The Pope vs. the Church on Family Values?

[cbayer]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/05/the-pope-vs-the-church-on-family-values.html


Tony Gentile / Reuters

Barbie Latza Nadeau

WORLD NEWS 10.05.14

The synod underway in Rome will discuss divorce, birth control and same-sex marriage—and nobody’s really sure what Pope Francis will do.

VATICAN CITY— When Pope Francis opened the Extraordinary General Assembly Synod of Bishops to discuss the role of the family in the Catholic context on Sunday, he opened the biggest can of worms in his still-young papacy.

It is expected to pit hard-core Catholic conservatives who prefer to hang on to the Church’s traditional doctrine on family matters against liberal Catholic clergy who would prefer to see a loosening of some of the rules, especially those that keep lapsed Catholics away in droves. The skirmishing here is expected to help define the battles in the even more important Ordinary Synod of Bishops scheduled for October 2015.

Of the 252 participants now gathered in Rome, 191 so-called Synod Fathers are eligible to vote on issues ranging from whether divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to take communion to whether annulments should be easier to obtain.

Yes, birth control will be up for debate. Yes, even same-sex marriage will be discussed. In that sense there are no taboos, although virtually no one in the know expects any really dramatic breakthroughs.

more at link

[trotsky]

1. Says it all right here:

"...although virtually no one in the know expects any really dramatic breakthroughs."

In other words, it's just the latest move by the Pope Frank PR machine. Makes it look like he's intent on changing things, so that liberals in the church are appeased, but won't ACTUALLY change anything so the conservatives stay happy. (And the church marches right on harming women, LGBTers, and reproductive rights of everyone.)