The Sins of the Synod

A recent document from the Vatican outlines a penitential celebration that will be part of the opening of the latest stage in the now exhausting exercise of the Synod on Synodality.

Synod on Synodality delegates in small groups listen to Pope Francis’ guidance on October 4, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

A friend recently sent me a document from the Vatican that at first I thought was a parody of the Synod on Synodality. It was too silly to be serious, so I thought. By now, however, I should know better. It was not a parody. The letterhead from the General Secretary of the Synod and the Diocese of Rome is official, and the document is hosted on a Vatican URL.

The document outlines a penitential celebration that will be part of the opening of the latest stage in the now exhausting exercise of the Synod on Synodality. The celebration, presided over by Pope Francis, “is intended to direct the work of the Synod towards the beginning of a new way of being Church.” A goal of the celebration is that there might be the experience of “feeling pain and even shame” for our sins and perhaps the sins of others. It closes with the admonition that “the request for forgiveness is the first step of a faith-filled and missionary credibility that must be re-established.” (One wonders when the missionary credibility was lost.)

Others have written about the theme frequently present in the Synodal efforts, and included again in this Synodal document, of “a new way of being Church.” This theme is a headscratcher. What exactly is “a new way of being Church”? Is it something other than what the Holy Spirit established 2,000 years ago? If so, what are we to do with the traditional way of “being Church”? And what is “being Church” in the first place? It sounds like a slogan from a focus group designed to include everyone’s input while not really providing a definition of anything. The synodal leaders would do well to define what “a new way of being Church” means. If they can’t, then it seems they should remove that language from future documents.

And as for “feeling pain and even shame” for our sins, that seems to be something more appropriate for the sanctuary of a confessional, spiritual direction, or even counseling than for a liturgical celebration. What if we don’t feel pain or shame for our sin, but we know we have sinned and seek reconciliation? What if the response to the sin of others is anger? Should the goal be shame rather than anger? I’m genuinely curious what the synodal leaders mean by all of this.

These ideas, which you should read for yourself, lead up to the announcement that the penitential celebration will name sins which are to be confessed, implying that these are the greatest sins of our day and keep us from “a new way of being Church.” It is a list of seven sins, all of which are very general in their description (which is not how sins are properly confessed, or so I was catechized). Among those named:

  • Sin of using doctrine as stones to be hurled
  • Sin against synodality / lack of listening, communion, and participation of all

This is where the document becomes a parody of itself. “Sin of using doctrine as stones to be hurled”? What in the names of Saints Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure is that? Who is using doctrine as stones to be hurled? It seems they have people in mind. Is it the catechist who assigns The Catechism of the Catholic Church for reading? Is it the continent of bishops that rejected a Vatican document, which by popular reading sanctions sin? Is it a bishop who, for the good of souls under his authority, denies Communion to a public official who is creating grave scandal? Is it the parent who teaches his or her children the Ten Commandments?

I, for one, have examined my conscience on this and do not have to confess this sin, and I suspect there are not any synodal delegates (who will partake in this penitential celebration), who need to confess such a sin. Perhaps there is a need to confess the failure to uphold Church teaching (which is another description of Church doctrine). By almost any standard, that seems to be the much more serious problem today. Doctrine is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a great gift of the Church for the faithful. Sure, it can be pastorally misused, but how often does that happen? What is exponentially more common is dismissing or being ambiguous about Church teaching in a way that is spiritually dangerous; one might even say eternally dangerous. That seems worth confessing.

A recurring theme that comes from this Vatican is the implication that Church teaching is not in itself pastoral, as if the truth is not for the good of the human person. Yes, of course, Church teaching can be used in a way that is pastorally insensitive or ineffective, but that is a critique of the method not the teaching. All truth, to borrow a line from Scripture, is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). Church teaching is not something to be minimized or dismissed, but affirmed so we may live in the truth of Christ, so that we might be happy. This is a fundamental tenant of our faith that is being lost these days.

And then there is the “Sin against synodality / lack of listening, communion, and participation of all.” Again, the parody is thick.

We still are not clear what “synodality” is, so how can we repent of sinning against it? Maybe they mean the lack of synod delegates and synod leadership properly listening to the faithful when, for example, the Vatican’s communications office deletes a Vatican online poll where 88% respond in the negative to the question: “Do you believe that synodality as a path of conversion and reform can enhance the mission and participation of all the baptized?” That seems to be a failure of listening. I am not sure it needs to be confessed, but I leave that to the conscience of whoever deleted the poll.

And, of course, there is the obvious way in which the Holy See fails to listen to those who are critical of the Synodal Way, or who prefer the traditional Mass, or who express concerns about the confusion emanating from the Vatican these days. If we want to be a “listening” Church, then it would be good if that were modeled by those who support a model of “a Church that wants to walk together,” as the letter opens.

