My computer has just exploded.....

You might like to check with your GP before filling
in the Bishop's Questionnaire

.....I feel as if I have just run a marathon, my pulse is racing and my blood pressure score must be at an all time high....you see....

...I have just completed the Bishop's online questionnaire on Faith and the Family (well, they don't call it that but that's what it's about).

It is something that we must all do (like taking out life assurance, going to the dentist or dying a slow and painful death) - but pleasant it ain't.

Here is the link FAMILY SYNOD

Please undertake this purgatorial act and offer it up on behalf of the Holy Souls, after all, how often do we get asked to contribute our opinions?

Precisely.

But, I have to say that it is banal in the extreme, poorly put together and extremely hard work for us poor laymen and women who don't understand sentences of more than five words.

The average Catholic on the liberal omnibus will struggle with it......truthful, not patronising.

If I handed out leaflets after Mass at my local parish church, asking what people understood by the word 'Magisterium' and offering £500 cash to the first one with a correct answer, my cash would be as safe as a pork pie in a you know what.

Yet, this paper is littered with such words and phrases.

The first principle of communication is to ensure that it is idiot proof...can we say that any more?

 Well, I just did.

You widen participation by making it easily understood. That's their Lordships first stumbling block.

The second is, just how will anyone produce a sensible report based on this loose piece of contrived social engineering?
The responses are going to be so wide ranging and disparate.

It does not even comply with the basics of qualitative market research, the results, I suggest, are going to be meaningless.

The third is, and this is where it falls into the basic sin of atrociously poor research, it leads (or, tries to) lead you in your answers.

Ho, hum, I smell a hidden agenda......something nasty lurking in the Diocesan woodshed, could it be that some of our esteemed Bishops would like to produce a case for Rome that states that the laity of England and Wales are demanding that  some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, should be eased a little?

You know, just twist them a bit?

Nothing too much, just a few minor distortions and perversions?

After all, we mustn't be too dogmatic must we?