I continue to be puzzled by the language in the documents emerging from ecclesiastical bureaucrats. Who are these people talking to? Not “people of goodwill” around the world, nor the basic layman in the pew.
The jargon is so thick that the only possible audience could be other bureaucrats. And in my experience, questionable things are brewing when bureaucrats write to other bureaucrats in their own specific argot—a term I have used purposefully because it originally described the jargon, slang, or secret language used by criminals, rogues, and beggars to communicate without being understood by the authorities or outsiders, so it seemed appropriate in this context.
The Final Report of Study Group Number 9
Examples aplenty can be found in the Final Report of Study Group Number 9, one of the ten “study groups on relevant questions from the Synthesis’s [sic] Report of the First Session of the XVI General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.” Already, I see problems.
The “final report” (dear Lord, if only!) is titled “Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues.” I miss the days when texts had simple titles like The City of God or Grammar of Assent. I miss the days when churchmen wrote texts that were both eloquent and moving. The “final report” of “Study Group 9,” by contrast, has this to say about a key “emerging issue” (a.k.a. problem):
For example, the growing number of adult catechumens in some Churches, where participation in ecclesial life seemed extinguished or in decline, can be considered an emerging issue for those communities which, through a process of ecclesial discernment, are called to reassemble functions, roles, and habits in light of the newcomers approaching the Church and preparing for baptism.
In this regard, the dynamic wisdom of the ongoing synodal path has suggested a fundamental, indeed indispensable, practice for the ecclesial discernment of emerging issues: “conversation in the Spirit” (cf. FD 45). This practice marks a cornerstone in the acquisition of the paradigm shift inspired by the principle of pastorality and constitutes the appropriate experiential framework for employing the tools and procedural criteria available to ecclesial communities. Therefore, the exercise of conversation in the Spirit must become an ecclesial habitus that marks every step in the implementation of discernment processes: not exhausting itself in the solution of a question, but constantly reactivating the listening and learning skills of the People of God, also in function of making decisions of varying degrees of importance, so that the process is transparent and shared.
Let’s presume for a moment that someone could actually decipher all that. Does any of that have the power to move the heart and inspire the mind? Had the Gospels been written this way, would there be any Christians? Let’s say that “participation in ecclesial life” seems “extinguished or in decline” (fewer people are going to church). Is there anything in that paragraph that would inspire them to return? If that’s a “paradigm shift,” it’s a shift in the wrong direction. Worse yet, not only do I not think there’s anything in the entire document that would inspire anyone to join or return to the Church, I think there is plenty that would keep any sensible person away.
The passage above describes “pastorality” (is that a word?) in a way that makes “pastorality” seem like a species of mental torture. The description makes it sound less like something a shepherd would do and more like something an office manager does. Anything that requires “the appropriate experiential framework for employing the tools and procedural criteria available to ecclesial communities” is something I know I’m not fit for and would avoid like the plague. I am a simple teacher of theology to young people. But I don’t think I’ve ever had the “experiential framework for employing the tools and procedural criteria” of pretty much anything. That’s why I don’t work in the corporate offices of General Motors.
Institutions need to pay a corporate salary for people to endure meetings like that — endless meetings like that. Because as the document says forthrightly: the “habitus” that “marks every step in the implementation of discernment processes” does not exhaust itself in the solution of a question — we never make a make a final decision — but is “constantly reactivating the listening and learning skills: more meetings! This is all “so that the process is transparent and shared.” I defy anyone to show that the results of such meetings are either transparent or shared. Their very construction guarantees they will be neither. The results are purposefully vague, and no one is responsible for the results. “It was the committee’s decision,” not anyone on the committee.
No one with any sense would ever read such pointless drivel. The results are not only soul-deadening but community-destroying. No one cares enough to read the document; no one takes responsibility for what it says, but the authors still claim the mantle of transparency and a shared vision, which everyone knows is false. You don’t earn authority with such stuff; you merely make clear that what’s involved is a thinly veiled imposition of bureaucratic power.
Perhaps we could describe all this as “pastorality and emerging processes directed to inculcating the habitus of synodal methodology in service of the spirit-filled institutionalization of the faith experiences of diverse ecclesial communities and cultures within the People of God.” I just made that up, but you could re-mix those words in pretty much any order, and it would be the same.
