Keep in mind of how the “old” evangelization was accomplished through the Holy Ghost in all power, truth, and authority as attested in Scripture in the account of Pentecost. Human nature does not change.
The following is our translation from the Italian, of today’s report on the Synod of the Family. Click on the link to read the original as written by Franca Giansoldati.
Vatican City – beginning with the language, all appears to be novel. Maybe it’s too early to talk about revolution, but something like that is contained between the pages of the report of Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Relator for the Synod on the Family. The text is the result of a synthesis of all the interventions made so far in the aula during the first week of the synod’s work.
In the focus on the family, what is first noted, is the helping hand extended to those who have “failed”, looking sympathetically towards gay couples because, as it says in paragraph 50, 51 and 52, “it is acknowledged that there are cases where the silently upholding [a union] to the point of sacrifice, constitutes a valiant support for the life of the “partners”. For the first time in an official Church document, the neutral word “partners” appears . In a sign of the times, the Synod Fathers have also recognized that we need to develop a special Ministry to the children who live with same-sex couples, reaffirming that they must always put the rights and needs of children first. It is definitely the first time that the church acknowledges and takes note of the changes in Western societies over these last twenty years.
On the horizon there stands a new path for divorced and remarried couples, no longer excluded, but put on a practical path. Sacramental Communion for them might be possible. The conditional, however, is a must since the Synod Fathers have just traced the path, without overbalancing, neither to the one side nor to the other, given that the subject has been the focus of clashes and bitter debates: on the one hand the rigorists, led by the influential Cardinal Mueller [rigorist ?], Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, and on the other hand, the reformers led by Cardinal Kasper, a theologian and author of a study on the concept of mercy – a medicine, that in the Church of Bergoglio, is often used to give hope to those who have suffered, to those who feel rejected and who are gradually turned away [sic]by the Church.
“In the pastoral reality of civil marriages, we must note the new dimension of today’s family, and make the necessary changes, including cohabitation. In fact when the union reaches a remarkable stability through public constraint, it is marked by deep affect, by its responsibility in respect to offspring, with capacity to withstand in testings; it [the union] can be considered as a germ accompanied in its development towards the sacrament of marriage. “
