I was pleased to see that the Holy Mass was celebrated with reverence and great decorum. The Gloria and Creed were sung in Latin. The only point I regretted was the lack of genuflection at the Consecration. For the vast majority, Holy Communion was received on the tongue. There were a few priests who unfortunately offered it in the hand, why, I don't know. God be praised, I had feared it might not be so. Safe in the Barque of Peter!
So, if we want to read heresy and apostasy dressed up as mercy we will check out the approved news outlets. For real news about what's happening in the Church, we will go to websites which didn't fall for the Lettergate deception; don't promote the agendas of deviant Bishops and priests; do report on atheists and abortion promoters being appointed to Pontifical Academies; do report about population controllers being given a platform by the Vatican to spread the death culture; do report about drug fuelled homosexual orgies in the Vatican; and do tell us why certain "greats" are best forgotten. No change really apart from the approved (propaganda) sites being given some kind of "media imprimatur".
Dolours, It is possible that things could be worse than what you have stated above. I think that no one is really sure exactly what is meant by that paragraph 146 and for instance what the following statement in it means, "to counter the spread of fake news regarding the Church". Does that mean policing sites on the internet and having them removed if they fit the Vatican's definition of "fake news", I don't think that anyone really knows right now. **** Here is another good article about the Youth Synod and if you click on the link to the article there are also some very good comments included. Synod hall during Bishops' Synod on Youth (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA) The Synod Final Document: A Rush to Judgment COMMENTARY: The process employed to draft and approve the final document renders implausible any claim that it is the fruit of mature deliberation by the synod members. by Father Raymond J. de Souza | Oct. 27, 2018 | http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-synod-final-document-a-rush-to-judgment VATICAN CITY — “I don’t know if this document will do anything,” Pope Francis said in his brief, extemporaneous address to conclude the Synod on Youth. “We approved the document. The Holy Spirit gives us the document so that it can work in our hearts.” The final document of the synod may do something indeed, as the new regulations promulgated just before this synod by Pope Francis make it possible that he may designate it as an act of the magisterium of the Church. As a novelty, it remains to be seen what exactly that would mean. What decision the Holy Father will take in that regard has not yet been decided, as clarified at the final press briefing by Dr. Paolo Ruffini, head of Vatican communications. It will be some time until that decision is made. The final document also included a reference to the Instrumentum laboris— the heavily criticized working document prepared months before the synod — saying that it should be read in “complementarity” with the final document. That adds a further question about status. The “working document” was not prepared by the synod, nor was it voted upon by them. How then could it have any status at all, let alone that of being “complementary” to a potentially magisterial document? All of the paragraphs in the final document passed the necessary two-thirds threshold easily. The paragraph regarding the status of the Instrumentum laboris had 43 negative votes out of 249, the highest number for any paragraph save for the paragraph on homosexuality. That paragraph could be read in an orthodox fashion, citing previous Church teaching, but was sufficiently ambiguous to garner 65 negative votes out of 248. So it is clear that the final document received sufficient votes to pass, with most paragraphs achieving near-unanimity. What is not as clear is whether the synodal process allows sufficient time and space for the discernment necessary for a document that might be recognized as magisterial. The final document is some 60 single-spaced pages, more than 30,000 words in length, divided into three parts, 12 chapters and 167 paragraphs. The synod members first saw a draft on Tuesday. According to Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay, one of the most senior collaborators of Pope Francis as a member of the Council of Cardinals (C9), and also a member of the drafting committee for the final document, significant sections of the document introduced subjects and language not addressed in the synod itself. “They’re very heavily stressed, discernment and synodality, which really were not very much prominent in the discussions,” said Cardinal Gracias. “There was some resistance when it was publicized because this document has so much on synodality when we really haven’t discussed it.” The synod then had Wednesday to speak about the draft documents, proposing changes. On Thursday, the drafting committee addressed the changes, and the designated secretaries polished the text on Friday. On Saturday morning, the text was read to the entire assembly in Italian, with simultaneous translation in the hall. The text provided to the synod members was in Italian only, and only in hard copy, frustrating any electronic attempts to have it distributed for translation. The schedule permitted four hours to reflect upon the Italian text before voting began, allowing readers 20 minutes per chapter, assuming that they did not each lunch. But even that accelerated schedule was not followed. The text was so mammoth that the entire morning session — some three hours — was exhausted in just reading the first two parts. The afternoon session then commenced with voting upon parts one and two, after which the third part was read and voted upon immediately with no time permitted for reflection at all. “The synod is not a Parliament,” Pope Francis said in his final address. Exactly. Parliaments pass thousand-page bills that few, if any, have read. But theology is more important than civil laws, and a higher standard should be expected of synods — if synods are to be taken seriously. Cardinal Gracias found the process inadequate to the potentially magisterial task at hand. “I am not in favor of putting that responsibility on the synod fathers,” he said. “It’s not fair to the synod fathers, to the Church, to say that this is now magisterium. I think the Pope wanted to give importance to the synod, but there certainly are things there that could be theologically misunderstood and could be controversial.” The inability or unwillingness of the synod secretariat to provide translations of texts — despite repeated requests from the English-speaking bishops at least — was a point of friction. Multiple sources said that Cardinal Lorenzo Baldiserri, secretary general of the synod, was so annoyed during one meeting about requests for translations that he stormed out of the room, threatening to run the next synod entirely in Latin. It is not clear why the synod secretariat could not have had teams of Vatican priests from different countries, seminarians present in Rome, or even graduate students hired for the purpose, to work overnight on translations. But the refusal to provide translations of a text so prolix, coupled with the brief time allowed between recitation and voting, renders implausible any claim that the document is the fruit of mature deliberation by the synod members. All the more so considering that important parts of the text were not significantly discussed in the synod itself. “One of the disadvantages is that many [bishops] do not know sufficient Italian, so I don’t know how they’ll respond, whether they’ll abstain, go with the group, I don’t know,” Cardinal Gracias said. “If we don’t understand it, how can we vote on it? Some have said, we don’t have sufficient Italian to be able to make a judgment. We’re saying yes to something we don’t know, and that’s not right.” In his concluding address, Pope Francis said that the document now needs to be prayed over, studied and reflected upon, before proper decisions can be made. Prayer, study and reflection would have also been suitable before it was approved. [emphasis added]
They can write what they like, Carol, dress it up however they like, and call it whatever they like including magisterial but if it contradicts Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition or binding decisions of Ecumenical Councils, they will need to have the next and subsequent Popes on board for it to have any lasting effect. Everything Pope Francis has introduced thus far under the heading of "mercy", "accompaniment", "conscience" or "discernment" can be reversed by a future Pope. Just because Pope Francis regarded Cardinal Martini as the Holy Spirit doesn't make it so. Jesus will protect His Church and eventually we will get a Pope who isn't ashamed to be Catholic. That might take a while - likely when the "Francis effect" has run its course and the Bonos and Scorses of this world wouldn't be seen dead in the presence of a Pope, especially a Pope leading a dirt-poor Church - but it will happen. Meanwhile, how are they going to shut down every website or close every news outlet run by Catholics? Every Diocese would need a special group charged with policing the internet, print and tv media. And there would have to be a set process, including the right of appeal, before the news outlet is declared to be anathema. As it is, 2,000 years after Jesus founded His Church, the Church authorities can't get a handle on self-proclaimed visionaries and prophets never mind sexual predators in the clergy. Christian, especially Catholic, websites are already in the cross hairs of the internet moguls who preach freedom of speech provided the speech echoes their own beliefs. Short of the Vatican doing a China-type deal with them, I don't know how Dioceses, already struggling financially thanks to the abuse crises, will find the resources to silence Catholic media outlets. And if the Vatican does come to an arrangement (even privately) with major internet service providers, there will be alternatives. They're hardly likely to issue an edict saying that Catholics are forbidden to read, watch, or visit news outlets other than those given the official seal of approval. Doing so would increase the traffic towards unapproved outlets, making the edict counter-productive.
