Rorate Caeli

Synod, Day 6 - Final Relatio in danger; Rules changed by the hour - Microphone denied to Erdo, as to Ottaviani in Vatican II

Since before the Synod, there were doubts about a specific post-synodal papal exhortation, but there were never any doubts that there would be a final Relatio voted by the Assembly. Not anymore! The votes must be in doubt on the side of the manipulators, because since Cardinal Tagle first mentioned the possibility that there might be no final document at all in yesterday's press conference, that has been the general talk.

Plus, there is complete disarray in the order of works. While Cardinal Erdo, formally the Relator-General, should be presenting his reports on the second and third parts of the Instrumentum Laboris, the floor has simply not been yielded to him anymore. Not at all! The third part of the Instrumentum, with its most controversial portions (on "remarried" divorcees and homosexuals) is now being openly debated without so much as a clear order of works. As we indicated on Day 2, the Estates-General have become the National Assembly, and the Jacobins are running the show. 

Italian journalist Sandro Magister has the details in his Italian-language personal blog:

But this is not all [that is: the news about the new denial of the Final Relatio]. Because on October 10, Father Lombardi gave the news of another change occurred in this work in progress.

According to the Synod calendar, the discussion in the Hall and in the small groups were to follow the order of each of the three parts of the basic document, the Instrumentum Laboris, with each of them introduced each time by a "presentation of the Relator-General", Cardinal Peter Erdo.

Instead, Cardinal Erdo -- author on October 5 of a remarkable introductory general report that sowed panic among the innovators -- was not given the microphone to return to present the three parts of the Instrumentum, and the interventions in the Hall went ahead on their own. With the result that, on Saturday, October 10, the [debate on the] Third Part [of the Instrumentum], has already begun in the Hall, the most attractive [part], with the strong dishes of divorce and homosexuality, while in the language groups the discussion should have still been centered on the Second Part of the document until Wednesday 14.

On October 10, Father Lombardi said in seraphic tones that an account of the interventions in the Hall ahead of time, those dedicated to the Third Part of the Instrumentum, would be given to reporters a few days later. In order for them not to be confused.

That the microphone has been denied to Cardinal Erdo so that he could have early direction of the presentation of each part of the Instrumentum Laboris by the direction of the Synod (let us be clear, by Cardinal Baldisseri, certainly directed by the Pope himself, it could not be otherwise, it could simply not be otherwise), recalls one of the most tragic events in Vatican II, when Cardinal Ottaviani, the Prefect of the Holy Office had his microphone cut by Cardinal Liénart. It set the whole tone for a revolutionary council. 

Vatican III is here, and the rules are changed at whim.