One “sign of the times” the authors might have attended to more closely in all their “attentive listening” is how little patience most modern people have for such empty verbiage and how little power such documents have to move the hearts and minds of people and. And these are the “experts” to whom we are supposed to turn to find out what will bring more Catholics back into the fold?
One might reasonably ask whether, to help fill the churches, we should (a) hold assemblies for “listening to the voice of the Spirit to actualise the community’s performative fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus, discerning in a spirit of communion the experience that was being lived out in concrete terms,” as Group 9 suggests, or (b) get people together to read and discuss Augustine’s Confessions, Pascal’s Pensées, and the Scriptures.
Both “processes” involve “listening.” But much depends on who we are listening to and why.
Highly selective listening
A former dean at my university, unhappy with the Catholic character of the institution, once suggested we survey the students who didn’t come to the university to see why they hadn’t come.
One likely reason is they weren’t interested in a Catholic liberal arts education, and neither was this dean. A consulting agency once told us that we shouldn’t emphasize our Catholicism so much because it turned away prospective students. When they were probed further about this, it turned out that their conclusion was based on the comments of two teenagers in Chicago who expressed a “negative” view toward one of our ads that pictured a religious sister in her habit. These are not only examples of very selective listening, but examples of selective listening with a clear purpose. One listens to the voices that will tell you what you want to hear and avoids those that won’t. And from all that very advanced, very sensitive “listening,” we derive general conclusions that will apply (and be enforced) universally. Less focus on Catholic character. The “experts” did a study!
Group 9 says that
synodal discernment of … life experiences must be exercised … with attentive and open listening both to the Word of Jesus — made alive and relevant by the Holy Spirit within the space of ecclesial communion and with attention to the “signs of the times” — and to what the People of God have experienced in diverse cultural contexts and in relation to various life situations. Particular care must be given to those who find themselves living on the existential, social, and cultural “peripheries.” It is in this perspective that we consider it more appropriate to describe the issues in question as “emerging” rather than “controversial.”
It is certainly quite different to describe the lifestyles of those living on the “cultural peripheries” as “emerging” rather than “controversial.” It provides a rather different flavor to the section on “Experiences of people of faith with same-sex attractions” to describe the testimonies of the two gay men to whom they “placed themselves in a position of listening” as “emerging.”
So we have two testimonies of the experiences of two gay men? This is not exactly the gold standard of sociological research. No women? No celibate gay men? Group 9’s “listening” seems rather selective. Most readers probably could have suggested ten or twelve others whose “experience” of gay culture and lifestyle and their involvement with the call of the Gospel would have been equally revealing and instructive. But most of us also recognize that our circle of relationships is relatively small, so there will always be others whose experiences are different from ours.
So, for example, one testimony (of two!) “describes the problematic membership in a Catholic group (Courage) which, by pushing for ‘reparative therapy,’ had the effect of separating faith and sexuality. Missing here are testimonies from those whose experiences with Courage have been lifesaving and life-sustaining. Courage has publicly criticized the report, calling it a form of “calumny and detraction.” They deny that they ever associate with or promote “reparative therapy”. From my discussions with the founders and leaders of Courage, I know this to be true. To the accusation that Courage meetings are “secretive and hidden,” Courage officials reply that this is essential to the confidentiality of these meeting, because it allows members to speak freely. Indeed, one could make the same accusation of all Twelve-Step meetings. An essential part of their service to that community is their strict confidentiality.
The “helpful” study of theology
Since talking with others in Courage meetings was not the thing for this particular gentleman, what helped instead? According to Group 9, the study of theology! I teach theology, and even I suspect that this claim might be a bit of “special pleading” by some people who—guess what?—teach theology. I suppose theology might have been helpful to this gentleman somehow in this instance, but I wouldn’t want to draw a general conclusion, such as, if you’re struggling with same-sex attractions, don’t go to Courage meetings, enroll in some theology classes. Much would depend on who was teaching those classes, what texts were being taught, and how they were being interpreted.
So, for example, what “helped” this man, according to Group 9, was that “the study of theology allowed for the opening of new horizons for a contextual interpretation of the Bible, moving beyond traditionalist or even fundamentalist readings.”
