It’s early days at the month-long gathering in Rome, which is just one stop along the way of the multi-year-long Synod on Synodality. Opening day, it is reported, featured lessons in grammar:
On the opening day of the Synod on Synodality, a leading official of the process urged participants to read “the signs of the times” in order to “discover a grammar of synodality for our time. “Just like the grammar of our languages changes as they develop, so does the grammar of synodality: it changes with time,” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the relator general of the 16th Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops said in prepared remarks at the start of the afternoon session.
Cardinal Hollerich, you’ll recall, needs some lessons in fundamental and moral theology. But…too late! The synodal journey is already underway. As the working document for the gathering, released in June, explains: “The People of God have been on the move since Pope Francis convened the whole Church in Synod in October 2021.” Finally! At last! (It sure did take a long time for the Holy Spirit to get going after Pentecost, did it now?)
And time’s a-wasting, even if said time is greater than space.
In my essay titled “Synodality, Soteriology, and ‘Sharing the journey'”, posted this week on the What We Need Now Substack, I ponder a couple of questions that I think have been largely ignored or pushed far into the fringes:
Why does the Synod on Synodality, which is ostensibly focused on the nature of the Church and her relationship with the world, appear to have such little concern for soteriology and eschatology? If evangelization and mission (the latter term appears often in synodal documents) are so vital, why is the salvific nature and work of the Church rarely mentioned, especially as a foundational reality? In what way is the “synodal Church” about the call to conversion, the exposition of redemption, and the drama of salvation?
I compare the main synodal document with several of the documents from Vatican II, showing how the latter present a theologically rich and challenging vision of the Church’s missionary and evangelistic work, which flows directly from the Trinitarian missions.
This comparison is important for many reasons, one of them being that this Synod is constantly presented as the fruit or culmination or logical outgrowth of the Second Vatican Council. I think the evident indicates otherwise.
And quite strongly so. I conclude, in part, by stating:
It is difficult, frankly, to see the current synodal documents as anything other than third-rate, flawed texts that water down or ignore completely central aspects of ecclesiology, soteriology, and eschatology, as found in Sacred Scripture and Tradition in general or in the Vatican II documents specifically. If the Synod is to lead to a deeper understanding of the Church, her role in salvation, and her desire to expand the Kingdom of God, it will have to free itself from the bureaucratic brambles and laborious drivel that dominate its documents.
Read my entire essay at What We Need Now.
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What, we decline to be informed (!) by the “grammar of synodality”?
How very unsynodal of us….Oh, wait, C.S. Lewis’s “Screwtape” spoke to this ambiguity before being counseled into periodic silence. Said Screwtape about becoming synodally silent in order to be informed by the Holy Spirit…Or instead, by Spiritus Mundi, or immanentism, or evolutionism, or paradigm-shiftism, or amnesiac-ism, or whatever?
“…humans must not be allowed to notice that all great moralists are sent [as in apostello!] by the Enemy [as In God!] not to INFORM men but to REMIND them, to restate the primeval moral platitudes against our continual concealment of them” (The Screwtape Letters,” XXIII).
So, surely “not a parliament,” butt also surely not a concealment?
“The synod will allow us to complete the revolution we began in the church at Vatican II.” – Cardinal McElroy
If you already have a hard time recognizing your church, you might as well give up all hope after this train wreck. The only way forward is to return to tradition: to go BACK to the time when the church was loyal and trustworthy. Revolutionary men have taken the helm. If you are not familiar with the life of Sr. Marie St. Pierre, now would be a very good time to get caught up.
Soteriology, what addresses salvation remains adrift somewhere, whereas the new paradigmatic language is nothing new regards meaning. Simply formerly expressed concepts in new linguistic attire.
Olson zeroes in on soteriology. Salvation is eschatological. Whereas, invention of verbal codes that disassociate us from revelation, given in historical space said to be distanced by time, must have purpose for inclusivity absent of repentance and metanoia, words remitted from the new Synodal language. Then what will we have to say to Christ at Judgment when we show up unattired? A garment of faith alone is mere belief, and as the Fathers repeat even the devils believe. Blessed are the poor in spirit graced with this awareness.
