The Synod of Catholic Falsification

[metis]

I have been thinking a lot about Catholicism lately and what I do or do not believe. Whether or not Rome's claims are credible given that the Francis papacy has done much in my eyes to undermine said claims. Nonetheless whether or not Bergoglio himself personally holds to heretical ideas is a distraction in my view. The real point is that he has emboldened and empowered those who clearly do wish to see the Church's perennial teachings changed to align with the prevailing opinions of western society.

I do not see how the pope can give the progressives what they want without falsifying the Church's claim to being an infallible authority on faith and morals. Should the end result of the current synod be the embrace of the progressive project then Catholicism exposes itself as false. No thinking person can accept the reversal of millennia old teaching as a mere development of doctrine. No amount of apologetic sophistry can salvage such a defection. Not to mention the schisms such reversals would trigger would be catastrophic for Rome.

And yet, if the synod amounts to a restatement of the status quo, a restatement that settled doctrine cannot change, then what end did the synod serve? If Francis changes nothing then he angers his support base and damages his reputation. He has spent his pontificate empowering the "Catholic left" and has called the largest synod the Church has ever held in terms of participatory scope (a synod which has been telegraphing significant change for the Church since its inception) and I don't see how he could remain credible to the progressive side if it all amounts to a doctrinal nothingburger.

If the Catholic Church is what it claims to be then nothing will change because the truth of Catholicism is predicated on the fact that settled teaching (in this case natural law sexual ethics and holy orders being open to men alone) cannot change. God will not allow it. Unless indefectibility is redefined to meaninglessness there is no getting around that. If the Church gives the progressives what they want then the Church defects. If the Church defects then Catholicism is false.

The Church has been an ever-changing institution, and this will and should continue, imo. The key is making changes that may be needed but not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

One example of fairly modern change is how the Church deals with Jews and Judaism.

 

[Father Heathen]

Christians' spirituality has lots to do with the afterlife. With the other world.
Because in the other world any lie, any deception, any fraud will be disclosed, exposed and punished.
We Christians couldn't care less about what people call "worldly justice".
It's a miserable, phony justice.

If this Pope has never done anything against Christendom, good.
If he is inspired by God, good.
He is not eternal...he will surely die before I do. He will be judged by God.

Your ideology is antithetical to the teachings and examples of Christ, as is your support for murderous tyrants. How will this be handled in the afterlife?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Unless indefectibility is redefined to meaninglessness there is no getting around that. If the Church gives the progressives what they want then the Church defects.

I think you don't have to please the progressives (or outsiders such as myself). What you ought to do and need to do is to stick to your moral decisions but reverse the infallibility claim. It doesn't sound catholic to me.

If the church veers off course God should be able to veer it back onto course. Does the church lack confidence about this? What about Judges 6:31 "... If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar."

If the Church defects then Catholicism is false.

I don't see how that is a catholic position nor a strong position.

[Rom 3:3-4 NIV] "3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God's faithfulness? 4 Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: 'So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.'"​

 

[Glaurung]

If your faith, or lack thereof, rests upon nothing but something as mundane as a question over sodomy; may such trivial issues perhaps have blinded you to the central, spiritual message of religion…?

Religion is nothing more than one's duty to God. And God has been very clear about our duty before him in terms of morality. Those who persist in unrepentant sexual sin will not be saved. The normalization of sexual sin will do nothing to alleviate the spiritual consequences of said sins. The notion that the culture is now so sophisticated that the clear teaching of both Scripture and tradition no longer apply to us is pure sophistry. What was true yesterday remains true today.

In general (and forgive me, those of you whom I by this offend), a Catholic who chooses to contemplate the meaning, role and morale of sodomy, rather than the priceless, spiritual message of God, has entirely lost touch with what his faith is about and would do well to start again from the beginning.

