confusing message really help people come back? I’m well aware what the church has been saying on these matters and I don’t disagree, but to present it all to make mortal sin sound so *harmless *… that’s a completely different story.
 
ConcernedLurker said:
Is anybody else as deeply worried as I am over this document? I’m not sure if this against the forum rules mentioning this… I’m starting to doubt whether we are the true Church… 😦
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It is easy to blow this out of proportion. No one is suggesting that Catholic doctrine should be changed. The suggestions have to do with how we minister to people. Also, this is a preliminary report 1/2 way through the opening phase of a year long discussion. Nothing will be decided, again about ministry, until next year. Even then, it probably won’t affect most of us.
 
gilliam said:
It is easy to blow this out of proportion. No one is suggesting that Catholic doctrine should be changed. The suggestions have to do with how we minister to people. Also, this is a preliminary report 1/2 way through the opening phase of a year long discussion. Nothing will be decided, again about ministry, until next year. Even then, it probably won’t affect most of us.
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The thing is, I’m not sure this is being blown out of proportion. It sounds almost like the Church is caving. I’ve remained loyal despite all the problems the Church is facing, but it seems the Bishops are crossing a line.:nope:
 
MJJean said:
I agree.

When my daughter was Baptized and Confirmed we didn’t have a chance to really discuss Confession in RCIA because we missed that day due to illness in my family. So, the sister who acts as Pastoral Assistant arranged a special meeting a few weeks ago with a priest assigned to our parish for the next year to discuss the issue. He mentioned that Eucharist removes sin. So I asked why we were supposed to be in State of Grace before receiving if Eucharist would remove sin anyways. The response I got was “We’re moving toward resurrection theology.” 🤷
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Receiving Holy Communion removed venial but not mortal sin. That us why the whole Communion got divorced and civilly remarried" chorus is so odd. What will that do for you if you are obstinately rejecting the same Christ hidden in the Host?
 
gilliam said:
Nothing will be decided, again about ministry, until next year. Even then, it probably won’t affect most of us.
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Yes it will: the way that all these matters will be discussed will definitely influence your average Catholic in the pew.
 
manualman said:
We are a hospital for sinners. But a hospital that welcomes in wounded and sick people, hugs them, talks to them and is friendly to them while never actually informing them of what’s wrong, much less offering any treatment to HEAL them isn’t much of a hospital, is it? That’s the effective danger here if our leaders don’t correctly read the public and preach to them accordingly. A doctor who is so afraid of offending his 350 pound alcoholic smoker of a patient that he needs to eat better, exercise and quit the sauce and smokes is NOT helping any. The trick is to walk the tightrope between discouraging/alienating them (mistake on the right) and enabling their continued self destruction (mistake on the left). Narrow road, you know…
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A doctor who tells the overweight alcoholic patient that he cannot treat him until he stops drinking and loses weight, will likely face a hefty malpractice suit if something happens to the patient afterwards.

On the other hand a doctor who meets him where he is, is likely to help. First step would be to take a good medical history/tests to figure out how treat the immediate and possibly urgent health issues that might include, for sake of argument, Type II diabetes (sacrament of reconciliation), and offer him medicine like metformin or insulin to deal with the immediate problems (Eucharist), then working with him and the nursing/social care team, encourage lifestyle changes that will improve his outlook, like weight loss and AA (spiritual direction, catechesis, all supported by continued graces from the sacraments).

A hospital, or doctor, above all is required to “do no harm”. A soul that the clergy turns away or discourages by raising the bar for admission too high, is like the doctor who refuses to treat a patient as in the example above. He may just kill the patient, and the clergy may just irretrievably lose that soul.

I’ve read it many times on this forum that the person who fails to “charitably” correct the sinful is guilty of sin himself, but I rarely read that the person who fails to act with love and charity, and thus turns away a soul in need of healing, is also guilty of sin. I think St. Paul says it best in 1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Yes, love rejoices in the Truth, especially when someone else discovers that Truth as well. But to bring that person to Truth requires much more than a clanging cymbal… it requires love and patience.
 
ConcernedLurker said:
The thing is, I’m not sure this is being blown out of proportion. It sounds almost like the Church is caving. I’ve remained loyal despite all the problems the Church is facing, but it seems the Bishops are crossing a line.:nope:
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This is exactly how I feel. I think it is caving under the pressures of secular ideas.
 
robertmidwest said:
I am not so sure this is a faulty analysis. To me it looks a lot more like a “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.”