Following this list of sins, the letter notes that “the Holy Father will address, on behalf of all the faithful, the request for forgiveness to God and to the sisters and brothers of all humanity.” Here the General Secretary for the Synod moves from silliness to, well, incorrect theology. In the Catholic sacramental economy, we cannot seek forgiveness for another person. We can pray that the other might repent, but asking for forgiveness is something different and not incidental. Maybe the letter intended something else, but words mean things, and the Vatican, of all entities, should be very careful about its use of words.

I call all of this a parody of the synodal way but, while it is amusing, it is also very serious. This sort of thing makes the Church look silly. It distracts from the real good of teaching the faith with a clarity and a gravitas with which it deserves. It undermines the authority of the Holy Father and Bishops, under whose mantle this is all happening, by making the work of the Church an unserious affair. It also fails to reveal the beauty of the faith through the saints and other holy men and women who witness to the indescribable beauty of the Catholic tradition, the Scriptures, and the eschatological vision to which Christ gave himself for the Church and the faithful.

What we need now is not jargon that is unclear and open to ridicule, but a clarity of teaching and a seriousness that is fitting for the Gospel. It is possible.

A penitential rite prior to the start of the synodal meetings seems like a good thing. We all need the grace of clean hearts to better hear the Holy Spirit. What we don’t need is a quasi-sacramental celebration that uses the rites of the Church to advance an agenda that has ideological undertones to it.

We are not a Church that needs to be reformed with a new identity fueled by a process that invites confusion. What we need now and always is to be renewed by the life of Christ, who calls us to live in his truth. When we take this call seriously, the world will take the faith seriously.

(Editor’s note: This essay was published originally on the “What We Need Now” site and is republished here with kind permission of the author.)


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About Jayd Henricks 4 Articles
Jayd Henricks is the former executive director of government relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has a STL in systematic theology from the Dominican House of Studies.

63 Comments

  1. “a new way of being Church.”

    I hate to break the news to the devotees of SynodalMania but sodomy is not “a new way of being Church”. It’s been around for almost 75 years in the Church, has cost the Catholic Church billions of dollars, has caused millions of the faithful to flee the Church and has taken a severe toll on the health and well-being of many who have been its victims.

    A word to the Vatican and its SynodalFreaks: We’re watching you. We know what tricks you’re playing. We see your deliberations being held in secret. We see how you are straying from Church teachings. We’re not going to stop battling you just as we don’t stop battling Satan whose work you’re doing. We pray for your return to the True Church but we’re no longer fooled by your deceptions.

    • Well Said, Ephrem, and please keep in mind: history tells us that reform in the Church always starts at the bottom, which means prayer and fasting by us little ones.

      We’ll get through this.

    • “I hate to break the news to the devotees of Synodal Mania but sodomy is not “a new way of being Church”. It’s been around for almost 75 years in the Church.” Yes, but it is leading to a climax, a Final Trial and purification. This is where we are going today under this pontificate.

      • Wow, five comments in a row of hurling doctrine. Can I join this make believe sin too? Maybe it will serve as penance for my real sins.

    • I must have read a different article. I found it knit-picky and not reflective of most of our realities. We are losing generations over our inability to meet people where they are and helping them move forward on their faith journeys. Many of our priests and seminarians need to be served and obeyed. Many of our youth programs want to make sure you are worthy enough to be included in one of their group homes, they openly promote the inequality between the sexes and do very little Gospel-living through service to others. I remain strong in my Catholic faith and pray, by example, I can lead others to Christ.

      • Malachi 3:6 – “I, THE LORD, do not change . .”

        Luke 6:46 – ‘Why do you call Me, “LORD, LORD” and not do what I say?’

      • “We are losing generations over our inability to meet people where they are and helping them move forward on their faith journeys. Many of our priests and seminarians need to be served and obeyed.”

        I agree with you regarding the widespread “to be served and obeyed” motto. I have observed it and it is very off-putting. Needless to say, an entitlement and a perception of the clergy as “a class above the plebes = laity”, shared by both clergy and laity has provided a friendly environment for the abuse within the Church and especially for its cover up. However, you are mistaken if you think that “the Synod of Synodality” targets to change any of that. In fact, I even have a proof of my statement, obtained during the local sessions on “S of S”. While examining the materials given to us, including the report which went to the Vatican, I found that the report excluded the voices of those who were sexually abused or whose children/grandchildren were sexually abused in our diocese. Their stories were written as responses to an invitation “to share a faith experience in the Church” (i.e. “faith journeys” mentioned by you). People wrote about their shattered trust, in priests and in Church, as a result of abuse. Some people were very old, soon to die and still in shock with what happened. Most of them were from the families of very strong Catholic believers, the “pillars” of parish life before the abuse.

