Washington D.C., Oct 30, 2017 / 04:36 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One fated Halloween, 500 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle in a dramatic act of defiance against the Catholic Church.
Or, he may have just hung it on the doorknob. Or mailed out copies.
Or, if he did nail it, the act of the nailing itself would not have been all that significant, because the door may have been used as a bulletin board where everyone was nailing announcements.
And he probably wasn’t all that defiant; he likely had the attitude of a scholar trying to raise questions and concerns. At that point, Luther didn’t know how defiant he would eventually become, or that his act, and his subsequent theological work, would lead to one of the greatest disruptions of unity in the Church’s history.
“This was not a declaration of war against the Catholic Church, nor was it a break,” Dr. Alan Schreck with Franciscan University of Steubenville told CNA.
“It was a concerned, Augustinian monk and biblical scholar correcting an abuse, and it was really a call for a dialogue.”
However, it took fewer than five years for this call for dialogue to transform into schism, rejection of the authority of the Church’s tradition and bishops and most of the sacraments, and a growing number of Protestant communities, united only by their rejection of the Catholic Church.
While historians debate just how dramatic was the actual posting of the 95 theses, its anniversary is an occasion to look back at what the role of the most popular Protestant was in the movement that ultimately split Western Christendom in two.
Who was Martin Luther?
Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483, the oldest son of Hans and Margarethe Luther. His father, a successful business and civic leader, had grand visions for his eldest son’s life and sent him to school with the hopes he would become a lawyer.
While Luther completed his bachelor’s and master’s degree according to his father’s plan, he dropped out of law school, finding himself increasingly drawn to the subjects of philosophy and theology.
Soon after leaving law school, Luther entered an Augustinian monastery, a decision he would later attribute to a vow he made during a precarious horseback ride, when he was nearly struck by lightning in the midst of a storm. Terrified that he was about to die, the 21-year-old Luther cried out to St. Anne, promising that he would become a monk if he survived. He felt it was a vow he could not break; his father felt it was a waste of his education.
By all accounts, Luther was a Catholic success story before he became the leading figure of the Reformation. He joined the monastery in 1505, and by 1507 he was ordained a priest. He became a renowned theologian and biblical scholar within the order, as well as a powerful and popular preacher and lecturer at the University of Wittenberg in Germany.
During his years of study and growing popularity, Luther began developing the groundwork of his theology on salvation and scripture that would ultimately become deal-breakers in his relationship with the Catholic Church.
The offense of selling indulgences
But it wasn’t strictly theological ideas that first drove Luther to the ranks of reformation ringleader – it was his critique of the practice of selling indulgences, the central subject of his 95 theses, that catapulted him into the limelight.
According to Catholic teaching, an indulgence is the remission of all or part of the temporal punishment due to sins which have already been forgiven, and can be applied either to the person performing the prescribed act or to a soul in Purgatory.
To obtain an indulgence, one must complete certain spiritual requirements, such as going to the sacraments of Confession and Communion, in addition to some other act or good work, such as making a pilgrimage or doing a work of mercy.
But even years before Martin Luther, abuses of indulgences were rampant in the Church.
Instead of prescribing an act of prayer or a work of mercy as a way to obtain an indulgence, clerics began also authorizing a “donation” to the Church as a good work needed to remit the temporal punishment due to sin.
Increasingly, people grew critical of the sale of indulgences, as they watched money gleaned from people’s afterlife anxiety go to fund the extravagant lives of some of the clergy. The money was also often used to buy clerical offices, the sin of simony.
During Martin Luther’s time, in northern Germany, the young and ambitious prince-Archbishop Albrecht of Brandenburg was offered the position of the Archbishop of Mainz, but was unwilling to relinquish any of his previously-held power.
Meanwhile in Rome, Pope Leo X was demanding a considerable fee from Albrecht for his new position, as well as from the people of his dioceses for the fund to build St. Peter’s Basilica. Albrecht took out a loan and promised Rome 50 percent of the funds extracted from – as critics would describe it – preying on people’s fear of Purgatory.
For the St. Peter’s fund, the Pope had employed Dominican friar Johann Tetzel to be the Grand Commissioner for Indulgences for the country of Germany.
According to historians, Tetzel liberally preached the indulgence, over-promising remission of sins, extending it to include even future sins one might commit, rather than sins that had already been repented of and confessed. He even allegedly coined the gimmicky indulgence phrase: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from Purgatory springs.”
It was Tetzel’s activities that ultimately pushed Luther to protest by publishing his 95 theses.