“Traditionalist” is an interesting term in this context. Do they mean the way the Church has, according to a long tradition of reflection among the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, read the Scriptures? It sounds very different if you make that an “-ism.” In that same spirit, someone might respond: “I hope this poor fellow moves beyond all those progressivist readings of the Scriptures, so that he can open new horizons based on an authentic interpretation of the Bible, transcending the narrow confines of modernist ideological agendas.” But this is all just rhetorical mudslinging, not serious intellectual engagement.
But here’s where the “language games” go from tedious to serious. It’s one thing to write a piece of tedious bureaucratic prose; it’s quite another to attribute the positions in that document to the Scriptures and, as we will see in a moment, to official Church documents. Moving beyond traditionalist or even—God help us!—fundamentalist readings of the Bible would, according to Group 9, allow this man to experience “the liberating power of a personal encounter with Christ, who loves us just as we are; self-acceptance linked to the deepening of faith and to active participation and service within the life of the Christian community; and the specific contribution of a theology capable of opening up a contextual and hermeneutic reading of the Bible.”
I’m not sure I recall exactly where in the Bible it says that Christ loves us sinners “just as we are” and that the key is “self-acceptance.” This would have been a good place for a citation to some texts so that we could get a sense of what “context” and what enlightened “hermeneutic reading of the Bible” would allow one to draw those conclusions.
A “paradigm shift” not found in the documents of the Council
The document speaks repeatedly of a “paradigm shift.” So, for example, the shift in terminology from “controversial” to “emerging” is “not merely superficial,” they insist, “but expresses a proposal for a reformulation linked to a paradigm shift.” Indeed, shifting paradigms seems to be the order of the day. On the very first page of the document, the authors announce: “we have noted the inadequacy of our current categories and operational paradigms.” Sadly, they report: “There is a persistent resistance — whether or not its underlying reasons are consciously recognized — to changing our usual mental and behavioural habitus.”
The entire first section of the document is titled “A Paradigm Shift in the Church’s Mission and the Synodal Dynamics That Promote It.” The term “paradigm” shows up 22 times in the document’s 33 pages.
Worse yet, the authors cover themselves and their “paradigm shift” with the justifying blanket of vague references to the Second Vatican Council. They write: “A fundamental aspect [sic] for bringing about this paradigm shift is a hermeneutics of the human that embraces its historical, experiential, practical, and contextual nature. This was demonstrated in practice, in an inceptive but decisive manner, by the teaching of Vatican II, particularly in Gaudium et spes and Ad gentes.”
But this was certainly not “demonstrated” in any manner (inceptively or otherwise) in Gaudium et spes and Ad gentes. So, for example, the “hermeneutics of the human” found in Group 9’s report never gets around to mentioning the two key statements about the human proclaimed in Gaudium et spes. The first, from Gaudium et spes, 22: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light” and “in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.”
And the second, from Gaudium et spes, 24:
God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, Who “from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26), all men are called to one and the same goal, namely God Himself.
For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment. Sacred Scripture, however, teaches us that the love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor: “If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself…. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the Law” (Rom. 13:9-10; cf. 1 John 4:20). To men growing daily more dependent on one another, and to a world becoming more unified every day, this truth proves to be of paramount importance.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, “that all may be one. . . as we are one” (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity.
And as is well known, this section culminates in its dramatic final sentence: “This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”
You can wave your magic wand over a pig and say the words “Vatican II” with a lot of other gibberish, but that won’t turn it into a prince. It’s still just a pig. There’s nothing in this document that shows any fidelity to, or even a basic understanding of, the teachings of that great Council.
Not dialogue, but monologue
But of course, fidelity to the Council or to Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium is not the point. As I said above, no one with any sense would ever read such pointless drivel. Its only purpose is to empower other bureaucrats to do what those bureaucrats were already intent on doing. Fr. James Martin, S.J., has welcomed Group 9’s report as representing a “historic change.” Its inclusion of the testimonies of “married” homosexuals represents, he insists, “a new ecclesial paradigm.”
But of course, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Especially since, if recent reports are accurate, Fr. Martin himself was the one responsible for those two testimonies. He covertly helps to imbed these two testimonies in Group 9’s report and then rejoices publicly at the “emergence” of a new “ecclesial paradigm.” Is he showing fidelity to the Council, or merely to his own ideological agenda and the “Gospel” of self-acceptance according to which, according to Group 9: “sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) couple relationship, but in a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfilment”?
