SPARDARO & ROSICA: ACT TWO

Didn’t I tell ya! 

 I wrote an article entitled Cardinal Sarah Wisely Bows Out just before the following story was published last Friday.

The old gang is at it again.

Papal confidante Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro justified withholding specifics about discussions at the Vatican’s Youth Synod from journalists and others, saying reports of interventions making it outside the Synod hall squelches discernment and “freedom of spirit.”

It seems as though the playbook from the last Synod is guiding this Synod as well. 

In almost the same words, Father Spadaro stated that the Synod “should be a spiritual place, not a place of debates of opinions”.

But, once again, the frustration of reporters from all over the world including Catholic media outlets is making itself known in the complaints about the lack of information coming from inside the Synod hall.

In one example Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput OFMCap gave a significant intervention yesterday, telling Synod Fathers that “LGBTQ” and other like language should not be used in the Vatican Youth Synod document.

“There is no such thing as an ‘LGBTQ Catholic’ or a ‘transgender Catholic’ or a ‘heterosexual Catholic,’ as if our sexual appetites defined who we are,” Chaput said, “as if these designations described discrete communities of differing but equal integrity within the real ecclesial community, the body of Jesus Christ.”

“This has never been true in the life of the Church, and is not true now,” he told the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops and young people gathered in the Synod hall. 

Chaput’s comments are especially significant at a time when forces inside the Church and out would have Her alter or disregard Her eternal teaching on sexuality.

But there was no specific mention of his remarks at the Synod press briefing Thursday.

Father Spadaro’s accomplice in wanting to stifle the Bishops’ interventions, Father Thomas Rosica, C.S.B., the English language media attaché to the Synod, also did not mention Chaput’s statements.

Rather, he said the session concerned the plight of migrants, the need for a listening Church, and the Church’s credibility in regard to the sex abuse.

Asked whether “homosexuality” and “gay relationships” were part of the interventions, Father Rosica responded, “Not those exact words, the issue was present, but there wasn’t any dominant issue.”

And so, the Vatican machinations are once again at work.

I guess Fathers Spadaro and Rosica have no recollection of the uproar their antics caused at the last Synod when the Bishops erupted in protest about the daily briefings by these two so-called media attaches.

Cardinal Sarah was wise in not giving these two spin-doctors any cover by lending his voice to the communication shenanigans being attempted once again.

How long the Synodal Fathers will tolerate this nonsense before putting their foot down during this Synod remains to be seen.

It just amazes me how stupid Fathers Spadaro and Rosica think the Bishops and the rest of the Catholic faithful are.