In defense of the synodal critics

The issues involved in the current synod are foundational in nature, just as in St. Augustine’s time, and involve theologically incommensurate understandings of Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, and soteriology.

The first working day of the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican on Oct. 2, 2024. (Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

The senior writer at Commonweal magazine, Paul Baumann, has penned a thoughtful essay, titled “Pope Francis & Augustine”, on the current acrimonious debates between various ecclesial factions on the topic of the papacy of Pope Francis and the current synod. I am mentioned extensively in the article, mostly in a positive way, but Baumann does offer up some criticisms of my various pieces on Francis and the synod in various publications.

I would like to respond to those criticisms but will do so in the same spirit of irenic dialogue that is exemplified in the essay. In the process, I hope to make some further comments as to why so many folks from my side of the theological aisle have issues with the synod. And to show that those critiques have real legs, are theologically substantive, and are not merely a splenetic Festivus-style airing of grievances.

The example of St. Augustine

The overall theme of Baumann’s essay is one which I hope most would agree: the necessity to reinforce the bonds of charity between the various ecclesial factions and to foster an air of civility that can help us heal our divisions. To that end, he devotes the bulk of his essay to a discussion of how the early Church was also mired in numerous interminable theological debates, many of which were not only rancorous but also physically violent. Baumann then focuses on St. Augustine and his world, leaning heavily on the wonderful biography of Augustine by Peter Brown, a biography I too have long treasured.

Brown notes that Augustine was frequently involved in many sharp and often polemical debates. He had severe disagreements with St. Jerome, for example, and his joustings with the Donatists and the Pelagians are legendary. But strangely, Baumann goes on to hold up Augustine as a model for how to engage in dialogue with one’s theological critics. It is a strained analogy for our times since it takes a great deal of historical revisionism to repristinate Augustine as someone who tried to meet his critics in a spirit of compromise.

It is true that Peter Brown does say that, at times, Augustine did try to dialogue with his interlocutors and that his homilies were routinely geared toward reaching out to everyone in his congregation taking due consideration for the theological immaturity of the many therein. But it is a big stretch to go from there to the conclusion that Augustine is a model for the kind of theological civility we need today. Because Augustine, quite frequently, was anything but civil.

But I do not point this out in order to diminish Augustine in any way. Because what Augustine understood was there were foundational and critically important theological truths at stake. His often fierce rhetoric, rather than being a sign of an uncontrolled spirit of acrimony, was instead the result of his awareness of the multiple ecclesial crises of his time—crises that required a firm rebuttal to theological heresy.

In other words, Augustine understood that there is a true and a false form of irenicism and a true and false form of civility. There is also a false form of pluralism that confuses the legitimate need for a free space of open discourse with a mere latitudinarian relativism. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his groundbreaking book After Virtue pointed out that real pluralism involves an “integrated dialogue of intersecting viewpoints” rather than the mere toleration of “an unharmonious mélange of ill-assorted fragments.” Real pluralism is a very hard thing to achieve since it involves a set of non-negotiable truths all parties agree upon, a foundational consensus which then opens up a space for all ensuing theological disagreements to proceed as a real dialogue rather than a cage match to the death.

Foundational issues and disagreements

Therefore, the current debates–often sharp and blunt at once–are not going to go away via a Rodney King kind of appeal: “Can’t we all just get along?” Because the issues involved are foundational in nature, just as in Augustine’s time, and involve theologically incommensurate understandings of Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, soteriology and so forth. There is, in other words, no true pluralism in play here since the disagreements display that there is not fundamental agreement on a set of non-negotiables.

Certainly, we must be civil and charitable, as in all proper human relationships. And most certainly there are those on all sides of the debate who are neither. But in my communications with many synod participants, the conversations on the synod floor have been civil and charitable. It is also true that we should not view the many knowledgeable pundits on all sides who are writing for public consumption as somehow engaging in uncivil discourse just because their often very pointed disagreements display a certain level of theological conflict. For how could there not be some degree of conflict when central truths are being discussed? After all, we are not talking here about disagreements over matters of ecclesial taste but of how to interpret the constitutive truths of the faith.

At the risk of engaging in schoolyard logic–“You started it!”–there does seem to me to be a tendency to view the critics of the synod as the primary culprits in stirring up the conflicts and that the synodal enthusiasts have been a model of decorous discourse. The Pope himself has even coined a new pejorative insult to describe his conservative critics. He has referred to them as “indietrists” (“backwardists”). Whatever that means and to whomever he is referring is left undefined, but one is left with the general impression that it is just an undifferentiated and rather nasty way of being dismissive. I could cite other examples from many left-leaning publications that routinely characterize conservative Catholics as homophobes and misogynists, just because we disagree with the moral normalization of same-sex relationships and women’s ordination. But this will suffice for now.