The danger here is not merely verbal. As Josef Pieper points out in Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power: “Word and language, in essence, do not constitute a specific or specialized area… No, word and language form the medium that sustains the common existence of the human spirit as such… And so, if the word becomes corrupted, human existence itself will not remain unaffected and untainted.”
The authors of the Group 9 report claim to be “listening”; they claim to be eager for dialogue. But as Pieper notes, those who are not interested in reality are incapable of dialogue:
Any discourse detached from the norms of reality is at the same time mere monologue. What does it mean, after all, to be detached from the norms of reality? It means indifference regarding the truth. To be true means, indeed, to be determined in speech and thought by what is real. The very moment … that someone in full awareness employs words yet explicitly disregards reality, he in fact ceases to communicate anything to the other.
“Speech without a partner,” notes Pieper, “intends not to communicate but to manipulate.” There is no partner to whom Group 9’s verbiage is addressed “in dialogue.” It is an ideological statement; its goal is to put an end to dialogue, not engage in it:
Whoever speaks to another person — not simply, we presume, in spontaneous conversation but using well-considered words, and whoever in so doing is explicitly not committed to the truth — whoever, in other words, is in this guided by something other than the truth — such a person, from that moment on, no longer considers the other as partner, as equal. In fact, he no longer respects the other as a human person. From that moment on, to be precise, all conversation ceases; all dialogue and all communication come to an end.
Such people are not speaking honestly to others to understand them. They are seeking to handle and control others, to manipulate and possibly dominate them. Words have become instruments of power. “Thus the situation is just the opposite of what it appears to be,” writes Pieper. “It appears as if a special respect is paid, while in fact, this is precisely not the case. His dignity is ignored; I concentrate on his weaknesses and on those areas that may appeal to him — all in order to manipulate him, to use him for my purposes.”
People must “be led and eased into believing (and that is the true art!) that by acquiescing to the intimidation, they really do the reasonable thing, perhaps even what they would have wanted to do anyway.” The result, says Pieper, is tyranny, despotism. “On the one side there will be sham authority, unsupported by an intellectual superiority, and on the other a state of dependency which again is too benign a term. Bondage would be more correct.”
And it can be found, warns Pieper, “wherever a powerful organization, an ideological clique, a special interest, or a pressure group uses the word as their “weapon.”
There’s an old saying, often attributed to W. C. Fields: “If you can’t bedazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull—.” This seems to have been the working principle of Group 9. But we should be under no illusions. Underlying all the unintelligible, incomprehensible gibberish in this document is a distinct ideological goal. And that goal is not liberation; it’s domination. Only the truth sets us free. Tyrants reply: “What is truth?”
That reply at least had the virtue of being short and clear; he didn’t bury it in a load of sophistic verbiage.
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To pervert the perennial Teaching of the Church is Satanic. The ones who need excommunication are those who are doing it.
Is the author serious when he says he is “puzzled” by the nonsense still coming out of rome and shocked that it’s ideological in nature? Is this more denial by americans that Leo is continuing Francis’ agenda, which he has now openly said is the plan for his pontificate? This includes the same heterodox content, especially the “lbgt”/lavender mafia stuff, of which Leo is most likely a member, if even by his promotion of it and protection of those involved. (Take a look at Leo’s latest episcopal appointment, Giampaolo Dianin, which is exemplary of most of the appointments.) Aside from the report itself, notice there has been not a single voice at the holy see, including leo, to question the document or say that something should be done about it, the synodal process stopped, the membership changed; and no defense of the american ministry Courage. Leo seems to have learned from Francis to speak out of both sides of his mouth, to placate various camps: Leo met with a priest-representative from Courage a while back, but now he allows the much more significant event of being slandered on an international stage?! At the same time, we have cardinals praising James Martin’s outreach group and promoting a book just published by them that defies church teaching. No rebuke of the cardinal, of course, while the timing might be deliberate: while Courage is trashed and no one says anything, outreach is praised.