I wondered about this. I had been under the impression that communion was to be received only on the tongue at papal masses. Also, was that Cardinal Robert Sarah that the camera lingered on? (I merely watched a little here and there).
Immaculata, A new thread has been started for you to share your story! You'll see it in the right hand column entitled, A Personal Testimony. Safe in the Father's Arms!
This should have been preached to the youth at the Synod, instead of all the talk about accompaniment etc.,... If only it had been so.... De Mattei - To the youth: there is only one way to be happy: be holy! https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2018/10/de-mattei-to-youth-there-is-only-one.html#more On October 20, 2018, the Voice of the Family held a conference in Rome entitled Created for heaven: the mission of Catholic young adults in today’s world. This inspiring talk published below was delivered by Professor Roberto de Mattei. What to say to the young of today? I can say nothing other than what I tell myself each day: be holy. This isn’t an abstract question; it’s a concrete question that concerns each one of us, man or woman, young or old, nobody excluded. I need to be convinced of this: I might attain all the fortunes of life: health, wealth, pleasure, honors and power, but if I don’t become holy, my life will have been a failure. On the other hand, I might experience trials and tribulations of all sorts, I might appear a failure in the eyes of the world, but if I become holy I will have attained the true and only purpose of my life. Man was created to be happy. There is only one way to be happy: be holy. Holiness makes for man’s happiness and the glory of God. But how to be holy? By following my vocation. The vocation which God is calling me to. Following one’s vocation means doing the will of God. Whatever the vocation, it’s all about God’s will for us. Each person has their own specific vocation. What God asks of each soul, represents its vocation, which is the special form Providence wants each person to work and grow in. Every man has a special vocation since each has been wanted and loved by God in a different way. There are no two creatures alike, nor, in the course of history, have there been vocations absolutely alike, seeing as the will of God is different for every creature and every creature that has entered time, from nothingness, is unique. Father Faber dedicates one of his spiritual conferences to this theme: “All men have a special vocation” (Spiritual Conferences, Burn & Oates, London 1906, pp. 375-396). Each man has a specific vocation, different from that of any other man, since God loves every one of us with a special love. What does this special love of God for me consist of? First of all, God created me, giving my body and soul the characteristics and qualities that pleased Him. God did not only create me, He keeps me alive, providing me with the being in which I live. If God ceased even for a second to imbue my being, I’d fall into that nothingness from which He brought me forth. God, after creating us, has not left us to the mercy of chance. Each hair on our head has been counted (Mat. 19, 30), and not one hair falls without the Lord’s permission. (Luke, 21,18). And if the number and fall of my hair are all calculated – what then, is not going to be calculated in our lives? “God does not look at us merely in the mass and multitude”, writes Father Faber. “From all eternity God determined to create me not simply a fresh man, not simply the son of my parents, a new inhabitant of my native country, but he resolved to create me such as I am, the me by which I am myself, the me by which other people know me, a different me from any that has ever been created hitherto, and from any that will be created hereafter”. “It was just me, with my individual peculiarities, the size, shape, fashion and way of my particular single, unmated soul, which in the calmness of His eternal predilection drew Him to create me” (Spiritual Conferences, p. 375). In short, God has traced the laws of my physical, moral and intellectual development along with the laws of my supernatural growth. How did He do this? Through instruments. What instruments? These instruments are the creatures I meet in my life. The Carthusian, Dom Pollien, invites us to calculate the number of creatures that have been part of the reality of our existence (Cristianesimo vissuto, Edizioni Fiducia, Roma 2017). The physical influences of time, seasons and climate, the moral influences of relatives, teachers, friends and [even the] enemies we have met along the way; all the books we have read, the words we have heard, the things we have seen, the situations in which we have found ourselves – nothing is by chance, given that there is no such thing as chance – everything has a significance. These influences, these movements are the work that God performs in us. All these creatures, explains Dom Pollien, are placed in motion by Him and they do nothing other than what God wants them to do in us. Everything occurs at a given time; it acts on the right point, it produces the movement necessary to exercise a physical, moral or intellectual influence on us. This influence is actual grace. Actual grace is the supernatural action that God exercises on us at every moment, through creatures. Creatures are instruments that bring grace. They are the instruments of God for one purpose only: the forming of saints. Everything that happens, all that one does, St. Paul says, everything without exception, contributes to the same work and this work is the good of those that the will of God calls to holiness (Rom, 8,28). Nothing fails towards this purpose, everything converges towards this outcome. Actual grace is everywhere and intimately connects the natural and the supernatural. And God proportions the quality of His graces to the needs of our life, according to the designs of His mercy towards us and according to the response we lend to His action. How do we respond to this uninterrupted action of grace on our souls? We let God act on our souls, without ever worrying about tomorrow, since, as the Gospel says ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof’ (Mathew, 6, 34). “Let God act”, said Cardinal Merry del Val: “Remember that circumstances which you yourself have not occasioned are God’s messengers. They come a thousand times a day to tell you the different ways in which you may show Him your love”. Val (Let God Act, Talacre Abbey, 1974, p. 2). A religious who lived very closely with St. John Bosco was asked whether the Saint was ever worried in the midst of his countless works, in his sometimes tumultuous life. The religious replied in this manner: “Don Bosco never, not even a minute before, thought about what he was about to do a minute later.” Don Bosco, who understood the action of grace, always sought to do the will of God in the present moment. And following this path he fulfilled his vocation. (continues below...)
