UPCOMING YOUTH SYNOD ESPECIALLY WORRISOME AFTER EPISCOPALIS COMMUNIO

A coalition of secular as well as dissenting Catholic LGBT groups aims to influence the Church’s upcoming Synod on Young People by rallying the like-minded to write to the Synod Fathers to contend that the “rules” of the Catholic Church are causing “damage” to those who self-identify as LGBT.

A messaging effort from the Equal Future website, launched August 22 at an event held parallel to the World Meeting of Families in Dublin is soliciting Catholics and non-Catholics to send messages to their regions’ delegates to the Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and the Discernment of Vocations, to be held in October.  That message alleges that there is “damage done to children when they are given the sense that to be LGBT would be a misfortune or disappointment.”

The working document for the 2018 synod discusses increasing cultural instability and violent conflicts, but also that many young people, both inside and outside of the Church, are divided when it comes to topics related to sexuality, the role of women, and the need to be more welcoming to members of the LGBT community.

The document only briefly addresses the issue of homosexuality and related topics, saying that some LGBT youth who offered contributions to the synod’s general secretariat said they want to experience “greater closeness and greater care on the part of the Church.”

In their responses, Bishops’ Conferences have questioned how to respond to young people who have chosen to live a homosexual lifestyle, but who also want “to be close to the Church.”

Lisbeth Melendez Rivera, the Human Rights Campaign’s Director of Faith Outreach and Training, writing June 29 at the campaign’s website, has contended that some Catholics and LGBT activists “oscillate between hope and frustration” under Pope Francis.  

She welcomed Father James Martin, S.J.’s appearance at a workshop on LGBT bridge-building held at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, which was organized by Cardinal Kevin Farrell.  For Rivera, the addition of “LGBT” as a descriptor in the working document for the upcoming Synod on Youth was “perhaps the most important development in recent weeks.”

What young Catholics and youth everywhere need to hear is a re-affirmation of the Biblical and fundamental theological and moral teachings of the Church.  

These are the truths which embody Jesus’ call to his disciples to the “the light of the world” and the “salt of the earth”.

The Synod on Youth does not need to “break new ground”.  

Sadly, the Church itself has let the field of the Faith to be fallow, allowing the “weeds” of deception and political correctness to obfuscate the clear and consistent teaching of the beauty and meaning of human sexuality within the context of the conjugal love of man and woman in Holy Matrimony.

But Bishops everywhere are the targets of increasing and incessant pressure by pro-gay advocates to compromise these ancient truths.

And given the fact that Pope Francis, by virtue of his Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis communio, has recently empowered the Synod of Bishops to make pronouncements which may be considered to be part of the “ordinary Magisterium of the Church”, the upcoming Synod on Youth is especially worrisome.

Truly, the Holy Spirit must intervene and guide the Synodal Fathers.  

And so we pray, Come, Holy Spirit, come!