One can’t imagine an orthodox pope tolerating all this. This is the same leo that recently embraced fiducia supplicans, which no shortage of american commentators have pathetically reframed as a “rebuke” of the german bishops and accepted the new goalpost of “formal” blessings as the problem. Time to stop the denial, Americans- the first american-born pope is continuing the novelties and tinkering with doctrine Francis introduced, by his own admission.
Agreed. I think Pieper would have begun: “I continue NOT to be puzzled”…
Those who signed the Easter Open Letter early in the pontificate of Franciscus to seek corrections for “Amoralist” Laetitia were called “rash”, “paranoid”, “disobedient”, “sloppy”, “rigid”, “integralists”, and worse by Franciscus.
Who can be surprised after a decade that it is still silly season at the Vatican for Synodaling that seeks to promote ideologically driven heteropraxy like “faithful” sodomy and adultery?
God is Love. Love is not sin. Sin is “inadmissible” for those who seek union with the Perfect God. All are welcome…to repent.
Precisely.
There is nothing “puzzling” about the ideology of these brazen pagans.
Well said. Pope Leo was dangled in front of American Catholics as bait, and they swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Quote: “So we have two testimonies of the experiences of two gay men? This is not exactly the gold standard of sociological research. No women? No celibate gay men? Group 9’s “listening” seems rather selective.”
I hate being dramatic, but I read “two testimonies” as a manifesto of a particular kind of gay men addressed to women: ‘You do not exist’.
I found the fact that no testimonies from lesbian couples are given, together with no testimonies from heterosexual couples, to be very revealing. Both show extreme narcissism (literally Narcissus looking into own reflection here, unable to divert his gaze) and cold misogyny. An absence of the experiences of women, together with a character of two testimonies, reveal a very peculiar conscience behind it – one which lives in an artificial world where women do not exist or exist only as mechanisms.
These are not just my emotions. The testimonies begin with a proclamation of how homosexuality is a gift from God; one goes as far as stating that its author is more compassionate, more able to express the image of God because of his homosexuality etc. So here we have a pretext: a delusion of pride/feeling “chosen” and therefore elevated above the rest. This sense of an entitlement and a conviction that a biological disorder is not just a norm and even “better” than a norm provide a justification for further denial/abolition of the norm which will involve not just a homosexual couple but other human beings as well:
1 – If two homosexual males decide to have children, they treat women as rented wombs/incubators for the offspring (a degradation of a woman beyond anything I know); although a woman receives a sperm of one or both, she is not a spouse or a lover or a partner of one night stand – she is a non-person; she is a function-provider. Thus, men denounce a normal link, man – woman, even if it is recognized only for the sake of a child.
2 – As a logical next step, such male couples often have the audacity to say to their “made for them” child “you do not need a mother, nobody does” and probably will even teach him that it is a superior way. Hence, the refusal to get attached to a woman then caused the denial of a primary attachment of a child to his mother.
While a heterosexual misogynistic male can behave close to what is described above, his biology preserves at least some connection to the world of females – and as consequence, his child’s connection to that world. Instead of denying THE NEED in a mother by a child as such, he will slander her or whatever. He may say “you do not need your mother” but he will not try to convince a child that his male friend will do as a mother. I.e., the naked biological normality, M – W = children will preserve male – female roles and attachments, for a child. Biology will also prevent a cold abnormality = the result of a destruction of primary attachment to enter into a child’s life.
I will add here that with lesbian couples, while it is still unacceptable for a child to be deliberately deprived of a father, he at least has a mother for the first three formative years when he needs his mother most – something he is denied with two men.
I find it very chilling that the Synodal report promotes the worst possible kind of an rupture of an attachment “mother – child”, via presenting us with the examples of homosexual males as a (superior) norm. It appears that the Church hierarchy do not see anything wrong with that report, no matter how harmful it is to women and children and how profoundly artificial, contrary to nature the construct they promote is. It is nothing else but a triumphant denial not just theology but of human psychology of an attachment. The deluded males (clerical and lay) are doing away with “that bloody dirty biology” and emerging like “angels”, ruling the sterile world = Church of their own, created in their own image, the world they can perfectly control, the new creation that is only waiting to accepted by “census fidei” and blessed as such.
You’re not being dramatic in perceptively noting the absence of women. Homosexual jealously is reason why men become homosexuals.