In Rome, next to the central station, stands the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, built by Don Bosco just before his death, at the cost of immense sacrifices. The Basilica was solemnly consecrated on May 14th 1887 by the Cardinal Vicar in the presence of numerous civil and religious authorities. On May 16th 1887, Don Bosco himself offered Mass at the altar of Mary, Help of Christians: it was his only celebration in the Church of the Sacred Heart and, as a plaque appended on the centenary of the event commemorates, the Mass was interrupted fifteen times by the sobs of the old priest, who understood the significance of his famous “dream of 9 years”. God showed him the vast panorama of his life and revealed to him how, from his childhood, he had been prepared and led by God to fulfill his earthly mission. Every soul has its vocation, because it has its different function in the Body of the Church. He who has the vocation of marriage, doesn’t have it for himself, but for the Church. He who has a religious vocation, doesn’t have it for himself, but for the Church. This vocation, writes Father Faber, flows directly from our eternal predestination, but is entrusted to the hands of our free will and depends on it: “I clearly belong to a plan, and have a place to fill and a work to do which are all special; and only my speciality, my particular me, can fill this place or do this work”. This means that I have a tremendous responsibility. “Responsibility is the definition of life. It is the inseparable characteristic of my position as a creature” “From this point of view life looks very serious” (Spiritual Conferences, p. 377). There is no other path that leads man to the holiness which everyone is called to, in order to be happy. Let us go along this path with the help of Our Lady and the Angels. God has placed us near an Angel to guard our vocation. Our Guardian Angel is our vocation perfected; our vocation fulfilled. He is the model for our vocation. For this we need to pray to him and listen to the words he whispers. There are vocations for single people; there are vocations for families, which are not only natural ones, but also those spiritual families, with their charisms; there are vocations for the peoples of nations, which Plinio Correa de Oliveira spoke of frequently. Each nation has a specific vocation, which is the role that Providence has entrusted to it in history. But we were not only born into a family and a nation. We live inside a historical age. And since history is also a creature of God, in every historical age God asks for something different. Every historical age has its vocation. The predominant vocation in the first centuries of the Church was the predisposition for martyrdom. Is there a vocation in the 21st century, in which one can find one’s individual vocation? The vocation for our age is to correspond to the desire of Heaven which Our Lady Herself showed us at Fatima: In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. This is the vocation of those in the cloisters, in the public squares, who, with prayer, penitence, words and action, battle for the fulfillment of this promise. The triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is also the triumph of the Church, since the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the very Heart of the Church Itself. This triumph suggests a great battle preceding it. And since this triumph will be social, public and solemn, this battle will also be social, public and solemn. Today, being saints means fighting this battle, which is fought, first and foremost, holding the sword of truth. It is only upon the truth that the lives of men and nations can be built, and without the truth, a society breaks down and dies. Today, Christian society has to be remade; and to remake it, the prime necessity which is called for, is that of professing and living the truth. When a Christian, with the help of Grace, conforms his own life to the principles of the Gospel and fights in defense of the truth, he cannot be hindered by any obstacle. In his discourse of January 21st 1945 to the Marian Congregations of Rome, Pius XII states: “The present time calls for fearless Catholics, for whom it is the most natural thing [in the world] to profess their faith openly, through their words and actions, whenever the law of God and the sentiment of Christian honour require it. Real men, upright men, resolute and intrepid! Those who are such merely halfway, the world itself discards, rejects and crushes.” “God and the Church – writes Dom Pollien in Cristianesimo vissuto – ask for defenders, but real defenders; those who never shrink back one step; those who know how to be faithful to orders until death; those who are formed in the rigours of discipline, in order to be ready for all the heroisms of the fight.” (p. 162). The French writer Paul Claudel, enunciated this great truth: “Youth was not made for pleasure but for heroism”. The young of the 21st century cannot be attracted by the invitation of compromise with the world, but are asking the Church for a call to heroism. Cristianesimo vissuto means militant Christianity. In the Middle Ages, at the building of a cathedral, architects, stone-masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, bishops, princes, illustrious and unknown personalities all participated, united in the same desire to render glory to God through the stones they raised to Heaven. We are also participating in a great project. Each one of us today is called to build the immense cathedral dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the ruins of the modern world - which is nothing other than Her Reign in souls and society. Our hearts are the stones and our voices proclaim to the world a dream that will come true. Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana
It won't be the Church. It will happen the exact same way all social media sites now are censoring speech that does not align with their NWO agenda and goals. We think of it as political correctness now but it is much more than this. They are already aligned to the NWO agenda and are fighting against all governments who do not follow their lead. These sites will gladly ban (and shadow ban) people straight away for posting even links to sites that are on the list of undesirables. Make no mistake, in due time, secular governments will pass laws and label those who do so as law breakers and even worse. They will throw them in prison or drug them into submission under mental health pretenses. Eliminating them as a threat for the common good. Remember, a society that has failed makes thousands of new laws to protect those in power and appease those who mistakenly think it is the law which saves them. The goal, is to keep the Truth as minimized as possible while broadcasting the message of secular humanist inclusiveness to the entire world. The water which one drinks of and thirsts no more men long to eliminate completely and if it can not do this they wish to dry up its sources with every resource at their disposal. We all hear about the environmental threat to our drinking water in the fake news but it is a farce, a complete lie. The real threat is the drying up of the living water. This is the true goal. Just like the book Lord of the World foretold, there will come a series of events which will pit the masses of humanity against the only real Church and blame it for every evil to befall mankind. The masses will demand that the threat be eliminated by any means necessary. Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again; but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst for ever: [14] But the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.
Does anyone else find it oddly coincidental that death threats are being made toward Pope Francis by so called ISIS as the Youth Synod came to its conclusion? This is no coincidence, there are no coincidences.