That said, I have little problem with the fact that the debates are often conflictual and affirm that the sincere Catholics on all sides are simply jostling for the inside rail in order to press their advantage. There are good ways and bad ways of doing this, but the mere fact of conflict is not a sign of dysfunction, but its opposite. The passions stirred up indicate an ongoing reservoir of faith where all participants in the conversation have skin in the game since they are vested in the health of the Church as they see it. Are we not engaged in an exercise in “parrhesia”? And must parrhesia always imply a non-conflictual form of discourse? I think not, because limiting parrhesia only to those Catholics who rig the process of dialogue from the start by accounting all such conflicts as signs of an ill-tempered spirit is no parrhesia at all. Indeed, to so limit parrhesia to the realm of the non-conflictual would have eliminated Augustine from the get-go.

Understanding the synodal critics

Baumann mentions me early on in his essay and kindly states that among the many papal and synodal critics I am more measured in my criticisms than others. I am not certain that this is true but will gladly accept the compliment and thank him for leading with a carrot rather than a stick. But there are some things he claims about my writing I think are incorrect and so I want to respond. Not because I am thin-skinned and need to defend my honor or some such nonsense, but because his criticisms involve misunderstandings of the synodal critics in general.

After discussing many of the positions I take and indicating some agreement, he states:

Chapp puts the problem baldly, but it is hard to disagree with his basic assessment. It is easier to question his peevish dismissal of Church reformers as childish and his blithe insistence that sanctity is the only real solution to the current Church crisis.

There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s begin with his assertion of my peevishness. I am assuming he is referring to my last article in this column wherein I note that too many of the discussions surrounding the synod seem to come from a fundamental posture of perpetual grievance toward many Church teachings. I then compare this posture to that of the adolescent who is often and similarly in a state of rebellion and grievance against various strictures.

I do not think this is a “peevish” dismissal of anything. Instead, it is a descriptive observation of an internal ecclesial dynamic of constant ridicule of Church teaching that has been ongoing in the Church since the end of the Council. I do not think it is always wrong to criticize the Church. I have done so as have many others. Nor do I think it wrong to sometimes criticize the Church in very trenchant ways. Nevertheless, criticism is one thing, but the now decades-long pogrom against Church teachings, especially in her moral theology and ecclesiology, by the Catholic Left evinces in my view precisely this spirit of perpetual grievance that I do indeed find spiritually immature. Disagree with that view all you want, but I think declaring it “peevish” is itself rather peevish.

Related to this issue is Baumann’s own blithe assumption that those to whom my words of criticism are directed are indeed “reformers”. But that is precisely the contested point. Are those who seek full LGBTQ “inclusion” in the Church and women’s ordination really reformers? Or are they instead cultural accommodationists who seek to change Church teaching in dangerous secularizing directions? Once again, disagreement on this point is legitimate, but it cannot merely be assumed that those who seek change are the “reformers”. In the Catholic Church, historically speaking, all true reforms have always been carried forward by returning to our roots in the central elements of Scripture and Tradition, not by pursuing a path of bowing to the latest trends.

Once again, the synodal critics see strong signs that what is being called for by the so-called “reformers” is a violation of this pattern for true reform. Disagree all you want with that view, but it is the nub of the issue and should not be dismissed as a “dismissal of reform”. It is the very question that needs to be addressed.

There is also his assertion that I am blithely asserting that sanctity is the “only” solution to the current crisis. I have made no such claim that sanctity is the “only” solution. But I do grant it a primacy over fixations concerning the internal governing structure of the Church. Once again, as with true “reform”, it is a question of returning to the Church’s roots and her primary mission of sanctifying and creating—via divine life—saints. The Church is in the sanctity business, and it is her chief aim to divinize both the world and individuals in the theosis that comes from inclusion into Christ.

Many saints and theologians have made similar claims concerning this primacy of sanctity as the fiery soul of the Church’s life, the lifeblood of the ecclesial body and the vital principle that puts fire into the Church’s doctrinal and sacramental equations. It is this fact that causes the synodal critics to note a marked tendency to reverse this prioritization in favor of a focus on structures and bureaucratic processes. Many critics, for example, have noted the almost total absence in the synod’s Instrumentum Laboris of references to repentance, conversion of heart, and the universal call to holiness as the chief vocation of every one of the baptized. Instead, we are met with constant references to listening and dialogue which, though good in themselves and needed, are no substitute for the spiritual renewal that must be at the core of any true reform.