        However, those very relevant to the agenda of “S of S”, experiences never made their way to the summary = never made into the Vatican. That means that “the S of S” wants to hear from “victims”, “vulnerable” or “marginalized” people just as much as it wanted to hear from them before. I.e. Those who work for ‘S of S’ (on various levels) continue covering the abuse and its effect via silencing its victims. I have an impression that this silencing is something deeply ingrained in the bureaucratic mechanism in the Church.

        My report to the participants of “S of S” local sessions about my discovery made no impression. Most behaved as they wished not to think of it and to move on to more pleasant “walking together”. They did not express any emotions; a facilitator very vigorously tried to shut me up. It was astonishing to behold the process of silencing first hand.

        I have observed (via studying the materials and reports) a very similar way of not hearing/shutting up the opponents on the Vatican sessions as well. Thus, what we are witnessing now is the same silencing being dressed in “nice fluff”. Sometimes they actually speak about the necessity to support the victims of the abuse in the Church – but being combined with the actual not hearing/silencing those victims is not very convincing. Instead of actually DOING something about this issue, they fluff about “listening to all”. Well, an old woman who is terminally ill and who wrote that she believes in Jesus but she cannot understand how such a thing could happen (abuse of her child in the Church) is unlikely to be comforted by those slogans and “to move forwards”. And – most importantly – one does not need ‘S of S’ to help her, one only need a normal human empathy.

        PS Please, the “S of S” enthusiasts, imagine Our Lord discoursing about healing the hungry, protecting the weak, suffering for the sake of others – only discoursing, never doing that.

  2. Phrases like “being Church,” “journeying together,” and “listening Church” share the unique characteristic of being clichés at their first utterance. How anyone can even say such flummery with a straight face passes my comprehension; however, maybe that’s one of my own “sins against synodality.” Somehow I doubt I’ll be bringing it up at my next Confession, however.

  3. I agree with the author that this document is shameful. It is not a parody (although indeed it looks like one), it is a genuine document of a narcissistic inability to relate to fellow human beings in a normal way, i.e. personally. It is also a monument of a narcissistic interpretation of a sacrament of confession. A true repentance is never general/impersonal but about a person’s sin against another person – human being, God or himself. One cannot confess a vague “sin against creation” – one can confess an unnecessary destruction of the trees on one’s property which ruined the habitat of the birds and other creatures. Likewise, general “sin against poverty” makes no sense while a personal callous refusal to help a needy individual does.

    Why do I insist on the term “narcissistic”? – Because a narcissist is typically unable to truly repent his sins. However, he is very able to repent sins of “all humanity against all humanity”, no problem. It is not “nice” to repent hitting own wife – that means I am cruel and not “nice” – but is very “nice” to repent “a sin against women” because it makes me such a considerate man. Especially if it is done in public.

    Since Christ Who is the Head of the Church is an antithesis of a narcissist I agree with the author, it is very serious.

  4. “We still are not clear what “synodality” is, so how can we repent of sinning against it.”

    In this case, it is clear that the counterfeit anti Christ church of apostasy from God’s Universal Call To Holiness is being illluminated by the errors of the counterfeit church itself, that desires to accommodate sin, in order to cast stones upon The Truth Of Perfect Love Incarnate and His One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, which exists for The Salvation Of Souls.

    “Now, go, and sin no more”, in essence, is meaningless, for a synod that denies sin is sin:
    From The Catechism Of The Catholic Church:


    “1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121
1850 Sin is an offense against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”122 Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,”123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to contempt of God.”124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125“

  5. I am very disappointed with your critical article about the Synod
    The Catholic Church is cratering throughout Western Europe and North America particularly with young people.The church has suffered through appalling clerical abuse, cover ups and poor administration. Of course we must look at what’s gone wrong and attempt to restore trust in the church . Maybe, just maybe our doctrinal warfare is blinding us the teachings of Christ who fought so hard against those doctrinaire Pharisees.

    • Your post is quite naive. If you think that moving the church even more leftward than it has already moved is going to be a game-changer, you might want to consider the fate of mainline American Protestant churches who made the same set of decisions earlier in the 20th Century. It didn’t end well for them, and it won’t end well for Catholicism.

      • Mr. Pawle:

        The “doctrine of the sex revolution” is the doctrine of the culture of death, which wages war against The Way and The Truth and The Life: Jesus.

        The Synod is stocked with men who believe in what is evil.