Don, I expected this possibility from studying prophecies. I believe that Sensus Fidelium's videos about Our Lady of Revelation eluded to this grave possibility also. In addition since there is so much discussion going on about the Church changing their teaching on homosexuality including the possibility that the final document of the Youth Synod doing just that in so many words and since Islam is very much against homosexuality, as horrible as these death threats are they do not surprise me at all. Maybe that is what you meant. Plus, all of the news continually coming out over the past year about the clerical sexual abuse crisis and it's connection to homosexuality could easily be a factor in this respect also. Btw, that was a great answer in regard to the potential policing of the internet. I have officially deferred my reply to what you have stated, thank you. *** Here is another article about the Youth Synod... Synodality and sexuality: What the youth synod document said and didn’t say by Ed Condon/CNA posted Tuesday, 30 Oct 2018 | http://catholicherald.co.uk/comment...cument-said-and-didnt-say/?platform=hootsuite (AFP/Getty Images) Many synod fathers were surprised by the inclusion of 'synodality' in a document purportedly focused on youth The fifteenth ordinary general session of the Synod of Bishops closed on Saturday. After a long afternoon of voting by the synod fathers, a final document was approved, mostly addressing the topics of young people, faith, and vocational discernment. After nearly a year’s preparation, and more than three weeks of synodal sessions, the Oct. 27 document had been keenly anticipated by Church leaders and the media. But most of the anticipation was about how the synod would address topics only tangentially linked to the synod’s official program. The three most prominent of these were the clerical sexual abuse crises still engulfing the Church in some parts of the world; the ways the Church speaks about human sexuality, and especially homosexuality; the concept of “synodality” in the exercise of the Church’s teaching and governance. Credibility Issues The immediate run-up to the synod was dominated by the serious sexual abuse crises that have broken out across the Church. In Chile, seven bishops have been removed from office since April, and more are expected to go. In Germany, a damning internal report on clerical abuse was recently leaked, and in Poland victims of historical abuse are coming forward in growing numbers. In the U.S., the spectacular fall of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick was elevated from a national to international scandal by a former apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. In an explosive series of public “testimonies,” Vigano has accused the Vatican hierarchy under the past three popes of ignoring or dismissing allegations against the former cardinal, and of aiding his advancement and influence in the Church. Bishops from across the world called for the synod to be delayed or repurposed to tackle the growing crisis of sexual abuse. Once it began, many synod fathers raised the issue of abuse and insisted that it be addressed on the floor of the hall and in the final document. Others argued that the synod had been called to consider other important issues, and should not be completely derailed from its intended purpose by the sexual abuse crisis. In a partial response to calls for the synod to be postponed or cancelled, Pope Francis announced a February 2019 meeting of the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences to treat the matter of abuse specifically. The synod’s final document condemned several different kinds of abuse: “power, economic, conscience, [and] sexual.” It also praised victims who had “the courage to denounce the evil they have suffered; (and) helped the Church to become aware of what happened and the need to react decisively.” Although not a holistic treatment of the scandals or an authoritative answer to them, the attempt to acknowledge the problem in some meaningful way while still grasping for a means of formulating a credible response reflects a problem the US bishops will likely face when they gather for the USCCB’s general session in Baltimore in November. continued...
continued from above... Minority report Before and during the synod concerted effort was made to insert the language of the gay rights movement, especially the acronym LGBT, into synod documents, and by extension into the official vocabulary of the Church. Although it was not included in the report presented by young people attending the synod’s pre-meeting in March, the term “LGBT” made it into the synod’s working document – the instrumentum laboris – apparently at the initiative of the synod’s permanent secretariat, led by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri. While it seemed to be at most a secondary concern for those actually attending the synod, considerable media pressure built up around the issue, thanks in large part to concerted efforts by outside groups and prominent campaigners in favor of a change to the Church’s teaching on sexual morals. Many of the synod fathers, most prominently Cardinal Wilfred Napier and Archbishop Charles Chaput, criticized efforts to advance distinctly modern and Western attitudes on human sexuality in the synod’s documents. Those bishops noted the Church teaches that the common dignity of humanity comes from being created in God’s image, and that the dignity of each person in the Church is rooted in baptism. Elevating sexual desire or so-called “gender self-identification” to defining human characteristics, the bishops said, mis-locates the source of our humanity in ourselves, and not in God. Some synod watchers expressed concern at what they saw as a concerted effort to import secular identity politics into the synod and relativize the authority of Church teaching. Several observers in Rome expressed concern that adopting the language of the LGBT movement in a “dialogue” about sexuality would, essentially, frame the conversation in way that excludes the Church’s actual teaching. The synod’s final document made no mention of “LGBT persons,” Catholic or otherwise, and called it “reductive” to define a person’s identity by their sexual orientation. Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin called the document a “retreat” on the Church’s ministry to gay people. Contemporary secular attitudes about gender even received a fairly explicit refutation, as the synod fathers affirmed the “determinative anthropological relevance of the difference and reciprocity between man and woman.” On the other hand, while stressing the universal and unqualified love of God for all people and condemning sexual discrimination and violence, the synod’s final document also stressed the need for “accompaniment” for “homosexual persons” in the Church as they “follow with freedom and responsibility their baptismal call.” This language has been taken up by some activists. An article carried on the website of New Ways Ministry welcomed the language saying it seemed “carefully chosen to allow for wide interpretation.” Francis DeBernardo, author of the post and executive director of New Ways Ministry, has previously said that so-called gender transitions help people “become closer to God.” The organization has been the subject of numerous corrections and warnings by Church authorities over the years. Some in the Church, both in favor and against the possibility, have suggested that following the synod some dioceses in different countries might adopt increasingly divergent means of “accompaniment,” ranging from authentically pastoral presentations of Church teaching on sexuality and human dignity, to effective public acceptance of homosexual unions. How far these different forms of “accompaniment” might be allowed to develop could hinge on whether the pope decides to develop the theme further in a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, or simply adopt the synod’s