The woman who I have patterned my life after, Dorothy Day, made similar points and has stated that what the Church needs, above all other considerations, is a “revolution of the heart”. And she then set about the business of living a radical form of Christianity that sought to do just that.

Church teaching is normative

Finally, Baumann states that the truths I am seeking to defend are not well served by appeals to authority and moral browbeating. He seems to be asserting that my various synodal criticisms play in that sandbox, and by implication, the criticisms of the synod by other tradition-minded Catholics.

But this is its own rather uncivil and pejorative claim. I reject the claim that my writings are larded with moral browbeating, and I do not see it in other synodal critics either. It can only be construed as such if one begins with the assumption that an insistence upon the preservation of the Church’s traditional, natural law moral theology is a form of browbeating. No sanctimonious claims to be personal sanctity have been made by me or others and certainly not any assertion of moral superiority. Is this what we have come to? That those who wish to defend Church teaching are, by virtue of that fact alone, to be construed as moral browbeaters?

Along these same lines, the last time I checked the Church does have a teaching authority and we are to give that teaching a primary voice in the conversation, if not a normative one. Once again, is this what we have come to? That the assertion that the Church’s magisterial voice be given pride of place and a presumption of truth until proven otherwise is to be dismissed as a simplistic appeal to authority?

This is unfair to the synodal critics who have put forward actual theological arguments in favor of their views. And, yes, those arguments take the normativity of magisterial teaching seriously. But they are far from simplistic for that reason.

Therefore, Baumann’s essay, though irenic in tone and largely respectful (for which I want to acknowledge gratitude) is nevertheless an apologia for one side of this debate. I have no problem with that. But as such it is just further evidence that the issues at stake are important and that disagreements, even sharp ones, are in the main healthy expressions of a faith that still matters.


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About Larry Chapp 69 Articles
Dr. Larry Chapp is a retired professor of theology. He taught for twenty years at DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania. He now owns and manages, with his wife, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania. Dr. Chapp received his doctorate from Fordham University in 1994 with a specialization in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. He can be visited online at "Gaudium et Spes 22".

41 Comments

  1. I am a backwardist:
    Back to Catholic Truth,
    Back to the perenial teachings of 2000 years of Magisterium.
    Back to pre-Conciliar Catholicism. We can take no more of Freemasonic Ecumenical New Church Apostasy.

  2. I think discussion about this Synod should consider one proposition very seriously. The stated aims of the Synod and the sincerity of most of its participants might be assumed to be in synch with charity. However, we must at the same time recognize that there are forces at work surrounding the movement of the Synod that are nefarious, evil and are attempting to hijack any good of the Synod and use it for its own purposes.

    Let’s remember one thing: Satan exists. He’s a real being. One of his tactics is to convince us that he doesn’t exist. Another of his tactics is to convince us that personal sin is inconsequential. Another of his tactics is to take the benign, the good and pervert its goals in promoting what is evil.

  3. Synodaling is not Catholic. Synodaling adds to the Body of Christ like a cancer. Synodaling was invented by this pontificate to spread heterodox concepts that justify heteropraxy. The theological treatment for this malady is to reference the writings of the last several saintly predecessors of the current pontificate. Synodaling not only flirts with the destruction of Sacred Tradition since Christ, it cannot even be reconciled with the teaching of the last several saintly Popes.

    After the theological victory with the Council of Nicea, the Catholic Church nearly succumbed to Arianism. The enemies of the Catholic Faith won control from the Emperor to virtually everyone. And yet the Reason of Christ, the Word of God, outlasted them all.

    We might not live to see the victory of the True Faith fully restored to health, but Jesus Christ is Lord. Soon, backward will be the reference to the failure of Synodaling during this pontificate. We are witnessing the death throes of the this corrupt generation. The sins of heteropraxy are self-destructive and eventually, cancerous heterodoxy is removed by Christ, the Divine Physician, before it can kill His Mystical Body.

    God is never at fault for His Perfection. Our sins cannot be renamed by Synodaling as good. The Perfect Love of God died for our sins on the Cross. All are welcome to repent. Stay Catholic!

