Pray that the “Synod on Synodality” Will Not Be a “Synod on Insanity”

If faithful Catholics were asked what is the most pressing issue of the day that they wish the Church hierarchy would tackle, the top answers would include the shortage of priestly vocations, the decline in Catholics’ belief in the Real Presence, attendance at Mass, and the secular culture’s indoctrination of our youth. Nowhere in the list of answers would one find “the Church needs to be more synodal” as a crisis needing attention. I doubt most Catholics could even define “synodal” or pronounce “synodality.” Yet, it was two years ago this October that Pope Francis opened a comprehensive, multi-year process and series of worldwide events called “a Synod on Synodality.”

The Vatican defines “synod” as:

A religious meeting or assembly at which bishops, gathered around and with the Holy Father, have opportunity to interact with each other and to share information and experiences, in the common pursuit of pastoral solutions which have a universal validity and application.

This current synod is the 16^th one since the first synod occurred in 1967. Pope Francis asked bishops worldwide to listen in 2021 to both their parishioners’ concerns and concerns from the secular population, then as groups of localized bishops summarize these listening sessions in 2022. Afterwards, they all would get together in Rome in October of both 2023 and 2024 to discuss the topic of how the Church can become more “synodal” in its governance.

“Synodal” and “synodality” are two mysterious words that can be manipulated to bend in whatever direction someone wants it to go. What is meant by wanting the Church to become more “synodal” is cloudy. In a 2015 address that was setting the stage for this current synod, Pope Francis himself said:

A synodal Church is a Church which listens, which realizes that listening is more than simply hearing. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn.

The biggest concerns about the Synod on Synodality go beyond verbiage and revolve around how the Vatican is shaping the outcome of the Synod to bring about a Church transformed in the image of our secular, progressive society.

Besides the head-scratching confusion that started as soon as the “Synod on Synodality” title was announced by Pope Francis, is an initial concern which grew when the Vatican wrote that the purpose of this synod is:

…not to produce documents, but to plant dreams, draw forth prophecies and visions, allow hope to flourish, inspire trust, bind up wounds, weave together relationships, awaken a dawn of hope, learn from one another and create a bright resourcefulness that will enlighten minds, warm hearts, give strength to our hands.

With so many flowery terms used like dreams and warm hearts, it seems Church leadership didn’t have the space to include any of these absolute, concrete words – God, heaven, Jesus Christ, Father Almighty, Holy Spirit, kingdom, baptism, resurrection. Whereas all these latter words can be found in our common statement of the unity of belief, the Nicene Creed, the synod agenda seems to be more concerned with using abstract terms which comprise the ingredients of a new type of spirit-of-the-age-Catholicism. We want signs from the Holy Spirit to counsel the bishops and Pope, but the Vatican actually uses the phrase, “discerning the signs of the times,” when explaining the synod’s focus.

After the listening sessions were completed, the Vatican released a summary of the discussions held at these sessions and through diocesan surveys, and this summary document continued to rely heavily on abstract words. The verbs “experience” and “dialogue” and the nouns “journey” and “process” come up almost 200 times in this summary document, while the more Catholic, specific words, “worship,” “praise,” and “thanksgiving,” are given zero mentions.

Furthermore, the Vatican’s official handbook for how dioceses were to run their listening sessions included this worrying instruction:

Special care should be taken to involve…Catholics who rarely or never practice their faith. …It is important to hear the voices of other people in their local context, including people who have left the practice of the faith, people of other faith traditions, people of no religious belief, etc. …For this reason, while all the baptized are specifically called to take part in the Synodal Process, no one – no matter their religious affiliation – should be excluded from sharing their perspective and experiences.

Insanely, the process for listening not only included instructions for dioceses to gather input from “people who have left the practice of the faith” but also to dialogue with those of other religions, Christian or not. With this stress on the need to hear the opinions of fallen-away Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and even atheists, the organizers of the Synod on Synodality sought out the participation of three types of respondents: those who base their beliefs more on popular opinion than on Catholic tradition; those who openly reject established Catholic doctrine; and those who don’t even believe in God and/or Jesus Christ.

The most recently released working document that will be used by the synod’s Rome participants starting in October promotes the upcoming synod’s need to discuss the liberal, spirit of the age topics – which past Church hierarchy and the Catechism have already answered – such as women’s diaconal ordination and married priests, and the need to address

what concrete steps are needed to welcome those who feel excluded from the Church because of their status or sexuality – for example, remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people.

It’s notable that both in the Vatican’s recent working document and earlier in the listening sessions’ summaries sent in from regional bishops, the label “LGBTQ+ people” is employed.  Up until now, this label had never been used in official Catholic documents, as the Church has always used the term “same-sex attracted persons” and not the secular culture’s popular mantra.

During these present times of confusion and conflict in the Catholic Church, if a synod isn’t called with the objective of discussing the pressing issues of the day such as the decreasing numbers of priests and Mass attendees, the best outcome of a synod would be to restore clarity to Church teachings. The fundamental tenets of our faith are under attack by the secular world. Regrettably, this whole synodal process seems to favor endorsing modernism; there is a good chance the final synod document coming out sometime after the fall of 2024 will reflect this.

