Tea at Trianon: Ignoring the Synod

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Ignoring the Synod

I think it is best to ignore it for my own peace of mind. It is not going to change what I believe. From A Conservative Blog for Peace:

It doesn't matter. Nothing, nobody, can change the teachings of the church. To make a big to-do about the Synod is to buy into the idea they can. Which of course is what the secular world, and even some "conservative" pundits who've left the church, want you to think. Some churchmen don't believe the teachings. That's not news. In a way the argument among clerics is a repeat of Catholicism vs. Protestantism: through the church, God offers transforming grace right now, through the sacraments, not tokens but actually doing what they signify, and its infallible teaching voice; Protestants believe Jesus's saving work was all in the past so he just covers up your sins, so sure, give Communion to the divorced and remarried (implied: the sacraments are only tokens, and the church is changeable by vote). By the way, hooray for the Ukrainian major archbishop (head of the biggest Eastern Catholic church, a patriarch in all but name; my first traditional Catholic Mass in person was Ukrainian, 30 years ago) and Melkite patriarch for defending the faith on divorce and remarriage to their brother bishops; logically, the few "Orthodox in communion with Rome," mostly an online phenomenon, should change their minds or leave the church (a lot of them do). (Read more.)

Dymphna said...: I've decided to ignore it. The pope may tell us that the moon is green tomorrow and I will go on being Catholic. The people who will suffer immediately will be our priests who will be forced to go along with whatever garbage comes out of the synod.; October 20, 2015 at 9:09:00 AM EDT