    • “The Lord Jesus Christ’s response to the proposals of the infernal seducer :
      – NO to religious modernism, a lukewarm and mediocre substitute for sentimental and romantic idealism, making man, always and naturally assumed to be good, the measure of all things, and of faith itself.
      – NO to political secularism, which rejects the law of God and the authority of Christ the Saviour and Redeemer over all flesh and all men, alone or in society.
      – NO to the multifaceted liberalism that puts freedom on the throne of Truth, and silences Truth, forbidding it to defend itself.
      We cannot remain silent… and Our Crusade is the Church’s Crusade!”
      Mgr Marcel Lefebvre 1987

      • Since you have chosen to repeatedly follow my comments with your schismatic views, I will assume that my comments have hit a nerve and will therefore continue to offset your errors with the Truth of Christ and His Saints. The problem with your analysis is that it is not Catholic. The Saints disagree with your schismatic insistence, especially the string of Saintly Popes since St. John XXIII. If these holy Popes are not enough to encourage your full reconciliation with the Catholic Faith, I recommend St. Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, MC – a faithfully obedient daughter to Holy Mother Church to the end.
        See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjUVR-bK0PQ
        There is never an excuse for schism.

          • You say that you follow Mgr Marcel Lefebvre into schismatic disobedience out of the Church.
            And you say that following Mgr Marcel Lefebvre is not schismatic disobedience.
            There is only one logical conclusion: You are Pope Cracked Nut
            Good luck with that. I hated being Pope Fool

        • Marcel Lefebvre did not die formally recognized as a schismatic by the Catholic Church. The Fsspx was never declared as Schismatic, and the 4 bishops ordained to ensure the continuity of Sacred Tradition were pardonned. St Athanasius was also opposed to most of the Church and the Pope. He was later declared a saint. Thus it will one day be with Saintly Marcel, if Catholics regain control of the Divine Institution.

        • String of “saintly, holy” Popes? There was only one who performed what is considered an excommnunication, the validity of which is debatable.

        • God’s Fool: You might be interested to know that had it not been for the actions of Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, the Novus Ordo Mass would not have had a consecration altogether. The entire Church would have been in Schism had it not followed his lead.

    • Very good while it belies your screen name with its wisdom, especially since it reflects “Ed’s law”, which I imply frequently. The single potential talent every living person has on an equal level, regardless of such things like artistic or athletic talent, is an ability for deception. Wanting to live with our lies has this effect. And these patterns of deception can become systematic collective delusion, even institutionalized on global level.

    • God’s Fool: Although you express it in eloquent ecclesial terms, let me say it another way, more down to earth, what the Synod is all about.

      Unless a man or woman possesses saintly holiness, what they believe about religion and morality, is not determined exclusively by how they conceive of God and their concepts of good and evil and right and wrong that emerge from those conceptions. It is often the opposite. We tend to make what we think about God follow our self-serving concepts of morality. Why? Because we’re all sinners, and our worst flaw as sinners is to try to create our belief system in such a manner as to minimize how much we think of ourselves as ever really being the source of evil.

      To the degree we are less than honest to God, and ourselves, we shape our beliefs to account for evil in a manner that is easy to explain its existence in the world in terms of other people, other cultures, other races, other nations, other periods of history and much less in terms of those we like to assume are sociologically like us.

      The Church God gave to His creation, through the sacrifice of His son, provides the chance to rescue ourselves from the deceptive voices preaching falsehoods seeking to validate our vanities, presently as well as previously through history. This Synod is merely the foremost Grand Opera of deception orchestrated by the most narcissistic pope in history.

  4. Well said.

    And regarding “appeals to authority,” the authority we are discussing is Jesus, who seems to be mainly ignored by the more “earthly” office holders like the “Eminence Hollerich, SJ” and newly-gilded “Eminence Radcliffe,” who are hawking their own “new commandments” at the this so-called synod, revealing a mind that seems in opposition to the idea that Jesus Christ is our authority.

  5. This intelligent, courteous, even charitable comment replaced my seemingly persistent uneasiness with hope that all is not lost.

  6. Liberalism is a continuum,with different degrees of intensity. Two factions of an inherited assault on Sacred Tradition are locked in battle over the remains of the day… Only the logical rejection of the French-Revolution Council and its destructive anti-Catholic forces of religious Liberty, ecumenical Equality, and freemasonic Fraternity can enable the Catholic Church to refind its foundations in Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

    https://angeluspress.org/collections/archbishop-marcel-lefebvre

    • Liberal Catholics want to be in the “golden mean”, an enemy of extremes, i.e. of truth, an enemy of all intransigence, moderate in principle, with above all a moderate taste for Truth and a mediocre hatred of error.