    • you are proving or demonstrating the saving and healing balm of the truth of the article in your very posturing… the synod is destroying the Beloved’s Work and Way-laying His Spousal People…the Church has been ‘cratering’ because of the substance which you listed is what the synod is and has been all about…taking this cratering and enshrining it synodally…Christ did not remove His Doctrine or change His Doctrine, that is HIS LOVE becasue of spiritual warfare against His Truth, rather He died and rose and ascended and sent with the Father the Holy Spirit to guide and keep the Doctrine or Truth or Love until He Returns. The synod is replacing this Work and Plan of God with ‘human’ synodalism, ‘teaching as God’s Love, the precepts of satan and men given to his darkness because they do not believe ‘that His Doctrine-Truth-Love is the same yesterday, today and forever’, so they need to change it and to change the Way it is received and passed on….pray and fast, please

    • Oliver, I appreciate your comment. Thank you. A point of discussion between our individual perceptions is focused on the actions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees – they were doctors of the law and were well versed in arguing about all that the Law entailed. Where they erred was in the area of acts of commission and omission. They were the ones that passed by the sick, the maimed, the hungry as they were busy traveling to their next meeting on Synodality, fearing that stopping to render aid would violate the Sabbath, etc. They were too willing to condemn their neighbor for their sins, while being all too willing to overlook their own. There seems to be a confusion or a conflation between this behavior and those that clearly teach all to repent.
      There is a time and place for all things. What I think the pope should spend 100% of his time today is condemning the clerical sexual abuse of the laity and in directly laicizing priests who have been abusers regardless of their position from cardinal to parish priest. Until such time as this issue is completely cured and healing is firmly in place stop condemning the world for ignoring environmental abuse, the errors of the First World nations, embracing the teachings of gay priests, etc. When our house is clean, then we can talk about others and not until.

      • Spoken to The Church with the servant authority of a Holy Spirit-anointed prophet.

        Thanks be to God, we still have among us such as Michael B and Anna the Ikonist.

  6. Amen, brother. When the leadership leads us to such confusion one asks oneself whether the Church was indeed led to the present Vatican and papacy by the Holy Spirit, and if so why? Well, as a Catholic I must assume we were given this crew for a reason, and that reason must be penitential. It’s quite a punishment is it not?

  7. I can’t help but compare the “synodal way” events to the stories of Nero fiddling while Rome burned!

    A few decades ago, the Willow Creek Community Church (non-denominational, which means no “watch group” to keep churches on the straight and narrow path!) in the northern suburbs of Chicago attracted massive crowds–as many as twenty-thousand people attended the “seeker services” on Sundays, and many thousands more attended the weekday “church services” in homes in the area. Protestants were convinced that this type of “church” was “the way to go and grow!”

    In my former city in Illinois, a “church plant” of the Willow Creek megachurch attracted several thousand people each week, who attended “seeker services” in a former shopping mall that had been remodeled and fitted with huge screens (the sermons were videos, not live) and a musical stage that rivals those seen at rock concerts.

    The church promoted itself with the slogan, “A different way to do church.” (Did the Synodal Way promoters borrow that slogan?!)

    But the Willow Creek church crashed and burned after the sins of the leadership were revealed, and it took its church plants with it. Today Willow Creek is still around but it’s not what it was and hopefully, that’s a good thing. And the church plant in my home city is gone, and the shopping mall where “a different way to do church” happened is just a closed-down shopping mall again.

    I think the “synodal way” will be gone after its leader, God bless him, is no longer the leader of the Catholic Church, and I don’t think it’s going to be a “crash and burn” ending. I think it will fade out and for some, be a pleasant memory while others will sigh with relief.

    I think that the rise of the “Eucharistic Conferences” is very promising and will help many Protestants and “nones” who feel comfortable with the excellent Christian contemporary music, dynamic preaching, and large viewing screens find their way home to Rome. But eventually, the time of the Eucharistic Conferences will also end, and, as He has throughout all human time, God will give Holy Mother Church other tools to preach, teach, and perform works of mercy to all the people who have yet to hear about Jesus Christ and His sacrificial love.

    • Throwing literal stones at adulterers is what Jesus opposed. Criticizing perfidy within the Church is not wrong but mandatory for faithful Catholics.

  8. Men who publicly deny the way and truth of Jesus Christ and promote the sinful and death-dealing ideologies of the sexual revolution and queer theology, in open defiance of the Sixth Commandment of Jesus and Our Father, have invented an 11th Commandment: “The Sin Against Synodality.”

    These men and their Synod cohorts are outlaws and enemies of Jesus Christ, and enemies of my family and children and grandchildren. They are in occult communion with the sociopath sex abusers McCarrick and Rupnik.

