The Synod Starts to Take Shape | National Catholic Reporter

The Synod Starts to Take Shape | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: I am comforted by the shephard who will preside over the Synod, but I hope that the people were actively solicited to give our input, including those who do not attend Mass regularly or cannot do to night jobs and all sorts of other things, like lack of transporation.  These are the very people who need help in their marriage and family life, or in picking up the pieces when it falls apart.  If you want renewed evangelization, start there, but not with an invitation to go to Confession - that puts guilt into it and won't attract anyone.  Taking the guilt out is what I hope this Synod accomplishes for both gay kids and remarried adults.  This will let grace in.  If pastoral focus can do this, then let pastoral focus work.  I suspect some doctrinal change is necessary.  This may be too much for a Synod, but it is exactly why we convene Ecumenical Councils - and the fact that we seem to be pastorally moving into unity with Constantinople will make such a Council interesting.



Gay marriage will wait for the demand from families for Catholic ceremonies for their kids, siblings and parents, but that will come.  As for Gender Identity issues, transgender and intersex identity issues are not new, no matter how much some want to blame these things on modernism.  Regardless, they are the realm of medicine and psychology, not religion.  The best we can say about them is nothing at all, save that any treatment, like treatment for cancer, is no barrier to worship and be Catholic.  Indeed, inclusion of these children of God, like gay teens, is one sure preventative to suicide.  We can go with acceptance or self-euthanasia.  Choose.