      The liberal Catholic seeks peace, which always comes at the expense of truth and the rights of God and the Church. We could apply Bossuet’s famous phrase to the liberal Catholic: “he deplores the effects of which he cherishes the causes”.

      Liberalism is the Trojan horse that was used by the “enemies of God” to darken minds, weaken wills and which in the long run, risks to leave a pile of rubble upon the foundations of the Catholic Church..

      Paraphrased from “Liberalisme et Catholicism” by Abbé Ange Roussel

    • “For the Faith, evolution means death. We talk about an evolving Church, we want an evolving faith. “You must submit to the living Church, to today’s Church”, someone wrote to me from Rome in 1976, as if today’s Church should not be identical to yesterday’s Church. I replied: “Under these conditions, what you say today will no longer be true tomorrow.”
      Mgr Marcel Lefebvre 1987

  7. About Paul Baumann’s selective listening style: Shut up, he explained!

    And, about the “walking-together” and too-nomadic “synodal style” of the Synod on Synodality (say what?) and St. Augustine as conscripted by Baumann—versus Larry Chapp and other more reflective and steadfast backwardists…THIS from the referenced “Augustine of Hippo” (Peter Brown, 1967) regarding forwardists nomads of old:

    “…now, he undertook a quite unprecedented long journey to Tubunae (Tobna) in the depths of Numidia, in order to keep a general at is post. He had come to realize the urgent need for security. In ‘The City of God’ he had explored and justified the value of purely ‘earthly’ peace, in Southern Numidia, he may well have appreciated for the first time, how much ‘earthly peace,’ which he could take for granted at home, meant in this wild land. The Catholic communities needed a strong man to act as their protector against the LIGHTNING RAIDS OF THE NOMADS [caps added!]” (p. 422).

    Protectors! Like not only Numidia then, but now all of continental Africa which rejects Cardinal Fernandez’s second-bookend “Fiducia Supplicans.” Second bookend? Fernandez’s gratuitous novelty coupled with Cardinal Kasper’s first bookend, lo, from a full decade ago: the Africans, he signaled, “should not tell us too much what we have to do.” https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/10/dont-listen-to-the-africans-says-catholic-cardinal

    Augustine’s Africa marginalized today as “that special case.” But, alongside other courageous voices in “this wild land” of post-Christian and post-Natural Law modernity: the successors of the Apostles in Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Peru, and parts of Argentina (!), France and Spain, and even the Orthodox Churches.

    Like St. Augustine and even Larry Chapp and his ilk, voices to be heard and not herded.

    • Cardinal Aesop Fabler might have said it this way:

      “Goldfish circle endlessly in a fishbowl because they have a measured attention span of less than ten seconds; Synodallers circle endlessly in roundtables because they have a measured attention span of less than ten years.”

  8. Augustine understood that there is a true and a false form of irenicism and a true and false form of civility (Chapp).
    Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue says productive discussion should avoid flawed ideas, the effect of “sentiment that e[a]ffects adherence to rules” resulting from changing conceptions of rules that define justice. Rules that identify a person’s individual rights to more transitory social concepts (Assent to Truth Fr Peter Morello PhD). Irenic discussion is misconceived for example during the Synod as a focus on these transitory societal concepts of justice.
    Chapp in agreement with MacIntyre is portrayed by Commonweal’s Baumann as appealing to authority and moral browbeating. Of course that is the great divide that separates us into two camps, one that finds justice in the very rules that define our faith from those who contend that we must relax our appeal to traditional principles of justice to enable us to explore new possibilities, new responses to the contemporary issues we’re engaged in.
    That position by Baumann endorsed by Cdls Grech, Hollerich leaves those who wish to dialogue from a different perspective, from the very nature of criticism itself bereft of the right to dialogue. Historically that perspective of closed opinion regarding rules of justice are consistent with dictatorial regimes which rarely if ever are civil. Today we’ve learned to express our autocracy with gentility.

    • Perhaps it would be helpful to understand what Commonweal is:

      The Commonweal Catholic | Commonweal Magazine

      “The fact that Commonweal frequently infuriates both sides of such hot-button issues as abortion and same-sex marriage suggests a genuine independence.”

      Lukewarmness is not of The Holy Ghost, thus a genuine independence from The Deposit Of Faith, makes “The Commonweal Catholic”, independent from The Catholic Church. One cannot, in essence be, autonomous and in communion, with The One Body Of Christ, simultaneously, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque).

