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Robert Royal speaking very late at night in Rome after the final synod document was released.

This has been the most incredible week in my over 30 years of dealing with Catholic Church controversies and negligences on the life and family issues. Finally, many bishops are seeing the deceitful manipulations within the Church towards evil agendas and are heroically, fiercely, and very publicly acting to defend the Church from the wolves within.

We are witnessing real men coming forward to lead. These are what we have always expected and hoped bishops would be, but have so infrequently seen in recent decades.

For many of us, we have waited a long, long time for this. I pray that it will continue, as it must. There are exciting signs that it will.

The video of Cardinal Pell’s blunt assessment of what the radicals in the synod had tried to do is breathtaking. In it he indicates that a small group of “radicals”, yes, he uses that word, has failed in their attempt to push the Synod to accept homosexuality, cohabitation, and other changes of Catholic moral teaching.

Pell said, totally contrary to the lying Kasper, the issue of giving Communion to divorced and remarried couples is supported by “very few, certainly not the majority of the synod fathers.”

And then he added something that until now, almost all Church leaders would not dare to say for fear of being called uncharitable or conspiracy minded. He said, “it’s only at the tip of the iceberg. It’s a stalking horse. They want wider changes: recognition of civil unions, recognition of homosexual unions.”

“The Church cannot go in that direction,” because “it would be a capitulation from the beauties and strengths of the Catholic tradition.”

Yes! These are things about which we in LifeSite and many others have been trying desperately to warn leaders in the Church and others for decades. But few have taken us seriously.

South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier was also unabashedly blunt in a press conference about the dreadfully misleading midterm report. He stated, as we are completely unused to bishops so frankly stating about internal Church matters,

“The message has gone out that this is what the Synod is saying, this is what the Catholic Church is saying, and it’s not what we are saying at all,” he said. “No matter how we try correcting that … there's no way of retrieving it.”

“The message has gone out and it's not a true message,” he added. “Whatever we say hereafter is going to be as if we're doing some damage control.”

So much for those few voices in the Church seeing these cardinals and others as participating in “hysteria” and instead urging calm and to not get overly concerned about the damage of the world-wide media publicity of that report. The reality is that the impact of the past week's misdeeds have been far more than just one step in “sausage making.” They have done long-lasting damage to the Body of Christ, which it appears was intentional by some within the Church.

My September blog post, We are all in big trouble if the Synod radicals get their way, was something that Cardinals Pell, Napier, Burke and many others would likely now agree with.

However, in an article yesterday, prominent Catholic commentator Robert Royal sounds a note of serious caution regarding all the developments that have taken place these past few days.

As far as Royal is concerned, the events of the past few weeks are only round one. He writes (and stated most of the same last night on EWTN):

“But don’t get comfortable just yet. If this Synod has demonstrated anything, it’s that Catholics need to be quite vigilant about what’s going on, even in Rome. Pope Francis called on young people at World Youth Day in Rio to “raise a ruckus” (hacer un lio). Instead of hoping that somehow a tidy process can be anticipated, we all need to emulate those bishops who stood up and stopped what was not just a matter of a few mistranslated words and a flawed drafting process and document release.”

It was all of those things and more. But it was also an indication of resurgent radicalism within the Church – which overplayed its hand and drew attention this time.”

There is that word “radical” again. The radicals or, those who some call “liberals” or “dissenters”, have had great influence in the Church these past 50 years or so, far out of proportion to their numbers. John Paul and, especially Benedict, severely restricted them. Hence their strong rebound during the much freer Francis papacy.

Royal goes on with a military-like call to vigilance,

“But all of us need to be vigilant and active in making sure that bishops, priests, and Catholic groups stay firm between now and the 2015 Synod that will carry into action some of the recommendations of this one.”

And then like Pell, Burke and Napier, he bluntly states things that we are not at all used to hearing about the Church,

“I’m sorry to say this, but the next year is most likely to resemble a political campaign in which contending parties, different voices – currents from the past we thought were long gone after thirty-five years of Wojtyla-Ratzinger – will be in action again.

There’s only one way to stop this. Cardinal Pell, it’s rumored today, stood up during the proceedings on Thursday when the Synod leaders seemed to have decided on their own authority not to publish the reports of the small groups, presumably because they were uniformly tough on what’s been too soft. He slammed his hand on the table and said, “You must stop manipulating this Synod.” That forced a general vote – and the reports were published.

We’re going to need a great deal more such courage and a true openness.”

I totally agree with Robert Royal. Complacency will lose all that has been gained these past few days. The manipulators within the Church have shown that they will not be deterred and are very determined to do whatever it takes to get their way – lying, bullying, mafia-like techniques, financial and other threats, smearing personal reputations, media control and leaks, blackmail (a common tactic), appointments and firings within the Church and more.

Yes, all of these really do happen in the Church and are done even to bishops, cardinals and popes. I have seen it all over the years.

Note what happened to the Ed Pentin interview on Zenit exposing Kasper's comments against the African bishops that was suddenly removed from Zenit, even though it has been proven to be accurate beyond a doubt.

No doubt the good people at Zenit were threatened by Kasper friends to remove the interview. Note also that Kasper revealed the Africans were kept out of leadership positions in the synod because of their fidelity to Catholic moral teachings.

The time for naiveté and overly pious responses to harsh realities that have now been exposed is over.

The future of what is left of Christian civilization is now at stake. If the radicals win, we, that is everyone – Catholic and non-Catholic and non-Christian – will be in big trouble because of the great positive role of the Catholic Church in the world regarding life, family and sexual morality that will be lost.

Are you in or are you out?

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Steve is the co-founder and managing director of LifeSiteNews.com.