The “World Meeting on Human Fraternity” was a sad exercise in soda pop solidarity

Sitting and watching the June 10th event in St. Peter’s Square, surrounded by nearly no one at all, I noticed how completely absent was any mention or image of Jesus Christ.

If there is one common denominator that links all of the various forms of Catholic progressivism together it is their allergy to the scandal of Christ’s particularity and the Christian claim that this particularity represents an absolute and universal in-breaking of God into history. This allergy is directly linked to the fact that most Catholic progressives have antecedently bought into the false modern definition of “religion”, born of the Enlightenment, as a generic category which can easily be defined as that “thingy” dealing with “spiritual stuff”. One then places the various “species” of religious expression under this genus and Christianity quickly becomes merely one religion among many and Christ is demoted to merely one “religious founder” among many others.

The claim used to be made by Catholic progressives that Jesus Christ is merely one savior figure among many; then the academic gurus who controlled this conversation realized that not all religions have saviors or even a general concept of salvation. Therefore, in order to fit Christianity into the formal logic of modernity’s view of religion as a kind of safe space of domesticated sentimentalisms, the whole Christian eschatological and soteriological edifice had to be deconstructed as a Pauline invention, wherein a radically Hellenized version of messianic Judaism, centered on the freshly minted cosmic savior Christ, supplanted the real historical Jesus.

Who was this “real” historical Jesus whose outlines could apparently only be detected by the proper academic sleuths possessing the historical-critical decoder ring? Well, take your pick, since like all modern forms of intellectual consumerism the historical-critical boutique shop of reconstructed Jesus action figures (accessories sold separately) offers us a wild set of options: the Che Guevara Jesus of liberative political praxis; the gnostic Deepak Chopra Jesus, who is a dispenser of cracker barrel spiritual nostrums; the rainbow Jesus of sexual libertinism and “love is love” antinomianism; the anti-Judaic Jesus, who hated “religion” and its “silly rules,” like an early Marcionite who came to replace Judaism with his new religion of dive bar inclusion. And now we can also include the “synodal Jesus” of Chatty Cathy liberalism, where the pull-string that generates the speaking is controlled by the magical invisible hand of accompaniment and dialogue.

Of course, it does not take any sane person very long to see that most of this reconstructing was just Rorschach inkblot projection onto Jesus of the favored intellectual and political hobby horses of the academic reconstructors. Therefore, the entire progressive Catholic project of attempting to ground their cause in some version of the historically reconstructed Jesus has floundered on the shoals of its own deconstructive and transgressive methodology. Because once the only real Jesus that truly exists – the Jesus who comes to us via Scriptural and ecclesial mediation – is deconstructed, the “Jesus” that remains after the autopsy is completed is a jumbled pile of bones devoid of flesh. In other words, once we destroy the notion that Jesus was, and is, “The Christ”, then the Jesus that remains is simply one more long dead “used to be important dude from the past” of dubious ongoing significance.

This is precisely why wherever Christianity has undergone this process of progressivist demolition of Jesus as Christ and sole savior of the world, it dies in short order. Because people are not stupid. They understand that the only Jesus worth paying attention to is the Jesus of traditional faith and that if Jesus is not the Christ of the faith, then to hell with him. And to hell with the Church, and the Bible, and that entire way of viewing reality, which now just seems like so much Iron Age myth-making. They understand that Jesus may have been an interesting figure in his time – if he even existed at all – but that liberal Christianity’s various intellectual gesticulations and gyrations are empty and, quite frankly, a bit desperate looking. Like octogenarian Cardinals dancing to rap music at a “synod on youth” in order (I guess) to show how “relevant” Jesus still is.

Which brings me to my main point. Recently, the Vatican co-sponsored an event that was essentially a celebration of precisely these kinds of empty ecclesial gesticulations and gyrations. Devoid of any mention of Christ as savior of the world, but long on the gaseous buzzwords of anodyne, bureaucratic secularity, the end result was predictably disastrous and pathetic. And the fact that those in power at the Vatican seem so smitten with the therapeutic dreck of their own bland, Mueslix aggiornamento of Christless Christianity that they could not see the fiasco that was looming, says about all one needs to say of the spiritual acumen, not to mention the Catholic faith, of so many currently ensconced in power there.

