Synod Extension- Drawing out the chaos

So few Catholics engaged in Pope Francis' Synod consultation that he has decided to extend it for another year "to overcome resistance". It will be interesting to see how, having failed to engage Catholics so far, the pope will manage to do it in a further 12 months of, presumably, the same meaningless sophistry and inane babble which has become nothing short of a running joke.

The quotations above (in parentheses) are taken from #PopeFrancis's October 16 Sunday Angelus during which he explained his decision to have the Synod on Synodality assembly take place in Rome in two sessions, one in Oct 2023 & the other in 2024: https://t.co/NiUlob85Dd

— Diane Montagna (@dianemontagna) October 17, 2022

What can possibly be gained by dragging this out for another year? After the former Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith labelled the initiative as "a hostile take over of the Church" a thing which "we must resist" (watch him say it in the interview I posted here) what possible mileage is there in the good ship Synodality, now listing dramatically having been holed below the waterline by the very people in charge of the process, people who have promoted ideas dramatically at odds with Catholic teaching, used baffling rhetoric and excluded numerous groups from the process:

I don't know how they are going to revive a process that so many Catholics refuse to engage with. During our process in Killala we were told that pro-life Catholics were not allowed to discuss the issue.

— Robert Nugent (Decrevi Channel) (@DecreviD2BC) October 17, 2022

Now, following Cardinal Müller's comments, we see more bishops coming out to question the wisdom of this process & drawing attention to the inherent introspection:

Question: With the emphasis on walking together, "circularity," listening sessions, frequent surveys, and "fraternal dialogues," is our Church becoming too introspective, too self-referential? Jesus told us to go forth to teach and serve, not sit around and talk about ourselves.

— Bishop Thomas Tobin (@ThomasJTobin1) October 17, 2022

...and clergy openly suggesting that the pope is flogging a dead horse:

Is the extension of the synodal process another year a desperate attempt to buy time given a recognition that participation in it has been minimal? Is it an attempt to institutionalise "synodality" by stealth? Perhaps it is both. Whatever it is, one cannot help but wonder... pic.twitter.com/pfERHUtaZF

— Hugh Somerville Knapman (@hughosb) October 17, 2022

The reality is that no one even knows what this is all about - apart from the constant criticism of Tradition, rigidity, and appeals to "the God of surprises" - which can only lead one to conclude that the pope wants to use it to veer away from settled teaching. In reality, synodality seems to be about whatever Pope Francis wants it to be about. Cardinal (I still can't believe this man is a cardinal) Grech waffles on about going beyond Vatican II and how we cannot ignore difficult questions, but the Church has never shied away from answering difficult questions. It just seems that, now, Grech wants different answers. As Cardinal Müller said, from the rhetoric being used it seems Grech sees himself as a higher authority than Jesus! Well he has certainly always had a very high opinion of himself!

In a press statement, the synod's general secretariat explained:

"The synod is not an event but a process in which the whole People of God is called to walk together toward what the Holy Spirit helps it to discern as being the Lord's will for His Church,"

I mean it is just patently nonsense isn't it? It never made much sense to me except as a cover for bad things to happen, now it seems they've even confused themselves as to what it is actually about! We know what the Lord's will for His Church is. He told us (Matthew 28:19-29). Perhaps someone at the synod office should read the catechism?

This synod is so ridiculous that even modernist laity aren’t showing up. https://t.co/7UAEUAAGfX

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) October 17, 2022

What is the logic at work here? Do they really think that people who are Catholic by choice, people who believe what Catholics believe, would follow them down the helter skelter of apostasy to a totally new religion? So what did they get? Answers from those with problems: The dissenters. The rest of us don't care about "synodality" - because it seems to have so little to do with Catholicism, or we are too busy raising our families and fighting the culture war the Church should be engaged in.

Dr. Jules Gomez reviews some of the dismal participation figures in this article.

Jules reports: 

"Only 370 out of a total of 700,000 baptized Catholics participated in the process in the archdiocese of Brisbane, Australia, resulting in a participation rate of just 0.05%.

In Austria, 50,000 out of 4.83 million Catholics (1.04%) took part in the consultations, while in England and Wales, 30,000 out of 3.8 million Catholics (0.79%) participated.

In predominantly Catholic Poland, the Kalisz diocese reported participation from 0.2% of the population, while Łomża diocese said that "a large group of parishes did not undertake synodal work at all."

In the United States, a mere 700,000 of its 66.8 million Catholics participated in the consultation (1.37%).

While many countries failed to report participation statistics, one of the lowest participation rates comes from Venezuela, which reported a participation rate of 0.29% (55,000 from a population of 18,890,000 baptized Catholics)."

He notes:

"Faithful Catholics ridiculed the tweet, commenting that practicing Catholics who cherish tradition, orthodoxy and the apostolic Deposit of Faith were the ones missing from the consultations."

And who could be surprised? The Gospel, Jesus and Mary are virtually completely absent from this utterly disgraceful modernist talking shop. It's like going to see a doctor who tells you to embrace the disease rather than cure it.

Commentating in the Catholic Herald, Dr. Gavin Ashenden notes:

"the Synodal Way and the pressure groups using it to demand change in the church are shaping up to be instruments agitating for change."

The voices of reason, those who have been quietly, faithfully watching as well as those who have been constantly telling us that the pope's agenda is in keeping with Catholic doctrine are starting to recognise they've been betrayed. Part of the problem with this papacy is that it has not been clear exactly what the agenda is. This could be because it is so nefarious, so devious, it is cloaked in deceit, but at this stage I am willing to bet it is just a shambles and the problem is more ineptitude that deliberate dismantling; Francis just isn't that bright and putting an idiot like Grech in charge of making the tea, never mind the whole synodal process, is just evidence of that.

Gavin puts his finger on it in this paragraph:

"What becomes clearer as the process develops is that there are two opposing cultures and two epistemological value systems shaping up to confront each other through the launching of the Synodal process.

Authentic and traditional Catholicism maintains, only too obviously, that the dogma and practices of the faith have been developed in response to the direct impetus and guidance of the Holy Spirit. This is integral to the self-understanding of the Catholic Church and its expression of faith down the ages.

There is however self-evidently a serious flaw that emerges in the views put forward by the progressive voices clamouring for change through the synodal consultation. Their position contains a problematic element of self-contradiction.

To demonstrate that the new “spirit” that lies behind the change of direction is the Holy Spirit rather than a perverse or secular spirit requires an assumption that the Church has been misled for over twenty centuries.

And where does this new insight and value system emerge from? The lived experience of a generation formed by the most aggressively sexualised and secularised culture in church history.

No wonder Cardinal Müller maintains that this constitutes “a hermeneutical form of cultural Protestantism and Modernism” rather than the authentic voice of the Catholic church."

Read the whole thing here.

It could hardly be more obvious what a disaster this is. How much longer will this be allowed to happen?