Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Politics and Religion
No Matter What the Synod Does, I Will Keep on Doing What I’ve Been Doing

No Matter What the Synod Does, I Will Keep on Doing What I’ve Been Doing

Last updated on: October 21, 2015 at 6:01 pm by Rebecca Hamilton

3 Comments

No Matter What the Synod Does, I Will Keep on Doing What I’ve Been Doing 2015-10-21T18:01:51-06:00 Rebecca Hamilton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Photo Source Flickr Creative Commons by Aleteia Image Department https://www.flickr.com/photos/113018453@N05/

Conscience is a weak reed on which to lay the foundation of your eternal destiny.

I know from personal experience that I can convince myself of anything. I also know that I am not the only person with this problem. In fact, I would guess that this ability to justify oneself to oneself is part of the universal human condition.

The truth is, people cannot do that which they cannot justify to themselves. I have no doubt that Hitler had justifications that worked for him for everything he did. Ditto for Pol Pot, John Wayne Gacy, abortionists and corporatists alike.

They all manage to justify what they do, at least to themselves. The rapist’s “she asked for it,” works perfectly fine to allow him to sadistically degrade, brutalize and harm another person, just as the corporatists’ blather lets their greed fuel wars, create poverty and destroy hope.

I learned a long time ago that nothing makes a person meaner than being challenged on their self-justifications. The worse the thing they are justifying, the meaner they get when the justification is challenged. Thus we have men who beat their wives yelling “You made me do it!” and following that with another blow to silence any challenge to their justification. We have nations going to war rather than treat their own citizens as full human beings.

Nothing makes a person meaner than telling them they cannot kill somebody they’ve decided it is their right to kill. If you try to confront them with the reality of what they are doing, they become dangerous to you, as well.

The one thing you cannot rely on to make them change their behavior is the whispering of their own conscience. Conscience is an unworkable guide precisely because conscience is so easily shaped by the forces of self interest and human weakness. Perhaps the number one human weakness that damages conscience is the desire to be accepted and liked by the people around us.

That weakness works against good judgement and right conscience in an insidious and steady sort of way. It is buttressed by sophisticated arguments that excuse virtually anything. Today’s advocates for dissolute living are skilled in making good sound bad and bad sound good.

They can and do convince people that everything from killing grandma with euthanasia to dismembering our children with abortion is a positive good. Our conscience is no defense against them unless we have a reliable touchstone by which to judge and evaluate what we are hearing.

For two thousand years, the Catholic Church has provided that reliable touchstone. For two thousand years, the Church has held fast in its teachings and dogma. Individual priests and bishops have been all over the map in their moral teaching. They are all over the map right now on the core challenges facing modern Christians. But the Church itself has never taught that which is not true. It has not deviated from following Christ and Him crucified.

That is why so many Christians found the discussions at last year’s Synod disturbing. That disturbance is why they are distrustful of this year’s Synod. They become restive when Synod fathers talk about allowing individual conscience to be used as a guide for when it’s ok to ignore grave sin because they know — we all know — that our own consciences can lead us straight down the road to perdition.

We need a Church that we can trust to present us with Jesus Christ, Who is the same yesterday, today and forever. We do not need and will not benefit from theological experimentation that runs perpendicular to the explicit teachings of Our Lord and of Scripture.

Jesus said, For this cause a man shall leave his mother and father and join with his wife and they two shall become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one. What therefore God has joined together let no man put asunder … anyone who divorces … and marries another … commits adultery.

He was speaking directly and explicitly about the question of divorce, which he said Moses had allowed due to the Israelite’s hardness of heart. Marriage is between one man and one woman and it is for life. Period.

St Paul said, … whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup unworthily shall be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord … and brings judgement upon himself.

These teachings put a crimp in things for a lot of people these days. If they are true, then a great many men and women are living in adultery. If they are not true, then the Scriptures themselves are false.

People don’t like hearing things like that. They want Jesus. They know they need Him, and they want Him. They crave communion with the Lord, and Christ in the Eucharist is the best and easiest way to achieve that.

They are good people. Many of them repent of their mistakes and are trying to do better. Divorce is a scalding experience that wounds people to the core. That’s because marriage is exactly what Jesus said it was; the binding of two people together as one for life. Tearing that apart is painful beyond pain.

There are often serious reasons for divorce. Violence, infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse are not fixable unless the offender is committed to changing. The only thing the victim spouse can do is end the marriage and try to rebuild.