It looks a lot to me like “We will officially acknowlege HV and condemn people who use birth control because we can’t take it back now with out upsetting the apple cart. But we aren’t really going to enforce it.”
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First, nowhere does Humanae Vitae or this document condemn people who use birth control. Condemning the sin is not the same as condemning the sinner.

Second, as to enforcing Humanae Vitae, the document does stress enforcement of Humanae Vitae’s principles:

“[W]hat is required is a realistic language that is able to start from listening to people and acknowledging the beauty and truth of an unconditional opening to life as that which human life requires to be lived to its fullest. It is on this base that we can rest an appropriate teaching regarding natural methods, which allow the living in a harmonious and aware way of the communication between spouses, in all its dimensions, along with generative responsibility. In this light, we should go back to the message of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae of Paul VI.” (Relatio Post Disceptationem 54)

This calls for pastors to talk to people about the “require[ment]” of “an unconditional opening to life” and catechetical programs to teach the “natural methods” discussed in Humanae Vitae. Then it tells us to go back to Humanae Vitae for more information. I don’t see any stronger way of enforcing Humanae Vitae’s teaching than these proposals. Especially when it calls for pastors to talk to couples about this issue – that’s not even being done right now, most of the time, at least not in my experience. It seems to me that this document calls for a stronger response on this issue, not a “wink wink, nudge nudge”.
 
ConcernedLurker said:
The thing is, I’m not sure this is being blown out of proportion. It sounds almost like the Church is caving. I’ve remained loyal despite all the problems the Church is facing, but it seems the Bishops are crossing a line.:nope:
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What does that mean? If you consider yourself a catholic it´s not up to you to “remain loyal” and much less to be judging bishops.
 
manualman said:
We are a hospital for sinners. But a hospital that welcomes in wounded and sick people, hugs them, talks to them and is friendly to them while never actually informing them of what’s wrong, much less offering any treatment to HEAL them isn’t much of a hospital, is it? That’s the effective danger here if our leaders don’t correctly read the public and preach to them accordingly. A doctor who is so afraid of offending his 350 pound alcoholic smoker of a patient that he needs to eat better, exercise and quit the sauce and smokes is NOT helping any. The trick is to walk the tightrope between discouraging/alienating them (mistake on the right) and enabling their continued self destruction (mistake on the left). Narrow road, you know…
Click to expand...
But even the approach to treating conditions like alcoholism and addiction have experienced transformation over the last 50 years. There is an awareness that these ‘sins’ are actually diseases that are more responsive to unconditional acceptance of the person, than admonishments, rejection and lectures. One of the counselling skills at the Catholic counselling organisation I used to be part of was the practice of having ‘unconditional high regard’ for every client regardless of their presentations. There is a recognition that sin, while initially a choice, can hold a person captive in a way that only the compassionate, nonjudgemental hand of another can help them out again.
 
I don’t really think this document says too much and it really doesn’t say anything new. That we need to accept Catholics struggling with SSA, that homosexuals are people with dignity (both we all already knew) and there are moral issues with homosexuality (old issue too) and that there needs to be a middle point in which they are accepted without accepting the sin. Nothing we didn’t know already and still doesn’t really give the answer of what they think that middle point is. I think the statement is still in the air.
 
LongingSoul said:
But remember that the Pope is protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching in error in regards to faith and morals.
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Something many seem to be missing. It is as if the Holy Spirit only counts if they own opinions are validated. Sounds, just a bit, prideful.
 
ProVobis said:
Then why doesn’t the Pope just grant a mass forgiveness to everyone, no matter what they’ve done? Win-win, no?
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If the choice given to me is to help someone find their way to God or slam the door in their face. I think I would choose to help them to God (at least I hope I would make that choice.)
 
LongingSoul said:
But even the approach to treating conditions like alcoholism and addiction have experienced transformation over the last 50 years. There is an awareness that these ‘sins’ are actually diseases that are more responsive to unconditional acceptance of the person, than admonishments, rejection and lectures. One of the counselling skills at the Catholic counselling organisation I used to be part of was the practice of having ‘unconditional high regard’ for every client regardless of their presentations. There is a recognition that sin, while initially a choice, can hold a person captive in a way that only the compassionate, nonjudgemental hand of another can help them out again.
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👍
 
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