There’s a trend in N Italy that engages in an ancient Gk ideal that sexual relations between men is on a higher plane of intellectual nobility surpassing that with the inferior woman. It also exists here in the English speaking world, and among the elite in Latin America.
Homosexual jealousy [of women] not jealously.
Very well said.
I found the fact that no testimonies from lesbian couples are given, together with no testimonies from heterosexual couples, to be very revealing . . . It appears that the Church hierarchy do not see anything wrong with that report, no matter how harmful it is to women and children and how profoundly artificial, contrary to nature the construct they promote is.”
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For quite some time now, I’ve believed that a majority of the clergy/hierarchy are homosexual, and that a solid chunk of that majority is actively involved in said lifestyle. Given that, I would not expect that they would see anything wrong with the report.
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It’s time to move on to the AI discussions, etc.
Ouote: “There’s a trend in N Italy that engages in an ancient Gk ideal that sexual relations between men is on a higher plane of intellectual nobility surpassing that with the inferior woman. It also exists here in the English speaking world, and among the elite in Latin America.”
Yes, this idea has always been around in certain circles and cultures but it would be nothing without other factors which are now coming together, first in human history. Those factors are:
An increasingly widespread narcissism with its symptoms: a lack of empathy and unbound entitlement hence a willful refusal to submit to the rules (moral law/God’s law). “Nothing is above me” is a common place now, in the world and in (in a covert form) in the Church.
An unresolved Oedipal complex in many men, the result of so-called parentification done by their narcissistic mothers who turn their sons into vice-spouses (a substitute for an emotionally/physically absent husband). Being a vice-spouse results in sexual confusion (like inability to relate to females sexually) and a pervasive sense of being a fake. Such boys become easy prey of adult homosexual predators – a missing “father figure”. I see “a narcissistic mother factor” and especially an emotional incest as the biggest precursor of homosexuality/bisexuality.
Here is a very important point, for our herecy: such boys are given an elevated position by their mothers, higher than their fathers. Hence a pride combined with a fragile ego and an unconscious conviction that women are all-powerful, to be feared/served/hated etc. How narcissistic the boy may become, overt or covert, depends on multiple factors. What is important, being a covert narcissist (a “nice, soft” variety obsessed with being liked who is often described as “a wolf in a sheep clothes”) naturally FITS INTO THE FRAME OF THE CHURCH – a frame without a true content. A person by whom such a boy wants to be liked/approved most is his narcissistic mother; if she is devoted, he will naturally choose a priesthood. This step accomplishes both his own elevation to “an angelic rank” and of his mother as well who becomes “a mother of an angel in flesh” – in the warped reality of the disorder, his wise-spouse (here is the source of religious/with a flavour of incest fantasies I have encountered, of such priests; it is my conviction that Fernandez’s pseudo-mystical tract is related to that phenomenon). Priesthood also provides a perfect cover for his confused sexuality.
Please note how easily this psychological make up: absent/weak father, all-powerful mother, an elevated son who is a spouse of his mother-goddess destroys the normal Christian scheme: God the Father all-powerful, St Joseph, his substitute on earth and a spouse of the Virgin Mary who subordinated to him (it is to him the Angel gave instruction where to escape and not to Mary) and Jusus submitted to his parents. I say “destroy” because inevitably such a priest, a son and a vice-spouse of an all-powerful mother-goddess, will act out his psyche warping Christian theology – via “mother goddess” cult, Pachamama, for example and also via his disobedience to the rules and to God the Father. It cannot be underestimated that the father/God the Father is absent in the world of such men – and so as Jesus Christ who was submitted to His Father. This entirely explains, by the way, the vector of the Synod of Synodality. It is fatherless and thus disobedient to God the Father and ignorant of normal fatherhood. The psyche behind it is chaotic, with ever-changing rules = contrary to a normal father who represents a logical order.
One may object that two homosexuals who treat a woman as “a womb” do not worship women at all. Correct – they act out an extreme hatred for the female principal which is only possible when the fatherhood is absent. If the two had at least a grain of fatherhood they would never do what they did, to deny to “their” child an attachment to his mother.