I am referring to the “World Meeting on Human Fraternity (Not Alone)” which was held at the Vatican on Saturday, June 10th in St. Peter’s Square. Organized by the curia Apparatchik Cardinal Mauro Gambetti (Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and Vicar General for Vatican City), the “Meeting on Fraternity” was linked via satellite video to several other locations around the world, and was to be loosely based upon the theme of human fraternity developed by Pope Francis in Fratelli tutti. The high point of the meeting was the signing of a document developed by thirty Nobel Laureates called “The Declaration of Human Fraternity.” According to the Vatican News account of the event, “Representatives of the group of Nobel Laureates, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Dr. Nadia Murad, presented the Declaration on Human Fraternity during the event, with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, putting his signature to it.”

I just happened to be in Rome on vacation with my wife, and so we got a direct view of both the preparations leading up to the event as well as the event itself. What struck me initially was that it was clear the Vatican was expecting a very large crowd indeed. For days leading up to the event workers were busy setting out thousands of chairs, erecting barricades and building tents and booths for various vendors and cafeterias all along the full length of the Via della Conciliazione. Large towers were erected with loud speakers generating music that I can only describe as the kind of soothing soft-blues piano tunes like the kind found in posh lounges that accompany brandy in a sniffer and fine Sherry. Banners were everywhere declaring the need for “inclusion and solidarity,” as well as green agriculture.

But nowhere did one find a single banner that mentioned Christ, as one might expect from a Vatican-sponsored event. But, then again, the cosmopolitan progressive Catholics that are currently in power are most likely embarrassed by such public displays of Christological affection. Such a Christological particularism, as noted above, is viewed as “exclusionary” since it presumes that Christ is the Absolute singularity who is the fulcrum upon which our finitude teeters and is thus the critical pivot point for the entirety of human history. And such Christological affections also run afoul of polite faculty room chit chat since it implies that there is a path to human fraternity not grounded in the universal acid of secularity that dissolves all such religious particularisms into the Esperanto of a hopeful and smiling nihilism.

It must have been quite a disappointment to Cardinal Gambetti and his curial courtesans that hardly anybody showed up for the big event. And the few people who were there were mostly folks who were wandering across St. Peter’s Square in flip flops and shorts, looking quite exhausted as they returned from a day of experiencing those parts of Rome that still spoke, in stone and image, of Christ and his Church. I guess the theme of the day was not as gripping as the good Cardinal thought it would be, and that the message of “nice to be nice to the nice” did not send an existential thrill up anyone’s leg.

At one point in the festivities I remarked to my wife that the whole thing had a “We are the World” vibe to it. And, sure enough, right on cue, there ensued on the video screen a performance of “We are the World”. I thought that perhaps we were also about to be serenaded with the catchy tune from the old Coca Cola commercials, in which people sang “I want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…”. Because that would have been entirely appropriate as an expression of the soda pop solidarity that was being promoted – a kind of new and secular Pentecost of globalist chic that is a counterfeit simulacrum of the real thing.

Jesus can then be safely reinterpreted as an itinerant hippie preacher of philanthropic banalities whose open table fellowship with sinners shows us that he really did not care that much about sin — so we should not either. In this view, concern over the pesky trifle of the so-called moral law is precisely the kind of “backwardist rigidity” that stands in the way of the true fraternity and inclusion preached by Jesus. Therefore, if you are against the progressive agenda of better living through chemicals, then you are against Jesus. QED.

I have been told by a reliable source, who is in a position to know such things, that the entire event cost around 700,000 Euro. There were most likely co-sponsors that donated money to the Vatican for the event, but it cannot be accurately determined right now just how much that amounted to. And 700,000 Euro seems reliable on its face since some of the talent that performed normally require a hefty fee, e.g. Andrea Bocelli, whose fee can run as high as 150,000 Euro. And even some of the lesser performers, such as the bare-torso dancer Roberto Bolle, who performed a predictably campy and “brave” avant garde dance on the steps of St. Peter’s, probably took home around 30,000 Euro.

I guess the takeaway is that it costs a lot of money to pretend to be inclusive in a hip, modern register. However, one could perhaps critique the decision of Cardinal Gambetti to spend this kind of money on theatrics instead of using it to clean up the extended and growing homeless encampment that the area surrounding St. Peter’s has become. That money could have been used to establish a house run by the Missionaries of Charity or a similar order, right near the Vatican and to commission them to minister, in the name of Christ, to the homeless and the destitute who have flocked to St. Peter’s Square as a refuge. That would send the powerful message that inclusion and solidarity start at home through concrete acts of corporal and spiritual mercy, not via the vacuous abstractions of virtue signaling document signings with rich and important people, all of whom now agree that “violence is just such an awful thing and somebody really should do something about it.”

