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Tuesday 23 September 2014

The Devil and Unwarranted Expectations

No, no, don't worry, I'm sure "they" will change that...

I think sometimes that much of what went wrong in the wake of, (not AT, mind you, afterwards,) with the Second Vatican Council was that hopes were raised, perhaps even maliciously, about change that would come.

The devil's best weapons are not sins, not vices but virtues -- what better for the old snake than to pervert Love, to pervert Hope?

Surely everyone has taken a bite of an unfamiliar food and had that moment of, almost revulsion, because the expected savory proves sweet, or vice versa - in order to appreciate the food, you then not only have to overcome it newness, but your own disappointment at the first tasting.

It is twice as hard.

I think the Church has seen this many times. hopes were raised before the promulgation of humanae vitae that hard sayings would be done away with.
Sure, sure, the Church which we have been taught has some unchanging teachings, (as opposed to practices,) is going to change Her teaching.
Two birds with one stone, there were both dashed hopes and a weakening of faith in the entire concept of unchangeable teachings - even though the teaching, when push came to shove, was seen NOT to change!

And the prince of darkness and his unknowing dupes played with the hopes and expectations of changes that could have happened.
I know that in my own family there is a priest, (lovely man, lovely wife, lovely children,) who"signed up" pretty darn sure that by the time  he would probably want to, sacramental marriage would be open to him.

I understand torture, both physical and psychological is presumed to work not by application of unremitting pain but by episodes of it interspersed with raising expectations of final freedom from it.

(Those applying enhanced interrogation might be said to also be victims of falsely raised hopes, but that's a different topic.)

Cardinal Burke is calling out those who are engaged in this promulgation of false hopes in October's synod on the Family.
 Next month's Synod on the Family has undergone an attempted hijacking by some media sources, which are fueling expectations that impossible changes will be made to Church doctrine, said the (so far) head of the Church's highest court.

“I don’t think you have to be brilliant to see that the media has, for months, been trying to hijack this Synod,” said Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect for the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura – the office which, among other things, handles annulment cases in the Church.

In particular, he told CNA in a recent interview, the media has been presenting Pope Francis as being in favor of allowing Holy Communion to be distributed to those who are divorced and remarried, and other such propositions, even though this is not the case

The danger, Cardinal Burke continued, is that “the media has created a situation in which people expect that there are going to be these major changes which would, in fact, constitute a change in Church teaching, which is impossible.”...
“Certainly, the culture is extremely confused and in great error,” he said. However, this extends also to the interior of the Church, where are those who question the application of Matthew 19. In the passage, Jesus says that a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; this is the basis for Catholic practice prohibiting the reception of the Eucharist in such circumstances.
“It’s very important at this time,” the prelate continued, “to show the splendor of the truth of the Church’s teaching about marriage, which is foundational, obviously, for society, and for the Church itself.”
“If we don’t get it correct about marriage, there’s very little else that we’re going to be clear about.”...
“The marriage nullity process is the fruit of centuries of development, and by various expert canonists, one of the great ones being Pope Benedict XIV,” the cardinal said. “For us now simply to say we don’t need that anymore is the height of pride and therefore foolishness.” ...
“I wouldn’t be at all opposed to any changes,” he said, “except that a certain amount of complexity is required by the complexity of a claim that a marriage is null. And you cannot simply deal with these kinds of questions by some kind of easy and light-hearted process.”
...
See that?!!?%!?
 Hide-bound, old meanie traditionalist says that nothing can possibly ever change, that --
 Oh, wait.
Never mind.

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