  9. When I read articles like this, I think of the cognitive bias called “law of the instrument” (Maslow): “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail”.

    When I read about the Synod and listen to others report on it from the inside, the “hot button” issues never come up. It’s always about the way authority is exercised on the parish level, and perhaps the diocesan level. The discussion seems to centre on authority and models of the Church. It’s about relationships primarily, not moral issues. In other words, clericalism is not at all a thing of the past. Francis’ experience in the Church is much wider than academia. He has had extensive and rather painful experiences with ordinary people who suffer and who have not been heard regarding a host of matters that have nothing to do with sex or female ordination or natural law. For some reason, the critics just cannot get beyond that limited frame of mind, probably because all they have in their hands is a “hammer”, a very specific and limited paradigm. That’s why synodal dialogue is so important. People come from so many different backgrounds, and they come with knowledge that a person who has spent 20 years in an academic environment might not have. I read Baumann’s essay and from my angle, he was spot on–at least with respect to his points about the critics. He did not overstate his case in the slightest.

    That is why I found the reference to Dorothy Day rather ironic. There’s a woman that should be canonized immediately–what’s taking so long? That is the spirituality we need today. Too many of our clergy, including the young ones, are “sanctuary priests” and are not interested in social outreach in its various shapes and forms. They like wearing cassocks, birettas, and they love Q & A, because “they have all the answers”, and Catholicism is about having all the right answers. They have been taught that clergy don’t need to listen. They are the anointed elite. It is interesting that Thomas Sowell actually employs the term “the anointed” to refer to the intellectual elites in government that operate under an “unconstrained” view of knowledge. That’s a fitting term, and it says a lot about the kind of people our clergy have been for centuries. This is the issue, not LGBTQ, except insofar as LGBTQ has to do with the relationships between gay Catholics and the parish. There is so much work to be done in this area.

    Despite the neurotic fears of people like Strickland and Schneider, who have clearly lost their way, the deposit of faith will not be corrupted, and so we don’t need any more whining from academics who have no concept of their limits.

    • We read” “For some reason, the critics just cannot get beyond that limited frame of mind, probably because all they have in their hands is a ‘hammer’, a very specific and limited paradigm.”

      But what about the paradigm of those synodallers who have in the hands a screwdriver?”

    • Thomas James failed to mention that the young priests he disdains so hatefully refuse – absolutely Refuse – to spread blasphemous images of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a gay clown, unlike another James, rewarded with a post in Vatican Communications.

    • Thomas James: So where does God fit into your hate-filled condescending analysis of those you describe in caricatured terms? Does truth matter? Does truth exist, and does it matter to God, and does it affect the lives of those you say haven’t been “listened” to? Does the destructive and sinful behavior of the “marginalized” matter to their lives? Do you seriously believe morality is not a part of human nature and is separable from human relationships? Or do your fantasies of a dichotomized Church only allow for a class of an imaginary orthodox priestly class “with all the answers” and a saintly victim class of innocents?

      Tell me where this “all the answers” class actually exists, because I never one such member, and I’ll bet everything I own you never did either. I did know Dorthy Day personally, and she never quite got over her some affectations for destructive associations in her past. Don’t be so quick to make yourself an arbiter of saints anymore than those you love to hate. Were you to do so, you might be better equipped for a more sober look at a pope quick to adopt venomous attitudes towards those seeking to honor the divinely endowed Deposit of Faith.

  10. I believe that if daily Mass attendees at parishes in the U.S. were asked about the Synod, most couldn’t define what it means to be synodal and virtually all would see it, whatever it means, as largely irrelevant to their daily walk of discipleship.
    I applaud Mr Chapp’s always grace-filled insights and his efforts to be civil and courteous in expressing them, while at all times emphasizing that something supremely important is involved here. And I am also reminded of the Holy Spirit’s mandate never to share in the work of anyone “who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ…” (2 John: 9-11).

  11. First and foremost, to suggest that it is even possible to have “various ecclesial factions”, In The Body Of Christ, Existing Through, With, And In Christ, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque)is a denial of The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, and thus a denial of The Divinity Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, And Holy Ghost. To deny The Divinity Of The Most Holy Trinity, is to apostasy.

    A Baptized Catholic who keeps his/her baptismal promises, remains in communion with Christ, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, while a Baptized Catholic who no longer keeps their Baptismal promises ipso facto separates him/her self from The One Body Of Christ.