That is why the Church has developed the process of annulment; to determine if the marriage was invalid. It lets people move forward.

This is a thorny subject for the Church right now precisely because certain bishops are pushing to place Christ’s teaching on a shelf and ignore it in actual practice. They want to say that Jesus said what He said, and the Church is not changing doctrine, but it will ignore the doctrine in its pastoral life.

To my way of thinking, this is inherently dishonest. It also sets the Church on the path of unraveling the cords that bind it together. The Catholic Church is the Eucharist and the Eucharist is a sacrament.

The Eucharist is a sacrament, established by Our Lord. Marriage is a sacrament, established by Our Lord. No one — including bishops — has to power to undo or nullify a sacrament.

If the sacrament of Holy Matrimony can be dismembered into a meaningless nothing that has no actual power in how people live their lives, and the core meaning of the Church, which is the Eucharist, can be taken by force and popular demand, then the Church itself has come unwound.

Holy Orders are meaningless if the Eucharist and Holy Matrimony are meaningless. If the Church puts doctrine on the shelf and ignores it in its actual, pastoral practices as they pertain to the Eucharist and Holy Matrimony, then the sacraments become pro forma to the people in the pews.

I do not understand anyone who would take the Eucharist by force. I do not.

I don’t “get” people who know that they are living in violation of Church teaching and then demand that the Church change what it teaches to suit them. Their job is to change how they live in order to follow Christ. And Church teaching has, up until now, been a reliable guide on how to follow Christ.

Why would anyone take communion when they know they are in mortal sin? Do they think that Jesus can be fooled? Do they think they can lie to Him and He won’t notice? Why would a bishop deliberately lead people into doing this? Doesn’t the bishop fear God?

I understand full well that much of the arguing in the two Synods has been a manifestation of the culture wars raging in the Western world. I believe that a number of politico-socio movements, including the gay rights movement and the new atheism, have a vested interest in tearing down the Church’s teaching.

Trashing the sacrament of Holy Matrimony would weaken the Church’s witness in the world today far more than even the priest sex abuse scandal has done. If the Church walks away from the sacraments, then it walks away from itself.

The fact that so many secular interests perceive the Synod as something they can influence to act in ways that are contrary to 2,000 years of Church teaching says a lot about at least some of the bishops who are meeting there. The other fact, that so many faithful Catholics who have stood by the Church through all the wounds she has inflicted on herself in the past 15 years, are deeply mistrustful of the Synod, says a lot about the danger that lies within the Church if such a change is made.

If the Synod Fathers accede to pressures from the German bishops to radically change Church practice on marriage in these fraught times, they will make the Church the pawn of special interests. At the same time, they will alienate many of their most faithful followers.

They don’t seem to understand the synergy at work here. To put it simply, a decision to change Church practice would comfort the Church’s enemies, including those who seek to destroy faith altogether. It would, at the same time, alienate and create confusion and mistrust among those who ardently try to follow the Church. It would weaken the loyalty of the people the Church must turn to for help when it is attacked.

I pray about the Synod, but one thing is absolute: No matter what happens with these bishops, I will not leave the Church. To paraphrase St Peter, where would I go?

What I will do is read whatever the Synod produces carefully and prayerfully. Then, I will think about it. I imagine I may go through this read-pray-think process more than once. If the Church wounds itself with unsound practices, I will pray for wiser minds to undo this mistake in the future.

Whatever the Synod does, I plan to keep on doing what I’ve been doing for quite a while now. I will do my best to follow Jesus within the confines of the Catholic Church.

