The Synodage of Satan.

The Catholic Church announces that it is discontinuing support of its previous OS. 

I mean, TC and the Coddling of the Krauts makes that clear, but I will point to you a recent ballyhooed and vetted statement from one of Rome's most prominent pontifical ideologues, Robert McElroy, broadcast from the pontiff's most important American megaphone.

Note that the link is indirect because washing gas fumes off your gloves is an annoying process. (Fn 1)

If you are looking for a more objective examination of RM's carbon monoxide for the soul, go over to Amy Welborn's discussion here. 

I have no such interest. Mine is more targeted and less dialoguy--just like his.

When you wade through RM's explanation for what the Synodalite Church will offer, I ask that you pause a moment at his use of the term "demonic." It's how he describes what he believes to be the animus that "so many men and women" have towards the LGBT community.

And he places this spiritual indictment, which he regards as a self-evident fact, in the midst of a deeply, deeply fraudulent discussion about how the Synodalite Church really, really wants to embrace everyone.

Sure, Robert.

For starters, there is no shortage of men and women who think your life as an accessory to the predatory corruption of Cardinal McCarrick (Fn 2) makes you uniquely unqualified to call any non-sociopath "demonic." 

Not to mention that you, of all people, offer a truly hideous example of how to embrace "victims of clergy sexual abuse." 

But you know: senses of shame and Catholic hierarchs go together like arsenic and Thanksgiving.

I, on the other hand, am a bit ambivalent on the former point: after all, your career just might give you an up close and personal insight into the phenomenon of demonic activity. Be that as it may, that's ultimately going to be hashed out between you and God.

Further, and going back to the third person, I'm not really interested in the part of the Culture War which he highlights and the side he clearly wishes to take. I only note it because it comes as part of a paragraph with ends with the following Rome-approved message:

Rather, the dignity of every person as a child of God struggling in this world, and the loving outreach of God, must be the heart, soul, face and substance of the church’s stance and pastoral action.

If my nearly 24 years as a Catholic has taught me nothing else, it's that when clerics lie, they lie big. Hellishly so. As in, "have I got a Donation of Constantine for you!"

For the love of Pete, the paragraph starts with calling fellow Catholics demonic and then ends with a call to recognize the dignity of each soul.

Editing at America is evidently not a strenuous job.

Sure, why not?

The rest of the verbiage from his approved interoffice memo makes clear that that sentence is a titanic fraud, limited only to those he likes. And if you are attached to the old Catholic OS, too bad so sad.

We aren't supporting that any more. 

It's being sunsetted. 

Time to upgrade to Catholicism's Windows Vista. The one where Contemporary Conscience Trumps All.

Not only is your fidelity not enough, RM makes sure you know it is a huge part of the problem, what with your racism, hatred of the poor and your un-upgraded conscience with its sexual fixations [Oh, great: another projection meter just detonated]. 

Worse yet, you unenlightened kine also "perceive doctrinal infidelity in that [radical] inclusion." Hell, your perceived doctrinal fidelity probably clutters Our Common Home™ with people you care for first instead of being radically inclusive.

Get with the program. 

The Current Pope Has Spoken. 

Sacrifice is for losers, and worse yet, gives the people whose approval we really want the wrong idea.

Anyway, it's easier this way--jump right in, the water's lukewarm.

And note that Radically-Inclusive RM is showing us the way in his personal diktats, shutting down the old liturgy in his diocese that was just fine until the Current Roman Oracle got testy. Radical Inclusivity™ always has limits. Especially for those who stubbornly insist on believing that outdated shit.

Besides, you lay types have already shown them there's no end to what you will take. 

And if they have to, they'll just weaponize Jesus and ask you where are you going to go? 

For once, they'll solemnly say that it's Jesus' Church, and He has the words of eternal life.

As filtered through them and their Lord Vetinari-ish communing with the Spirit.

So you'll shake your head, sigh heavily and stay. Because that's what Catholics do. Obey.

And then next year you'll get the latest ad-hominem laden missive from the Spirit, reminding you what else needs to be downsized from your soul....

 

[Footnote 1: The link is to Abp. Aquila, by all reports a fine man and sound modern shepherd. But honestly, quoting the current pope as a rebuttal to McElroy reads like Grigory Zinoviev trying to quote the General Secretary to defend himself in his show trial. So I will leave to others to suss out the effectiveness of his essay. I will say this: at least he responded, knowing that RM had Rome's imprimatur.]

 [Footnote 2: Please note that the New, Inclusive, Caring and Transparent Synodal Church of Vos Estis and the Other Window-Dressing That Ought To Hold The Little Bastards has not seen fit to actually show us the documentation for Cardinal McCarrick's laicisation. Ditto the underlying survey material that supposedly drives all of its Just Listened to the Spirit With Our Sibs--Honest! door-slamming. 

So until then, I will continue to refer to that well-connected rapist, network-builder and fundraiser par excellence as "Cardinal."]

And the Black Pill Truck came by.

  The laity are always Flounder.

 

 

1. "Truth to tell, this kind of  'leadership' is why I am drifting away from Catholicism. I have had to eat my share of s--t during my following of Christ, and with age I have become fine with that. Rejoice, as He said on the Mount.

But what I will not abide are zucchettoed and compromised mediocrities who only have my back so they can shove a crozier-shaped shiv into it. For the likes of McElroy, I am a piece to be curated to fit their latest buzzword-laden agenda instead of a soul to be cared for. 

 

I get plenty of that at work, thank you, and I can manage being a lukewarm compromiser on my own. The certainty of this gaining strength as I spend the rest of my life under darkening skies is not something I can endure, nor do I see any demand from Him to submit to false prophets and con men."

 

 

2. "[Good Guy Interlocutor], you're one of the electronic people I would really like to meet IRL one of these years before the actuarial windshield smashes into my buzzing self. 

 

But there's no fighting Rome from the inside after 1870. No one beats the house. The ultramontanes won in the end, with "religious submission of mind and will" being the ideal understudy for "I am Tradition!" 

 

Even Vatican II tells us to diligently attend to the oracle in Rome, with LG 25 telling us to note "His mind and will" which "may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking."

 

Amoris? He wins. The death penalty? He wins. Traditiones Custodes (points for trolling perfection there)? He wins again. Hell, he's probably already banned life sentences, given 'his frequent repetition of the same doctrine' on that deranged tangent.

 

Speaking of TC: so when my decent archbishop retires in July, the men who brought me back to the Faith (the ICRSS) are going to get the boot from his slogan-reciting successor, who will also get a red hat. It's already happened in Chicago: no public masses or confessions for the order there any more. And how do I fight their suppression, exactly?

 

Speaking of red hats: That's especially appropriate these days, as the Synodal Church resembles nothing so much as a Soviet Party Congress. 

 

I'm old and I've seen this movie before in other theatres. Something I or a friend revere gets killed by people who pretended to revere it and the killers wear its face with Lecter-like brio.

The good bishops (bound as they are by the same religious submission) are on the clock, and the seminaries will be straining out the good priests as the Party Line Bishops take over.

To crib from a much worthier man and stylist than I am:

 

The lamps are going out all over the Church, and we shall not see them lit again in our life-time. 

 

Lest God re-light them. And kairos is not chronos."