Again God has made his message quite clear. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

I'm not here to make you doubt your own choices. I am only sharing how I resolved this issue for myself (as I was raised Catholic). And for me, faith is not blind, stupid, obedience to some religion of man's, or some religious leader. Faith is faith in God. And in the divine spirit of God that dwells within each of us as reflections of our creator. I need no religious intermediary. And neither does anyone else. We all have equal access to God's spirit within us. Faith means trusting in that spirit within enough to allow it to guide our actions in life. If we need or want a religion to help us do that, that's fine. But religion is just an aid, not a dictator. To be used so long as it's useful, and set aside when it's not.

I don't believe any of that is true. I reject moralistic therapeutic deism.

The Church has been an ever-changing institution, and this will and should continue, imo. The key is making changes that may be needed but not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The Catholic faith either teaches perennial truth or it doesn't. I don't want a "progressive dialectic" where truth conveniently aligns with whatever the fashionable opinion happens to be at any given time. If truth is whatever liberal culture says it is then I don't need the Catholic Church. I don't need religion at all.

I think you don't have to please the progressives (or outsiders such as myself). What you ought to do and need to do is to stick to your moral decisions but reverse the infallibility claim. It doesn't sound catholic to me.

It is not even about infallibility but indefectibility. It cannot be that what damned people to Hell yesterday is now all the sudden an act blessed by God. It cannot be that what pervious popes taught as definitive (the male only priesthood) is now open to question because apparently the Holy Spirit was on vacation during previous two papacies. The whole thing is absurd.

This is why I state that Francis risks being the pope to disprove Catholicism. If Francis changes doctrine the way I suspect he wishes then he exposes Catholicism as yet just another bankrupt human religion.

 

[rational experiences]

No human is perfect science Satanism changed above and below.

The falling star only hurt man once.

He invented science machine that hurt man's brain constantly.

It kept changing by AI heavens effects then stars return made it worse.

Today you can read one document yet from it recant many types of reviews.

So whose right now present?

The gift of life...sacrificed baby human.

All of us.

The teachings...from our holy father and mother mutual.

Told me how they once were first known inherited changed by defected minds.

Is no position to claim first church memory is gone.

It hasn't. It was recorded.

You only need to be re mind...Ed.

It's about mind over matter.

Consciousness versus thesis science.

Men were swayed by science Satanism.

Your voice today proves if you're spiritual.

Father taught all men are wrong.

Sacrificed life awareness would right your false ideas.

It's stated false preaching was known reality.

Pope today owns sacrificed man's body mind.

To begin again was the churches founding as hypocrites who change their previous beliefs the order.

 

[rational experiences]

The church building is historic Phi built iconic healing venue.

Old ways herbal remedies. Oils. Incense. Healing ritual three times daily.

No preaching sermons.

Teaching herbal healer nature gifts of life support. Charities.

Business...society owns business I'm separate. Humans gain money via work.

I'm also a business involved in society.

The old business was nature based remedies. Healing rituals.

How does that make you bankrupt?

If you say like other royals now I must be a sight to be seen. Then do so.

 

[blü 2]

I have been thinking a lot about Catholicism lately and what I do or do not believe. Whether or not Rome's claims are credible given that the Francis papacy has done much in my eyes to undermine said claims. Nonetheless whether or not Bergoglio himself personally holds to heretical ideas is a distraction in my view. The real point is that he has emboldened and empowered those who clearly do wish to see the Church's perennial teachings changed to align with the prevailing opinions of western society.

I do not see how the pope can give the progressives what they want without falsifying the Church's claim to being an infallible authority on faith and morals. Should the end result of the current synod be the embrace of the progressive project then Catholicism exposes itself as false. No thinking person can accept the reversal of millennia old teaching as a mere development of doctrine. No amount of apologetic sophistry can salvage such a defection. Not to mention the schisms such reversals would trigger would be catastrophic for Rome.

And yet, if the synod amounts to a restatement of the status quo, a restatement that settled doctrine cannot change, then what end did the synod serve? If Francis changes nothing then he angers his support base and damages his reputation. He has spent his pontificate empowering the "Catholic left" and has called the largest synod the Church has ever held in terms of participatory scope (a synod which has been telegraphing significant change for the Church since its inception) and I don't see how he could remain credible to the progressive side if it all amounts to a doctrinal nothingburger.