The 95 theses and the seeds of reform
“When he posted the 95 theses, he wasn’t a Lutheran yet,” said Michael Root, professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America.
“In some ways they get things rolling, but what’s important is what happens after the 95 theses when Luther gets pushed into a more radical position.”
Regardless of how dramatically they were posted to the door of Wittenberg Castle on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed not only his theses but the feelings of many faithful at the time who were also frustrated with the corruption and abuse they saw in the Church.
Christian humanists such as Erasmus and St. Thomas More were contemporaries of Luther who also objected to abuses within Church while not breaking from it.
Meanwhile, Luther’s already-established reputation as a respected professor, as well as access to the printing press, allowed his theses and ideas to spread at a rate previously unmatched by previous reformers who had similar critiques of the Church.
“Clearly there was a kind of symbiosis between Luther and the development of the printing press,” Root said. “What he was writing was able to engage lots of people. Many of them were short pamphlets that could be printed up quickly, they sold well…so he was on the cutting edge of technology and he fit what the technology needed – short, energetic things people wanted to read.”
Most historians agree that Luther’s original intent was not to start a new ecclesial community – that idea would have been “unthinkable at the time,” Root noted. ??“So that’s too much to say; however, it’s too little to say all he want to do was reform abuses.”
By 1518, his theses spread throughout Germany and intellectual Europe. Luther also continued writing prolifically, engaging in disputes with Tetzel and other Catholic critics and further developing his own ideas.
For its part, the Church did not issue an official response for several years, while attempts at discussions dissolved into defensive disputations rather than constructive dialogue. As a result, early opportunities to engage Luther’s criticisms on indulgences instead turned into arguments about Church authority as a whole.
Swatting flies with a sledgehammer – Luther becomes a Lutheran
One of Luther’s most well-known critics was Catholic theologian Johann Eck, who declared Luther’s theses heretical and ordered them to be burned in public.
In 1519, the two sparred in a disputation that pushed Luther to his more extreme view that scripture was the only valid Christian authority, rather than tradition and the bishops.
“The Catholic critics quickly changed the subject from indulgences to the question of the Church’s authority in relation to indulgences, which was a more dangerous issue,” Root said. “Now you’re getting onto a touchy subject. But there was also an internal dynamic of Luther’s own thought,” that can be seen in his subsequent writings.
In 1520, Luther published three of his most renowned treatises: The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, On the Freedom of a Christian Man, and To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.
By that time, it was clear that what Luther thought was wrong in the Church was not just the abuse of indulgences, but the understanding of the message of Christianity on some basic levels. Besides denouncing the Pope as a legitimate authority, Luther also declared that faith alone, sola fide, was all that was necessary for salvation, rather than faith and good works.
“Luther was definitely trying to fix what was a legitimate problem, which was pelagian tendencies, or people trying to work their way into heaven,” said Dr. Paul Hilliard, Assistant Professor and Chair of Church History at Mundelein Seminary. It had created a “mercantile attitude” in some people at the time of Luther – “if I do this, God will do this.”
“So Luther was trying to correct these things, but the phrase I sometimes say is that Luther swatted the fly of pelagianism with a sledgehammer. In order to keep any trace of humans earning salvation out of the system, he changed the system.”
Luther’s distrust of human beings did not particularly spring from his criticisms of indulgences and the subsequent pushback from the Church – it was in line with most anthropological thought at the time, which tended toward a very negative view of human nature. Therefore, in his Protestant views, he sought to get rid of any human involvement wherever possible – particularly when it came to interpreting scripture and salvation.
“On the scale of beasts to angels, most people (at the time) would have us a lot closer to beasts,” Hilliard noted.
The Catholic Church officially condemned Luther’s theses in a papal bull, Exsurge Domine, promulgated in June 1520, and in part authored by Eck. The declaration afforded Luther a 60-day window to recant his positions, lest he be excommunicated.
But by the time the papal bull was issued, Luther had not only denounced the authority of the Pope, but had declared him an anti-Christ. The window for reconciling views was all but closed.
The popular and political reforms
Despite Luther’s increasingly radical claims against the Pope and the Church, his popularity spread, due to his compelling and prolific writings and, to Luther’s dismay, his populist appeal.
Luther popularized the idea of a “priesthood of all believers” to the exclusion of an ordained, ministerial priesthood. Rather than bearing an indelible mark on their soul, in Luther’s view ministerial priests did not differ from the “priesthood of believers” except in office and work. This, along with his personality and background, appealed to the poor and working class of the time who were frustrated with the lavish lives of Church hierarchy, which typically came at the expense of the poor in rural areas.