report as his own. It may also depend on what is intended by the document’s call for a more “synodal” Church. Co-responsibility Although not addressed in the instrumentum laboris or raised by the synod fathers in their deliberations, the concept of “synodality” emerged as a surprise focus in the final document as a draft was circulated Oct. 25-26. Pope Francis has previously called synodality a “constitutive dimension” of the Church, but there is little common understanding among bishops regarding what exactly the word means. The synod text calls synodality it a remedy for clericalism – which some have blamed for the sexual abuse crisis – and a blueprint for creating a more “participatory and co-responsible” Church. Although there is broad consensus among bishops in favor of a more engaged, responsive, and interactive hierarchy, many of the synod fathers were caught off guard by the inclusion of the topic in a document purportedly focused on youth. The text says that one of the results of the synod sessions has been emergence of “some fundamental features of a synodal style” which the wider Church is called to adopt. Some of the synod’s participants found this statement confusing, even ironic. One priest attached to a delegation from an English-speaking country told CNA that the “synodal style” highlighted by the document was not immediately clear. “They’re shoving all this fluff about ‘synodality’ in [the final text] and no one knows what it means. It wasn’t in the instrumentum [laboris], no one discussed it during the sessions or groups, no one wants to see it in [the final draft].” Noting the distance between what was actually discussed by the fathers and what was written by the drafting committee, the priest observed that “Maybe that’s what synodality means.” While some synod observers and members were left confused by the sudden emphasis on synodality, others had a more pointed reaction. Bishops from several different anglophone countries, including England, are reported to have denounced the language, fearing it is a step towards a parliamentary, Protestant approach to Church governance and teaching authority – something which has severely damaged the Anglican Communion in recent decades. The pope himself appeared to acknowledge these concerns in his closing remarks, reminding the synod that it was “not a parliament.” Another source of contention was the explicit reference by the final document to the instrumentum laboris. The two texts are to be read, so the final report says, in “continuity” with one another. One Vatican official who attended most of the sessions told CNA that some at the synod’s General Secretariat saw this as an opportunity. “I think more than a few are treating this as a way of eating their cake and having it too,” the official told CNA. “If there was something in the instrumentum which didn’t make it into the final document, this is a way of preserving it. On the other side of the coin, the final draft was a chance to include things they thought were important but the fathers didn’t.” —- Historically, synodal documents have not been given much weight, a fact Francis acknowledged at the beginning of this synod. The role of the synod is primarily to discuss an issue and offer the pope the fruits of that discussion. It is the pope, in a later apostolic exhortation, who traditionally produces the magisterial document. In his recent reform of the Synod of Bishops, Francis explicitly noted his option to adopt the final synodal document as his own, leading many to speculate that this was his immediate intention. It is not yet certain whether Francis will add his signature to this synod’s final document or offer his own version at a later date. Many bishops, discussing synodality, pointed out that the pope’s teaching authority in the Church is unique, and some raised concerns about any synod resolution that might seem to degrade that authority. At the same time, some synod fathers leave Rome wondering if their voices were actually heard during the meeting. As Pope Francis calls for a listening Church, some bishops will be waiting closely to see just what he heard during their meeting.
In part I did mean what you wrote about Islam Carol. The ironic thing about that is that of you ask any soldier who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan or any country in the ME they will to a man tell you that Islam has a huge problem with sodomy and especially sodomy of young men but since they hide this and have unspoken rules governing it this is rarely spoken about except in the rare case of someone who is openly practicing sodomy as an effeminate. This is not acceptable in their culture and they throw those guys off tall buildings as a warning to others. I also think that the Vatican is in part steered by the same group who bank roll the Soros/Clinton/Podesta's of this world and are looking to see a revolution in the Church. These people hide behind groups such as ISIS and use the threat of them as the stick if the carrot doesn't get the results they seek. The timing was horribly obvious IMO that this was the case in respect to the synod. I suspect that Pope Francis will begin to increasingly see more MSM coverage that is not kind should the synod not deliver on the bullet point agenda of the NWO for the Church. I think that the US given our coveted freedom of speech in the constitution is considered the holy grail or key stone if you will to the NWO agenda. If they can not succeed here and fundamentally alter our society and freedoms they will ultimately fail around the globe. This is why men such as Soros fight tooth and nail to undermine our basic freedoms. Much like what has happened in the Church with the repression of long held teaching and traditions the same sort of plan is in effect here in regards to corporations enforcing and policing policies which have no basis in our rule of law but are put into place due to their power and then the message is propagated far and wide that people want these changes for the common good. These are lies, the same lies and misinformation that are spread anytime someone of power wishes to transform the landscape of our nation. A good example of this is eugenics. This absolutely deplorable practice began and took root in CA, USA before WWII not Germany as many mistakenly believe and is alive and well today in Planned Parenthood which is barely even mentioned in the article below. It was families such as the Rockefeller's and the Carnegie Endowment who bank rolled its adoption in European medicine and scientific fields. A long but interesting read on the origins of such practices. Interestingly enough the same sick men who were tried in Nuremberg used as a defense the use of said practices in CA and were executed. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1796 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
