Pope Francis Invites 18 Married Couples to Attend October's Synod of Bishops on the family.

That's extraordinary - no actually, last year's synod was...

In the meantime, Flo's Family will be speaking at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia when the Pope visits.  That will be interesting.

I'm thrilled there are so many dysfunctional families invited - if only my mom could be alive to see this.  She was married and divorced and remarried to my dad and lived an incredibly unhappy life.  Although she died reconciled to the Church.  She refused to seek an annulment, though her former seminarian brothers insisted she had perfect grounds to do so.  Instead she suffered and made life miserable for those close to her.

That said, the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia will be hosting Ron Belgau -
the only openly gay person invited to speak at the World Meeting.  I think he will be attending with his mother.  That should be interesting.

I couldn't imagine attending an event like that with my mother.  I shudder just thinking about it.

“This is a very, very large issue to try to tackle in one hour long panel discussion,” Belgau said with a laugh, and a bit of understatement, during a phone interview from his home in Washington state.

Belgau, a writer and lecturer, will be presenting, together with his mother, a panel on “Homosexuality in the Family,” one of dozens of workshops and panels — most focused on safer and more orthodox topics — that will draw some 18,000 attendees and volunteers to the four-day event. (The papal visit itself is expected to draw as many as 1.5 million pilgrims and tourists to the city.)

Belgau admitted that “there’s a lot of pressure” in trying to address the many aspects of such a contentious issue, but he says that he is determined that his remarks not be “a speech just to Catholics who agree with me.”

That shouldn’t be a problem, given that Catholics on both right and left have frequently criticized him.

Many liberals are uncomfortable with Belgau’s commitment to being celibate, which he sees as the ideal for gays who, like himself, follow a “traditional Christian sexual ethic” that says homosexual activity is sinful. - Huffpo

Nothing wrong with that.

I especially love this gem from Belgau's interview:

There are “certain people who say we shouldn’t talk about this but who almost can’t stop” talking about it, Belgau said. They insist on giving their own views on homosexuality, he said, “but then if I try to talk about my own experience they say, ‘We shouldn’t be talking about this.’” - ibid

So true - and ironic.

Mom.

I'd love to see some really dysfunctional families speak at the World Meeting, as well as at the synod.  It could be a hoot.  Totally unscripted, sort of like some Catholic bloggers spewing the F-word right and left, calling out the Sodomites in their families, complaining they aren't welcome because they don't feel welcome, and they want their trans-son-daughter to be able to use whatever bathroom he-she wants to use.  Gay guys with their fashionable mothers, who are only too happy to have a Rick Castle type guy as their son - they go to bars together and dress to kill for Mass on Sundays.  It could be a movie.

As it is, I highly doubt that the people who really need it will be at either event.

Good news: Hotel rooms are going cheap in Philadelphia.

What?


Song for this post here.