“Luther was very much a populist, he was a man of the people, he was scruff, he came from sort of peasant stock, he spoke the language of the people, so I think a lot of the common people identified with him,” Shreck said.
“He was one of them, he wasn’t far away in Rome or a seemingly wealthy bishop or archbishop…so he appealed particularly to Germans because he wanted a German liturgy and a German bible, and the people said, ‘we want a faith that is close to us and accessible’.”
But Luther balked when his religious ideals spurred the Peasant’s War of 1525, as peasants in rural areas of German revolted, motivated by Luther’s religious language of equality. The year or so of subsequent bloody war seemed to justify those who dismissed Luther as nothing more than a social movement rather than a serious religious reformer.
In order to maintain the esteem of those higher up, Luther disavowed the unruly peasants as not part of the official reform movement, laying the groundwork for the Anabaptists to fill in the religious gaps for the peasants in the future.
However, the Peasant’s War wasn’t the only time the Reformation got political – or lethal. Because of the vacuum of authority that now existed in Luther’s pope-less, emerging ecclesial community, authority was handed over to the local princes, who took advantage of the reformation to break from the fee-demanding Pope.
Much of Germany had embraced Lutheranism by the mid 1500s, though some parts, such as Bavaria, retained their Catholic faith.
For his part, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V officially condemned Luther’s theology at the 1521 Diet of Worms, a meeting of German princes, during which Luther famously refused to recant his position with the words: “Here I stand. God help me. I can do no other.”
Despite Charles V’s opposition to Luther’s views, he allowed for Luther’s safe passage from the diet, rather than enforcing the customary execution of heretics, and thus forfeited his best chance for stomping out the Reformation at its roots.
Historians speculate that while Charles V personally opposed Luther’s views, he let him live because he also saw the decentralizing of power from the Vatican as something of which he could take political advantage.
Reformation fever was also catching throughout Europe, and soon Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and England were all following Germany’s example of breaking from the Catholic Church and establishing state-run, Protestant ecclesial communities.
“I like to think of the story with the little Dutch boy with his the finger in the dyke,” Shreck said. “Once the breach was made, others follows his example. Once Luther did it, it was like the domino effect.”
“In a book by Owen Chadwick, he said the Reformation came not because Europe was irreligious, but because it was fervently religious,” Shreck added. “This was after the black death and a lot of social turmoil – people really wanted to turn to God and seek solace in faith.”
But the reformers were not all agreed on their beliefs, which led to the rise of numerous sects of Protestantism, including Calvinism, Anglicanism, and Anabaptism.
“Protestantism became very divided, though they all claimed to be doing the right thing because they believed they were maintaining the purity of the faith,” Schreck said.
Root noted that once the Protestant-Catholic divide “got embedded in political differences, between southern Europe and northern Europe, between Spain and England, and so the religious differences also became national differences, that just made matters far worse.”
“Once you have the wars of religion in 1546, then attitudes become very harsh. Once you start killing each other, it’s hard to sit down and talk,” he added.
The wars over religion would become especially pronounced in the 30 Years War of the 1600s, though at that point, religion had become more of a political tool for the state, Hilliard said.
“The 30 Years War is a really good indication that while religion was important, it was not the most important thing – it was a war between different competing princes to gain greater control of territories, during which religion was thrown into the mix,” Hilliard noted.
Could the Reformation have been avoided?
The million-dollar question at the center of Reformation history is whether the Reformation and the splitting of Western Christendom could have been avoided.
“Some would say by two years into the Reformation, the theological differences already ran very deep and there was no way you were going to get reconciliation,” Root said.
“But there are others who would argue that as late as the 1540s it was still possible that perhaps the right set of historical circumstances could have brought people together, and there’s no way of knowing, because you can’t run history again and change the variables.”
“Whether one could have settled it all then short of war, there were missed opportunities for reconciliation, that’s clear,” he added.
Luther’s fiery and rebellious personality, matched with the defiant and defensive stance that the Catholic Church took in response to his ideas, created a perfect storm that cemented the Protestant-Catholic divide.
Much of Luther’s thinking remained Catholic throughout his life, Schreck noted, including his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“I think if there had been a sincere effort on the part of the Catholic hierarchy that his concerns were legitimate, history might have gone in a different direction.”