If the Catholic Church is what it claims to be then nothing will change because the truth of Catholicism is predicated on the fact that settled teaching (in this case natural law sexual ethics and holy orders being open to men alone) cannot change. God will not allow it. Unless indefectibility is redefined to meaninglessness there is no getting around that. If the Church gives the progressives what they want then the Church defects. If the Church defects then Catholicism is false.

The overwhelming reality that any church will be up against at some point is that if the public no longer like what you're selling then they won't come.

And a god without a congregation is a dead god. History is littered with them.

 

[Left Coast]

Religion is nothing more than one's duty to God. And God has been very clear about our duty before him in terms of morality. Those who persist in unrepentant sexual sin will not be saved. The normalization of sexual sin will do nothing to alleviate the spiritual consequences of said sins. The notion that the culture is now so sophisticated that the clear teaching of both Scripture and tradition no longer apply to us is pure sophistry. What was true yesterday remains true today.

I take it you feel fine with slavery, then? What was true yesterday remains true today...right?

I'm quite sure, though, that you don't. And there's a reason for that: the evil liberal modernists pushing for society, and religion, to change. And sometimes they do push too far, I'll grant you that. But you owe much to them. Institutions need a balance of people who know how to maintain order and stability and people who know how to shake things up and push for needed change. And Catholicism's teachings on LGBTQ issues are both demonstrably harmful to us and not rooted in any reasonable sense of what is moral. We are showing the world that we are just normal people who want normal, loving lives like everyone else. We are not freaks or perverts or a danger to anyone. Nor are we sick. We simply want to be accepted for who we are and given the dignity that anyone else is entitled to.

Some day, I believe the Catholic Church will have to recognize that. Or it will be left in the dust. As is ready happening.

 

[rational experiences]

In the past my sister's medical herbal vision.

Church murdered her for growing herbs in a forest administered to family. Correct medical.

You were doing blood leeching as you were mind possessed by mind body heavens attack. Your own..perverted men. From gods nature garden.

To go back to beginning now to reorder your lost truth the church hypocrite you'd plant huge beautiful herb gardens. Show teach the public.

Find old herbal books and honour your sister mother's teachings now.

Healing.

As science occult destruction of anything gods doesn't get healed so the occult branch should fall off.

Get the message yet?

 

[Estro Felino]

Your ideology is antithetical to the teachings and examples of Christ, as is your support for murderous tyrants. How will this be handled in the afterlife?

I don't support any murderous tyrant.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Religion is nothing more than one's duty to God. And God has been very clear about our duty before him in terms of morality. Those who persist in unrepentant sexual sin will not be saved. The normalization of sexual sin will do nothing to alleviate the spiritual consequences of said sins. The notion that the culture is now so sophisticated that the clear teaching of both Scripture and tradition no longer apply to us is pure sophistry. What was true yesterday remains true today.

Okay Musing Bassist, you focus on that message if you fancy. In time, perhaps the importance of other issues will reveal themselves to you.

I’m moving on now.

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[Glaurung]

The overwhelming reality that any church will be up against at some point is that if the public no longer like what you're selling then they won't come.

I generally avoid private revelation but there are long established prophecies made by various saints throughout the centuries about a future apostasy which will nearly destroy the Church. God will temporary permit it before intervening. In any case, Christ promised the Church will endure until the end. So the complete extinction of Catholic Christianity will never happen.

I take it you feel fine with slavery, then? What was true yesterday remains true today...right?

It was Christianity that elevated the slave in the first place with its notions of intrinsic human dignity. It's true that Christianity in itself does not say much about slavery as an institution. But it was Christianity which laid the moral framework by which one could coherently oppose slavery. As bad as the slave trades may have been it wasn't the Islamic or pagan worlds which ended it.

I'm quite sure, though, that you don't. And there's a reason for that: the evil liberal modernists pushing for society, and religion, to change. And sometimes they do push too far, I'll grant you that. But you owe much to them. Institutions need a balance of people who know how to maintain order and stability and people who know how to shake things up and push for needed change. And Catholicism's teachings on LGBTQ issues are both demonstrably harmful to us and not rooted in any reasonable sense of what is moral. We are showing the world that we are just normal people who want normal, loving lives like everyone else. We are not freaks or perverts or a danger to anyone. Nor are we sick. We simply want to be accepted for who we are and given the dignity that anyone else is entitled to.