Letters from the Synod-2018: The final letter by Xavier Rynne II posted Monday, 29 Oct 2018 | http://catholicherald.co.uk/comment...d-2018-the-final-letter/#.W9ysIWn3wLA.twitter (Getty Images) Reports and Commentary, from Rome and Elsewhere, on the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPTS The fifteenth ordinary general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, convened by Pope Francis to reflect on “Youth, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment,” is now history – unless you subscribe to an extreme notion of “synodality,” advanced by some bishops last week, which hints at an ongoing synodal process that will presumably include, in due course, the Parousia, the Last Judgment, and the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Some good things happened in Rome this past month. Catholics from all over the world got to know each other’s stories and experiences, which helps shake all of us out of our comfort zones. Catholicism today is genuinely “catholic” in the sense of “universal” or “global,” and to live that, not just think or read about it, is a bracing and revivifying experience of solidarity. It can also be sobering, as when you’re told by an impressive African bishop that one of his seminarians was recently murdered and that he’s had to close several parishes because of the threat of massacres when large groups gather in his strife-torn country, Cameroon. Synods are also opportunities for catching-up with friends in the great Catholic family. There was even some serious reflection on what makes for effective evangelization of young adults: in the Synod’s language-based discussion groups, in some eloquent interventions in the synodal general congregations, and in the Synod’s “Off Broadway” venues, including restaurants, coffee bars, and in more than one wonderful Roman gelateria. (I think it a safe bet that no one loses weight at a Synod, despite a lot of walking around.) These affairs always take time to digest, so what follows is a mosaic of impressions that I hope will give readers of these LETTERS a little more sense of what happened during Synod-2018 and what it might portend for the Church’s immediate future. The Smuggler Synod? In 449, Emperor Theodosius II summoned an ecumenical council, which was to be led at Ephesus by Patriarch Dioscorus I of Alexandria. The Church was bitterly divided over complex theological questions of the relationship between the human and the divine in Christ: “monophysites” held that Christ had only a divine nature for which his humanity was a kind of disguise, while the anti-monophysites affirmed two natures, divine and human, in the one divine person of Christ – the formula eventually adopted by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 after an intervention by Pope Leo the Great. Theodosius’s council was a failure, as many bishops declined to attend; and ever since, what was intended to be “Ephesus II” has been known in much of the Christian world as the “Robber Council,” or “Robber Synod.” It is an open question whether this month’s exercise will come to be known as the “Smuggler Synod.” For there was a lot of smuggling going on before and during Synod-2018. The smuggling began in the Synod’s preparatory phase. A “pre-Synod” meeting of young people in March 2018 was thoroughly rigged, according to the accounts of some brave souls who were there because the Synod managers either misidentified them or wanted them as cover. Working sessions were conducted long into the night, the goal being to get inserted into the meeting’s final document a number of progressive Catholic approaches to human sexuality. One discussion group leader banned an opening prayer before the group’s meetings – what had been proposed was a joint recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Doxology – saying that this might make the non-Catholics present uncomfortable. The Synod managers and the new Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life trumpeted this meeting as a great advance in “listening;” it was an exercise in manipulation and spin. Then there was the Synod’s Instrumentum Laboris, or working document. Into it was smuggled the phrase “LGBT youth,” which had not appeared in the pre-Synod meeting’s reports, claims by Synod general secretary Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri notwithstanding. Other language more redolent of the New York Times op-ed page than the Catechism of the Catholic Church got smuggled into the Instrumentum Laboris, which also included a lot of mind-numbing, down-market sociology, organized in what one Synod father described as a “manic-depressive” schema that lauded young adults on one hand and then lamented the sour state of everything (including young adults) on the other. The auditors appointed for the Synod – lay people, in the main, and many of them young adults – were carefully chosen (or smuggled in) to reflect the priorities of the Synod managers. Smuggled out, so to speak, were representatives of successful, global young adult initiatives like FOCUS and the World Youth Alliance. Thomas Andronie, one of the Official Young Adults and head of the lavishly funded official youth organization of the German Church, gave a blistering speech in a synodal general congregation in which he essentially proposed reconstructing Catholicism as Lutheranism. Unofficial young adults, orthodox and vibrantly evangelical, had an impact “Off Broadway,” but their virtual exclusion from the Synod’s official proceedings was an example of the smugglers erecting a Trumpian wall around the Synod’s official work, presumably for fear of ideological contamination. The smugglers really got their act into high gear in the Synod’s last week. As Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the archbishop of Mumbai, and Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, both noted with some vigor, there had been very little discussion of “synodality” in the Instrumentum Laboris, in the general congregations, or in the Synod’s discussion groups; and there was no serious push for including a lengthy discussion of this seemingly arcane topic in the Synod’s draft final report. But presto! There it was, and it elicited a spirited debate between the proponents of “synodality” (who never seemed to be able to define precisely what that meant, besides a lot more meetings for everyone – or chosen everyones – to attend), and those who objected on several grounds: that the concept was theologically nebulous, susceptible of manipulation, and in tension with the teaching of Vatican II on the role of bishops in the Church; that a discussion of “synodality,” whatever it meant, had nothing to do with Synod-2018’s topic, “Youth, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment;” and that, as “synodality” hadn’t been a major issue in the general congregations and discussion groups, it shouldn’t figure prominently in the final report. Was another agenda being smuggled into the Synod at the last minute? And then there was the draft final report’s claim, in nomine synodalitatis (as it were) that the Final Final Report was to be read in continuity with the Instrumentum Laboris, which in previous Synods had been deemed (and by Cardinal Baldisseri, no less) as the “seed” that “dies” so that the final report might be born. This struck more than one Synod father as an attempt to smuggle into a now-expanded Synod work product (i.e., the Final Final Report + the Instrumentum Laboris + who’s knows what else) the “LGBT” language that had been severely criticized in the Synod’s general congregation sand discussion groups, as well as other notions dear to the Synod managers. And why was a document (the Instrumentum Laboris) that had been staff-prepared being granted some sort of permanent and authoritative status in a Synod of Bishops? Vigorous opposition led to this absurd notion of a working document incorporated as an interpretive device into an ongoing synodal process being modified in the Really Final Draft Final Report [RFDFR], which only spoke of the “diversity and complementarity” of the Instrumentum Laboris and the Final Report. Local-Option Catholicism? As discussion of the “synodality” paragraphs in the RFDFR intensified in the Synod’s last forty-eight hours, Anglophone and African bishops began to sense that the rude beast slouching through the Synod’s final week, wearing a sandwich-board identifying it as “Synodality,” might signify an effort by the Synod managers, presumably with the acquiescence of the Pope, to remake the Catholicism of the future into a local-option federation of national or regional Churches with differing (and perhaps even conflicting) theologies and pastoral practices. To bend toward the charitable for a moment, it’s just conceivable that at least some proponents of “synodality” may be trying to give a new expression to the diversity of charismatic gifts in the Church described by St. Paul in the first reading at Mass on the Synod’s last working day: And he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the extent of the full stature of Christ… [Ephesians 4:11-13]. continued...
