Unsurprisingly, and I dare say like many others, I am finding the prospect of the forthcoming synod on marriage and the family rather oppressive. With all the pressure by Cardinal Kasper and others, the thought, “It’s like the Maginot Line”, keeps popping into my head.
From various websites I have looked at (including a short Wikipedia article here), I have learnt that the Maginot Line itself was far from being a ridiculous thing, as it has sometimes been painted. It was a series of impressive and varied fortifications, its chief and most substantial presence being along France’s border with Germany, from which country France considered it had most to fear.
I say “the Maginot Line itself”, because my reading has taught me something I had not known: that the French preparedness against the Germans extended from the Maginot Line as far as the English Channel, by means of a series of weaker fortifications, some of which were natural features of the landscape such as forests.
The French thought that in the event of an advance by Germany, the Maginot Line, by acting as a buffer at the frontier between the two countries, would give them enough time to advance to meet the Germans by way of Belgium. But in fact it was the Germans themselves who advanced through Belgium, sweeping on into France, and simply bypassing the Maginot Line.
It is fortunate that the Church’s unchanging teaching is not limited by geography: but that does not allay my fears that certain prelates wish to attempt to outflank it by a blitzkrieg of false pastoralism.
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