A big reason for this negative speculation is that so many of the voters on the final document that will be created at the very end of the process in October of 2024 are suspect in just how “authentic-a-Catholic” they are and how much they have already publicly pushed for the Church to change and get in sync with the secular culture. For the first time in any synod, laypeople will not only participate with the bishops but will be considered full members with the ability to vote.

This synod’s agenda and direction appear to be aiming for the goal that the Church must change in order to match the world, instead of sticking with the perennial truth that Christ’s “kingdom is not from this world” (John 18:36). The Church’s mission isn’t to make Catholics, non-Catholics and atheists, feel happy and welcome. The Church’s mission is to proclaim the Gospel and save us. We can only be saved if we change our lives – not change the Church.

Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland recently penned a letter to his diocese that urged Catholics to stand firmly upon the Catholic faith during this upcoming period when the Synod on Synodality looks like it is aiming to promote falsehoods.  Bishop Strickland said:

We were all created to seek the Way, the Truth and the Life, and in this modern age of confusion, the true path is the one that is illuminated by the light of Jesus Christ, for truth has a face and indeed it is His face…In the weeks and months ahead, many of these truths will be examined as part of the Synod on Synodality.  We must hold fast to these truths and be wary of any attempts to present an alternative to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or to push for a faith that speaks of dialogue and brotherhood, while attempting to remove the fatherhood of God.

The Bishop went on to name these following seven basic truths that were long established by the Church and that his fellow bishops should be promoting these days but sadly are actually rumored to be tenets to be discussed and given thumbs-up or thumbs-down votes at the synod in hopes of altering or rejecting them:

1. Christ established One Church—the Catholic Church—and, therefore, only the Catholic Church provides the fullness of Christ’s truth.

2. The Eucharist is truly Christ’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, and to receive Him in Communion unworthily (i.e. in a state of grave, unrepentant sin) is a devastating sacrilege for the individual and for the Church.

3. The Sacrament of Matrimony – between one man and one woman – is instituted by God, and humanity has no right or true ability to redefine marriage.

4. Every human person is created male or female, and people should be supported in a disordered attempt to reject their undeniable biological and God-given identity.

5. Sexual activity outside marriage is always gravely sinful and cannot be condoned, blessed, or deemed permissible by any authority inside the Church.

6. The belief that all men and women will be saved regardless of how they live their lives is false and is dangerous, as it contradicts what Jesus tells us repeatedly in the Gospel. 

7. In order to follow Jesus Christ, we must willingly choose to take up our cross in redemptive suffering instead of attempting to avoid the cross and suffering that Our Lord offers to each of us individually to humble and purify us.

These truths come from God, not humans, and thus cannot be altered or rejected. What too many Catholics-in-name-only believe is the Church made up Catholic teachings and can, therefore, change them. These brothers and sisters don’t seem to understand that Catholic teaching is simply a passing on of the truths the Church received from God. They are assuming that some or most of God’s directives are either too difficult to follow, way outdated, or simply incorrect, and thus, are of no real consequence if changed or not followed since their modernized Jesus would understand.

Disappointingly, it appears many of the vocal participants in the synod listening sessions, some bishops who crafted summaries of these sessions, and many of the bishops and laypeople who are participating in the upcoming October meetings feel called to change Church doctrine, which translates to mean they want to change Jesus’s teachings.

To be honest, I would prefer to not have to use modifiers like “authentic” or “traditional” Catholics and “unorthodox” or “lukewarm” Catholics as a way to label my fellow Catholics and me. A Catholic should have only one definition – one who trusts the Magisterium of the Church, follows all of God’s Commandments and all of the Catholic Church’s precepts, and believes the Catechism of the Catholic Church is relaying the truths that our Lord taught us. Unfortunately, there is such division in the Church today that modifiers are necessary to separate the goats from the sheep.

Just as no Catholic in the pew should be able to pick and choose with which parts of Catholicism he or she complies, so too, no priest, bishop, or pope should care about any one person’s feelings, hopes, or dreams about what the Church should teach. Before He ascended into heaven, our Lord started the Catholic Church when he handed the keys to our future first pope and told him and the future first bishops to continue teaching His truth.

This truth cannot change by the popular vote of radical laypeople and clergy or by the whims of the current culture. This is why the Magisterium of the Catholic Church cannot function like a democracy and simply take a poll to see which teachings are good and which ones need to be dropped.  Do we really need this approaching synod – which might best be changed from being called the “Synod on Synodality” to the “Synod on Insanity” – or can the Church simply return to its original, fundamental objective to promote and encourage us to live the teachings Jesus left us and the truths He proclaimed?

We “authentic” and “traditional” Catholics – i.e. plain-old, original Catholics – must pray for the upcoming two-part synod of October 2023 and 2024. Our prayers should be that the Pope, bishops, and other participants are inflamed by the Holy Spirit to understand and follow the truths of our faith handed down from on high, and to reject the false truths of the world. We pray that the seven basic truths as outlined above by Bishop Strickland will not only be firmly re-endorsed during this synod but will be vastly proclaimed at the conclusion of the meetings. We pray that the “unorthodox” and “lukewarm” Catholics who are part of the Synod remember that God’s inspired words were, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight” (Proverbs 3:5).

(For more in-depth questions and answers on the concerns of the synod, I recommend reading the newest online book, The Synodal Process Is a Pandora’s Box.)