  9. We’re witnessing the restructure of the Church’s operative functions and most significantly its doctrines, the former facilitating the latter. Jayd Hendricks aptly identifies the two key, new doctrinal sins that were evident when responding to the Sept 16 CNA Hannah Brockhaus article, Here’s what will be new at the Synod on Synodality part 2.
    Weaponization of Apostolic doctrine by traditional Catholics [throwing stones], unwilling submission to reeducation [not listening] express the effective meaning of the two key doctrines. Ivan Pavlov, Soviet neurologist who developed mind conditioning [brainwashing], could not have developed a better finessed way of getting your point across to the hapless Catholic. What are we facing? If not a distancing from Christ, portrayed at Nicaea as Light from Light to a new credo of Darkness from Darkness.

  10. https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2024/09/27/does-divine-inspiration-inhabit-every-faith/

    “Behold your Mother.”

    Why not restore the missing Filioque to Dominus Iesus?

    Dear Blessed Mother Mary, Mirror of Justice , Untier Of Knots, And Destroyer Of All Heresy, Who Through Your Fiat, Affirmed The Filioque, and thus the fact that There Is Only One Son Of God, One Word Of God Made Flesh, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, I Jesus The Christ, thus there can only be, One Spirit Of Perfect Complementary Love Between The Father And The Son, Who Must Proceed From Both The Father And The Son, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity (Filioque), hear our Prayer that your Immaculate Heart Will Triumph soon for the sake of Christ, His Church, all who will come to believe, and all our beloved prodigal sons and daughters, who, hopefully, will return to The One Body Of Christ, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost(Filioque).

  11. “We are not a Church that needs to be reformed with a new identity fueled by a process that invites confusion.”
    There is likely to be some confusion. However, we need a synodal church in order to help us avoid so much clericalism.

    • no, we need Christ’s Pentecost-Hierarchical Church where the Holy Spirit does this work, not men whose spirit is not His and are the cause and anguish and keepers of this confusion…..

    • Really? We need a Church of seances that equate and lie to themselves that they are the true Holy Spirit to contradict what God, Who they declare, by implication, to have been a lying God in the past, or, in God’s confusion, got wrong, only to now be set straight by becoming subordinate to His creation?

    • What Clericalism? Facts and concrete examples please.
      Mkst of these claims mean that priests are using their authority in their mission to save souls and people don’t like being challenged. So they simply cry ‘clericslism.’

      • “Clericalism” is a perversion of a true vocation of the clergy into self-serving sickness which then spreads in the Church.

        What you define as “priests are using their authority in their mission to save souls” is obviously not clericalism but a normal function of a priest. A priest is a father figure and, as a father in a family, he has an authority to teach and lead his congregation towards Christ. (An ordination also gives him a unique authority to conduct the Sacraments which he does by a power of the Holy Spirit given to him.) Just like a father in a family, to be a good father in the Church a priest should be emotionally mature and to have a healthy-enough psyche. If he is not, then he will inevitably fall into so-called “clericalism” that is a perversion of an authentic fatherhood. I.e. he will (often unconsciously) use his position to compensate for his emotional immaturity.

        For example, instead of feeling that his position of authority is something that must be used only for leading people to Christ, he will use it to encourage people to adore him = to feel that he is far better, far holier than them simply by the virtue of his ordination. He will use the readiness of his congregation to obey him for his own benefits, to boost his ego for example, in various ways, often subtle. Being very insecure, he will also reinforce the invisible wall between him and his congregation. This is a wall of an emotional detachment created by an acute sense “I am higher than them, I am very special, I am entitled etc”. It is a vector of pride which blinds a person to own sins and passions. This is a recipe for disaster, especially if the laity share and support that delusion.

        Now, that vector of pride combined with a stunted emotional development is precisely what caused an abuse within the Church. Narcissistic priests (many of notorious abusers indeed fit the profiles of either narcissistic or sociopathic personality disorder) used the laity to satisfy their urges because they feel entitled; the laity, agreeing with that, enabled them and covered them up. It is a well-known dynamic of a toxic family, mostly narcissistic. This is why “clericalism” should be really swapped with a straightforward “narcissistic clergy” and “narcissistic dynamics within the Church”.

        NB: “The Synod of Synodality”, being initiated by covert narcissistic clergy, cannot deal with narcissism in the Church, for an obvious reason. All it does is dressing the old “I am” of narcissism into the inclusive clothes of “we are”.

  12. Here we go again with the false narrative. Jayd Henricks knows exactly what he wants to say but refuses to do so and that is just a sad place to be given all the issues facing the Church today especially here in the west where secularity rules. When Jayd Henricks states, “I, for one, have examined my conscience on this and do not have to confess this sin,” one can see he is consumed by his EGO. I really wonder what church he is talking about it surely not The Holy Roman Catholic Church.