continued from above... In other words, some proponents of “synodality” may be imagining that that this often-vague concept is a response to the complexity of a Church in which 1) all the baptized are recipients Holy Spirit’s gifts and thus “protagonists” of the Church’s life; 2) there is episcopal governance by Christ’s will; and 3) there is a pope with supreme authority, also by Christ’s will. No serious student of either theology or history will deny that there have been different and legitimate attempts to “order” this complexity over two millennia, some of them more successful than others in advancing the Church’s essential mission of evangelization. So discussion of how to keep all those moving parts moving in the same direction is welcome – as long as it is open and honest. But those are precisely the qualities missing from the rushed discussion of “synodality” at Synod-2018. The topic was smuggled into the Draft Final Report after virtually no discussion in the Synod itself; the voting on the relevant sections of the Really Final Draft Final Report on Saturday was marred by the Synod general secretary’s refusal to have the third part of the RFDFR translated before the vote; and the impression was thus created that this entire business was being bulldozed through by the Synod managers in a thoroughly, er, unsynodal manner. Moreover, the references to multiple tiers of “synodality” in the RFDFR and thus the approve Final Report seemed to some bishops – again, Anglophones and Africans – to open the door to local-option Catholicism. Thus the Extraordinary Synod on Amazonia next year could “synodally” decide that ordaining mature married men (viri probati) to the priesthood was pastorally important and request the Pope’s approval of that practice, which the Pope would then give in recognition of the principle of “synodality.” Or the German bishops’ conference (perhaps joined by the Austrian and Belgian bishops’ confererences) could “synodally” decide to have some form of liturgical blessing for so-called “same-sex marriages,” which practice would also receive a nihil obstat from the Bishop of Rome, recognizing those local Churches’ “synodal” authority. And before long, the Catholic Church would have been deconstructed into a simulacrum of the Anglican Communion, a lot of which is dying from, among other things, a surfeit of “synodality.” Against charges sure to emerge from the portside of the Barque of Peter, it must be underscored that these are not the concerns of Ultra-Traditionalists at war with Vatican II. Rather, they are the entirely legitimate concerns of some of the Church’s most dynamic bishops, all of whom are proponents of the New Evangelization. What they see in this local-option Catholicism is a prescription for utter incoherence leading to evangelical failure. The Magic Kingdom Against Itself Denizens of the Holy See and friendly observers sometimes refer to the reality inside the Leonine Wall as the “Magic Kingdom,” a gentle dig at the Vatican’s sometimes puzzling ways. During Synod-2018, however, the Holy See sometimes seemed to be working against itself, one hand not knowing what the other was doing. One example of this was the Draft Final Report’s use of the language of “sexual orientation,” which strikes many Americans as a merely descriptive phrase, but which has a very different valence or connotation in international organizations where the Holy See is determined to play a role. For years, Vatican representatives have worked hard to keep “sexual orientation” out of international treaties, covenants, reports, etc., because they know that this usage opens the door to international legal approval of (and insistence on) so-called “same-sex marriage,” transgenderism, and so forth. Yet here was that very same language in a draft Synod final report, and no complaint seems to have been heard from the Secretariat of State. Had there been a change in Vatican policy, such that the Holy See now had no objection to the use of the language of “sexual orientation?” If so, why? And if not, why didn’t Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State, explain why this language had long been considered a red flag by the Vatican? Criticism of this usage from other quarters led to its being modified in the Really Final Draft Final Report. But the sense that there is a disturbing degree of chaos behind the Leonine Walls these days was reinforced. Another instance of a lack of coordination (not to mention oversight by the Secretariat of State) involved the RFDFR’s rejection of “all forms of….discrimination” against people who experience same-sex attraction. The sentiment is unexceptionable but the language, as one Anglophone bishop consistently pointed out, was dangerous and the text should deplore “all forms of….unjust discrimination.” Why? Because, the bishops explained, bishops have to make all sorts of “discriminations” or judgment calls in their ministry, e.g., in choosing teachers for Catholic schools. Suppose a teacher in a Catholic school files a civil suit claiming “discrimination” because he or she has been relieved of their position after entering into a same-sex “marriage;” would that person not be able to cite the Synod’s final report in his or her favor, unless the report distinguished between legitimate, prudential choices and “unjust discrimination?” These may seem minor points, but they are quite real in everyday pastoral life, and the fact that that’s not recognized says that Those In Charge are not as on-the-ball as they should be. Previous Engagements A great deal was made of the fact that two bishops from the People’s Republic of China, Guo Jincai and Yang Xiaoting, would be attending a Synod of Bishops for the first łtime. Both bishops had once been excommunicate (one as recently as mid-September), because they had been illicitly ordained. They were warmly welcomed by Pope Francis in his homily at the Synod’s opening Mass, and proponents of the Vatican’s recent deal with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops lauded the two Chinese bishops’ presence as a first fruit of that arrangement and a step toward the deeper unity of the Church. Then, after ten days or so, the Chinese bishops left, pleading previous engagements at home. One could only wonder what those engagements might be. It then turned out that the two bishops had been proposed by the Chinese communist party (which now has supervisory responsibility for religious bodies in China) and then accepted by the Vatican. That sequence, plus their premature departure, seemed to signal that the “first fruit” of the new Vatican/China deal might be a bit rotten, as many had feared. One also wonders what impression all this made on young adults in China who are pondering the Catholic Church and its message. If the message conveyed by this subplot is that the Church is another puppet of the Chinese communist party and the Chinese government, it is difficult to see how evangelization in China will be advanced among the young people who were supposed to be the Synod’s primary concern. Meanwhile, within ten days of the bishops’ return to China, the Chinese authorities destroyed the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in Dongergou (Shanxi province) and Our Lady of Bliss, also called Our Lady of the Mountain, in Anlong (Guizhou province). No word has yet been received from Bishop Marcello Sanchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academies, on whether these demolitions have caused him to reconsider his description of China as a country that brilliantly embodies Catholic social doctrine. Cleaning the Slate or The Missing Pope At a dinner during the Synod’s final week, the Polish bishops at Synod-2018 – Stanisław Gądecki, archbishop of Poznań, and Grzegorz Ryś, archbishop of Łódż – wondered aloud why there was no reference in the draft final report to the teaching or experience of John Paul II, the most successful papal youth minister in modern history and the author of the Theology of the Body, Catholicism’s most developed (and persuasive) answer to the claims of the sexual revolution. Similar questions were posed to me by Cardinal Kamimierz Nycz and his auxiliaries when I met with them in Warsaw during a brief visit there during the Synod. Thanks to an amendment proposed by the two Poles, the Theology of the Body did get a mention in the Really Final Draft Final Report (as did the Catechism of the Catholic Church). Still, the questions the archbishops raised were not misplaced, and one possible answer to them sheds further light on the Church’s immediate future. continued...
