For the next five months we will constantly read of those who will be attending the October meeting of the Synod of Bishops as having “drawn up battle lines”, giving lectures “setting out their stall”, and proposing “lines that cannot be crossed”. One wonders why they bother to attend the synod at all because it seems that, for the most part, their minds are made up and closed.There is every indication that the synod will not actually discuss anything since all they will do is argue among themselves and attempt to score theological and doctrinal points over each other in the finest tradition of the Scribes and Pharisees. If they really feel the need to go to Rome in October, the delegates might perhaps consider doing nothing and saying nothing, but simp