SYNODALITY
So the Youth Synod is finally over (thank God). It is already widely being dubbed "The Smuggler Synod" 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. An...