In its language and in its purposes, explicit and implicit, the recently released working document for the upcoming session of the Synod in October, Instrumentum Laboris (IL), is modeled after political and public-opinion concerns and grievances of the post-modern liberal democracies of the West.
The document does include isolated and meager disclaimers that “[a] synodal assembly cannot be understood as representative and legislative, analogous to a parliamentary structure with its dynamics of majority building,” and “(c)ommunion is not a sociological coming together as members of an identity group.”
But then it contains the more accurate self-description of both its overall purpose and method:
What can we learn from the way in which public institutions and public and civil law strive to respond to the need for transparency and accountability in society (separation of powers, independent supervisory bodies, obligations to make public certain procedures, limits on the duration of appointments, etc.)?
And the results of “the synodal journey” will, it is repeatedly stated, be directed to and dependent on “our times.”
Presented as questions from start to finish, the working document purports to be indirect. But, despite the larger definition of “synodality” as “encounter and dialogue,” the more prominent questions contain the answers, express or implied. Thus, a “question” is not about whether to accept the subject and content of that particular question but about, as a representative question puts it, “what concrete steps” need to be implemented to carry out the content. Two such leading questions are considered herein.
The major topics or issues are the status and roles of women, wars, climate change, “our common home,” the poor, and migrants. In fact, they are all treated as parliamentary matters requiring action. Of those topics, the most emphasized, in the document’s longest sub-section and in numerous other places, is women. And the document calls for an examination not only of the place of women in the Church but also in “society.”
A major objective is “the promotion of the baptismal dignity of women.” Nothing less than a change of the “language” of the Church must be done. The “language used by the Church” must be “renew[ed]’ so as to make it “accessible and attractive to the men and women of our time, rather than an obstacle that keeps them at a distance.” “The Continental Assemblies were unanimous in calling for attention to the experience, status and role of women, notwithstanding the different perspectives present within each continent.”
The Church has committed “ecclesial relational failures” and “structural failures” concerning women in the Church. “Conversion and renewal, in how we live relationships between men and women in the Church” is called for.
A synodal Church needs to “offer greater recognition of women’s baptismal dignity and rejection of all forms of discrimination and exclusion faced by women in the Church and society.” Citing Lumen Gentium (10), the document holds that the baptismal dignity of women is based on the Second Vatican Council with its recognition of “the common Priesthood” and “baptismal dignity as the foundation of everyone’s participation in the life of the Church.” Today, “[c]oncrete steps” that will “renew and reform” are needed in the Church’s “procedures, institutional arrangements, and structures” and “governance, decision-making processes and in the taking of decisions.” “All forms of discrimination and exclusion faced by women in the Church and society” are subject to “rejection.” The goal is “meaningful and effective co-responsibility in the Church.”
This includes the creation of “new ministries” for women:
Most of the Continental Assemblies and the syntheses of several Episcopal Conferences call for the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate to be considered. Is it possible to envisage this, and in what way?
By the document’s own words and pervasive logic, why stop at the diaconate? “The experience of walking together in the local Church,” that is, the process of synodalizing itself, “makes it possible to imagine new ministries at the service of a synodal Church.” In 2021, Pope Francis unilaterally changed canon law and opened the ministries of lector and acolyte to women. But, in 2022, he stated that “the Petrine principle” forbids the admission of women to the priesthood. Nonetheless, it is certain that the existence, stated principles, and super-high visibility of the Synod’s upcoming two meetings will stimulate advocacy of women’s ordination, both in Catholic circles and outside the Church. For by its own firmly stated standards, “a synodal Church is open, welcoming and embraces all.” And, of course, the German Church will bring its own commitment to women’s ordination to this year’s October meeting of the Synod.
In order to appeal to “the men and women of our time” and to affirm “the capacity for inculturation” of the Church, the Synod aims “to renew the language used by the Church.” And, in rejecting “all forms of discrimination and exclusion faced by women,” not only in the Church, but also in “society,” a synodal Church is asking for society’s critique of herself. For the synodal Church actively seeks to be influenced by “the prevailing management models and imagery of power in society.”
In the section on ecumenism, the document states that synodality is functionally equivalent to ecumenism, for synodality “is and must be ecumenical, just as the ecumenical path is synodal.” But, except for the Orthodox, almost all other Christian churches have woman ministers/priests. Will a Catholic male-only priesthood be an impediment to ecumenism? For, “both synodality and ecumenism are rooted in the baptismal dignity of the entire People of God.”
