Francis the Destroyer

Mark Lambert shares his thoughts on the situation arising from Traditionis Custodes and the 'Synod on Synodality'.

From De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

By Mark Lambert

What is wrong with the Catholic Church? After eight years of Pope Francis, a more appropriate question might be what is left?

The "Synod on Synodality" seems the perfect expression of this papacy. A confusing, nonsensical navel gazing exercise with cartoonish logo and undecipherable documentation. 

All the spurious wording about the Holy Spirit being present and leading us into "surprises" are all old and too familiar euphemisms for the changes which boil down to a whitewashing of Catholic teaching which have wrought so much damage on the Church in the name of "The Spirit of Vatican II". All these changes have been tried and tested in other Christian denominations and the devastating results are well documented. So why are the Pope and his co-conspirators pushing ahead down this road to destruction? 

I wrote a pretty detailed analysis of the phenomenon of those who praise the successes of Vatican II & completely ignore the existential reality following from the Council, you can read it here.

In that blog I note that the problem (whatever it is) is only compounded by a general refusal to acknowledge the reality of our post-conciliar difficulties. There exists a “soft censorship” of unpleasant news. Bishops and pastors, diocesan newspapers and parish bulletins have bombarded us for years with reports that the Church is “vibrant,” that programmes are booming, that the liturgy is beautiful, that religious education is robust. Never is heard a discouraging word. Yet we know better. We know about the shortage of priests; we see the news of parish closing; we notice the empty pews on Sundays; we talk to fellow parishioners who tell us they don't believe in most of what the Church teaches; we see the US President claiming to be a devout Catholic while aggressively expanding abortion provision...And the bishops saying little to nothing. Something is wrong; it is undeniable.

It is this very “soft censorship,” this see-no-evil approach, which is now an impediment to evangelisation, because it thwarts serious discussions about the current state of the Church. Evangelisation means bringing people to the truth and that process cannot thrive in a censored environment. If we keep silent about the clear problems with the Pope, or worse, support him, we look hypocritical and stupid.

The Pope seems to be a proponent of a direction which is very familiar, especially amongst a certain age group. It is true that many appear to see a need to soften or even change the timeless teachings of the Church to make them more palatable or compatible with the age. This quite clearly is Modernism: an ideology by which religious truths, and especially Catholic teachings, are derived and interpreted in accordance with personal religious experience, under the influence of the spirit of the current age. It is anathema to the truth as Pope Pius X explained in his outstanding encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis.

Given the challenges the modern age poses to the preaching of the Gospel, a Pope like Francis is devastating to those engaged in teaching the faith. I've watched the depression spread over the last eight years, the growing apathy, the feeling of futility and now we can take stock:

There's no other way of looking at it other than that Pope Francis has systematically attacked the Catholic faith, attempting to replace it with a syncretic modernism which is barely distinguishable from secular society.

The fact that this is so clear makes it even more frustrating that there are still some poor deluded individuals who think Pope Francis is a great thing. Perhaps the clearest summing up of this is expressed by this quote from a furious Damian Thompson speaking on EWTN's The World Over:

"It's compulsory for Chinese Catholics to attend Masses in which hymns are sung to the semi-divine figure of the president of China, but it's not ok for [Catholics] to attend the ancient Mass of the Western Church. I despair."