"Mawwiage.... mawwiage!" and "Showing Your Work"

 

Over at the Nominally Catholic Rundown a writer manages to gratuitously, (yeah, I split that... sue me,)  impugn the motives of priests who hold different ecclesiological viewpoints than herself, ("careerist minions," as if such people exist only in more conservative swaths of the Church,)
to imply that only the low-born are guilty of inebriated spousal abuse, ("disastrously married to Joe Six-Pack, who comes home drunk every night and beats her,")
to cast aspersions upon anyone who has respect for the Law and doctrine,
("the clerics who work for Müller [emphasis added] look for ... mistakes. There's got to be a law in there somewhere, and if not, we'll write a decree or something,")
and finally to remind us that we have not always been allowed a glimpse of the inside of the sausage factory, ("Francis has opened the living room doors, and now we are talking about that fat elephant that bedevils so many lives.")
Now, in general I'm a big fan of acknowledging the housebound elephants, with doing which, we would be giving each other the, "Ooooh, was that YOU??!???" look whilst holding our noses.

But in the case of Church teachings, which are, I will repeat, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, not mere protocols and procedures?
I have a friend whose conversational idiosyncrasies leave the rest of our circle.... let's just say confused as to what was really meant, or decided upon in any discussion.
"What time do you want to leave?" someone will ask.
Answers she, well, lets see. Three o'clock. Full stop.
"Okay."
But after a beat she will continue, Yes, three is when I have to be at such and such, so we'd have to leave here by two to be finished at thus and so in time....
By this point, others will begin to understand that there has not actually been what you could rightly call an "answer", she is, as they used to say in math class, "showing her work."
.... Now if we stop at thus and so on the way, we'll need an extra 15 minutes...
.... But I can take care of that later in the week...
.... Last time it didn't take as long, so it will probably only take three quarters of an hour to get there....
.... But school is out...
(Does that mean more or less time is required?)
.... So we'll need time to park.....
.....But not as much as we would have....
.... So let's leave only a little earlier. Full stop.
WHAT TIME DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE???!?@?#????
Oh, you know what, it's faster with a parking pass.
WHAT TIME DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE???!?@?#????
Anyone have one?
WHAT TIME DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE???!?@?#????
Well what I said.
WHAT TIME DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE???!?@?#????
It is perfectly possible for three different people to have been left with three different impressions of what she has actually decided regarding when we will leave.

The Church, as a whole, the Faithful?
We are the circle of friends.
The Synod?
That's my idiosyncratic friend.

I know the Nominally Catholic Rundown has already mocked the notion of confusion having been sown by the way in which the hierarchy under Francis is approaching things, but I think that was only because David Gibson wanted to mock Cardinal Burke.

I think the Church is plenty confused by the Synod Fathers insisting on showing their work, scribbling all over the damned page, crossing out, whiting out, erasing, and filling the page with so many nermals and symbols that we are at a loss to know what was actually done, what was actually decided. (And dishonest  reporting has not lessened the confusion. I'm talking to you, Nominally Catholic Rundown .)
Holy Father, most of us just want to know,
WHAT TIME DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE???!?@?#????

Or if you prefer the Nominally Catholic Rundown's analogy, please, Holy Father, keep the door to the living room shut until you've cleaned up the elephant dung.