With all due respect to various folks, including Cardinal Schoenborn, the Synod that just concluded wasn’t a Synod of Bishops but a Synod of Bishops and Others.
If the Pope wants to have a Synod of Bishops Plus or a Synod of Mostly Bishops or a Synod of Bishops and Others, it’s his decision. He can have whatever consultative bodies he wants. But a synod where a significant number of voting participants aren’t bishops isn’t a Synod of Bishops, really. It just isn’t.
Now, since I’m more radical than Pope Francis on this, I don’t object to voting non-bishops in an advisory group to the Pope. If I write him a letter, I 100% vote for what I write. As I say, he can have whomever he chooses. But I do object to false labeling and misleading talk.
Speaking for my part of the People of God, and engaging my sensus fidei, I don’t care whether the bishops attending liked having non-bishops voting, as someone said trying to justify this gathering as a rootin’ tootin’ Synod of Bishops. That still doesn’t transform a Synod of Bishops and Others into a Synod of Bishops.
(I know some of Pope Francis’ advisers think that in theology 2 + 2 can equal 5. Talk that way a lot and we’ll wind up with Catholic doctrine amounting to 0/0. Some mathematicians still call this “indeterminate”, because while 0/0 can be 1, it can also be 2 or 3 or 4, etc., at least by some expert reckoning. Is that what we want for Catholic beliefs, indeterminacy?)
A senior church observer told me that this talk about the Synod of Bishops is Pope Francis’ way to “develop” a more inclusive Synod of Bishops. “Well, if it is, then it’s failing,” I replied. It may be succeeding at developing a more inclusive synod of some other kind. (Fine with me.)
But adding non-bishop voting members doesn’t make a Synod of Bishops more inclusive as a *Synod of Bishops*. Stop abusing words and insulting people’s intelligence.
All of this seems obvious. When church leaders seem to talk past what seems obvious, it doesn’t inspire trust or confidence.
For the record, if the Pope wants to have an international equivalent of a diocesan pastoral council or a parish pastoral council, I’m all for it—in principle. In practice, I think we’re quite a way aways from walking that road together. I have little confidence in the “People of God” “discerning” much right now. It’s hard for 1.3 billion people to engage in and express common “discernment.” And an international pastoral council would be a small subset of *that*. But then I’m uninspired by how collaborative or co-responsible or synodal most parishes and dioceses are. (Not very, though some are exceptional.)
I’m all for grand talk. It can inspire. But we have to do much, much, much better if we want more than grand talk. If we really want to hear the Holy Spirit. If we want this whole synodality business to be Catholic. Come to think of it, on these general points about co-responsibility and “synodality” of all Catholics the Holy Spirit has already spoken, just as he has on many of the doctrinal points some folks seem to think are still up for a future synodal vote.
I hope my saying all this doesn’t cause those synodalists disappointed with the latest outcomes not to trust the Spirit or to be fearful. Many of them seem to have too ready to resort to that way of thinking, if their rebuttals to others’ expressed concerns are any indication.
Pax Domini.
(Editor’s note: This post was first published on the author’s Facebook page in slightly different form.)
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Yo, Mark, it’s all about Alice in Wonderland:
“’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’”
About which, the backwardist St. Augustine said: “We can say things differently, but we can’t say different things.”
If I, by God’s mercy, find myself in Heaven, I just pray that Jesus doesn’t call for a “meeting.”
I recall a joke I saw once:
“When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 3
for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’”
“Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Okay, the rest of you break into small groups.'”
10/10!
👍😃
Flailing organizations often over focus on process, in the mistaken that a good process must necessarily produce results. Processes don’t produce things, people do. I am still undecided about this whole synodal process thingy. I would like it to be beneficial but I remain scepticsl.
Mr Brumley has some excellent advice for Bergoglio and his synodolaters:
“Stop abusing words and insulting people’s intelligence.”
As a member of the worldwide Catholic Church, I am hereby making this my own personal contribution to the synodal process, which should be viewed as input from the Holy Spirit. I repeat:
“Stop abusing words and insulting people’s intelligence.”
The Holy Spirit has spoken. (Albeit in my voice, which is apparently how it works now.)
I am of the mind that the same Holy Spirit spoke these words to both of us. Perhaps there are more whom the Holy Spirit has spoken to in this regard. We just might have the first Groundswell Synod going here.
Of misapplied words, perhaps a lexicon should be assembled…in addition to “synod,” also “rigid, fixistic, paradigm shift, bigoted, backwardist…and forward”?
Said the Chinese emperor when asked what he would do to save his realm: “I would restore the meaning of words.”
Words do mean things.
If it were true that a “Synod of Bishops and Others” is a “Synod of Bishops,” then it could easily also be true that the Pope may not be the Pope. And if the Pope is not the Pope, then maybe the See of Peter is vacant and it’s time to hold a conclave to elect a Pope.