  13. We have the curious anomaly, so it seems, of a papal message for the strategically located Luxembourg to become a center of evangelization in a European continent awash in secularism https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/09/26/in-a-secularized-luxembourg-pope-francis-tells-catholics-to-evangelize-europe/

    Three points and a question:

    FIRST, Christine Bußhardt, vice president of the diocesan pastoral council, remarked that “[t]he worldwide synodal process offers a historic opportunity for a much-needed renewal, and the seed of the synodal Church is already starting to germinate.”

    Is Luxembourg the real meaning of synodality, or is synodality itself now awash with ambiguities about the equivalence of all religions, the irreducible role of the successors of the Apostles (“facilitators”!) and of the papacy, and even of the gospel—in union with the inborn and universal natural law (an explicit part of the magisterium, Veritatis Splendor)? How is synodality to navigate, now having thrown overboard—some say—the compass of the real Vatican II and the rudder of natural law?

    SECOND, historian Peter Brown offers a very close analogy. As the urban Pax Romana faded into the 6th-century sea of longstanding rural paganism, pagan culture found itself challenged by new Christian outposts based on salvaged relics of the saints (“The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity,” 1981). He writes: “What is at stake behind the tired repetitions of antipagan polemic and the admonitions of the councils in sixth-century Gaul and Spain [Europe!] is nothing less than a conflict of views on the relation of man and nature” (p. 125).

    THIRD, today, enter the tribe of Luxembourg’s Hollerich (who would place sexual morality or “the relations of man and nature” on a radically secularist “sociological-scientific foundation”), plus Malta’s Grech who likewise would “stretch the grey area,” plus everybody’s poster-child Fr. James Martin (since 2017 a Vatican communications advisor!). All at the helm of Synod 2024. Not to mention the longer-lived fifteen backroom “study groups” awarded the invasive “hot-button themes”—previously the “responsibility” of synods of bishops.

    QUESTION: However, and with Luxembourg now as a possible beacon, how to synodally evangelize Europe—and even the co-equal (?) pluralisms of the world? Now, with the earlier “cult of the saints” replaced by the cult of facilitators, experts and process-managers? In the coming twilight, how might the laity and the ordained clergy still flourish together as the sacramental and Eucharistic Church? The Benedict Option, or what?

    Said Pope Francis in Luxembourg: ““As the successor of the Apostle Peter, and on behalf of the Church, which is an expert in humanity, I am here to testify that the Gospel is the life source and the ever-fresh force of personal and social renewal.”

    • Pope Francis and his coterie: “The Gospel is here to make the world a better place!”

      The LORD, Jesus Christ: “My Gospel is here to show you all there is A Better Place.”

  14. ‘Penitential celebration’ – what a nauseating – and oxymoronic – phrase.
    Penance – TRUE penance – is private, between the sinner and – in persona Christi – the Priest.

    But not any more. Now we have ‘mea-culpa-ing’ combined with the inevitable following event – virtue signaling – at the highest level of the Church.

    One searches for something sarcastic to say about this, but there are no words.

    • I was just thinking along similar lines. The “penitential celebration” described in the Vatican document is like a simulacrum of an actual penitential service intended to prepare the sinner to repent and be reconciled with God

      I defy anyone defending the document to state unequivocally that they would personally accuse themselves of “sin against creation,” “sin against indigenous populations” or any of the other “sins” listed there.

      If anyone needs to see what a group penitential service can be like, he or she should look up the video of the Litany of Healing and Repentance led by Fr. Boniface Hicks, OSB, at the National Eucharistic Congress in July, addressed to Jesus in His role as the Divine Physician. (With the caveat that the tone of address could be almost too personal and intimate for some people. It wasn’t for me but I can imagine that it could be for some.)

  15. Some fear outright opposition to the newly identified sins. Perceived as a drift away from sins revealed by Christ in the Gospels and by the Apostles. Search the number dismissed among presbyters and among prelates and it isn’t always clear what the justification was. Aside from expected dismissal for sexual allegations most appear to be persons who held to Apostolic tradition whether vocal or not.
    Furthermore, in contrast there aren’t examples of those with progressive views who’ve been dismissed. These statistics send a message as to the direction of the Church. Come up with a number for traditional oriented clergy elevated to higher rank or position, those assigned to the Synod, compared to those considered progressive and the message is clear.