As opposed to the emphasis on women attaining positions of status and power in the Church, the vocation of motherhood, formerly considered essentially womanly, but now in the West and “our time” replaced by a different model, is completely ignored. Except for two invocations of “Mary, Mother of the Church,” the word “mother” does not appear in the document. While it is conceded that “women play a major role in transmitting the faith in families,” as well as in “parishes, consecrated life, associations and movements and lay institutions, and as teachers and catechists,” women as mothers are ignored. Further, no section of the working document is addressed to Catholic families and their spiritual health. In fact, the infrequently included word “family” is used almost exclusively in a metaphorical or general sense, as in, for example, “the whole human family.”
Contemporaneously in the West, it can be said that the LGBT movement is as powerful but perhaps even more publicly dominant than the cause of women. Now, officially and within the synodal Church, that movement is a major concern. It is said in the working document, that in the progress of synodality so far, the “catholicity of the Church” has revealed a “variety of . . . sexes.” (Forward 6). LGBTQ+ persons are said to “feel excluded from the Church” and “not accepted in the Church” because of their sexuality. Amoris Laetitia is cited as the basis for “LGBTQ+ people” to be “recognised, received, free to ask questions, and not judged.”
So now, in a major document of the Catholic Church, it seems that a variety of sexes are acknowledged and even recognized as fundamental identities of human beings. And in addition to the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), “Q” can mean “not exclusively heterosexual or straight” or “questioning,” according to the American organization, The Gay Center. And the “+” means “gender identities and sexual orientations that letters and words cannot yet fully describe,” according to the same source.
Papal advisor and American Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin has been named by the pope as an at-large delegate to the synod. At least since the publication of his 2017 book with the synodal-style title, Building A Bridge, Martin has conducted a high-visibility campaign on behalf of, in the terms of the book, “LGBT.” In the book, Martin says that “[s]ome bishops have already called for the church to set aside the phrase ‘objectively disordered’ when it comes to describing the homosexual inclination (as it is in the Catechism, No 2358).” Building a Bridge includes admiring and supportive Introductions by American Cardinals Tobin and Farrell, and by then-bishop and now Cardinal McElroy. All three cardinals are delegates to the Synod.
Preaching and teaching are activities of the Church, according to the working document. But no specific content of the Gospel, except perhaps concerning sex, is proclaimed as particularly relevant to or needed in our time. The synodal Church, it is repeatedly asserted, is a “listening” and “walking together” Church, “a witness of radical inclusion and acceptance.”
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With all the idiotic claims of homosexuality being an innate “orientation,” I know of no time when any theological or ecclesial explanation has been provided for a recognition and acceptance of the inherently promiscuous state of a bisexual lifestyle. Maybe there are agreed upon limits to not admitting cowardice.
Sadly the Church, once again, finds itself to be a promoter of colonialism, this time western ideological imperialism of the worst sort. Yes, let’s cheer on the imposition of radical progressive ideology on the rest of the world and position ourselves on the wrong side of history … all to cozy up to the very people and institutions that despise Christianity and in particular Catholicism, for dinner invitations and financial pledges of the elite. Today’s ecclesial leaders will have much to answer for. May God have mercy on their souls for the devastation they are causing not just for the Church but humanity itself, for abandoning the Gospel and the flock they are charged to shepherd, for being shameful betrayers of the grace they have been given. Their Eminences should be robed in the yellow of cowards rather than the red of martyrs.
“Sadly the Church, once again, finds itself to be a promoter of colonialism, this time western ideological imperialism of the worst sort.” Well said!
This article seems to be misleading. I was highly concerned about the “various… sexes” mentioned, so I followed the link to Instrumentum Laboris, and read paragraph 6 of the Forward (the only quote even resembling a reference) and the author of this article has very clearly cherry-picked their quote to make it as uncharitable as possible.
Don’t we have enough problems without having to manufacture boogeymen??