Finally, I could not help but contrast in my mind the emptiness of St. Peter’s Square on that day with the overflowing crowds of some rather traditional Catholics in France who were on a Eucharistic pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres, and in the many other public Eucharistic displays that took place all over the world this past week on the Feast of Corpus Christi. My wife and I were privileged to have Mass on Corpus Christi in the grotto of the papal tombs under Saint Peter’s with the wonderful Dominican priest Father Benedict Croell. And as our Mass was ongoing we could hear the singing of many other Masses that were taking place in the various side altars of the grotto. It was a truly moving experience of the universal Church in practice and of the power of the Christ she preaches in Word and Sacrament.

I will never forget that experience. I will, on the other hand, quickly forget about the “Meeting on Human Fraternity”.

The faith lives. Christ lives. He is the heart of the world and inclusion in his Kingdom is the pearl of great price for which we run the good race and fight the good fight. My friend, the theologian Michael Baxter, once taught a wildly popular undergraduate introductory theology course at Notre Dame called, “A faith to die for”. And it was popular because there is a Samaritan woman at the well in all of us; we have all been married more than once to all manner of idolatries. Therefore, we all still seek the living water that only Jesus who is the Christ can bring.

But nobody thirsts for soda pop solidarity. Nobody.


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About Larry Chapp 68 Articles
Dr. Larry Chapp is a retired professor of theology. He taught for twenty years at DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania. He now owns and manages, with his wife, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania. Dr. Chapp received his doctorate from Fordham University in 1994 with a specialization in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. He can be visited online at "Gaudium et Spes 22".

41 Comments

  1. Wonderful article. Glad to see that the ‘Smoke of Satan’ is being hamstrung somewhat at our Catholic Headquarters in Rome. Maybe the Holy Spirit, by working overtime, is keeping Catholics away from the ‘pit of destruction’ and the ‘mud of the swamp’ that attempts to undermine the necessary focus on Christ and His Teachings for eternal life.

  2. “World Meeting on Human Fraternity”. Sounds Marxist to me. But, alas, this is the Francis Church.

  3. And then I read: “I have been told by a reliable source, who is in a position to know such things, that the entire event cost around 700,000 Euro.” This is reason enough for me never to contribute a penny to the Church that might in any way be forwarded to the Vatican. I encourage the same to others.

  4. Many thanks, dear Larry.

    A model for CWR articles. Passionate, informed, informative, & with concrete proposals for Christian action.

    Truly: “With Jesus, everything; without Jesus, nothing!”

    When will Rome wake-up to The Lord Jesus’ loathing for hypocritical (& inordinately costly) play-acting . . ?

    “Let the message of Christ, in all its richness, find a home with you. Teach each other, & advise each other, in all wisdom. With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms & hymns & inspired songs to God; & never say or do anything except in the Name of The Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God The Father through Him.” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17.

    We can’t say we haven’t been told.

    Take heart; keep praying & writing; & loving even our worst enemies.

    Eternally in the grace & mercy of Jesus Christ; blessings from marty

  5. So much of established Crescendo has or is selling out to various expressions of ‘soda pop’ Christianity. Once we. Lose the particularity \ uniqueness of Jesus Christ and His Gospel all historic gospel truth quickly becomes lost. God help us all!

  6. Latest post by Phil Enarson should read ‘established Christianity’, not ‘Crescendo’ as some form of AI logarithmic entity erroneously selected.

  7. Took a look at the linked “Declaration of Human Fraternity”…an unobjectionable plea as far as it goes. But a comment and a question about the penultimate paragraph:

    “Therefore, we, gathered on the occasion of the first World Meeting on Human Fraternity, call on all women and men of goodwill to embrace our appeal to fraternity. Our children, our future can only thrive in a world of peace, justice and equality, to the benefit of the single human family: only fraternity can generate [construct?] humanity.”

    First, happily the document is binary (“men and women”!). But second, a tweak about the last line–isn’t real solidarity less “generate(d)” by (the cult of?) “humanity” than revealed/grounded in the fact of the Incarnation?