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not interested in delusional projects which seek to undo modernity and return us to a romanticized vision of the High Middle Ages. I'm not advocating for sodomy laws to be put back on the books as I don't think it's the civil authority's job to get people into Heaven. What happens in your own bedroom is your own business.

But if Christianity is actually true then the sexual faculty exists not for our physical gratification but for the good of spouses and the procreation of children. Concupiscence is a fact of life for just about everyone. All of us suffer from disordered passions. That's why we're called to take up the Cross because this life is primarily a battle against our sinful dispositions. Virtue is hard and vice is easy. Western culture, due to its de facto atheism, has lost the sight of the eternal good. Few actually believe anything awaits them after death (how shocked they'll be when they pass though the veil) so of course they've given themselves over to the easy path of vice. Virtue is pointless if the temporal is all there is. But I am convinced that the denial of the eternal; the practical atheism that has dominated western culture for a long time now, is a lie. That's why the sexual revolution and its increasingly absurd claims will only perpetuate misery even for the people it is intended to most help. Because the temporal will never make anyone happy in the long run. The human soul was made for God and not for the fleeting pleasures of this world.

 

[LuisDantas]

Not sure of what the complaints are about.

Catholicism was a major influence in much of what is not mainstream culture. It wants to remain relevant, and that can't be achieved without some measure of effort at updating its moral values and expectations.

What is there to be controversial about?

 

[blü 2]

I generally avoid private revelation but there are long established prophecies made by various saints throughout the centuries about a future apostasy which will nearly destroy the Church. God will temporary permit it before intervening. In any case, Christ promised the Church will endure until the end. So the complete extinction of Catholic Christianity will never happen.

You could argue that Zeus and Wotan still have (or again have) followers, so any God who fears ultimate extinction can keep hoping for the best.

And you could wonder why the RCC continues to be plagued with financial corruption within the Vatican, and why God would sit on [his] hands while such things happen ─ not to mention pedophile clergy. Of course all denominations have such problems, but to me as an onlooker it's very poor PR.

it was Christianity which laid the moral framework by which one could coherently oppose slavery.

Not quite ─ it was the Enlightenment, the coming of the age of reason and of humanism, that changed some ─ not all ─ church thinking, not the other way round.

The problem is that the bible doesn't merely not oppose slavery, it actively teaches how to do it properly. So anyone who opposes slavery is actually opposing the bible teaching on the subject and embracing the humanist / rationalist view. Left and center Christians are less stressed about acting reasonably and in accordance with what we now know about humans, as you know.

But when it comes to sexual matters, those right-wing Christians thump the bible and shout about the infallible word of God ─ you know the type.

 

[exchemist]

Religion is nothing more than one's duty to God. And God has been very clear about our duty before him in terms of morality. Those who persist in unrepentant sexual sin will not be saved. The normalization of sexual sin will do nothing to alleviate the spiritual consequences of said sins. The notion that the culture is now so sophisticated that the clear teaching of both Scripture and tradition no longer apply to us is pure sophistry. What was true yesterday remains true today.


Again God has made his message quite clear. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10


I don't believe any of that is true. I reject moralistic therapeutic deism.


The Catholic faith either teaches perennial truth or it doesn't. I don't want a "progressive dialectic" where truth conveniently aligns with whatever the fashionable opinion happens to be at any given time. If truth is whatever liberal culture says it is then I don't need the Catholic Church. I don't need religion at all.


It is not even about infallibility but indefectibility. It cannot be that what damned people to Hell yesterday is now all the sudden an act blessed by God. It cannot be that what pervious popes taught as definitive (the male only priesthood) is now open to question because apparently the Holy Spirit was on vacation during previous two papacies. The whole thing is absurd.