‘ A rigid Church …a lukewarm Church …a tired Church ..’ – Holy Father achingly sees the depth of the issues well enough ..as a saddening of the Holy Spirit ..many hearts having become hardened / afflicted with the dragon spirits as contempt for God and those who are closer to represent that role , attitudes more rampant,brought on by W W 111 against family and marriage, including through the media ..the power of the 7 horns of the dragon more manifest – ? from the many receiving Sacraments unworthily , having lost the grace to have true repentance , thus the lukewarmness or worse ..the need to plead for The Spirit , along wth The Mother and all her children – the many assembled to represend the many – to help turn hearts of all to The Father – as the need of the times ..very likley sitting in the midst of all , Holy Father too invoking the Spirit with a grieving heart ..to break down fortresses and crush dragon heads in the power of The Precious Blood ..
may all holy and angels and Sts too come to the aid ,in response to ardent prayers of all !
Thank you, Carl, for your always spot on analysis. Agree completely.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore just announced its bankruptcy filing, an event that has become so common that it no longer sparks the outrage it should. When the institutional Church should, it seems to me, be prioritizing how to forever avoid the clerical failures that led to these bankruptcies (and the related Rupnik scandals), instead we get this synodal nonsense and verbal claptrap that just seems so unnecessary and irrelevant to the true mission of the Church.
Come Holy Spirit.
This language is highly Marxist in nature. It is intended to confuse, to baffle, to be empty of meaning. That is the whole point. The purpose of such language is to give you nothing you can complain about, because it has no content. It is ephemeral, vague, nonsensical. There is nothing to grasp hold of.
This is the language of evil.
thank you, Samton909
Thank you. I though it was me. Read and reread and stil couldn’t figure out the what of was being stated. Could this be Malarky?
Carl,
Your post makes me think of a great irony: what if this pontificate actually helps to shed light on some of the theological richness of Vatican II? I think its practical effect is already way past its time, but this accidental gift to the Council seems possible.
Synodaling is horizontal. Without the vertical, there is no cross. Without the cross, Christ is reduced to the horizontal.
Let’s hope and pray that the Synod on Synodality doesn’t cause a rupture with Vatican II.
Having just read Stephen White’s ruminations on the Synod he’s where many of us are. Caught between two points of view regarding His Holiness’ position on the Synod. One positive, the other not. Raymond Arroyo will be hosting some big guns tonight, along with the renowned Papal Posse, guests include Cardinals Raymond Burke, Gerhard Muller, and NCRegister’s Edward Pentin.
Rather than attempt to second guess what will be said, it’s already known all have great concern for the future of orthodoxy and the Church, allow me to say what seems apparent. Pope Francis, while warning the German Synod has not intervened to end it. What’s occurring there may portend what occurs with the universal Synod. That Francis’ tack will be the same, to permit proposed changes in practice while remaining aloof insofar as decisive opposition. If so, the daunting challenge will be to articulate what must be our response to remain faithful to God’s Word.
VatII…present a theologically rich and challenging vision of the Church’s missionary and evangelistic work, which flows directly from the Trinitarian mission.”
This synodality wants to walk with the “signs of the time” and it’s an evil time of cancel culture and new paganism with no morals and without God, just to please all people and to give away the sacred flesh and blood of our Savior Christ by calling sin no sin. Just like the answers to the Dubia but Jesus said: Say yes or no, everything else is from the devil. Jesus died to wash us clean in His Blood and passion. Bergoglio calls it “the little sin under the belt” but the Prophet Moses says: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination” (Leviticus 19:22). Why? Because it disgraces the holy sacred Maleness of God the Father Almighty and the Son of God, maleness being their first principal cardinal attribute of His holy Existence. God made us in His likeness but holy healthy manhood is attacked and not defended. May God have mercy on His Church and rescue His holy Bride. Amen. Alleluja
Sadly, Edith we will never truly know the value of VII . . . ever. We do not have in our possession the development of the 77 Schema that 841 scholars in the Church developed for over 2-years prior to the Council. That work had been tossed out at the behest of the “progressives” at the Council. Had we their development to compare/contrast the “fruit” of VII, we would otherwise know. As it is, VII stands out as just another Council and, in total honesty, not a remarkable one; a “modern” one yes, a remarkable one, no. Trent had a purpose and its fruit gave rise to remarkable clarity, profound expanse and great depth, anent the Counter Reformation greats like St. Francis de Sales, Teresa of Avila and even Padre Pio. VII gave us the Novus Ordo Missae and planted the seeds of confusion, chaos and decline. Look around as Dioceses world-wide consolidate, sell off churches, convents, monasteries that have embraced the NO Mass. On the other hand, look at the plentiful fruit that is the hallmark of the Vetus Ordo and you can ask yourself what the Church will look like in 20 years, hint: it won’t look like the Woodstock Era of 60’s and 70’s; that’s for sure. Deo gratias!