For reference here is the beginning of paragraph 6 of the Forward that the quote was taken:
“6. To the Synodal Assembly we bring the fruits gathered during the listening phase. First of all, we have experienced the joy expressed in the sincere and respectful encounter between brothers and sisters in the faith: to meet each other is to encounter the Lord who is in our midst!Thus, we were able to touch with our own hands the catholicity of the Church, which, in the variety of ages, sexes and social conditions, manifests an extraordinary wealth of charisms and ecclesial vocations, and is the custodian of a treasure trove of differences in languages, cultures, liturgical expressions and theological traditions…”
Do we leave out the authority of Holy Scripture? Was St. Paul an Apostle? Is his teaching authoritative? When he admonishes his brethren and says this is the Lord’s teachings and not his own do we to believe him? Was he speaking to us or only the people of his generation and culture? We must consider the consequences of overlooking scripture and its admonitions before we try to change things. The place of women in the Church is a very noble one and Mary is only second to Jesus. Let’s keep our priorities straight.
Charles, thank you for confirming that Mr. Ascik quoted the document correctly.
This synod is clearly intent on establishing and popularizing “the variety… of sexes.”
But it does say “variety of sexes” with “the Lord in our midst” using an exclamation like this one here “!”.
There is a battle to do with conditionality. One group indicates that the evangelical action will necessarily involve an attention to truths. Another group wants to insist that these truths can be obstacles to evangelization and stalling is core.
I think there is a third side to it, which is the arbitrator group which holds that “all things are possible” and the truths can be suspended indefinitely or on the pragmatic stand wait-and-see. Cope with everything as you go, so what.
The assertion that the first group is intellectualist-rigid-formalist-gnostic is false. Someone in this group COULD be like that but the sensitivity to truth remains central all the same regardless who is involved.
The implication that the latter two groups are NOT intellectualist-rigid-formalist-gnostic, is false whether the members of this group have such fault(s) or not.
I have seen all this occur already, long before the inception of the present Papacy. It never got resolved and things being offered today don’t address the problems.
A somewhat reasonable retort, but perhaps it would be helpful to read more lines other than paragraph 6, and even between the lines, and then other lines elsewhere all related to synodality in its new dress and the Instrumentum Laboris.
Catch up…. “variety of…sexes,” “pluralism” of religions. Not in all ways, surely, but in too many ways, it’s the new art form of the square-circle masquerading as something other than itself.
Ascik exposes the parliamentary-like nature of the multiple synods and then remarks, for example: “So now, in a major document of the Catholic Church, it seems that a variety of sexes are acknowledged and even recognized as fundamental identities of human beings.”
Why are we reminded, here, of what a spider sees when it detects a “fly” (double entendre intended) trapped in its web? The spider rejoices over its seemingly multiple captors as viewed not through the clear lens of reality, but instead through the multiple facets of its own compound and multiple eyes!
Likewise, the demographic and multiply-inclusive LGBTQ “community” featured by guru James Martin and post-Christian/post-Nature “society.” When, in reality, what’s in view is really a diverse/disintegrating and “objectively disordered” violation of coherent Natural Law…and its name is not community, butt “legion.” Too many parts of ynod-ism are more a branch of entomology or arachnology, or whatever(!), than they are of philosophy or theology…
And, cannot be upgraded until the response to the dubia is fully cognizant and respectful of the silenced Veritatis Splendor. Yes, better wording might be found to affirm truth, yet, with St. Augustine: “We can say things differently, but we can’t say different things.”
“entomology”. That reminds me that Alfred Kinsey was an entomologist. His book
” Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”,was “a thickly disguised attempt to force the world tu accept his own unnatural sexuality as natural” (Ben Wiker). The LGBT crowd does the same. It wants to force us to accept its unnatural sexuality as natural. Is “Instrumentum Laboris” also going to force us to accept unnatural sexuality as natural?
The fictional Kinsey Report (1948, 1953) pretended to be a statistically valid survey of sexual practices in the West, and then promoted mainstream casualness and pornography under the cover of scientific respectability. The report was later revealed to be based on non-scientific research of a very non-random [!] survey, including willing prison inmates with a disproportionate share of abnormal personalities (Judith Reisman and Edward Eichel, “Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of People,” 1990).
From Reisman, the Kinsey findings are based on eighteen thousand “sex histories,” all of whom were self-selected volunteers and a quarter to half of whom were prison inmates, and 1,400 of whom were sex offenders, apparently even including nine sex offenders who engaged in direct experimentation on children aged two months to fifteen years. Prostitutes and cohabiting females were classified as married, leading to the claim that a quarter of married women committed adultery.
Janice Shaw adds further that Kinsey “was promiscuously bisexual, sado-masochistic, and a decadent voyeur who enjoyed filming his wife having sex with his staff” (see Janice Shaw Crouse, “Kinsey’s Kids,” at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/crouse200311140923.asp).