    In both Faith and reason, first principles matter, and thus in this case, we can know through Faith and reason, those who have Called for a synod to discuss “various ecclesial factions”, have upside facto defected from The Catholic Faith, snd in all cases such a synod is null and void because it begins with denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.

    “ Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law states that schism is “the refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” Canon 1364 stipulates that the penalty for this crime is excommunication “latae sententiae,” i.e., automatically upon the commission of the offense.”
    Furthermore, “Canon 188 §4 states that among the actions which automatically (ipso facto) cause any cleric to lose his office, even without any declaration on the part of a superior, is that of “defect[ing] publicly from the Catholic faith” (” A fide catholica publice defecerit“).
    Jorge Bergoglio’s “refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him“, was evident, prior to his election to the Papacy.

    And that is all you need to know to declare both the synod and the counterfeits magisterium , anathema🙏💕🌹

  12. As regards to some articles that have appeared in Commonweal, Christ’s teaching in regards to The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and The Sanctity of human life from the moment of conception is not changeable.it is part of The Deposit of Faith.

    • Yes. And also supporting Chapp’s view that Baumann offers a too-slanted view of Augustine, here’s part of what biographer Peter Brown reports of the uncivil Augustine on double-mindedness in matters sexual (today we could include cohabitation, anti-binary homosexual coupling, and the full menu of LGBTQ-ism!):

      [First, Peter Brown]:
      “What a man did in his own home, however, was considered his own business. He would despise prostitutes; he would avoid adultery; but (like the young Augustine!) he would think nothing of taking a concubine: ‘Surely I can do what I like in my own house [or today, the his/her: ‘with my own body’!]?” I tell you, No: you cannot. People who do this go straight to Hell (Sermon 114:3).
      “Above all, Augustine had to combat the deeply ingrained double morality of such men. It was a double morality fortified bylaws against the adulterous wife that had become even more oppressive in the Christian era. Augustine would insist that the wives, also, should expect their husband to be faithful. It is on this issue, which affected the traditional structure of family life most intimately, that we see Augustine and his flock in a head-on collision [not the harmonizing of polarities, as pretended in Fiducia Supplicans!]:

      [Now Augustine]:
      “I do not want Christian married women to lie down under this. I solemnly warn you, I lay down this rule, I command you. I command you as your bishop [not a synodal ‘facilitator’?]; and it is Christ Who commands in me. God knows, in whose sight my heart burns. Yes, I say, I command you….For so many years, now, we have baptized so many men to no effect, if there are none here who preserve the vows of chastity they took….Far be it from me to believe that this is so. I would have been better not to have been your bishop than that this should have been the case. But I hope and believe the opposite. It is part of my sorry situation that I am forced to know about adulterers [today’s full range of “irregular” situations?], and cannot be informed about the chaste [read backwardists?]. The virtues in you that give me joy are hidden from me, while what distresses me is only too well-known” (citing Sermon 392: 4:6; Peter Brown, “Augustine of Hippo,” p. 248).

      SUMMARY: So, which inclusive and expert “study group” listens to (!) Augustine at its backroom synodal roundtable? Augustine, who’s he?

      …“Time is greater than space!”

  13. “But as such it is just further evidence that the issues at stake are important and that disagreements, even sharp ones, are in the main healthy expressions of a faith that still matters.”

    Except when you consider the fact that the attack against Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, And The Teaching Of The Magisterium grounded in Sacred Tradition And Sacred Scripture, The Deposit Of Faith that Jesus The Christ Entrusted To His One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, is grounded in apostasy, we can know through both Faith and reason that Catholics are not Called to debate God’s Truth, we are Called to communion with Christ And His Church, and thus we are already converted.

    • Beautifully stated ND… and it would be true if Ecumenical New Church were not squatting the divine institution. The Church is occupied, with a permanent attack on Sacred Tradition. Were it not for the foresight of Mgr Marcel Lefebvre, all would be lost.

