The German episcopacy begins its tortured synodal path today, with the intent, according to reports, to approve contraception, homosexuality and female ordination, any one of which would put them outside the visible, hierarchical Church founded by Jesus Christ, continuing in the world unto the end of time. So be it, for, like Judas, perhaps ‘tis best to brings what men have ‘spoken in darkness’ out into full daylight of truth, and what they must do, perhaps is best done quickly.
Priests are demoralized, and with good reason, it seems. Ponder this reflection from Father Peter Stravinskas – just for starters, imagine you’re always walking on eggshells wondering whether you’re just one confession away from some disgruntled ‘parishioner’ accusing you of ‘something’, and your life, at least as you knew it, is more or less over.
There is the added acidic influence of secularism, one principal tenet of which his that you must grab every pleasure you can in this life, or it ain’t worth livin’. The antichrist, so sayeth the Catechism, will preach a ‘secular messianism’, a salvation in this world, or age (saecula) alone. But we know that Man was made for greater things, for eternity, and the more we give up in this life the greater our reward may be. He who loses himself, finds himself. The nihilistic philosophy of YOLO – you only live once – should be balanced by the same paradoxically more hopeful principle of YODO – you only die once, and, then eternity…