Back off soddies

Father Z warns that the press has taken sides on the Bishop's conference on the family, and includes the WAPo cheering section.

fight, starting with the rosary

Another post comes complete with an NRA commercial 

My comment: Father Z's airplane: complete with cross.

Test and Evaluation Squadron has had Typhoon ZK315, which was the 100th Typhoon built for RAF Service, painted in a centenary paint scheme in preparation for its 100th anniversary since formation in 1915. Photo Cpl Phil Major(RAF) Crown Copyright 2015

or maybe we should just march in and tell them:





Ok I stand corrected: He tells them to Sod off, not back off.

Ironic, isn't it, that the elves (The liberals) and the dwarves (the conservative Catholics) are ready to fight, but both are so busy with their feuds that they fail to see the real danger is approaching?

more seriously, the Pope's "easy annulment" pronouncment sounds so merciful:

But what it essentially is doing is making annulments so easy that they are similar to "No fault divorce". So it sends a signal to those who will marry that if it doesn't work out, hey no problem: Quickie divorce and try again.

I say this despite the fact that our family is full of such marriage problems.

My husband didn't need an annulment because his obsessive/compulsive bipolar wife hated Catholics, and refuse to marry in the church (back then it meant my husband was excommunicated and would have gone to hell if he died, but never mind).

My son's wife married him in church and left the next week to live with a boyfriend who made more money. You see, she wanted to be the heroine in a fancy wedding ceremony (her civil marriage was in a dress) and even though she had plans to leave, she pretended otherwise.

And then there is my stepson. He married because he was "cured" of being gay (I tried to warn his fiance about all the good Catholic/Christian/Mormon women that I had counseled who had gone through such marriages, but I couldn't get her alone to lay down the law.... I did manage to say in public that if she married in the Catholic church, I'd tell the priest that there was an impediment to the marriage: so she "converted" and they married in his Baptist church). Ah but he is still a good Baptist: She won't accept his live in gay lover (or that he has spent oodles of money building and separating half our compound for a love nest) so he tells her that she is a disobedient wife and won't give financial support for her or her daughter

(and her objections this morning were met with "God love everyone". So I can steal my inheritance from my father's years of hard work to give to prostitutes etc. and still be welcomed home as a prodigal son. Get pull a "god loves everyone" version of the get out of jail free card, and you can cheat, steal, mistreat, etc and anyone who objects is evil for not forgiving.)

So you see why I object to Pope Francis' emphasis on "mercy".

It lets the sociopaths win.

On the other hand, a lot of people in the USA are immature, and taught in the media that marriage is similar to living together, but divorce is an easy out.

Alas, easy divorce merely encourages the sociopaths in our midst.

David Warren's take is thoughtful.

For secular divorce papers are easy enough to obtain, as often as required, in all modern jurisdictions — the State no longer believing it has an interest in preserving civilization. Holy Church still has an interest, however.
It is odd to argue — but then, I am odd — that an “annulment” (itself a shorthand term) should be made more, not less, difficult to obtain. Or that, even once granted, the Church should not then casually permit “remarriage” to parties who have sufficiently proved themselves unable to comprehend the Sacrament in the past. Surely, in an institution as large as the Catholic Church, someone should be lobbying for higher standards. This isn’t impossible; it was done in previous centuries.