communion for divorced and remarried

sacrament

synod fathers

synod on the family

Previous Post

October 21, 2015

Nearly 500 British Priests Urge Synod to Stand Firm on Communion for Remarried

Next Post

October 22, 2015 He's Out! Bishop Laicizes Priest Who "Came Out" on Eve of Synod

Recent Comments

3 Comments | Leave a Comment

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 10 Commandments 2012 Election 2016 Election 2020 Election 2022 Election 2024 Election Abortion Addiction Adult Day Care Advent Africa AI Alcoholism Alex Pretti Renee Good America American Citizenship American Fascism Announcement Anti Semitism Anti-Semitism Apologetics Archbishop Coakley Argentina Armenian Genocide Ash Wednesday Ballot Box Salvation Biden Big Beautiful Bill Bishop Black Mass Blasphemy Boko Haram Book Review Brainwashing Breast Cancer Bribery Calling Evil Good calling good evil Cancer Canonize Caregiving Catholic Catholic Vote Cause for Sainthood Chaos child abuse Child Labor Child Rearing Child Sacrifice Christian Bashers Christian Leadership Christian Persecution Christian Solidarity Christianity Christmas clergy Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal Climate Coakley Common Good Communion Communism Computers concentration camps Conclave Confession Consecration to Our Lady Conversion Coptic Christians Coronavirus Corporatism Corruption COVID Crisis Pregnancy Centers Culture D Day Death Death Penalty Dementia Democracy Designer Baby Destruction of the Family Dictator Dignity of Work Divine Mercy Novena Divine Mercy Sunday Divorce Doubt Drug Addiction easter Ebola Economics Education Egg Harvesting El Salvador Elderly Epiphany Epstein eternal life Eternal Life Eucharist Eugenics Euthanizing Children Euthansia evangelization Excommunicate Biden Extraterrestrial Life Failed Clergy Faith False Gods Family Fascism Fatherhood Feast of the Assumption First Amendment Flood the Zone Following Christ forced conversion Forgiveness Fortnight4Freedom fourth amendment Fr James Altman Fr Stanley Rother free press Freedom Freedom of Conscience freedom of religion Freedom of Speech Freedom of Worship vs Religious Freedom Geek Stuff Gender Theory Genocide God the Father Good Friday Gossip GQP Greenland Grief Gun Control Gun Violence Hate Blogs Health Health Care Heart Attack Heaven Hell Herod HHS Mandate History of the Crusades Holy Father Holy Father' Holy Father's Tweets Holy Matrimony Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Holy Thursday Holy Week Home Homeschooling homosexual Hospice Human Dignity Human Rights human trafficking Humor ICE Idolatry Immaculate Conception Immigration Incest Infertility Inspiration Iran War ISIS Islam Islamic Brotherhood Israel JD Vance Jesus Jobs Jordan Judas Judicial and Legislative Murder Judicial Murder July 4 Just War Justice Kavanaugh Ketanji Jackson Brown Laity Latin Mass Leadership Lent Less of Me Lying Lying for Trump Mad King MAGA Magnifica humanitas Mama Marriage Marriage Protection Amendment Martyr Media Bias Medicaid Men and Abortion Mercy Military Dictatorship Misogyny Motherhood Movie Review Murder Music National Catholic Register Nazi Clergy Neo Nazis New Category New Evangelism New Evangelization News Headlines Nigeria No Kings Novena for the Persecuted Church Nuns Obama Oklahoma Oscar Romero Our Lady Our National Embarrassment Pakistan Palm Sunday Papal Conclave Papal G8 Pedophile piano political priests Political Whore Clergy Politics Polygamy Pope Francis Pope Francis Visit United States Pope Leo XIV Pope's Prayer Intentions Pornography Post Christian West Poverty Prayer Prayers for the Persecuted Church Pro Life Prophecy Prostitution Purgatory Putin Quack Medicine Racism Rape Religious Freedom Renee Good Republican Republican priests Rerum Novarum Retirement Risen Lord Roe v Wade Rosary Sacrament Sacred Heart Sacrilege Saints Salvation Same Sex Marriage Sanctity of Human Life Satan Save Our Democracy scandal Scripture Shroud of Turin Sisters Slavery Social Justice Social Security Solidarity Cross St Michael the Archangel stations of the cross Stop Late Term Abortion Stroke Suicide Supreme Court Surrogacy Surveillance State Synod Syria Taliban Tariffs Taxes Technology Thanksgiving The Ascension The Cross The Locust Class The Political Heresy The Resurrection The Tomb The Transfiguration The Trinity The War on Girls Tornado Trauma Trump Trump Coup Trump Destroying America Trump's Coup Trump's War on the Rule of Law Trumpism Ukraine Uncategorized USAID USCCB Vatican Vatican Reform Violence Against Women Violence in America Vocation Voting Rights Wages Walk for Life War Weight Loss White House Why Aren't You a Feminist Too? Woke Women Leaders Women's Rights Worker's Rights World Hunger World War I World War III World Youth Day Worship Writing Year of Faith

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 October 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the name "Elijah" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

God is Light God Provides My God is Yahweh God Saves