Dear editor, have to ask you a favor; to correct two errors. end of my comment should be “first principal cardinal attribute” (not carnal) and Moses said: shall not lie with a male (not made). I promise if I comment again I will proof check first. Thank you and God bless you.
A few days prior to the shotgun start of the current synod, Cardinal Zen penned a letter to bishops attending. He also asks where the synod attends to VCII’s LG?
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/10/letters-from-the-synod—2023-special-edition
Also, it may interest some to note Xavier Rhynne II pens on the synod at FT, and note is made of Robert Royal’s comment at The Catholic Thing.
1. The “it’s pastoral not doctrinal” gambit was used by progressive bishops and theologians during the Vatican II Council to gain sufficient votes in favor of documents with things that were new, startling, unprecented, and in some cases formerly condemned by the magisterium.
2. As far as I can see, once you accept the “it’s pastoral not doctrinal” rationale in the context of the Vatican II Council, there isn’t any principled defense against what progressive bishops (including this pope) and theologians are doing during this present synod, or what they may do in any future synods or councils.
3. We are truly in a crisis of “five alarm fire” proportions.
4. But the crisis didn’t begin this year or ten years ago.
5. This crisis began during the “renewal,” “new springtime,” and “new Pentecost” that began with the Vatican II Council.
6. The Vatican II Council established the precedent of the theological tactic of “it’s pastoral not doctrinal,” and its sister justification, “the medicine of mercy.”
7. That’s the real legacy of that Council.
BINGO. Bullseye. BRAVO!
1. The “new Pentecost” of John XXIII, is already VATICAN II; so that it is not the case that a “new Pentecost” was still to come, after VATICAN II. This latter thing is the ongoing scandal from the 20th Century.
2. The Pope singularly driving a globalized synod, actually would be something VATICAN II sought to avoid. It goes away from what the fathers envisaged coming through the Council in collegiality.
3. A synod to interpret VATICAN II for channeling everything in the Church in its entirety is not a fruit from VATICAN II and not the way of the Church and not a feature in synod.
4. The Pope is constantly announcing refrains that suggest New Age, like, orchestra, together-together, Holy Spirit is harmony, disharmony means no Holy Spirit, the gaze of the look, the future from them memory.
5. Devising a grammar for these to legitimize them is misleading since there is already a language for them which accurately says what can not be legitimized.
6. The First Council, the Council of Jerusalem, specifically proscribes certain evils and does that for all time. Neither Pope nor synod can water it down in the name of the Holy Spirit or “holy harmony” or update, etc.
7. The Council of Jerusalem treated the circumcision question as superfluous, giving it no formal importance. The question was merely only an obstacle for Peter and certain Jews and was sidelined. Lesson not to make too much of it!
A PARABLE
Yea verily, in the halcyon daze prior to 2008,
Home loans were cast upon the sea of those unable to pay.
And, when the first defaults came, it was nobody’s fault (!),
And the rest were bundled with sound securities (financial “derivatives”),
Until the entire apple barrel then rotted to hell.
And came forth the economic plague of 2008, a collapse
Which spread across the entire world like the frogs of Pharaoh.
Yea verily, again, in the daze prior to 2023,
Gleaned from the sea by “facilitator” bishops,
Were both fishes and the reincarnated dregs of darkness…
Mixed together, synodally: “aggregated, compiled, and synthesized!”
Instead of financial equality of outcomes, now theological equality of inputs!
And, rather than plugging noses, the amnesiacs were instructed
to gag their mouths. The order of perpetual silence!
Thusly comes the ecclesial and moral assimilation once again into Baal…
Denial of natural law, and malignancy within the Church itself,
The “backwardist” Church at the mercy of the progressive “throwaway culture.”
Despite the ordered “gag” (pun intended!): “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mt 11:15).
“Moving Beyond Christ” – is the Goal of the Apostasy-Synod and its Apostate Leadership – Represented by the apostate Eminence Hollerich.