    “Christ the Lord…by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to himself [!] and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 22).

  8. Mr.Chapp,
    You may quickly forget about “The Meeting on Human Fraternity but I won’t because you brought it all so vividly to life. Your mockery of this event made an otherwise dismal read into an engaging report. Thank you for keeping us abreast of the state of affairs at the Vatican, sorry as they may be.

  9. I love Larry Chapp, and I know things are bad in the world, but a constant barrage of whining is hard to stomach after a while. I’d like to hear a good solid article defending universal salvation. That would be a breath of fresh air.

    • “I’d like to hear a good solid article defending universal salvation.”

      Said like a real freemason, dear Thomas James. Plain heresy – see Matthew 7:14:

      “Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to perdition is wide & spacious, & many take it; but it is a narrow gate & a hard road that leads to life, & only a few find it.” Hence, Revelation 22:15, & numerous other sacred texts, given to warn us.

      Also, no reasonable person could possibly describe Professor Larry Chapp’s superb contributions to CWR as ‘whining’. Apologies needed, I’d say, my friend.

      Ever in the love of The Lamb; blessings from marty

      • That familiar Scriptural quote is important to get accurately. Damnation is not implied by the meaning of Our Lord. The vast majority of us lead lives that include a lot of self-destructiveness, and few of us are saintly headed for the direct route to heaven without purgation of our faults. We are in danger of a sin of presumption if we smugly seek comfort in believing the vast majority of humanity is damned. We don’t pray the prayer of Fatima in our rosaries for all souls going to heaven in vain.

        • “We are in danger of a sin of presumption if we smugly seek comfort in believing the vast majority of humanity is damned.”

          A straw man argument if there ever was one. No genuine believer seeks comfort in the damnation of souls, just as no genuine believer accepts the ridiculous notion of universal salvation.

          • Dear Athanasius: “…just as no genuine believer accepts the ridiculous notion of universal salvation.”

            Ah, I think professor Chapp would have something to say about that. I’ll leave that to him to show how ignorant your claim really is.

            However, I’d like to make a point. Dr Chapp is not going to address this issue because he knows this audience, what they can handle and not handle, and most of all because of Catholic Cancel Culture. He’s holding back on his true convictions, out of prudence. Perhaps he should extend the same courtesy to the bishops, that is, give them as much room to read their audience and act accordingly as he gives himself. He’s a talented theologian. Let’s use that talent to write something positive that builds us up and gives us hope instead of tearing down

        • I’ve read St. Faustina’s Diary. There are places where she is willing to cover unpleasant subjects. Try reading passage 153 about the wide road that leads to hell and the narrow road that leads to heaven. Passages 445-446 deal with the sins of impurity, the condition of the human race, the malice of ungrateful souls, and crucified souls. There is passage 741 where St. Faustina was shown a vision of hell. All too often we get a less than complete presentation of her writings in her Diary.

          • In passage 741 St. Faustina makes very clear the eternal nature of hell:
            *
            “The kinds of tortures I saw:…the third is that one’s condition will never change… Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin.”
            *
            God gave us free will. Actions have consequences. Accountability is accepting personal responsibility for the consequences of one’s own actions. Too often universal salvation looks like a cover for personal irresponsibility, and the rejection of the consequences of one’s own actions.
            *
            I read an interesting statement in an article that speaks about evil:
            *
            “…that evil is thoughtless, that it engenders a refusal to reckon with the nature or consequences of one’s actions. Evil rejects reason and contemplation, and it is fundamentally unreflective”.

          • To GregB and Thomas James: Given the lack of reply buttons, I’ll say it again here. Despite the condescending lectures on the evilness of evil, necessitated by a false witness claim of universalism, at which point does a meditation on the evilness of evil recognize the evilness of bearing false witness and the need to acknowledge having borne false witness?
            In case there is a curiosity regarding what Catholicism has to say on the matter discussed, Catholic dogma contends that Catholics do not know, can not know, and have no right to desire to know who or how many, or what percentage of God’s creation is in, or ever will be in hell. If you have a problem with doctrine, correction, dogma, take it up with God.

