He’s the non-red-hatted Philly archbishop, the first of its kind since 1918, with a flair for focus.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia told members of the Synod of Bishops their task was to help young people understand Catholic teaching on sexuality and to avoid using terms like “LGBTQ” that make it seem as if the church categorizes people that way.

Indeed. Why should the holy Roman Catholic Church buy into slanted, disputatious terms of those who flout its age-old teachings?

More from the non-cardinal archbishop:

The archbishop, a member of the synod’s permanent committee, told the synod that “what the church holds to be true about human sexuality is not a stumbling block. It is the only real path to joy and wholeness.”

And, he said, for the church “there is no such thing as an ‘LGBTQ Catholic’ or a ‘transgender Catholic’ or a ‘heterosexual Catholic,’ as if our sexual appetites defined who we are.”

Because there are not “discrete communities of differing but equal integrity” within the church, he said, “it follows that ‘LGBTQ’ and similar language should not be used in church documents, because using it suggests that these are real, autonomous groups, and the church simply doesn’t categorize people that way.”

Sic.

via Archbishop urges synod to use care with language on sexuality – Catholic Philly

Absolutely. Or read the Book of Job, as excerpted for today’s first reading:

Reading 1 Job 19:21-27
Job said [blaming God]:

Pity me, pity me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has struck me!
Why do you hound me as though you were divine,
and insatiably prey upon me?

But recovering with the great lesson which he introduces as something always to remember:

Oh, would that my words were written down!
Would that they were inscribed in a record:
That with an iron chisel and with lead
they were cut in the rock forever!

That said, his act of faith:

But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives,
and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust;
Whom I myself shall see:
my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him,
And from my flesh I shall see God;
my inmost being is consumed with longing.

Now there’s a close, “consumed with longing,” looking ahead to the great vindication and seeing God as he is.

via Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi

Ask not for whom or which diocese the subpoena bell tolls, oh bishops and archbishops. The day of judgment is on its way.

DETROIT (AP) — Roman Catholic dioceses across Michigan have turned over documents in a state investigation of sexual abuse by priests.

Investigators with search warrants collected records Wednesday, about two weeks after Attorney General Bill Schuette said his office was leading a probe.

The new emphasis comes after a Pennsylvania grand jury said more than 1,000 children have been molested there since the 1940s

However else will the bitter truth come out? Or how better, anyhow.

via macombdaily.com

Yes!

via McClatchy Washington Bureau

Hey, at the polling place, anyone can be the famous former AG.

I have to wonder about this regular-as-rain reference to clericalism as the root of evil, as if to steer us away from the very idea of a gay church network as contributing to the current crisis, even hijacking the “perversion” word.

“Clericalism is a perversion and is the root of many evils in the church,” Pope Francis said Oct. 3 at the synod’s first working session.

Without naming one of the evils either. And supplying what becomes a bromide in the present context.

It’s not a perversion, anyhow, but as old as the apostles fighting with each other and keeping the children away from the Master — human nature asserting itself.

He offers what in the present circumstances is a bromide — again unspecified. Forgiveness for what? Asked by whom? The kids in attendance?

“We must humbly ask forgiveness for this [?] and above all create the conditions so that it [what?] is not repeated.

So much to be inferred, guessed at, only imagined. But can he get specific?

via Pope asks bishops, young people to drop their prejudices as synod begins

Facts matter.

We are now in a time of chronic national convulsions, and the latest, over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, has resulted in the wrenching public and private testimony of women who have been sexually assaulted and who have never before spoken about it. Of course, this outpouring has a hashtag: #BelieveSurvivors. Women who tell their stories should have the support, and belief, of loved ones, friends, and a therapeutic community.

But when a woman, in telling her story, makes an allegation against a specific man, a different set of obligations kick in.

Even as we must treat accusers with seriousness and dignity, we must hear out the accused fairly and respectfully, and recognize the potential lifetime consequences that such an allegation can bring. If believing the woman is the beginning and the end of a search for the truth, then we have left the realm of justice for religion.

A true believer’s holiday.

via The Atlantic

Rumblings from (one of) “the media.”

The Cubs scored one run Monday. They scored one run Tuesday. They scored two runs in 22 innings at home in those games. The first cost them a division title. The second cost them their season. You’d think this would cost someone a job.

Make mine Joe.

via Chicago Tribune

She has their number and won’t shut up.

Makes it up as he goes along.

Pope Francis famously downplays law and doctrinal formulations, which he often associates with Pharasaism, in favor of “discernment,” which seems to involve the direct application of ultimate considerations to particular situations.

As he put the matter in his address at the conclusion of the Synod on the Family, “The true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter, but its spirit.”

But would he know a doctrine if he tripped on one?

More on painful subject:

Many Catholics are therefore concerned that Francis fails to balance his denunciations of legalism with warnings about lawlessness—a tendency that seems a far greater problem in today’s Church.

Quite a good point.

via Crisis Magazine