We await, now, Cardinal Hollerich’s “sociological-scientific foundation” for overturning natural law and human sexual morality as reflected by (not invented or even authored by) the Church until his eminence happened on the scene as the big wheel for the 2023/2024 Synod on [the back of] Synodality.
“sado-masochistic”. “Kinsey was a devoted homosexual sado-masochist who
masturbated while ramming large objects (like toothbrushes, bristle-end first) into his urethra and simultaneously strangling his testicles with a rope” (Ben Wiker). He used his toothbrush and a rope as his instrumentum laboris. Sodomy is self abuse with the help of a friend, mutual masturbation.
Thank you. The IL is indeed a German-lite secular political structure. Yet, the Synod(s) on Synodaling are poised to produce the desired practices. Amoris Laetitia is a blueprint to make exceptions for Scriptural Commandments and the Apostolic Faith. (So how could it be infallible?). Amoris began our synodal journey by subtlety introducing heteropraxy for heterosexuals. Why would a parliament begin by addressing the desires of minorities? Synodaling will build on the Amoris loophole to bypass the Deposit of Faith/Truth to bless all manner of heteropraxy and share ministerial power. Eventually, after much Synodaling, the whole Synodal Church could adopt the German Synodalerweg and become fully Protestant in practice.
If history is our guide, the Church will need Council(s), Creeds, Saints, etc., to restore proper functioning.
It is not difficult to see this happening. The hard part is gathering enough leaders willing to risk everything to try and stop it. Fear not, God will rescue us. He always does. But the way it will happen is certain to be mysterious and marvelously unexpected. (St. Newman)
You can call me cynodical, but this hideous farce of Synodolatry is about to bring Christ’s Church to its breaking point.
The players are now all in place. The arguments have all been floated as trial balloons.
All that’s left to do is go through the motions, as if the Church leaders were actually “walking together” with the flock and “listening” to the Holy Spirit.
As opposed to what they’re really doing, which is “agendizing” the Church’s teachings to embrace leftism’s most radical and insane tenets, and “ventriloquizing” for the Holy Spirit because He has so far somehow failed to embrace the left’s death-dealing platform.
Through Synodolatry, the heresiarchs in the Church hope to hijack Jesus’s true faith and reform it in the image and likeness of the Democratic Party.
The irony is that, even before this sham synodocy has begun, its baked-in conclusions are already obsolete. For example, one of the synod’s primary objectives is the imposition of women priests.
But the latest, super-updated version of progressivism dictates that women are not an actual thing any more. Womanhood is merely a social construct which can be adopted or eschewed as one’s god-like whims see fit.
If there is a silver lining here, it may be that the mask is off now and the evil one’s minions are easy to spot.
They are the ones promoting the faux catholicesque church and its death-dealing unholy spirit.
To them, evil is the new good. Lies are the new truth. Sterility is the new life.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle…
Similar to a large multi patterned blanket slowly pulled over our heads to lull us to sleep.
Again, when we look at inclusion and welcoming tosh, we didn’t see the space of the tent enlarged for the The Traditional Latin Mass? No they were effectively thrown from view, when it was the ONLY effective means that was slacking the thirst of people for true spiritual nourishment! Let’s see what Syndology will do? But I can guess what it won’t do!
Sliced or diced however the leaders of the sin-nod may wish, the language of revelation does not change. The uniquely inherited genetic specificity of every individual is determined at birth; God has known from eternity each person who has or ever will exist on earth. Epigenitic phenomena do not affect genetic givens.
The Incarnate Word assumed flesh from a woman, a virgin, who thus becomes Theotokos. The Church teaches her Immaculate Conception and her Blessed Assumption as dogma. God chose the “woman” Mary to high honor after Eve abused hers.
Who among the synod swindlers shall listen and walk with Mary? Who shall proclaim Mary’s silent mystical message without clashing cymbals? Who shall speak to Mary’s dignity and her inherent goodness? Who shall understand the beauty of God’s loving desires for women in His Church during the signs of these times?
For the synodal swindlers to worry themselves about the role of LGBTQWXYZ-“women” shows that they’ve missed the very large boat of salvation on which they believe they hold seats.
Surely! The objective essential fact of Mary’s motherhood gives rise to her seed which shall crush the head/s of the demon serpent/s. Swindlers beware.
Correction: First paragraph,second sentence, “at birth” should read “at conception”.