          • Edward J Baker: You have my motivations completely backwards. This world is the best place for people to undergo metanoia to avoid the fires of hell. St. Paul was concerned with his own salvation and the salvation of others. You might want to read Ezekiel 3:16-21 where Ezekiel was told that if he failed to admonish both the sinful and the righteous that their blood would be required of him. There is such a thing as prophetic responsibility. Warning people to get right with God in order to avoid hell is a work of mercy.
            *
            The Diary of St. Faustina is a very thick book. I read it to see first hand what her presentation was concerning mercy. I didn’t put her up to writing the passages that I referenced. Your beef is with St. Faustina and what she wrote and why she wrote it.
            *
            In this modern world we are currently undergoing a attempt to invert the moral order of the world. Good is evil, evil is good. This happening in the world and in the Church. All too many in the Church hierarchy as well as the laity need a refresher course in basic morality and the nature of evil. Too many people engaging in the guilty silence of Adam when Eve was being tempted by the serpent.

      • Well Dr. Martin, I am quite confident that Larry Chapp is well capable of kicking the crap out of your claim regarding heresy. This other stuff he’s doing is just shooting fish in a barrel and after a while it starts to sound like a broken record. But challenging the CWR readership would be tremendous. If you think LGBTQ are bad when it comes to cancel culture, just watch what would happen to this forum. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet

        • Greg: Sister Faustina = private revelation. But I’ll leave it to Larry Chapp to respond to your claims. He is well able.

          • The post-Vatican II world appears to be brimming with private revelation. The “spirit of Vatican II” is full of private revelation that claims a direct personal pipeline to the Holy Spirit that allows people to take a walk on historic Church teachings.

  10. The only good reason to be Catholic is because it is true. The only good reason to put on these things is if you’re not so sure.

    P.S. Bare-chested ballet dancing, really? Well at least that appeals to the locals.

    • Oh My Max, you nailed it with a cute little quip that sums it up so well.
      And conversely, maybe they underhandly want to throw some ‘confusion’ into the Catholic Faith that for many is so difficult to embrace………..because the worldly path is so much easier and less worrisome to travel, as there are so many sinful perks along the way.

  11. Bravo, Larry. The early lampooning of this event was beautifully balanced by your closing paragraph(s) On this Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, may we all thirst for the living waters that only Jesus, Our Lord can give.

  12. Excellent article, the barbarians in control at the Vatican do not appear to be interested any more in building the Kingdom of God. Rather, they appear to be interested in bringing the Kingdom Of Man, a new Utopia. But we know what Utopias, such as those brought by the Nazis and the Communist, eventually turn into. But what else can we expect these days under the current pontificate?

  13. I, a Conservative Catholic, am not feeling any ‘Fraternity’ coming from the Liberal Catholics. In a discussion, where I posted many bible verses and other quotes to make my point, the other guy simply came back with, ‘Let me ask you, do you receive communion in the hand or on the tongue?’ I ignored it, but he came back after me with the same question.

    So I answered him, “Back a year or two ago, when our parish had our “EWTN is SATAN!” Liberal priest; our Bishop came to our parish to say Mass, to cover for our Priest while he was away. When I went to Communion, the Bishop stood in front of me with the host elevated and we just stood there looking at one another. Finally the Bishop looked down, shook a little, and said, “Oh!”. Obviously my faithful to Jesus, Conservative Catholic reputation, had preceded me. Our Bishop had assumed that any and all Catholics who are not Liberal Catholics, must be like, what he saw as ‘evil’ TLM ‘extremists’ Catholics, and receive Communion on the tongue.

    I know there are many Liberal Catholics who want to build a stereotype of hate, division and discrimination, toward our Traditional Latin Mass Catholic brothers and sisters, or any Catholic who is not a Liberal Catholic.”

    • Now, now, JP, if the agenda is “a global religion of man,” we would see references to Auguste Comte, the rigorist-sociologist 19th-century and “High Priest of Humanity.”

      The closest we come to this mindset is a pronouncement from one Cardinal Hollerich who would replace moral theology and human sexual complementarity with a new “sociological-scientific” foundation: “I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching [on sexual morality] is no longer true [….] I think it’s time we make a fundamental revision of the doctrine” https://www.aol.com/news/liberal-cardinal-calls-revised-catholic-135429645-181222377.html

      About such a progressivist Humanity, and simply as an aside, we have this from Comte:

      “In the name of the Past and of the Future, the servants of Humanity–both its philosophical and practical servants–come forward to claim as their due the general direction of this world. Their object is to constitute at length a real Providence [the synodal Holy Spirit?] in all departments–moral, intellectual, and material. Consequently they exclude, once and for all, from political supremacy all the different servants of God–Catholic, Protestant or Deist–as being at once outdated [as in “no longer true”?] and a cause of disturbance” (A. Comte, “Catechism of Positivism,” 1858, Preface; cited in Etienne Gilson, “The Unity of Philosophical Experience,” 1937/1965).