This is why I state that Francis risks being the pope to disprove Catholicism. If Francis changes doctrine the way I suspect he wishes then he exposes Catholicism as yet just another bankrupt human religion.

The term indefectibility was new to me so I looked it up and found this definition, from the 1917 Catholic Encyclopaedia: "
"By this term is signified, not merely that the Church will persist to the end of time, but further, that it will be preserved unimpaired in its essential characteristics. The Church can never undergo any constitutional change, which will make it, as a social organism, something different from what it was originally. It can never become corrupt in faith or in morals; nor can it ever lose the Apostolic hierarchy, or the Sacraments through which Christ communicates grace to men."

As you say it is not the same as infallibility, being a more general statement about the essentials of the faith. But it is curious that it states the church can never become corrupt in faith and morals, when it is agreed on all sides that, at times during the mediaeval period, it quite clearly became highly corrupt, in morals at least. But if we leave that last contentious sentence aside, what it describes is the essential character of the church, not every detail of its teaching. As I and others have pointed out, details of the teaching most certainly have changed over the centuries. There is no reason to think this is incompatible with maintaining the essential character of the church.

In fact it seems to me that the flexibility of the Catholic church in embracing new learning in science, medicine and history is key to its survival into the modern era (though it did take 400 years to apologise for the Galileo affair ). This is in contrast to some of the sola scriptura strands of Protestantism, whose inflexibility has led them, notoriously, to become stuck on rejecting science in some cases, greatly weakening their claim to be intellectually respectable.

 

[Estro Felino]

Not sure of what the complaints are about.

Catholicism was a major influence in much of what is not mainstream culture. It wants to remain relevant, and that can't be achieved without some measure of effort at updating its moral values and expectations.

What is there to be controversial about?

Since the Vatican is rumored to be a Masonic lair, made up of Freemasons who wouldn't mind murdering or exiling popes, I guess it is light years away from the populace.
So it has updated its layout becoming an elitist cabal, light years away from Catholic commoners.

 

[Father Heathen]

I don't support any murderous tyrant.

You were simping pretty hard for Putin.

 

[exchemist]

Since the Vatican is rumored to be a Masonic lair, made up of Freemasons who wouldn't mind murdering or exiling popes, I guess it is light years away from the populace.
So it has updated its layout becoming an elitist cabal, light years away from Catholic commoners.

Oh yes they are all Illuminati Lizard People, just like Mark Zuckerberg. David Icke has the details.

 

[Estro Felino]

Oh yes they are all Illuminati Lizard People, just like Mark Zuckerberg. David Icke has the details.

First of all, I don't believe in extra-terrestrials. I do believe we are the only sentient beings in the universe and the ET thing has so many followers because of harmful Science Fiction movies.
So I don't believe in reptilians, or stuff like that.
I believe conspiracies do exist and are set up by men.
It's an exaggeration to say "conspiracies do not exist"

 

[metis]

Those who persist in unrepentant sexual sin will not be saved. The normalization of sexual sin will do nothing to alleviate the spiritual consequences of said sins.

There are a great many areas of sin besides "sexual".

The Catholic faith either teaches perennial truth or it doesn't.

The Church itself never claimed to be infallible in all of that which is taught as basically that would make the Church "God". And as I posted last, there's been change jjst recently. Also, a change in the Catechism a few years ago now states that capital punishment is now unethical under the Gospel as all countries have jails & prisons available as an alternative.

This is why I state that Francis risks being the pope to disprove Catholicism. If Francis changes doctrine the way I suspect he wishes then he exposes Catholicism as yet just another bankrupt human religion.

If you go and do the research of the early Church, actually PF is closer to the original as he especially focuses in on dealing with the poor and the oppressed. What attracted so many to the early Church was their willingness to risk their own lives to help those in need, and dogma was less of a factor than what came out to be later.

Let me recommend the fantastic book "Tradition In the Early Church" by Dr. Hanson, who is an Anglican theologian. He covers the early Church up through the first few centuries and in detail, and he heavily documents what he says. It's available at Amazon, and it's worth its weight in gold, let me tell ya. I've read dozens of books on the early Church, but that is #1 imo.