All Synod observer, pro or con, attest to the fact that the leadership of this Synod are apostates: Cardinal Hollerich, for example, has publicly expressed his apostasy in rejecting the New Testament commands sexual morality of Jesus and his apostles, most pointedly by Hollerich in specifically rejecting the 2000 year Christian teaching against sodomy (and thus by commutation, rejecting all commands of Jesus and his apostles condemning the sinfulness of fornication and adultery). Likewise, the Dominican priest (his name escapes me for now) who led the pre-Synod retreat rejects the 2000 years of Christian sexual morality and promotes the acceptance and blessing of sodomy.
Below is a link to a 2012 article by an apostate Jesuit priest, defending and promoting the apostasy of a woman named Laurie Brink, then president of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), who declared that the LCWR was a network of “sojourning” communities, sounding very much like what the Pontiff Francis and “his team” declare for “their Synod.” Ms. Brink notes, her very own words here, that many in the LCWR network have “moved beyond Christ.”
https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/sister-laurie-brink-op-and-cdf
This harkens back to the very same apostasy of the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, who drew a chart literally illustrating his belief in the “cargo-cult” ideology of the “evolutionary progress of man,” asserting that man was evolving ever upward over time, and was destined to progress on a path that literally went past Jesus, leaving him behind, and that culminated in an end-point that Teilhard described as “The Omega Point” transcending Christ, and attaining a different end, confected in the mind of Teilhard, which end for Teillhard exceeds even Christ himself.
These two personalities, Laurie Brink and Pierre Teilhard, have decades ago publicly testified that to them, Jesus is NOT their idea ultimate destination. He is nothing more than a milestone, from which, in “their journey,” they literally walk away, toward “a different destiny.”
That’s what this is all about: it’s about putting Jesus Christ behind them…
Dear ‘Chris in Maryland’, as with beloved Carl Olson in this article, you are one of those who comprehend Hebrews 5:8, where we are instructed that: “Although Jesus was Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered; and having been made perfect, He became the source of salvation for all who obey Him.” This is the kerygma of Catholicism and the foundation of our whole mission and message of Good News to this world. It begins & ends with OBEDIENCE TO GOD.
The same Apostolic author, in Hebrews 6:4-6, instructs us most succinctly about the fate of those who pervert the work of Christ: “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the Heavenly Gift, and have shared in The Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of The Word of God and the powers of The Age to Come, and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again The Son of God and are holding Him up to contempt.”
Is this the judgment hanging over Pope Francis, Cardinal Hollerich, Laurie Brink, Teilhard de Chardin, and all Christ-demeaning conspirators?
Let’s pray that it is not and that they are still able to repent and obey Christ.
Ever following King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
1. To me, what is so unnerving is that, as far as I know, no Catholic individual or group of any prominence has “drawn line in the sand.”
2. I.e., none has said that there is a “red line” that, if crossed, will result in some sort of declaration that the parties having crossed the “line in the sand,” the “red line,” will, until such time as they recant and repent, the parties involved will be treated like heathen (i.e., no longer Catholic, no longer in communion with the Church, no longer in possession of any ecclesiastical office).
3. That would be in accordance with Matthew 18:17, which says: “If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan.”
4. Can Catholics (lay or clergy) simply declare bishops to have ceased being members of the Church?
5. I DON’T KNOW! But must not SOMETHING be done if the pope and the bishops (except for a tiny few) start blessing gay unions in church ceremonies and declare that such activity is 100% approved by the Holy Spirit of God.
6. If the synod and the pope state that church blessing ceremonies for homosexual couples are now 100% permissible and sacred in the Church, it seems that every leading figure and institution in the Church is ready to accept it and begin doing apologetics in defense of it, using phrases such as “pastoral charity” and “it’s pastoral not doctrinal.”
7. This is what I find so strange and so disturbing.
8. Is anyone going to declare a red line, a line in the sand?
Dear Frank Cannondale – true & utterly atrocious; but it may get even worse.
Blasphemy begets blasphemy: once their present goal is reached, we are likely to see Catholic clergy formally blessing each other in their profane, active, homosexual relationships. That seems to be the obsessive aim energizing Pope Francis’ mafia. Current Church leadership appears to be well on the road to Romans 1:26-32.