      At the Synod on Synodality–and in the interests of a solidly-foundational human fraternity–perhaps the cardinal will clarify that Comtean ideology is not one of his (unnamed!) sources. Might we then expect such clarification and sources, or a retraction, or maybe someone else under a different red hat?

  14. Thank you, Larry Chapp, for another superbly written and informative piece.

    Glad to hear that this event was the bust it deserved to be. Not unexpected given the kind of meaningless pablum the Vatican was pushing, Really who needs it.

    What we sinners all truly need is the singularity of salvation from and through Jesus Christ. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts of the Apostles, 4:12). An exclusionary truth apparently not welcome at the Vatican.

    • Spot on, dear Tom in Florida!

      “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Can’t be added to; mustn’t be subtracted from!

      Received great hospitality from the people of St Augustine’s Parish, Gainsville, Florida, on sabbatical 1985, researching with USDA. Fondly remember the great Perninis: Dick & Kathy & their wonderful family: Jesus Christ people to the core!

      All over this world, King Jesus Christ has His faithful friends, far outmatching those lukewarm ‘Catholic leaders’ that Larry Chapp depicts so well. Sadly, we have not a few of those ‘anti-Apostolic leaders’ in Australia, too.

      Let’s agree to never stop praying: King Jesus has BIG ears for the prayers of those who love Him.

      Always in the grace & mercy of our One & Only Savior; blessings from marty

  15. The silly season has been pervasive in Catholic life for half a century, and Catholics who are Catholic have been praying that the Vatican would finally notice and take action. By taking action we actually had something rather different in mind than becoming as, well, as silly as the silliest.

  16. I am sure that the millions of euros for the ‘Fraternity’ event came from Liberal George Soros or the Liberal like. Pope Francis and Soros have worked together before. Back when Soros bused all the South Americans up to Mexico’s southern border, Pope Francis was glorified for spending a million dollars for motels for the ‘refugees’. The ‘refugees’ were passing babies up to the border wall where the ‘refugees’ were violently trying to break down the wall. Mexican boarder police were begging the ‘refugees’ not to pass the babies up to where all the ‘refugee’ violence was happening.

    Six million Ukrainian refugees and zero refugee camps. This is because the heart of Polish Catholics simply brought the Ukranians into their homes. So why did not Pope Francis and George Soros simply, and safely, fly the South Americans into ‘Open Borders’, sovereign nation, Vatican City State? Because causing hate and division is the actual goal of the operation.

    EWTN, Wolf in sheep’s clothing
    https://youtu.be/ZnKB9NzgD4k

  17. Excellent article once again, Mr. Chapp.

    Sarcasm is not, I realize, one of the cardinal works of mercy. But it is kryptonite to progressives.

    Leftism is all about coolness and being more intelligent, more insightful, more sophisticated than the ruck of humanity.

    When they are shown to be the actual buffoons, their whole superiority schtick comes apart (see article above).

    I cannot help wondering what “octogenarian Cardinals dancing to rap music at a ‘synod on youth’” really believe.

    No. Now that I think about it, I don’t want to know.

    • I do have one minor quibble, Mr. Chapp.

      The headline about “soda pop solidarity” is a needless aspersion cast against perfectly respectable soft drinks.

      My delicious Mountain Dew did nothing that deserves to be associated with the likes of the Church leaders in the Vatican.

  18. The beauty of “progressivism” is that the more it seems to get its way; the less and less relevant it becomes. Eventually, it will take a last gasping breath as the weight of its own irrelevance causes it demise. Close your eyes and tell me what do you see? For me, what I see is the future of the “modern” church.

  19. We may not be here for the great return of our Lord and Savior, but God is clear, “the gates of hell will not prevail” against his church. Well done, Mr. Chapp. I took one trip to the Vatican and I will never return. It is a monument to man. The only presence of the Holy Spirit I ever felt was in the churches where people were praying/ participating in mass. Skip the Vatican, go to Assisi.

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