Meant2Pope Parte Seconda & Satire

Oh my, it's been nearly a month. I am so sorry. I'm presently in the midst of making an excuse for my excuses, but I have none. So I skip on back to where I left off, sorta...

I like to summarize. I am no Pope Francis expert. I am no synod expert. I am no Vatican correspondent. I am an expert in reading in between lines. (I'm also an expert in predicting the outcome of every episode of every ABC network show I watch. Ask Stephi. She'll vouch.) I digress.

NOTHING matters exept the final document and what the Pope is going to disseminate. NOTHING else matters. So here's my little Eye of the Tiber approach... always loved his writing. Goes something like this:

The German contingent tacked up a nice new set of 95 theses to the synod hall's coffee pot table, causing the Africa, Australian, and American contingent to spit out their coffee. "Decentralize decision making processes on Holy Communion? The central doctrinal element of our faith... Sure! Why not?" they all thought simultaneously while pouring themselves another cup of coffee. Then came this nice collegial letter signed by a baker's dozen of cardinals, no, was it a dozen, or wait, no, maybe it was one less than a dozen, ehh maybe none of them actually wrote it, it just came from God and we'll go with that, a few days in, with their tablets in hand, clamoring on about not understanding the process reimnders that keep popping up on their calendar. Nor were they able to always open the attachments on their pdf readers. "Oh, Fr. Lombardi, these are all in Italian. Why didn't we just use Google translate? There'd be no translation issues then."

Belgian Cardinal Danneels commented, on condition of anonymity, "I mean, we have to change these issues. We've only been preaching these truths for a couple thousand years. Now's as good a time as any to just write down instructions for our pastors in our parishes to tell their faithful, "Do whatever you want! Next year is YEAR OF MERCY!"

Vatican media moguls have also roped off a section of Press Hall that seats our sports color analysts who dole out the continual hearsay and secondary interpretations of the synod play-by-play like a football game or soccer match, saying, "Oh Cardinal so and so must have said this general remark. Archbishop such and such does not think that, the other guy must have said it..." One reporter even grinned while turning to a blogger and said, "Isn't this so much fun that they leave these 3 weeks to our own interpretation of someone else who was just listening in to these small groups talking?" Then as the chatter grew louder and Fr. Lombardi was just about to raise his red card, they all turn around as they hear some planted media member yelling "GOOOOAAALLLLL!!!!! MY GOOOOAAALLLLs are not being discussed. Change, change, change...we need to change..."

Daily Pope Francis has cheerfully sauntered in with the crew from the Vatican Department of Financial Intelligence saying, "There's no conspiracy here my brothers." "Yes, we've investigated you all, and cleared all that up. So good news! We're gonna break this huddle and keep spending time working in these small groups where I've matched you by geography or language." All in attendance were shocked by this news and by this mind-numbing concept of breaking up a bunch of old guys who are slightly out of touch and used to sitting in big rooms not accomplishing much, into factions called "Small Group Work." This concept is so novel, in fact, that when interviewed, the Director General of Rome's oldest university, Carlo Musto D'Amore, stated, "I cannot wait to enlighten our professors with the Pope's new found 'Small Group' concept, and immediately apply them in a variety of courses here at Sapienza University."

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Collegiality. Synodality. Makes it happen. Stregthening the doctrine only happens by working together. (I seem to remember some little PBS kid tune about cooperation.)

In the end folks, it's only the final document that matters, and how Pope Francis wants to tie it into his message of reemphasizing the family as an integral part of our church. Based on everything he said in Philly, I'm pretty sure our church is going to be just fine.

~RJ

#PopeFrancis #Environment #Exclusion