The 'Church of England' is 'considering' whether to stop referring to God as 'he' says an article today published by ITV.com . 'The Church' is to launch a 'new project' apparently. >Any potential alterations, which would mark ***a departure from traditional Jewish and Christian teachings dating back millennia*** , would have to be approved by synod, the Church’s decision-making body. The Rt Rev Dr Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of Lichfield and vice-chair of the liturgical commission responsible for the matter, said the Church had been “exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years”. Again, the Bishop of Lichfield says 'the Church has been exploring'. Who are the actual people who are supporting, advising, and actively attempting to push through such language alterations ? Who publicly admits to being involved, apart from Michael Ipgrave ?

**ON THE ONE HAND**, human beings and human conditions are changing, at least since the recent centuries. If someone is asking the proof, then one just needs to have a quick look on 1. Ukraine and how the wars will be handled (migration & exile and robotic fights vs idea about patriotic death in war) (changing ethics) or 2. growing possibilities to have babies with both parents being gay, example: [Reproduction revolution: how our skin cells might be turned into sperm and eggs](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/14/scientists-create-sperm-eggs-using-skin-cells-fertility-ethical-questions) (decoupling procreation from the sex) or 3. emerging therapies that tries to revert aging and tries to eliminate age-related death, example: [The Rejuvenation Roadmap](https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/) (understanding and control of life) or 4. emerging gene editing (CRISPR) and gene modification therapies (e.g. as delivered by virus vectors) and integration with externalities both carbon and silicon based (allows during-life modification/improvement that invalidates the necessity of usual evolution-trial-error-death cycle for the historic evolutionary development of human beings). I agree that one can discuss whether or not the current achievements of human beings and human conditions are qualitatively different from two thousand years ago. But one can hardly deny that bigger or smaller changes are happening and that there will come a point when all the accumulated changes will force us to say that a qualitative change has happened. My premise is: there is no rational/scientific rule that precludes a change of human beings or human conditions. **ON THE OTHER HAND**, there is this emphasis that Jesus's teaching is immutable, that it can have only different interpretations in the different contexts and times. How do we understand this immutability of Jesus teaching? Why is it important? Why such immutability has any value or transcendental meaning? How to understand this from the metaphysical point of view, that immutability has any value? We know that different cultures accept the notion of constant changes, whether cyclical or other type of developments. We know that the fundamental constants of physics are changing, albeit very slowly. We have even guessed that the change of those constants can indicate that the entire Universe is somehow developing in some meaningful direction, [that it learns](https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.03902) . Therefore, in light of all of this, **what is the meaning, value, and transcendental significance that something should be immutable; in this case, the teaching of Jesus? Why should we say and accept that the very immutability as such has some goodness, some good quality? Is there a rational explanation of this goodness? Is there a Scriptural basis for the goodness of this immutability? If so, how do we connect this scriptural basis with rational thinking?** We have seen that the Church has been guided by the Holy Spirit (and expressed through the clergy, theologians, Ecumenical Councils and Synodal movements) to form the ecclesiastical and sacramental structure that was only remotely sketched out in the Scripture or in the Initial Tradition. Maybe we are starting to see how the Church as guided by the Holy Spirit and as expressed by Synodal movements is starting to decouple Jesus's teaching from Jesus's meta-teaching and is starting to establish the processes by which changes in moral laws can be discovered, evaluated and approbated?

It is as simple as that. Formality, hypocrisy emerges during the first days and weeks of Synodal way in our parish. No word from priest. He just read a long document about Synodal way as a sermon and without comments. No thought, no words, no attitude. Just plain neglect.

There are group of lay Catholics who are sometimes called cafeteria Catholics. They attend Church regularly, pray Rosary, try to live good and holy (according to some adapted meaning) life, but usually they can not participate in the Holy Communion and Penance Sacrament due to some heavy unresolved issues. Almost always those issues are related with the matter of the 6th Commandment. Sometimes those Catholics are baptized (e.g. in case they are coming from faithful families) and sometimes they are not even baptized (e.g. in case they joined the Church in adulthood but after the events that lead to unresolved/un-resolvable conflict, e.g., after establishing SSA person relationships with the full personal complementarity). My question is about the role and participation possibilities for such persons in the Synodal Way of the Catholic Church https://www.synod.va/it.html that is starting in coming weeks. **Is there role for cafeteria Catholics? Will they be listened to?** *My guess and understanding is that synodal process is open for the baptized Catholics only that can also include baptized subset of the cafeteria Catholics, although formality will not be enforced especially, e.g., my guess is that the baptismal documentation will not be required for the participation in the process.* I read the guidelines for the synodal process as issued by our local bishops and these guidelines do not elaborate on this. They are written as for the good standing Catholics only. Even more, they strictly prohibits any discussions about the teaching about faith or morality and they allow any discussions only about the 10 questions that are mentioned in the https://www.synod.va/en/news/preparatory-document.html and are focused on the listening and communication processes completely neglecting the content.

Frédéric Martel in his book [*In the Closet of the Vatican*](https://www.amazon.com/Closet-Vatican-Power-Homosexuality-Hypocrisy/dp/1472966147) has the following remarks on the [Synod of the Family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Ordinary_General_Assembly_of_the_Synod_of_Bishops) : > In fact, a ‘liberal* majority emerged from the Synod, but the quorum > required for the adoption of the controversial articles, which > required two-thirds of the votes, was missing. Three paragraphs out of > 62 were therefore rejected » and they were the most to the point. The > pope didn’t get his quorum. Francis’s revolutionary project on the > family and homo­ sexuality was defeated. **Is there any source where I can find the texts of those 3 rejected paragraphs and the votes taken on them?** I am especially interested to check whether all 3 paragraphs indeed gathered the majority votes and were not included in the final document due only to the supermajority requirement. I have read some reviews about the book cited above and they mention many fact checking failures. So, the quoted > 'liberal' majority may be a metaphor and may not mean the majority of votes for the specific paragraphs. I am aware of the [www.synod.va](http://www.synod.va/content/synod/en.html) . The website has the *instrumentum laboris* and similar documents but I can not find the proceedings (transactions) and the votes. AFAIK, the synodal assemblies are not closed as opposed to the Ecumenical Councils. (I heard there are about 50+ volume publications of the [Second Vatican Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council) , therefore the notion that Vatican II was closed is quite dubious). **Question to be clarified**: While the question (as it stands) seems to be legitimate, most likely Frédéric Martel talked about the [III Extraordinary Assembly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Extraordinary_General_Assembly_of_the_Synod_of_Bishops) , which was the preparatory synodal assembly before the [XIV ordinary assembly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Ordinary_General_Assembly_of_the_Synod_of_Bishops) .

I was reading an [interesting article](https://www.ncregister.com/blog/pastor-of-luther-s-church-synodal-path-is-the-wrong-path) on the National Catholic Register where the pastor at Martin Luther's church in Wittenburg said he thought that people who disagree with the Catholic Church and fundamentally want to change her, or democratize her, should just become Protestants instead. Owing to the citation that Catholics are leaving the faith in droves in Germany over the [last few years](https://www.ncregister.com/cna/survey-one-in-three-catholics-in-germany-thinking-of-leaving-church) what reasons or justifications do Bishops and Cardinals give for continuing as Catholics instead of just leaving with their congregations?