The whole diabolical heresy can be outlined by the dichotomy, “worshiping mother-spouse – hating mother-spouse” combined with the absence of true fatherhood. And so, we have the agenda of overt homosexual narcissists, of emotional “extermination” of women via using them as “wombs” for getting offsprings – and of covert narcissists, straight and homosexual, who enable the former because to do so is “nice”. This may look absurd – “a worshiper of women” is enabling “a hater of women”– but the two meet, “click” and interlock seamlessly via their narcissism and this is an excellent illustration of the fact that a narcissist has no other measure but “I am”. Modern technologies then enable image and the Church blesses it – and this is where all complex factors come together.
But in a nutshell, all heresy and ruin boil down to a family indeed, to a couple of an overt narcissist and his enabler, the covert one – a rather common pathology. It is the Church which is “to raise” that pathology to the level of the Antichrist.
I agree it was a strange choice to include testimonies from unrepentant sinners in a purportedly theological document. Shall we now make church doctrine based upon the prospective of the successful thief, the happy adulterer and shameless murderer?
Every quotation I ever saw from any of the synodal reports read like an alphabet soup of contemporary cant. A satirist wanting to write a send-up of Ecclesiastical Newspeak du jour could do no better than present an actual report as written. Each would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic.
Use of undefined terms to confuse the people
For decades, modernists in the Church hierarchy used the ambiguous phrase “the spirit of Vatican II” to excuse liturgical aberrations and dismantle Catholic tradition. Now that this tactic has lost its novelty, they have deployed a new, undefined term: “the Synodal Church.:
In Catholic teaching, precise definitions are the ultimate defence against heresy and error. When terms are left intentionally vague, those in power can shift boundaries, dominate the narrative, and falsely claim to speak for the people. Clear, unchanging definitions ensure that the faith passed down from Christ remains uncorrupted by modern ideologies.
A true, holy shepherd uses absolute clarity to protect his flock from deception and spiritual danger. Christ demands a “Yes” or “No” from His leaders; wolves use ambiguity to scatter the sheep and hide their true intentions. True spiritual fathers do not chase novel buzzwords. They preach the defined, eternal truths of the Church.
Cardinal Eijk refutes the report of study group 9 of the synod at National Catholic Register and other places.
More prayer and fasting is needed in order that every cardinal refute it.
As wordsmiths are throwing verbiage like rose petals, the real church, men and women who live the sacraments continue to walk past the the piles of reports, ignoring the accusers and the hand wringers, through the doors of traditional churches. Are they doing this because of the mechanics of the mass? I would say they are seeking a lost reverence for the mass.
“The ‘final report’ [dear Lord, if only!] is titled Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues” (Randall B Smith). Argot the surreptitious veil deceivers use to deceive.
Insofar as who are the intended recipients?, only those who speak the same language. Bureaucrats. Although, its intended to have effect on an entire culture particularly followers of Christ. As if new realities that were once thought discordant, are now found to be perfectly normal. Will O’ the Wisp James Martin secretly fixed the outcome of the dreaded department of sordid affairs, Study Group 9 report.
My interest is to question why doesn’t the summit of our hierarchy Leo XIV end the charade? Synodality was launched precisely to create mayhem regarding perennial Apostolic doctrine subjecting it to open ended non ending debate. The further we debate doctrine by the democratic inverted pyramid model, subject to plebeian consensus, rather than revelation, the further it’s mitigated and here egregiously distorted.
Fr. Morello- your question is the elephant in the room that americans in particular don’t want to admit- that Leo is continuing the same heterodox nonsense Francis introduced but now it comes with a smile and a low-key style. The fact that no one at the holy see whatsoever has said anything against the report or synod- except to double down on it- clearly confirms that Leo is permitting this to happen. It’s also most probable Leo was consulted before the synod office issued the follow up statement doubling down on it and also that Leo saw the report before it was published. This is only one example but there are dozens more- leo’s embrace of Fiducia supplicans; almost all his appointments in rome and as bishops are heterodox types, with “lbgt” promotion as one of their biggest commonalities; Leo has explicitly said that the teaching on same-sex marriage and attractions is capable of change; he’s used the same relativistic language that man has supposedly undergone anthropological and cultural changes that make current approaches obsolete. One problem is that american outlets may not report such things or try to whitewash them if they do, so these things may be unknown to many.
David. I’m beginning to accede to what I would rather not, that Leo XIV is not only implementing the Pope Francis agenda, but doing it more effectively with tactical finesse.
