This just in from Aleteia.com: “Two newly released interventions by Synod Fathers offer insight into the gravest threats facing the family today, and unite in calling for a rediscovery of the beauty of Christian family life and the transforming power of the Gospel….

“Cardinal Sarah serves as the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. On Monday he released jointly to Aleteia and the National Catholic Register the intervention he delivered at the opening general congregations of the Synod.

“What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the twentieth century, Western homosexual and abortion ideologies and Islamic fanaticism are today,” the Cardinal said in his strongly-worded intervention. “The church must promote a true “epiphany of the Family,” he added, “…for the marriage crisis is essentially a crisis of God, but also a crisis of faith…” Also on October 10, Aleteia spoke with the Cardinal Sarah following a meeting of the bishops of Africa. The Guinean cardinal voiced his concern about three controversial paragraphs being included in the Instrumentum laboris, saying that by retaining the paragraphs which did not receive a two-thirds majority at last year’s meeting, he believes “there is an agenda they are trying to impose.” READ FULL REPORT HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: Rumor has it that Pope Francis is still considering the papal abdication option at some point down the road. We heartily encourage the Holy Father to explore that option, sooner rather than later in fact. And, by the way, perhaps it is time for a black pope.  Can there be much doubt that the Church would be in better hands were Cardinal Sarah sitting in Peter's chair?

Sunday Sermons from South Saint Paul

Remnant TV's new 'Sunday Sermons from So. St. Paul'. This morning our priest delivers a barnburner of a sermon all about the Synod.

"A line has been drawn--on which side are you?"

This just in from Aleteia: "One of the cardinals who signed a controversial letter to Pope Francis explained in an interview today how his participation came about.

"Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said on Sirius XM’s Catholic Channel that he was in a meeting last week with Australian Cardinal George Pell, who suggested writing to Pope Francis about concerns over how the synod was being run.

"According to Damian Thomson in The Spectator, and other reports, 13 of the 74 cardinals participating in the synod wrote Pope Francis a private letter warning that the synod is being hijacked by liberals obsessed with the narrow issue of giving Communion to divorced and remarried people. The letter was leaked by Vaticanista Sandro Magister on Monday. The signatories also expressed concern that taking a route of “pastoral flexibility” could lead to the Church falling apart in the same way as liberal Protestant denominations; and that the synod working papers prepared by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri and Archbishop Bruno Forte are a mess. READ FULL REPORT HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: You know we're really in some kind of trouble when even Cardinal Dolan thinks it's time to stand up and object. Still, it is what it is, so I say "good for him and God bless ya. Bravo!"

 

This just in from our friends at LifeSiteNews – Amid continuing concern about the Vatican press office’s “manipulation” of the family synod’s message, a priest who has been covering Vatican news for over 15 years had his credentials revoked last week, and was told to leave the premises “immediately.” The revocation came after he had challenged an archbishop following the October 6 press conference over comments claiming that allowing Communion for the divorced and remarried is up for debate.

Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher made the comments in response to a reporter’s question about whether the matter pertained to Church discipline – which could potentially change – or doctrine, which is fixed.

“To be quite honest, there might be differences of opinion on that,” Durocher said. “Let’s be honest. Is that a question of doctrine or is that a question of discipline? I think that’s probably going to be one of the questions that will be debated in the small groups.” READ FULL REPORT HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: Did you ever think you'd live to see the day when ugly Stalinist tactics would rear their little heads at the heart of the Catholic Church and against faithful priests whose only "crime" is to publicly defend the infallible doctrine of Holy Mother Church? God help us, who are these men and what are they thinking?  Have Catholics not been scandalized enough? 

 

This today from Sandro Magister: "Thirteen Cardinals Have Written to the Pope. Here’s the Letter. But Francis has rejected their requests en bloc. And meanwhile, the “Relatio finalis” has disappeared from the program of the synod    

ROME, October 12, 2015 - On Monday, October 5, at the beginning of work at the synod on the family, Cardinal George Pell delivered a letter to Pope Francis, signed by him and twelve other cardinals, all present in the synod hall.

The thirteen signatories occupy positions of the first rank in the Church’s hierarchy. Among them there are, in alphabetical order:

- Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna, Italy, theologian, formerly the first president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family;
- Thomas C. Collins, archbishop of Toronto, Canada;
- Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, United States;
- Willem J. Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, Holland;
- Gerhard L. Müller, former bishop of Regensburg, Germany, since 2012 prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith;
- Wilfrid Fox Napier, archbishop of Durban, South Africa, president delegate of the synod underway as also at the previous session of the synod of October 2014;
- George Pell, archbishop emeritus of Sydney, Australia, since 2014 prefect in the Vatican of the secretariat for the economy;
- Robert Sarah, former archbishop of Conakry, Guinea, since 2014 prefect of the congregation for divine worship and the discipline - Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, Italy;
- Jorge L. Urosa Savino, archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela.

In the letter, concise and perfectly clear, the thirteen cardinals bring to the pope’s attention the serious “concerns” of themselves and other synod fathers over the procedures of the synod, in their judgment “designed to facilitate predetermined results on important disputed questions,” and over the “Instrumentum laboris,” viewed as inadequate as a “guiding text or the foundation of a final document.” READ REPORT HERE

REMNANT COMMENT:It is difficult to see how, after all of this, there won't be significant changes introduced to Church practice at the conclusion of this Synod. This Synod has all the makings of true totalitarian revolution at the highest levels of the Catholic Church. If we are proven wrong, then we’ll praise God for His merciful intervention.
 

Editor’s Note: Back in 1982, in Today Magazine’s April issue, Anne Roache penned an article called “The Way It Used to Be”. We recently discovered this article as it was reproduced in one of the late, great Hamish Fraser’s Approaches magazines from the early 1980s. Presumably this sobering article reflects the sort of thinking that eventually prompted Anne Roache Muggeridge’s masterwork, The Devastated Vineyard: Revolution in the Catholic Church. With prayers for the repose of her soul, let us read Anne’s beautiful description of the way things used to be and the way they surely will be again, in God’s good time. MJM

The Raison d'ê·tre of a Catholic Traditionalist

Editor’s Note: It was an honor for me to present the following paper at the Angelus Press Conference in Kansas City this month.  With well over 500 attendees, including more than 50 priests and nuns, and so many young families, it was abundantly obvious to me that this event has become traditional Catholicism’s premier weekend conference. With excellent lectures, great food, wonderful accommodations, and an obvious commitment to reaching out to Catholics in all camps (there were several diocesan priests on hand as well as many attendees from Latin Mass centers operated outside of the SSPX),  I recommend this conference to readers of the Remnant, whether you are attached to the SSPX or not.  Hearty congratulations to my good friend, James Vogel, and his team on a job so well done. May God bless and keep our brothers and allies at the Angelus. MJM