It wasn’t until Pope Paul III (1534–1549), 17 years after the fated theses first made their rounds, that the Catholic Church as a whole took a serious and official look at its own need for reform, and its need to respond to the Protestant Reformation.
This is Part 1 in a three-part series on the Reformation. Part 2 will discuss the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation. Part 3 will discuss ecumenism today.
[…]
Now this crank is beginning to define “Catholic teaching” as ” an ideology”
What a mess this guy is.
Amoralist Laetitia proved the last Synod was fraudulent for the toleration of concubinage.
The upcoming Synods are being set up to promote fraudulent ideologies, like blessing same-sex unions. Want proof besides the IL, filled with heretical ideologies?
Consider the treatment of Cardinal Burke:
– Told the Truth of Christ to Pope Francis, got fired.
– Forced out of every role, invited to nothing, ignored after asking legitimate questions.
– Mocked with Covid while intubated.
– Endorses a document calling out potential anti-Catholic Synod ideologies versus the Deposit of Faith, called a promoter of ideologies.
– Not consulted or invited to the Synods as a Cardinal!
– Known abusers, promoters of heterodoxy, globalist rich people, “trans,” blasphemous artists and secular leaders who promote abortion get an audience, not Burke.
Witness the Synodaling of this pontificate. Matthew 7: 15-20
True.
With this clear declaration by Pope Francis about the non-ideological nature of the Synod on Synodality, the expected and understandable cynicism of the ideologically driven (like the anti-Francis Catholics) will loudly insist otherwise. An ideologue sees all in terms of ideology. This is a showcase of either their failure or resistance to understand what the Pope means by synodality. The synod on synodality is not a meeting about meetings as many extremist anti-Francis Catholics caricature and misrepresent. Synodality is a way of understanding the nature and mission of the Church. It is an ecclesiological profile of how the church lives out its vocation of being sent by Christ into the world. The synod is meant to be an actual living out of this ecclesiality and a forum for Catholics to listen to the Holy Spirit and to one another so as to deepen their faithfulness to this Christ-given mission to the world. Synodality is rooted in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium’s idea of the Church as a pilgrim people of God on a “shared journey” (from the Greek root words of “synod”) of, a people teaching and learning from one another, a priestly people whose shared identity stems from their common baptism. The Church only becomes faithful to its calling when it is willing to both teach and be taught as they “walk together” in the way of Jesus.
Why would anyone provide credence to an institution which has misunderstood its very constitution for 2000 years? Now we are asked to believe this cadre of egoists are being guided by the Holy Spirit? If they are correct now where has the Spirit been for 2000 years? Can Jesus Christ, God, contradict Himself? Private revelations are held up to scrutiny against the perennial Magisterium of the Church. How does Bergoglianism measure up to the perennial Magisterium? To the Apostolic Tradition, let alone Sacred Scripture? If synodalism is indeed what it says it is, dialogue, why are Roman Catholics who are termed “ridged” excluded from the exchange?
The synodalism characterized as a recapturing of the Apostolic era and mirroring Eastern Orthodoxy is a mendacious enterprise designed to further the evisceration of Christianity itself. It is meant to be a gradual slide into Arianism at best, eventually into a domesticated deism in service to the New World Order. It is a deception. A sacrilege. Hirelings run rabid over the flock.
Finally, after 2,000 years, Synodaling will save us by by walking together…somewhere!
Papal progress has redeemed me from my ideological stuckedness.
This is better than Burning Man or even talk therapy! I Am OK!
“Synodaling will save us by by walking together…”
Off a cliff?
We are already in mid-air.
Amen.
The 70’s called: retread of the same old tired junk of meaningless chatter….poor thing….back to the future…
Since it is clear that neither the hard-core ideologue Francis nor his hard-core ideological admirers understand the meaning of the word ideology, I will explain. It has all to do with whether you take truth seriously or foolishly. When you take it foolishly, you are an ideologue.
Ideologues believe truth is a human creation and subject to unlimited change. They pick and choose what belief system serves their personal interests, especially in such things as morality. Ideologues have little or no religious faith, even when they happen to be high prelates who project these states of mind and soul onto the non-ideologues they love to hate and accuse of being ideologues.
Those who take truth seriously know that truth never changes for the simple reason that their faith informs them that truth is entirely the reflection of the mind of God. It can never change over time because God doesn’t change. We cannot even possess truth. Truth possesses us. God allows us creativity in articulating our witness to truth, but we create no truth at all. When humanity makes discoveries, it can only discover what God already knows and has always known for eternity. I have worked in physics for decades and have experienced joy and reverence in witnessing the fingerprint of God.
