Saturday 2 November 2013

My computer has just exploded.....

You might like to check with your GP before filling
in the Bishop's Questionnaire

.....I feel as if I have just run a marathon, my pulse is racing and my blood pressure score must be at an all time high....you see....

...I have just completed the Bishop's online questionnaire on Faith and the Family (well, they don't call it that but that's what it's about).

It is something that we must all do (like taking out life assurance, going to the dentist or dying a slow and painful death) - but pleasant it ain't.

Here is the link FAMILY SYNOD

Please undertake this purgatorial act and offer it up on behalf of the Holy Souls, after all, how often do we get asked to contribute our opinions?

Precisely.

But, I have to say that it is banal in the extreme, poorly put together and extremely hard work for us poor laymen and women who don't understand sentences of more than five words.

The average Catholic on the liberal omnibus will struggle with it......truthful, not patronising.

If I handed out leaflets after Mass at my local parish church, asking what people understood by the word 'Magisterium' and offering £500 cash to the first one with a correct answer, my cash would be as safe as a pork pie in a you know what.

Yet, this paper is littered with such words and phrases.

The first principle of communication is to ensure that it is idiot proof...can we say that any more?

 Well, I just did.

You widen participation by making it easily understood. That's their Lordships first stumbling block.

The second is, just how will anyone produce a sensible report based on this loose piece of contrived social engineering?
The responses are going to be so wide ranging and disparate.

It does not even comply with the basics of qualitative market research, the results, I suggest, are going to be meaningless.

The third is, and this is where it falls into the basic sin of atrociously poor research, it leads (or, tries to) lead you in your answers.

Ho, hum, I smell a hidden agenda......something nasty lurking in the Diocesan woodshed, could it be that some of our esteemed Bishops would like to produce a case for Rome that states that the laity of England and Wales are demanding that  some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, should be eased a little?

You know, just twist them a bit?

Nothing too much, just a few minor distortions and perversions?

After all, we mustn't be too dogmatic must we?



16 comments:

  1. Yes, I thought many of the questions ( pertaining to divorced and remarried Catholics) were leading respondents in the direction of asking for a change in Canon Law. Ridiculous.

    In fairness, surely most Sunday Catholics know what the Magisterium is ? If not, why not ? My suggestion to anyone thinking of attempting it is to answer well those that you understand and to slip the ones you know you have no chance of answering. I skipped one near the end partly through sheer tiredness and mainly because I just did not understand it.

    However I think I did quite a good job on the same sex marriage and Natural Law questions. What I would dearly like to know is: who is reading our answers and what will they do with them.

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    1. Oona, one would hope that Catholics would recognise the word 'Magisterium'. I am not being classist when I say that working class parishes are populated with people who may have a wonderful Faith but one that is largely uninformed and uncatechized as far as the basics of the Church are concerned. I am certain my £500 would be safe.

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  2. Wow, this questionnaire is really long. Also, whoever reads my answers will be really depressed afterwards.

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    1. Rhoslyn.........I hate to be a party pooper but the cynic in me says that the results are going to end up in the 'round file' - the waste paper basket.

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    2. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case! I just hope that at least *someone* has to read what we write though...before it gets binned!

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  3. I read the first 3 pages, decided that the questionnaire was for me an occasion of sin, and helped myself to a Jack Daniels.

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    1. Chris, a very practical strategy, I wish that I had done the same.

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  4. Soooo many questions, I left loads blank (mainly because I had already ranted and touched on those questions in previous answers). I was pretty harsh, but I left my name anyway. Let's see if I'm blacklisted from now on :p

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  5. Regarding the "hidden agenda":
    How about this, the German version of Radio Vatican asked today:

    Familienpastoral: „Wäre eine Erleichterung der Eheannullierung hilfreich?"
    „Would an easing of the process of marriage annullment be helpful?”
    http://de.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/11/02/familienpastoral:_%E2%80%9Ew%C3%A4re_eine_erleichterung_der_eheannullierung/ted-742938

    Some weeks ago I read that Pope Francis said that when he was Archbishop he deplored that the marriage annullments in Buenos Aires took such a long time.…

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    1. Martina, worrying in the extreme.

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    2. BA dilatoriness in ecclersiastical courts: The church reaching discernment on is it a marriage or not , which might be yes it is, SHOULD NOT be as slow as very occassionally in England (years and years), and
      often years and years. in Latin countries, because they are .
      You needn't read more into it than that.To a latin mind easy and fast are not necessarily synonymous
      What happens in Germany I don't know.They don't necessarily fit the stereotype.
      Rather Other is the idea comingh back under another, spiritual, hat which I think Pope JPII intended to pull back when it was a question of psychological immaturity - as I recall he said that becuase SOME people were too immature to enter into a valid marriage, this should not be generalized to ALL, howsoever IMperfect their degreee of nous.or gorm or gumption in the vernacular.

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  6. Richard,
    After perusing the infamous survey forget about the Rev James-I'm now back on my third bottle of "The O' Be Joyful"-Newci Brown!

    Cheers,

    Michael.

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  7. Michael, that must truly be a purgatorial experience for you.

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  8. Richard,
    Absolutely! A Holy, Blessed and Happy St. Winifred day to You and All your Readers!

    Cheers,

    Michael.

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  9. What is the purpose of this survey anyway? Priests and Bishops. Get of your backsides and preach the Gospel. You can do it now, or stand before Almighty God one day, and explain to Him why you couldn't.

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    Replies
    1. Indeed. No need to reinvent the wheel! If everyone knew the Catechism and were taught about Theology of the Body, we'd be on our way.

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