In this afternoon's reports on the synod, Washington's Cardinal Donald Wuerl made an interesting point: With all the media attention generated by the synod, the Church's support for marriage and teaching on marriage was being disseminated by the world's media for two weeks almost non-stop, and in a manner no diocese or episcopal conference could achieve one their own. Finally, someone who does not dump on the media.
Cardinal Dolan says there were two synods, the contentious synod portrayed in the press, and the real synod that was more boring, but achieved real consensus. I am not entirely buying it: Cardinal Burke repeatedly seemed to be pulling the fire drill alarm, and we in the press did not make that up. Cardinal Kasper really did defend his arguments from last February's consistory. But, that said, yes, synods are more dull, but dull does not make news, so of course we are going to focus on the points of contention. If, within the synod hall, Cardinal Burke was marginalized and not paid attention to, then, fine, but don't blame us because Cardinal Burke liked to loquaciously comment on the proceedings.