Subterfuge At The SinNod - Who Is Surprised?

This SinNod is supposedly about addressing the needs of the family and strengthening family life - is it not?  If so, I find the following quite curious, and I thank Pewsitter for bringing this to light.  The John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family has within its faculty and organization some of the most learned theologians and scholars bringing a faithful Catholic perspective to family matters.  Many of the faculty and their speakers include Cardinals.  Would it not have seemed reasonable to invite at least some of these capable thinkers to the synod to bring their expertise to bear on some of the questions about which they are debating?  It would to me - yet not one person from that Institute was invited!  We heard from the Pirolas, who really should have been flunked from their grade school catechism classes, but real scholars were personae non grata.  Now who made that bone-headed decision?

Let's move on.

As I understand things, this week the SinNod participants will be breaking down into groups to discuss the proceedings.  The groups will be determined by native language (Remember!  Pope Francis jettisoned Latin as the official language of the SinNod!).  These groups have already elected representatives who will take their discussion proceedings and, with all the other representatives will compile a synod report, called relatio synodi.  These language-based groups have elected representatives who are reputed to be rather conservative.  Cardinal Burke is one of the representatives for the English-speaking contingent. I'm not sure how many are in this group that were elected to compile the relatio synodi.  Father Z posted an EWTN interview with Cardinal Burke; he pulls no punches about some of the crackpot theories floating about at the SinNod.

To my uneducated ears, this sounds like a reasonable arrangement.  But perhaps it isn't to more progressive elements among the SinNod attendees.  Both Rorate Caeli and John Thavis relate that Pope Francis has stepped in and unilaterally appointed six others to be part of this committee.  All of these six have liberal reputations.  Yes, Cardinal Wuerl is one of them!  LifeSiteNews has an interview that shows just what Cardinal Wuerl will likely bring to the table as this committee goes about its task.

While no one gainsays the Pope's right to make this move, they cannot deny that this is a bald-faced move to "stack the committee" as it were.  So much for free debate and deliberations!  I believe we are seeing an unambiguous picture of the pope's personal predilections on these matters.