UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Tom Reese, one of the pope’s fellow Jesuits and his usual strong supporter, says it flatly:

The list of those attending the Synod of Bishops on the family is a disappointment to those hoping for reform of the Curia and for those who hope that the laity will be heard at the synod.

A disappointment to those hoping that the laity will be heard at the synod. . . .

Let those words remain in your ears for a bit. We’ll return to them in a moment.

As Reese notes, for Catholics who may wonder whether “natural family planning” (that is, the rejection of contraception) is the church’s great gift to the laity, it appears the synod on the family is shaping up to be a repeat of the failed 1980 synod on the family: the pope has stacked the synod’s council of…