  16. How about doing public penance for the following sins :
    1. Worship of the Pachamama idol.
    2. Promoting “pastoral blessings” on homosexual couples and those living in adulterous relationships.
    3. Denying JESUS CHRIST as the Only WAY TRUTH and LIFE.
    4. Falsely proclaiming that all religions is a path to the same one GOD.
    5. Protecting clerical sexual predators, even now.
    6.Wasting time, money and resources on Settled Doctrines, such as Contraception, Male only Clergy, to include the Diaconate.
    7. Unjustly punishing faithful clergy while ignoring ,and even “promoting” those guilty of heresy.
    8. Refusal to evangelize and protect our children from the homosexual community.
    9. Promoting Sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion by inviting and giving Holy Communion to public official guilty of promoting intrinsic evils.
    10. Allowing the Altar to be treated as a stage, the Holy Mass as entertainment and the Most Blessed Sacrament, as a symbolic piece of bread.
    11. Refusing to preach repentance and conversion.
    12. Attacking the Divinity of CHRIST in the Latin Mass.
    13. Falsely promoting the equivalence of abortion with illegal immigration.
    14. Publicly Belittling and ostracizing faithful Tradidional Orthodox Catholics.
    15. Unlawfully closing Churches and denying the Sacraments to the faithful, especially the sick, homebound and those in convalescent homes, causing many to die without the comfort of the Sacraments and their families.
    16. While blessing grievous and unrepentant sinners, such as homosexual couples, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, refusing to do so at public audience during Papal foreign missions.
    17. Removing some words from Sacred Scipture.
    18. Universal silence by Bishops and Priests while the Doctrines of CHRIST and His Church are distorted, changed, and outright misrepresented.
    19. Lack of moral conviction among the majority of the clergy.
    20.The denial of hell and its eternity.
    21. Priests claimg the authority to Annul Marriages without a Tribunal.
    22. Some in the Hierarchy supporting evil politicians .
    23 . Squandering Donations on organizations that support and promote intrinsic evils.
    Just a few si s that need to be repented of by the Synod.

    • 24. Calously subjecting all Chinese Catholics (some of the most faithful in the world) to a cruel & cunning atheistic Communist regime.
      So equating the spirit of Pope Francis with that of the spirit of this world.
      Could anything be plainer?

  17. When a prelate gets bored with being ordained and lacks the integrity to just plain quit, he has unlimited potential for mischief. They’ve been doing this for centuries. But in the age of mass media, the temptations are greater because their idiocies can be heard around the world. And the Church has shifted into a high gear of tolerance for idiocy ever since VII. Relax, I’m not necessarily faulting VII. Only a few crazy theologians have been disciplined when it should have been thousands. So we now have a culture of episcopal loose cannons of pride acting with the temerity to try to deconstruct the very meaning of the Sermon on the Mount.

    I would still like to find out how I am sinning against indigenous people, who can commit no sins of their own apparently, for my belief that burying children alive is a moral evil.

  18. I COUNT EVERY THING AS PURE EXCREMENT IF I CANNOT HAVE CHRIST! PHIL:3-8.
    The perfect antidote for this madness!
    All things to Christ through Mary!

  19. The newsworthy event in the upcoming Synod from a brief scanning through the media of a lowly little laity here – that there are new faces such as the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch ..there in might be the clue to the fears and suspicious on the ‘doctrinal ‘ stone issue …yet , we know there are issues that are still relevant that can be overcome with a fresh – yes new – look by all sides .
    Good talk by Mother Gabrielle that quotes words of Holy Father / Divine Will lesson –
    ‘loving Lord with His own Love ‘…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CUf__HvCOk

    She also recommends a little booklet that is at thier site as well – to avoid the spiritual darkness that could afflict many –
    https://benedictinesofdivinewill.org/uploads/3/4/3/2/34324596/drop-book-series.pdf
    The efforts for The Synod very likely well motivated by such noble , needed and timely intentions . Becoming more familiar with same such as through the above booklet could serve to have less fears and negativity in many to whom it might seem daunting and unnecessary that there is lots more that The Church has been given to deal with our times – said to be time of the third Fiat of Sanctification ..may every drop of our own good will and efforts all add up to its speedier reign ! FIAT !

    • “..may every drop of our own good will and efforts all add up to its speedier reign.”

      Be careful what you are unthinkingly praying for.
      Such as:
      Worldwide persecution of some of the most sincere, dedicated, & faithful traditional Catholics. Subjection to Communist atheistic dictatorship of millions of Chinese Catholics. Obstinate covering up of serious clerical sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults. Pandering to makers of vile pornography. Normalization of the clerical homo-sexual lifestyle. Sacrilegious giving of Holy Communion to publicly unrepentatnt mortal sinners. ‘Blessing’ of seriously unrepentant sexually-sinning ‘couples’. Heretical polytheist denial that Jesus Christ is the One Way, Truth, Life, and Light of God in this world. Worship of pagan idols, such as ‘pachymama’. Trite contradiction & defiance of the clear teachings of Christ, given to us by the HOLY SPIRIT-inspired Apostles, in our New Testament and in The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

      This is all alien to the Reign of King Jesus Christ but collates well with the reign of the prince of this world and his many servants, some in high places.

