Our Religious Liberty is threatened by the German Synod.

Zmirak Foresaw the Trajectory of Amoris Laetitia First

Within days of the publication of Amoris Laetitia, John Zmirak had it all figured out. It would take me five more years to connect all the dots. But, hey, he’s a Yale man; I’m just a public school kid trying to keep up. The mainstream Catholic media still hasn’t figured it out. Here’s what Zmirak wrote in an eerily prophetic piece for 1Peter5 back in 2016:

How soon will it be before pastors in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and other post-Christian wastelands are authorizing transvestites to hand out Holy Communion, same-sex couples to teach pre-Cana classes, and activists promoting sodomy to serve as principals of Catholic schools and seminaries . . . ?

Under previous popes, faithful Catholics at least had firm, unambiguous papal statements to cite against such destructive local abuses, and to use in court when they had to defend their religious freedom against intolerant secular activists: “I’m sorry, Your Honor, but my Church explicitly requires this…” How long will it be until a well-informed judge, or a homosexual activist attorney, finds it useful to cite Amoris Laetitia against such beleaguered Catholics, and accuses them, in the pope’s own words, of “sitting on the chair of Moses”?

Not just our faith’s integrity, but our religious liberty is endangered by the pope’s ill-chosen words.  From John Zmirak: “Through the Eye of a Loophole”

The “Year of Amoris Laetitia” Will Fulfill Zmirak’s Prediction

If only I had read Zmirak’s article when it came out. It would not have been necessary for me to publish a revised edition of my book to include exactly the same warning. But things had not been as clear to me as they had been for John. All of that changed in December of 2020 when Pope Francis declared that 2021 would be the “Year of Reflection on Amoris Laetitia.” I knew immediately, because of the research I had done for my book, that this was not a year of reflection but, instead, of implementation. And that meant the implementation of gay equality, as I wrote in my book and have discussed in many articles and interviews. [Click on the trojan horse for an example.]

The Amoris Laetitia Reset Is About to Break

What Zmirak saw so clearly was that, if Amoris Laetitia could be interpreted as a pro-LGBT document, it would have a disastrous impact on our religious freedom. Gay activists could drag pastors into court and sue for discrimination for simply being denied the Eucharist. And the pope’s words would be used in those courts to condemn the faithful and to profane the Holy Eucharist:

Not just our faith’s integrity, but our religious liberty is endangered by the pope’s ill-chosen words.

John Zmirak

The Darkness Is United Against Us

All throughout this “Year of Amoris Laetitia,” we have seen countless examples of pro-LGBT messaging inside the Church. And many have attempted to link the pope to this pro-LGBT message. Here are a few reminders:

Next time I go to Church, I dare you to deny me Communion.

Congressman Ted Lieu, Democrat

• The new president of the John Paul Institute on the Family calls for the inclusion of active homosexuals at the Eucharist. He cites Amoris Laetitia for justification.
• New Ways Ministry calls for a change in teaching on homosexuality. They cite Amoris Laetitia for justification.
• The German national synod declares homosexuality normal. They cite Amoris Laetitia for justification.

The pope has said and done nothing at all to distance himself from these attempts to link him to the gay heresy. This should set off alarm bells, especially as the German Synod is scheduled to conclude early next year. If the pope is seen in anyway as tolerant of the Germans’ pro-LGBT agenda, it will send a green light to activists to target the Catholic Church. In fact, they already have:

Dear @USCCB: I’m Catholic and I support:

-Contraception
-A woman’s right to choose
-Treatments for infertility
-The right for people to get a divorce
-The right of same sex marriage

Next time I go to Church, I dare you to deny me Communion. https://t.co/bUmiyJ8TtH

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 18, 2021

The American Bishops Must Condemn the German Synod

The First Amendment is the key to our Church’s survival in the free and open public square. The Church will always survive with Jesus, of course, but that may take an underground form for a while. I think we can agree that it is desirable to avoid persecution and suppression whenever possible. So it makes sense to safeguard our First Amendment protections. And to do that we need to be vigilant about the statements of our Church leaders. If the pope rubber stamps the German synod, the Catholic Church will be magically transformed into a pro-LGBT church in the eyes of many ill-informed progressives, including many judges and journalists. And with the state weighing in to sanction the gay apostasy, it will become illegal to teach that homosexuality is a sin—”because it’s discriminatory”—”because Pope Francis said so”. . . . yada yada yada.

Thus, it is necessary to safeguard the deposit of faith. And the American bishops can do this. At their November conference, it is imperative that they condemn the German Synod by affirming the following:

• that homosexual acts are always sinful.
• that the Eucharist is closed to anyone in a state of serious sin.
• that marriage is between a man and a woman.
• that Apostolic teaching is absolute and non-negotiable.

A strongly worded statement to that effect would have two-thousand years of doctrine to back it up and would give us a leg to stand on when we are eventually dragged into court. Now it is time to get busy petitioning our bishops to do the right thing.