Humpty Dumpty deserves greater recognition as a sage as shown by Peter Beaulieu. That interpretation of word usage, the seeming specific that are really generalities. As were the words of Card Marchetto ecstatically referenced by a suddenly Apostolic traditionalist Pope Francis.
Although isn’t that the name of the game? Saying what you mean without saying what you mean. We can have lots of fun playing the game, a game that unfortunately costs souls.
It was a typical meeting of branch office managers and HR having non-stop brainstorming and break-out sessions in perfect conformity to latest corporate management practices. And its fruit was of the same stale variety, focused on anything but what really matters. Largely, the blind leading the blind, to same effect.
Could this be the new Pentecost?! I also hear, deep within my inmost self, a resounding proclamation of the Holy Spirit, “Stop abusing words and insulting people’s intelligence.”
My biggest issue with the recently concluded Synod is that it was, as Shakespeare said, “Much ado about nothing.” All the talk about women deacons, women priests, blessing homosexual unions, and the rest is a complete waste of time. The issues have already been decided, by God in inspired scripture and by Jesus when He organized the Church. The basic document needs to be scrapped and redone to list items that are actually worth discussing. It should address the real problems in the Church, like evangelization (which we do far too little of), the shrinking numbers of Catholics in the West, the issue of homosexuality in the clergy and how to remove this blight, and the issue of “Catholic” colleges offering drag shows and hiring professors with decidedly non-Catholic teachings such as support for abortion and other immorality. And the next time, when the USCCB chooses the delegates to attend, the Pope should accept that and not come behind them and choose others, like Cupich, Gregory, and James Martin, who are his ideological surrogates, to help skew the results to be what he wants.
The whole process has an Orwellian smell to it. Surely, we’ll soon have a new Ministry of Truth.
The smell is scatological in nature which is the consistent characteristic of the Bergoglio Pontificate.
Since we need to be exact with the use of words and that it is now radically inclusive reflecting and including the wider membership of the Church, not just the bishops, it should be called (using a popular Vatican II terminology) the Synod of the People of God.
“Look it’s your affair if you want to play with five people … but don’t go calling it doubles.”
— Monty Python’s Flying Circus, episode 7
Cardinal Bergoglio was made Pope Francis and assigned the task of desensitizing Catholics to homosexuality, and thereby protecting practicing priests. That is the fire within the smoke of Synodal misdirection.
In this era of euphemisms, the truth is manipulated and sweetened to be whitewashed and mmm presented as not what it is; war is special military operation; torture is enhanced interrogation; assisted suicide is death with dignity; civilian casualties is collateral damage; inconvenient truth is fake news; immigrant childrens’ prison is tender age shelter; Wuhan virus is COVID-19 virus; clergy homosexual predation sex abuse scandal is clergy pedophilia sex abuse scandal; sodomy is gay sex; racism is anti-critical race theory; anti-Pope Francis dissent is orthodox traditionalism.
60 years ago (1963) Vatican II was a larger Synod of the Catholic church, induced and engineered with the help of ‘masons’ both inside and outside, walking together, listening (1963-65). It resulted with the ‘smoke of satan’ entering through some fissures and now (2023) 60 years after we have a conciliar church – But the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Catholic eclipsed and its glorious liturgy of worship abandoned.
The church wreckers of that time engineered the heterodox doctrines of ecumenism, freedom of religion, conscience, etc., that have caused clerical abuse, Priests abandoning their priesthood, closing down/selling of churches to muslims/sikhs, merging of parishes, the laity that were the bulwark of Catholicism now church shopping, with a cut-and-paste protestant-type communion service liturgy of worship with 4 Eucharistic prayers (incorporated by Bugnini &Co to please their editors) for the one and the same sacrifice of Calvary.
Now a synod on synodality is steaming ahead with a mix of ‘gay” clerics and laity championing the causes of LGBTQ+, ordination of women, same-sex tomfoolery and proposing the rewriting of the 10 Commandments of God and holy Scriptures to please men and women of the modern city of Gomorrah with a synodal Church to bless the S+S union with a panchnama liturgy in the offing.
Rome was not built in a day. Nor was the Holy Roman liturgy (TLM) handed down to our forefathers. It took 1570 years of organic development. IT was pleasing to God and produced martyrs and saints (men and women) and stood the test of time and orthodoxy; the best thing this side of eternity
Let us go back to the roots : Catechism of the Council of Trent / the Baltimore Catechism. Because, in spite of all the intellectual “isms”, moral laxitude, human manipulations and supersonic progress, men and women remain the same (flesh and blood) with their, passions, pride and prejudices – prone to sin. No amount of synodality (‘enlarging your tent’) can change that fact – not in another 1000 years but for a total conversion of heart. God too is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow – Immutable. His statutes are engraved on rock – unchangeable.
Let us humbly surrender ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary who will have the last lap of victory.
George Davis… you sum up the situation so brilliantly!