Communiqué of the Francis of Sales Association of Journalists, Switzerland
Swiss Church Is Being Manipulated By [Liberal] Lay Employees [of the Conference of Bishops]–
Defective Preparation for the Upcoming Assembly of the Synod of Bishops
According to well-informed circles close to the Swiss Bishops, those Pastoral Assistants, Catechists, Lay Theologians and some others who have evaluated a [recent Swiss] poll on behalf of the upcoming Synod of Bishops (Part II in October of 2015 in Rome) have done so according to their own tendentious inclinations.
First of all, it is especially striking that a larger group (a legal form of an association) with its more than 60,000 members was clearly not given any special attention and, moreover, was merely counted as but one vote. According to the Communiqué of the Swiss Bishops' Conference (SBK) the Bishops counted and evaluated only “570 reports” with comments by “around 6,000 Catholics.” The recipe for this kind of manipulation goes something like this: If a large parish with perhaps 5,000 members made a statement, this was counted as only one report. When the smaller circles with a more laxly liberal tendency made a statement (the principle being that "commandments of the Church can be removed by a vote by the Faithful, independently whether the commandment comes from Jesus Christ or not"), then that minor set of views was also counted as one vote. It must have been easy to set up two or three small group of liberals in a short period of time in each parish. With this method, it was speciously possible to turn even a parish with a faithful priest with a normal Catholicicity at its head into a liberal majority. This can be proven with the help of the average number of persons according to each vote: it was only 11 persons. […]
A Demand for Apostasy
[...]
Concerning the further results of this falsifying poll: With the help of the [skewed] methods described above, the conservative-Catholic parishes and associations like the ones from the Fraternity St. Peter were successfully marginalized and placed into a minority group. To this minority group were added all those Catholics who, for example, follow the clear guidance of Pope St. John Paul II.
Altogether, as observers estimate, these circles which are loyal to the Magisterium have been reduced and minimized to the size of 5% [of the voting Catholics]. As a consequence, the Bishops' Conference avoided to comment upon the sinful proposals and, without a further word, then passed this text on to Rome. These Episcopal requests do not need a commentary. Therefore, it is important to call for intensive prayers so that there will appear courageous bishops at the Synod so as to present the truthful substantive image [of the view of the Catholic Faithful].
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This statement, written by Dr. Gerd Weisensee, President of the Swiss association Pro Life, is a response by the Swiss Association of Catholic Journalists "Francis of Sales" [Franz von Sales] to the 5 May 2015 Press Release by the Swiss Bishops' Conference concerning the upcoming Synod of Bishops on marriage and the family. This statement will be published in the Swiss Catholic newspaper Schweizerisches Katholisches Sonntagsblatt.
[A Rorate translation by Dr. Maike Hickson from the German original text]
