This has been a very busy week for me, hence the brief posts. Now here’s another.
Over at Rorate Caeli you will find a provocative dispatch from Italian journalist Alessandro Gnocchi in which he states, “[M]ore than half the bishops present at [the Extraordinary Synod on the Family] . . . have already switched religion.” His primary basis for that claim is the unsettling voting tallies from the Synod which, perhaps, reveal that a high number of prelates are prepared to move ahead with radical new proposals which would undermine the Church’s teachings on morality and the Sacraments. Could be right? Is he just being an alarmist? Or is there more going on that we’re not yet aware of? Actually, the answer to all three questions could be “Yes”; and if so, what, if anything, will you do about it?
Gnocchi is right to note that schisms have happened over less. However, given that we live in an unserious age with unserious people committed to their unserious religion, I have a hard time imagining a forceful schism arising out of anything the bishops do or say. The neo-Catholic apologists will be on hand to whitewash over the obvious while an increasing number of traditionalists find themselves pondering sedevacantism. Meanwhile, the liberals will rejoice for a time as they preside over a dying remnant of what used to be the Holy Catholic Church. The Church, of course, will continue, but perhaps not in the way we suspect.