      In Matthew 12:36, Jesus Christ, our LORD, warned us that: “For every unfounded word that we utter, we will answer on Judgement Day, since it is by your words you will be acquited, and by your words condemned.”

      It might seem like fun to unthinkingly join in the excitable invention of novelties.
      It’ll not be much fun on Judgement Day, according to our Catechism & The New Testament of our LORD and Master, Jesus Christ. For the sake of your soul, please take note.

      Always seeking to hear & lovingly follow King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty

  20. The Lutheran Federation is also said to be among the new participants .
    The Light to help them too , to bring the newer newness as to how male ministerial priesthood is part of living in the Divine Will – as a fruit that the Holy Spirit has prepared .
    The mystery of those words in Genesis – how God takes a rib from Adam and ‘closed it with flesh..’ to make Eve …in the Eternal Now in the Divine Will, was that Flesh that of The Lamb that was going to be sacrificed – God having foreseen it all, preparing Adam for the sacrifice of having to protect and defend Eve and himself against the enemy that was already in The Garden ( that was not guarded ! )
    Instead , the enemy’s voice through Eve is taken in and acted upon – as caution for occasions of wrong choice in listening without discerning if the voice of the laity is of The Spirit ….
    Adam thus with the primary responsibility in Love to be the one who offers up sacrifice in reparation and gratitude to restore the lost dignity – also as preventive against the poison of envy towards the life bearing role of women ..
    May The Synod succeed well , even if in hidden ways that the surveys may not pick up in all areas that the Divine Will desires !

    • “May the synod succeed well.” Yes, if you mean hearing our LORD, and GOD, and KING, Jesus Christ, who is with us always and is questioning us and the so-called ‘synod’:

      ‘Why do you call me, “Lord, Lord” and not do what I say?’ Luke 6:46

      From the Pope, the highest Catholic, to the lowest Catholics, like me, we are warned:

      “It would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around your neck than that you should lead astray a single one of these little ones. Watch yourselves!” Luke 17:2

      In awe of The Word Made Flesh; love & blessings from marty

  21. Yes, but a man does not have to be an absolute narcissist to have his vanities tempted to identify evil as “structural” or collective rather than personal. Progressivism occurs in all varieties. It is most insidious in religion.

  22. Yes, but a man does not have to be an absolute narcissist to have his vanities tempted to identify the evils to which he makes concessions as “structural” or collective rather than personal. Progressivist thought that exonerates occurs in all varieties. It is most insidious in religion.

  23. “Nakon ovog popisa grijeha, u pismu se napominje da će „Sveti Otac uputiti, u ime svih vjernika, molbu za oproštenje Bogu i sestrama i braći cijelog čovječanstva”. Ovdje glavni tajnik Sinode prelazi s gluposti na, dobro, netočnu teologiju. U katoličkoj sakramentalnoj ekonomiji ne možemo tražiti oprost za drugu osobu. Možemo se moliti da se drugi pokaje, ali traženje oprosta je nešto sasvim drugo. Možda je autor pisma namjeravao nešto drugo? Crkva bi, barem od svih entitetskih institucija, trebala biti oprezna u korištenju vokabulara.”

    Zar nije Isus na križu rekao “Oče, oprosti im jer ne znaju što čine” ?

  24. “After this list of sins, the letter notes that “the Holy Father will send, in the name of all believers, a request for forgiveness to God and to the sisters and brothers of all humanity.” Here the General Secretary of the Synod goes from nonsense to, well, incorrect theology. In the Catholic sacramental economy, we cannot ask for forgiveness for another person. We can pray for others to repent, but asking for forgiveness is something else entirely. Maybe the author of the letter intended something else? The Church, at least out of all entity institutions, should be careful in using vocabulary.”

    Didn’t Jesus say on the cross “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”?

    • Yes! Jesus did say that.

      Meaning: Jesus forgave those who were cruely torturing & murdering Him, on the grounds that they had been given a distorted understanding of who He is personally.

      Jesus was in no way authorizing those who today would like to make us all feel guilty about what they perceive as general societal failures.

      It is an error of reasoning to conflate these very different circumstances.

  25. This synod’s understanding of sin is obviously ambiguous. I hope it understands that sin is opposed to true love. I am surprised the word ‘sin’ is even being spoken by the progressive synodals.

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  1. SATVRDAY MORNING EDITION | BIG PULPIT
  2. Sins Against Synodality? – The American Perennialist

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