Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Archbishop at Vatican Synod: The Family Today Is ‘Under Ferocious and Enormous Attack’ by ‘Satan’

Archbishop objects to Synod document: 'it doesn't mention attack by Satan'

By Michael W. Chapman | October 13, 2015     

 

 


Archbishop Peter Fulop Kocsis, head
of the Hungarian Greek Catholic
Church.
One of the Catholic archbishops participating in the Vatican synod on the family objected to the document the bishops are working on because it does not address the fundamental reason for social turmoil, which is that the family today is “under a ferocious and enormous attack” by “the Devil."
The Vatican document – Instrumentum Laboris (working instrument) -- which is more than 22,000 words long, does not even mention “Satan,” “Lucifer,” or the “Devil.” Nor does it mention “demon.”
In his objection, Archbishop Peter Fulop Kocsis, head of the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church, further stressed that “a spiritual struggle is required in order to fight the attacks of Satan in these our times,” and this should be emphasized in the document, as reported the Catholic group Voice of the Family on Oct. 12.
In his objection, or intervention about the document at the synod, currently ongoing at the Vatican, Archbishop Kocsis said that although he was focusing on paragraph eight, chapter one, he sensed “a general deficiency in the text as a whole.”
Many of the paragraphs “speak of a changed society and epoch, calling these difficulties which have appeared in recent times ‘challenges,’” said the archbishop. But “it appears to me that the text misses a clarification which is more precise from its inception, from the root of these changes: From where do they come?”
“The great part of these [changes] are not compatible with the plan of God; they do not come from Him,” said the archbishop. “If it is thus, then it must be said: From where do these changes, these difficulties, derive?”
“We must say with clarity that in our very spoilt world the family and the man of good will with good intentions is under attack, under a ferocious and enormous attack,” said Archbishop Kocsis. “And this attack is of the Devil.”
“We must call these diabolic forces which have a role to play with these phenomena by name because this way we can find some indications even for the research of possible solutions,” he said.
Satan tries to tempt Jesus Christ
in the desert.
(Artist illustration/public domain.)
The archbishop then quoted Ephesians 6, 12: “Our battle in fact is not against flesh and blood, but against the Principalities and the Powers, against the dominations of the dark world, against the spirits of evil that live in the celestial regions.
“Thus, we can clearly see that in reality a spiritual struggle is required in order to fight the attacks of Satan in these our times,” said the archbishop.
“I would very much see with favor a marked emphasis of this spiritual struggle, even in the final part of the document where the proposals and possible solutions must be formulated,” he said.
Quoting Ephesians again, the archbishop said, “Take therefore the armor of God, in order that you may resist in the evil day and remain firm after having overcome all of the obstacles.
Paragraph eight of chapter one of the Vatican document is entitled “Cultural Contradictions,” and discusses how “a certain kind of feminism” belittles motherhood, and how some cultural forces want to put a same-sex “relationship” on the “same level as the marital relationship” between one man and one woman.
This produces “confusion” and “relegates the special bond between biological difference (male and female), reproduction and human identity to an individualistic choice,” reads the document.
In addition to not mentioning Satan, Lucifer, the Devil, and demon, the Vatican document on the family does not mention Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, all of which are integral to the Catholic faith.

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