  14. Despite many good points, it is hard to take Larry Chapp completely seriously given his recent display of his own blind spots. In a recent YouTube video interview of George Weigel, he refused to challenge Weigel’s disingenuous claim. After noting sinister objectives of synodalists towards undermining the faith, Weigel stated that he “did not know” whether Francis also leaned in this direction. (Youtube: George Weigel Joins Larry Chapp to Discuss the Synod on Synodality and Other Topics; 15:00)
    In another recent column in CWR, Chapp denigrated anyone disenchanted with Bishop Barron. Whatever his qualities, Barron praises this synodal process as completely necessary, repeating the silly euphemisms of “listening and dialogue,” an delusional impossibility among 1.3 billion people illustrating the absurd abuse of such language to legitimize an all-out assault on immutable truth, a reordering of the intentions of God for the future as though they can somehow be different from what they were in the past. (Youtube: “Speak out!” Bishop Barron tells Catholics)
    In the same article Chapp insisted it was ridiculous for traditionalists to believe liturgical modernists were masonic. Does this mean we need to ignore the indisputable fact that Cardinal Bugnini, the modernist liturgist and primary architect of the N.O. Mass, formally joined the Italian Masons on April 23, 1963, Italian freemason registry serial no 1365-75? And there are more prelates and theologians whose association with freemasonry that can be validated.

    • Well said EJB re: masons.
      Until the church stops sweeping the infiltration under the carpet, their impact continues like woodworm via their heirs – victims of liberalism and careerism – busy dynamiting all vestiges of the Sacred Tradition. May they be stopped before all that remains of Rome is the predicted* empty shell.

      Alta Vendita, reprinted in “Infiltration” by Taylor Marshall.

  15. Perhaps , metaphorically speaking, one can say there was a time when Time was greater than Space , but that was before “The Word Was Made Flesh, And Dwelt Among Us, And We Saw His Glory, The Glory As It Were Of The Only Begotten Of The Father, Full Of Grace And Truth”.

    We, who are Baptized Catholic and desire to keep our Baptism Promise, are no longer on a “Quest For The Living God”, we recognize Christ In The Breaking Of The Bread, we do not seek “a new frontier”, we hold firm to The Deposit Of Faith.

    “It Is Finished.”
    “I Am The Beginning And The End.”
    “At the heart of Liberty Is Christ, “4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.


    “Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”



    “Blessed are they who are Called to The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb.”



    “For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”

  16. I read the “Commonweal” article and was sorry to see that Paul Baumann didn’t say more in respect to his remark that “It is easier to question … [Chapp’s] blithe insistence that sanctity is the only real solution to the current Church crisis.” More substance would make it essier to understand what he means because I’m not sure that I do understand. A section in the October 5th article that he *could* be alluding to is this one from the end:

    **”In the diaconal ordination, there is a point where the archbishop hands the newly ordained a copy of the Gospels and says to each:
    Believe what you read.
    Teach what you believe
    Live what you teach.
    Amen. Perhaps someday we can have a Synod devoted to those ideas. Perhaps this is all true reform actually means or has ever meant. And perhaps it is the only real source of true Christian joy. Perhaps.”**

    But if that’s what he is alluding to … what exactly is his disagreement with it? This is another one of those moments when I feel out of step with some of my fellow Catholics because I don’t understand why Baumann (or any Catholic) would take issue with this and try to dismiss it or minimize it (or whatever he is thinking, because he doesn’t do much to make his thinking on this point clear). For instance, if he disagrees that this plainly stated idea would provide enough substantial matter for a Synod, then okay, but he should say that.

    I have a fairly simple understanding of sanctification,but I understand that it IS central to the Church’s mission, not merely a “nice to have” feature of lower priority, Yes, we are supposed to work on sanctifying ourselves and helping others to become holier. Teaching, sanctifying and governing are the priest’s three duties which the faithful share in, in their own manner. At least I thought that’s what we all believed but … I suppose one could quibble about whether other people believe sanctification is the “only” thing needed or whether they believe it is more of a foundation on which further spiritual growth is grounded. But that looks like a waste of time.

    One other possibility that comes to mind is that Baumann thinks that minimizing the centrality of sanctity will somehow help the case of the activists he characterizes as “Church reformers.” I hope I am mistaken because it doesn’t help them at all. Whatever their interests are, whatever changes they may dream of, they should also be striving for personal sanctification for the sake of their souls.

  17. “That said, I have little problem with the fact that the debates are often conflictual and affirm that the sincere Catholics on all sides are simply jostling for the inside rail in order to press their advantage.”

    The fact is, we are, as we speak, witnessing The Great Apostasy, The Great Falling Away, and there is nothing sincere about a Baptized Catholic who is attempting to lead other Baptized Catholics astray, by denying The essence of The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, The Lord And Giver Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage. No Faithful Catholic would attempt to create God in their own image, nor tolerate such dialogue with other Baptized Catholics, making it appear as if The Word Of God Is Not Divine, and grounded in Perfect Truth and Love.

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  2. In defense of the synodal critics – seamasodalaigh

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