continued from above... The first thing to be noticed about this attempted airbrushing is that it is quite out of character in high-level Church documents. Vatican II made copious references to the magisterium of previous popes, especially Pius XII. In their magisterium, John Paul II and Benedict XVI made similar, extensive references to the work of their predecessors. This was not simply a question of good manners; it had a serious theological purpose, which was to demonstrate that, even as the Church’s thinking and teaching develops, that developed thought is in continuity with what has gone before, even as the Church’s experience and reflection leads it to draw new meanings from the treasure chest of the Deposit of Faith. This now seems to have stopped. Amoris Laetitia, the apostolic exhortation completing the work of the Synods of 2014 and 2015, only quoted John Paul’s apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family, Familiaris Consortio, in a bowdlerized form. John Paul’s encyclical on the renewal of Catholic moral theology, Veritatis Splendor, has virtually disappeared in the present pontificate. Now comes Synod-2018, which struck concerned Synod fathers as a deliberate attempt to marginalize the pope who reinvented Catholic young adult ministry in his extensive pilgrimages and in the phenomenon of World Youth Day (which other Synod fathers actually proposed eliminating). No one is entirely sure what is going on here. But it is not beyond the bounds of propriety to suggest that, in today’s Rome, there is a devaluing of continuity coupled with a misunderstanding of the development of doctrine and a fascination with papal autocracy. More-than-hints of that were already evident at Synod-2014 and Synod-2015, and one prominent proponent of Pope Francis’s style of governance has even suggested that his “discernment” is independent of Scripture and tradition – a species of ultramontanism that would make Henry Edward Manning and Alfredo Ottaviani blush. The problem has now come into clearer focus, and it was deeply disturbing to more than a few of the bishops at Synod-2018. On Just Not Getting It The Synod’s final report has a very weak statement on the sexual abuse crisis and its deadening effects on the evangelization of young adults, despite strenuous efforts from Anglophone bishops to get the Synod to make a strong statement of apology and contrition and a pledge of serious reform. The pushback against this came from, among others, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the Synod’s general secretary, but it also reflected the obtuseness of Vatican officials and Latin American bishops who continue to insist against all the evidence that much of this crisis is a media-generated attack on the Church. The weak statement makes itself even weaker by identifying only one causal factor – clericalism – in the sexual abuse of the young by priests and bishops. To be sure, “clericalism” in the sense of a warped idea of sacerdotal or episcopal power, and “clericalism” in the sense of a caste protecting its own, are both involved in this crisis. But over the past few months, the diagnosis of “clericalism” as the root malady here has too often been a means of dodging the hard, empirical fact that the overwhelming majority of this abuse in the U.S. (and, it seems elsewhere) has involved sexually dysfunctional clergy preying on young men. That form of denial is unworthy of a Synod and will likely make it more difficult to address clericalism, the burning issue of chastity in Holy Orders (and indeed in all states of life in the Church), and the crisis of confidence in Church leadership to which too many in Rome seem determinedly oblivious. The New Evangelization vs. The Museum Several contributors to these LETTERS have remarked on the fault line in the Church between bishops confident in the power of the Gospel and committed to its unambiguous proclamation, and bishops who seem to have been worn down by the Zeitgeist of the post-modern West and are seeking some sort of truce or accommodation with the reigning cultural powers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the former are from the living parts of the Church, while the latter, in the main, come from those sectors of the world Church where Catholic practice has been dying for decades. One hopes that the experience of spending a month with the former will energize the latter. But when one hears a bishop saying that secularization is a good thing because it gets us out of the mindset that Catholicism can be genetically transmitted, one’s hopes start to flag. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade arguing that Catholicism-by-osmosis is over and that friendship with Jesus Christ has to be proposed and offered; but that doesn’t mean I think the kind of aggressive secularization one sees in, say, parts of western Europe or Québec is on the side of the angels. Those pressures are only “helpful” if they’re met by bold, confident evangelization that also pushes back against attempts to drive believers to the margin of society. A month in Rome also sheds light on another facet of this fault line between the emboldened and the beaten-down, and that is laziness – what I came to think of as the Museum Complex during my work in the Eternal City on Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches. I was reminded of it during the Synod’s first week when I was near Piazza del Popolo for lunch with two friends. I was a bit early, so I strolled up the Corso to that magnificent square. There are five churches in the immediate vicinity (meaning within two square blocks or so), and every one of them (including those with some splendid Caravaggios) was locked tight at 1 p.m. and would remain so for the next three or four hours. A friend to whom I commented on this replied that Santa Maria del Popolo is “almost never open.” I had the same experience in the Piazza Santi Apostoli last week. Walking toward the world’s best rigatoni carbonara at the Ristorante Abruzzi, I had hoped to be able to pray for a few moments at the Basilica of the Twelve Holy Apostles. It was locked tight at 1 p.m. (having been closed by then for an hour) and wouldn’t re-open until 4 p.m.. During those four hours, like up the Corso at Piazza del Popolo, hundreds if not thousands of tourist and shoppers would pass attractive and historic churches – none of which would open its doors in welcome to them, suggesting the possibility of prayer. It’s the Museum Complex at its worst: the Church as custodian of an architectural and artistic patrimony, rather than the Church as evangelizer. Given the Italian passion for pranzo and the post-luncheon riposo, I could imagine these churches being closed for an hour or two. But four hours? What does that say about the Roman Church’s idea of itself? Has the Vicariate of Rome gotten the memo about the New Evangelization? What is happening to Pope Francis’s idea of a “Church permanently in mission” in his own diocese? The Most Disliked Man in Rome? It really is time for Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the 78-year old General Secretary of the Synod of Bishops, to hang up his spurs. After an initial show of bonhomie on the Synod’s first working day, Cardinal Baldisseri reverted to the petulant style that has marked his interactions with members of both the Synod general council and each Synod’s working commissions since his appointment five years ago. His intransigent refusal to have documents translated into languages other than Italian is both an obstacle to real discussion and a means of manipulation and control. He consistently refused to let members of Synod-2018’s drafting commission have draft materials in electronic form, complaining about “leaks” from English-speakers. He stormed out of a meeting of this synod’s communication commission after a heated discussion of translations, saying on his way out the door that “Next time it will all be in Latin!” As noted above, he would not provide translations of the key third part of the Really Final Draft Final Report (which included the most extensive discussion of “synodality”), and no one thought this simply a matter of time-pressure. Further, and as also noted previously, he resisted a strong statement on clerical sexual abuse and episcopal malfeasance in the RFDFR, seemingly clueless about the gravity of the crisis throughout the world Church. None of this contributes to comity or collegiality; and whatever “synodality means, it isn’t advanced by such boorish behavior. The cardinal’s aggressive stubbornness is also an insult to bishops who are every bit as much successors of the apostles as Baldisseri, but whom he nonetheless treats as if they were refractory kindergarteners, especially when they insist that they know their situations better than Baldisseri does (as on the abuse crisis). If Pope Francis is serious about making the Synod of Bishops work better, he will thank Lorenzo Baldisseri for his services and bring in a new general secretary – right away. continued...