After that they’ll move on to update the ‘backwardist’ moral theology of all of our schools, colleges, seminaries, and universities! They will re-write The Catechism of the Catholic Church and then get to work redacting The New Testament. May God deliver us.
*I am resolved to not let haters of Christ and of the Catholic Church upset the peace of my soul and the peace of my relationship with the Lord of Light and with good people.
*I can ignore all these haters, these rebels, these lawless ones.
*Bergoglio and his pals can apply insults and bad motives to me and people like me.
*But I can ignore them, tune them out by praying the rosary and by meditation on the 15 mysteries of the rosary.
*In eschatological terms, I will be judged for what I do and for my motives, and Bergoglio and is pals will be judged for what they do and for their motives.
*There is justice in the end, no matter what the dark lord enchants his followers into thinking.
*I am thankful to the faithful ones (including the writers at Catholic World Report) who have handed on the True, Unchangeable Faith and Way for me to know.
“*I am thankful to the faithful ones (including the writers at Catholic World Report) who have handed on the True, Unchangeable Faith and Way for me to know.”
Amen & Amen & AMEN!
In connection with my comment on 5 October, here is a link to an essay that begins with an illustration of Teilhard’s idea of “human spiritual evolution,” and goes on to connect this idea with very pathological ideas that Teilhard published about his appalling beliefs in racial supremacy and the need for eugenic experimentation.
As to the illustration, I have seen it many times, and I note that whoever created it (I have never found an attribution), it certainly places Teilhard’s Omega Point as a point “beyond Christ.”
In fairness to Teilhard, it may be that this illustration, and my 5 October description, may or may not be what Teilhard would himself draw and declare. But whatever the resolution about that question, this is what is used by people explaining Teilhard, and it represents exactly what is proclaimed by Laurie Brink and the apostate Jesuit priest defending her in 2012 in America Magazine: they, like the chart indicates, “have moved beyond Christ,” to a new (and they hold better) Omega Point.
https://religiondispatches.org/pierre-teilhard-de-chardins-legacy-of-eugenics-and-racism-cant-be-ignored/
Another (timely) article, this by Maureen Mularkey (Studio Matters) on the topic of Teilhard, this one criticizing the essayist Slattery (who authored the essay I linked above, criticizing Teilhard for supporting racism and eugenics), saying Slattery is also to be scrutinized himself, because Slattery promotes the race-baiting, and I would note, neo-Marxist, political ideology espoused by Black Lives Matter.
https://studiomatters.com/teilhard-de-chardin-closet-racist-eugenicist
In the end, what I do say is that the problems with ideas like Teilhard’s speculative eschatology (leaving aside his obvious Darwinian beliefs in racial supremacy and commitment to eugenics) is that it misleads people and culminates in the apostasy espoused by the Jesuit priest, and like-minded Jesuits at America Magazine, et al, who end up leaving Jesus in their wake, and have themselves declared with Laurie Brink and the LCWR: “we have moved beyond Christ.”
About Teilhard de Chardin, two citations:
FIRST, Henri de Lubac, in a generally sympathetic book in 1962 (“Just as [Matteo Ricci, etc.] wanted to win distant civilizations for Christ, so he wanted to win this new continent, the modern world of science.”], also included the likes of this, which also applies well to synodality today:
“In refusing to accept the Church simply as a ‘refuge’ he was undoubtedly right; but when he wished to see her operating as a ‘motive principle for mankind’ we may wonder whether he had a sufficiently complete and correct idea of what that ‘motor’ should be” (“The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin,” Image, 1968). Today the motor, as in synodally “walking together”?
SECOND, the lay theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand reports a revealing conversation with Teilhard: “After a lively discussion in which I ventured a criticism of his ideas, I had the opportunity to speak to Teilhard privately. When our talk touched on St. Augustine, he exclaimed violently: ‘Don’t mention that unfortunate man; he spoiled everything by introducing the supernatural” (Appendix, “Trojan Horse in the City of God,” Franciscan Herald Press, 1967).
Thanks for the informative quote, dear Peter.
Maybe, Teilhard heresies were the thin end of the scientism wedge, that Francis & Co are now thumping in with their Marxist mallets.
Frank Cannondale refers to 15 Mysteries of the Rosary. There are 20 Mysteries including the Luminous Mysteries. The third Luminous Mystery is “The Proclamation of the Kingdom”>
which I believe is very relevant to this Synodal activity.