Development of doctrine has always meant expanding common sense implications, not contradicting them, as Our Lord made clear. Merely looking with lust is evil, not only the complete act of adultery. Jesus might not have ever had the need to mention the word abortion. We don’t know. But the early Christians recognized the obvious evil of it and formally stated it.
Ideologues like Francis and his acolytes have a foolhardy approach to truth that believes what can’t change can change because they want it to be that way. Francis has denied immutable truth and insisted that even God is in the process of learning and can change His mind. This is an insult to God, but they don’t care because the majority of God’s sinful children are ideologues with a vested interest in few if any eternal truths, who support moral relativism and are faithlessly tolerant of the process of sham synods that are seeking to validate even greater insults to God.
If what you say is accurate, then why the persecution of the Latin Rite adherants?
This Pope is the master of double speak.
How do we know if we’re “walking together” in the way of Christ if some among us suggest walking somewhere that’s in contradiction to what Christ said in Holy Scripture? Is “Holy” Scripture still Divinely inspired, or has it finally devolved into “A reading film the book of Opinions on Christ written by some guy named Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John – Men who lived in a specific era and may therefore possibly be ignored”; as if the Scripture weren’t representing an eternal truth valid for all time and inspired by the Holy Spirit?
Or does the Holy Spirit tell us today different things than He told others 20 years ago? How would we know that what we’re hearing is from the Holy Spirit? Once upon a time I remember something about another Spirit; not that modernist Catholics talk about him anymore, but he was called an enemy, an accuser, a deceiver, and the father of lies? St Paul mentioned something about the nemesis and how we would know him, but do we still trust St. Paul after he said all those terrible things excluding those people “on the margins”; the fornicators, the drunks, the idolaters, the adulterers? Who are we going to trust, St Paul who helped murder St James and persecuted the early Christians, or kindly Papa Francis who said “Who am I to judge?”
Frankly, I’m with St Paul and every Christian afterward who understood his words as the Truth.
O, so in essence, the synod is about all the other stuff the apostles experienced while in Christ’s presence but didn’t actually believe important enough to convey for the mission the Church which was appointed by Divine assignment: the salvation of souls. We should just kind of hang out together, let the Holy Spirit speak to us, then meditate for a couple of minutes on what the Holy Spirit said? Sounds groovy. Peace and love, Brother! [The NO church is dying as the Woodstock generation that brought it into being is passing from their darkness into the light on the other side of this Lacrimarum Vale. Just today, The Pillar highlights an article about the closing of Catholic NO parishes in Seattle. To be honest, it can’t come quickly enough. LONG LIVE THE LATIN MASS!]
Since it is clear that neither a left-wing ideologue like Francis nor his ideological admirers understand the meaning of the word ideology, I will illuminate. It has to do with whether you take truth seriously or foolishly.
When you take it foolishly, you are an ideologue. You believe truth is a human creation and subject to unlimited change. You pick and choose what belief system serves your personal desires, especially in such things as morality. Ideologues have little or no religious faith, even when they happen to believe they have lots of it, or have the audacity to call it “walking with Jesus.”
Those who take truth seriously know that truth never changes for the simple reason that their faith informs them that truth is entirely the reflection of the mind of God. It can never change over time because God doesn’t change. We cannot even possess truth. Truth possesses us. God allows us creativity in witnessing truth, but we create no truth at all. When humanity makes discoveries, it can only discover what God already knows and has always known for eternity.
Development of doctrine has always meant expanding common sense implications, not contradicting them, as Our Lord made clear. Merely looking with lust is evil, not only formal adultery. Jesus might not have ever had the need to mention the idea of abortion. We don’t know. But the early Christians recognized the obvious evil of it and formally stated it.
Ideologues like Francis and his supporters have a foolhardy approach to truth that believes what can’t change can change because they want it to change. Francis has denied immutable truth and insisted that even God is in the process of learning and can change His mind. This is an insult to God, but they don’t care because the majority of God’s sinful children become ideologues with a vested interest in denying eternal truths, who support moral relativism, and who are quite tolerant of the process of sham synods that are seeking to validate even greater insults to God.
Foolishness abides when man tries to understand God without the Guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The ideologue of choice is surely Francis himself. That he is unable to recognize that his ideologies and his fraudulent attempt to replace the perennial Magisterium with his and his confreres personal notions would be laughable were it not so tragic, and, indeed, insulting to the faithful who they regard as catechized ignorant groundlings.