Although, there’s still time for that opinion to be proven otherwise.
This is a really excellent takedown of the “Final Report of Study Group Number 9.” (Even the title of the report sounds like self parody.) I commend Dr. Smith on what must have been a singularly painful task.
“Had the Gospels been written this way, would there be any Christians?”
“No one with any sense would ever read such pointless drivel.”
How true, how true!
“I continue to be puzzled by the language in the documents emerging from ecclesiastical bureaucrats.” Seriously? After the past 60 years, how could anyone be “puzzled” by anything emanating from Rome? The apostasy is everywhere and only getting more entrenched. The entire Vatican is infested with sodomites, Marxists and eco-pagans, and the College of Cardinals has become a college of cardinal vices. The exceptions are not rare, but they ARE exceptions.
Well it’s good to see another poster recognizes the ecclesiastical bureaucracy. Now, lest anybody think it functions differently than a secular bureaucracy, think again.
The principal warfare of bureaucrats is logomachy. The principal weapon abstruse walls of text.
I like Rodney’s comment above.
It is the process. Abuse of language and abuse of power.
Apply two goals: 1. CLARITY and 2. GUARDRAILS.
And pray to the Guardian Angel to Light and Guard and to Rule and Guide.
gallchobhair’s commending Dr. Smith “on what must have been a singularly painful task” is spot on.
Skimming the dead meat piece of group 9 made me prone to vomit and to migraine.
The dead meat risibly speaks: “…sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) couple relationship, but in a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfilment.”
Surely Jimmy Martin, other synod-author members (and maybe Leo) have recourse to a catechism. They should be ashamed of their first-grade level of job performance.
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.”
Sin is not a lack of faith in God but is an offense against God’s love for us. Homosexual desires and acts are disordered against reason because they are disordered against oneself, one’s complicit sinner, and against God.
Cast the rot into Gehenna. Its stench overwhelms.
Good written communication entails characteristics such as brevity, clarity, candor and done in service to a compelling cause. The reason documents such as these are lengthy turbid, obscure is because the authors are using words not to describe reality, but to redefine (invert) reality. It’s the “gamma wall of text” attempting to use legerdemain in pursuit of the hermeneutics of rupture.
I’m surprised any faithful Catholic actually reads the documents issued by the Vatican and then bothers to credit them with an intelligent analysis one might render a legitimate text. For me, it would be like giving a critical view of a pornographic film, image or novel. But I guess someone has to do the dirty work.
“Something has changed in the Church”
Archbishop Marcel Lefevbre 29/08/1976
I have read this book before: “.. you will be like God, knowing good and evil…”. We all know how it ended. Pray, pray pray.
When I see anything written like this document my immediate reaction is Marxist/New speak. It comes straight from the devil.
One way to effectively breakup these bureaucratic agenda driven cliques is to institute a rotation of staff every five years. Returning ordained priests, who are working in the Vatican bureaucracy, back to the a parish work would achieve two things.
Firstly it would bring to the Vatican a breath of fresh air from what are our basic building blocks, the parish priest, and parishioners (remember them???)
Secondly it would break up cliques which in time become self perpetuating entities.
Our Catholic Church should not be a ladder leading to power, influence and yes wealth. Yet let’s face it a lot of our senior clergy lead sheltered privileged lives with suspiciously large bank accounts.
When Vatican based clergy lose the smell of the sheep in their nostrils they can’t consider themselves shepherds of the faithful, and in the fullness of time will have face a final terrible judgment.
I’ve read this piece twice since it came out a week ago.
And I think it’s one of the most insightful, most graphic and most portentous articles of all the hundreds I’ve read on CWR.
Thank you, Dr. Smith, for laying out the Dark Vatican’s methods so artfully.
I do believe Dr. Smith was speaking tongue in cheek when writing “I continue to be puzzled…”.
One of the more pointed articles I’ve read in ages, pointing out the methodology in the transmission of synodal deliberations. He expresses my sense of frustration with all the nonsensical verbiage being pushed on the faithful by these wolves in sequined sheep’s clothing.
Continue to invoke the protection of Our Blessed Mother and the saints until these befuddled clerics are replaced by the more orthodox priests who are populating the Church. Jesus wins.