Some of us did survive the sixties, bruised but not brought down.
Shouldering the Bergoglian epoch becomes more difficult with each passing day. This morning this accurate estimation of it all was found at Rorate Caeli: “Each additional day with Francis is a day of wonder — wonder at how such magnificent mélange of utter buffoonery, tackiness, ignorance, and malice could reach the see of Peter in this “enlightened” age. Maybe it is all a great plot by liberals to destroy papolatry once and for all.”
There is more to it, it must be read.
The plain truth without mitigation.
Just who do the laity invited to vote in this synod represent? They don’t speak for me. Do they get a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit to discern God’s will that we regular lay plebs don’t get because we haven’t been invited to the Synod? Why do we regular laity have to listen to them? Moreover, if Church teaching is up for debate and change, can we debate the authority of Synods and the authority of the episcopacy to promulgate this stuff? I mean if some of it is up for debate then ALL of it is.
One would hope there is room at the table for the idea of God Our Father, Jesus Christ our Lord and the Holy Spirit Who has revealed to the world the Way, the Truth and the Life by way of the discipline of Love, which will prevail in this very fallen world which deceives us all. It’s a cooperative effort between God & Mankind, under the display of love, forgiveness and being rightly disposed in one’s heart. Selfish injustice has its worldly limits. Praise God. Be open to Him. Remember the Greatest Commandment which Our Lord has explained to us.
“In the synod, there is no place for ideology,” Pope Francis told journalists on the chartered ITA Airways plane.
This from a prelate who wrote an encyclical on environmentalism that criticized people for using air conditioners.
Exactly, like a Pretender.
Touché
So why is Pope Francis so worried about what he claims is the “Holy Spirit” talking at the Catholic Counsel? If it truly is the “Holy Spirit” discussing things, through Catholic leaders, at Pope Francis’ Council, why obstruct us and free-speech to listen in on what the “Holy Spirit” has to say?
John 3:19
And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
Guided by the Holy Spirit and nourished by the humble prayers of the faithful, the Synod on Synodality promises to bear rich fruit in plenty.
The fruits promise to be: Deceit, perishing, refusal, pleasure, delusion, belief, and ultimately condemnation
Teaching moments!
The regime of Pontiff Francis is obsessed with making accommodations for the sexual revolution and political power arrangements.
The main themes of its “different gospel” are:
1. Solidarity with the sex revolution ideology…
2. Solidarity with the Communist Ideology, and the communist state of China, declared by papal spokesman Sorondo of Argentina as the country that “best realizes the social doctrine of the Church.”
3. Establishing a post-christian ideological cult as permanent parasite living inside the Body of Christ.
“ICONIC & INSPIRATIONAL”
A Convention Center serves many purposes, such as, Trade Shows, Industry Fairs, Convention/Conference Venue, Live Entertainment, Reunions, even Film Set Staging.
One Particular Purpose a Convention Center can be for is initiating how its facilities will be used and what events will ensue. That is, Inception Gathering.
“Let your imagination grow – forward for any challenge – tomorrow’s dreams, today’s reality – spirit of innovation by visionaries in difficult times” – Javits’ promo.
Yes you could decree that your Center will never be used “as a Parliament” and that it will provide only for the “highest sense of freedom clean of all ideology”.
From WIKIPEDIA –
‘ In 1995, the Independent Review Board charged that jobs at the center had come under Mafia control. A New York Times article stated:
From the day the center opened in 1986 … Robert Rabbitt Sr. and his son Michael gave the work mainly to people with mob connections, to relatives and friends of organized-crime figures and to relatives and friends of union officers, the panel said. ‘
Today’s Space for Tomorrow’s Ideas
Javits Center | January 12 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auYZVPTBxLo&t=66s
https://javitscenter.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javits_Center
The Church has a history of “black balling” certain people even before the “discernment process “starts”. What does one expect from such nonsense?
The Synodal Process Is a Pandora’s Box: 100 Questions & Answers
Every time I read something this MAN has to say about anything vis-a-vis Rome and the world, including this synod, the muscles in my legs tighten to the point of WIRE. There will not be IDEOLOGY in the synod? I guess THAT isn’t an ideological stance, eh? I hope McElroy gets the message. The last word from him was like a trumpet blast in your ear in the middle of the night “the synod gives us progressives the chance to finish the job we started at V2.” Gulp. I’ve got to go stretch my legs, they’re cramping.