From Rorate Cæli
Last week, the Instrumentum laboris of the Synod on Synodality, which will take place over the course of two years, beginning this October 4, was made public. The Catholic media have already published several analyses of the very long document. I recommend this post from the Missa in Latino blog where you can find links to several of them (in Italian). It is not a question, then, of repeating what has already been said, and well said, but we can propose some additional reflections.
The first is the most obvious: all this is a dèjá vu, a remixed version of all the initiatives of the Franciscan pontificate, proposed in a slightly different order and this time with a new additive that appears at every turn in the document and that was perceived permanently in the answers of Cardinals Hollerich and Grech during the press conference of presentation of the document.
I am referring to the onanistic character of all this pantomime, since it is no longer only about the usual preaching about homosexuals wanting to love each other, married people wanting to divorce and priests wanting to marry -- that is, an attempt to abrogate the sixth commandment --, about women wanting to be ordained priests and Mother Earth not wanting to be raped, but, we are told, the most important thing about the synod is the synodality itself. It is walking for the sake of walking, without thinking about where that path leads us; it is the "fact of walking together and questioning ourselves about the meaning of this experience," said Cardinal Grech. An onanistic exercise, conceived by an unscrupulous politician like Pope Francis, who continually pulls rabbits out of the hat to preserve a certain look of "initiative" in a Church in a phase of dissolution; a sort of cardiac massage on a dying pontificate that allows it, if only on the basis of gasps, to maintain the appearance of vitality, without the least care for the consequences that the means used for this purpose will provoke.
Because there's another fact quite evident to any observer: this synod is one more of those "little gifts" that Francis will leave to his successor (a frequent practice of the last weeks: Bishop García Cuerva, a "little gift" for the faithful of Buenos Aires; Bishop Cobo Cano, a "little gift" for the faithful of Madrid, and Father Terlinden, a "little gift" for the faithful of Brussels).
The truly important and definitive part of the synods is the Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, promulgated by the Supreme Pontiff and containing the magisterial teaching left by the assembly, usually one year after its conclusion. That is to say, such a document should see the light of day by the end of 2025. And Pope Francis' age and infirmities suggest that by that time he will have left this world, or will be in final preparations. "Let the next one manage," he [effectively] says, following the permanent tactic of the Peronist governments, which we know well in Argentina: during their periods of government they spend, spend, spend, and get into debt in order to please the masses and their own pockets -- and then they leave the "little gift" of fixing the mess they caused to the governments that succeed them.
On July 8, 2013, a little more than a hundred days after Bergoglio's election, we said at this blog that the nascent pontificate was characterized by "the absence of theologically consistent and, above all, connotative speeches, which are replaced by daily bergologoumena that end up saying nothing."
After almost four thousand days, we must say the same thing, and the Instrumentum Laboris corroborates it. Pope Francis began his Roman career with three or four poor disruptive ideas, in order to present himself as the pope who came to renew the Church and embody the leadership of progressivism in the world. Having reached the end of his career, we find that he continues to insist on those same three or four worn-out ideas (ideas and not deeds, because synodality is only in words; in deeds, his is a dictatorial pontificate). He hastens the pace of the Church towards its final dissolution, and of his pretended planetary leadership nothing remains but pitiful monkey-business (just look at the inefficient and non-existent role he played in the war in Russia and Ukraine, beyond his cackling, from which Cardinal Zuppi had to come to his rescue).
As we said at the beginning, a dèjá vu: the themes and even the words that appear in the Instrumentum Laboris could have been enunciated ten years ago without the need to be a prophet.
Finally, and as has been pointed out by several commentators, the Instrumentum "Labori" (yes, it appeared in its first version with that gross Latin spelling error) is a document intended for the reading of only a few ascetic specialists. No faithful Catholic, of average piety and mental health, will sit at home and read with unction such a mammoth tome, in keeping with the production of unheard-of tons of words that say nothing, as we have seen in recent years.
The spectacle of prelates, priests, nuns, laymen and laywomen "working" with those pages will be a sight to behold. It has been announced that the meetings will be held not in the Synod Hall but in the Paul VI Hall, in order to be able to set up numerous tables around which the working teams of twelve people each will gather. This topographical arrangement, explains Fr. Giacomo Costa, "facilitates the dynamics of the conversation in the Spirit". It would not be strange if a group of experts in educational sciences asked the synod fathers and "mothers" to express their ideas and feelings through little animals kneaded in plasticine, jointly elaborating a poster and ending with a dramatization. All of this is a matter of the "breath of the spirit."
Just as it happened with the Amazon Synod, which plunged the Church into great stress to arrive at nothing more than the grotesque spectacle of the Pachamama being walked around St. Peter's Basilica (and into the Tiber), this year we will have another pathetic pontifical vaudeville, destined, like this entire pontificate, to cause scandal to the faithful and harm to the Bride of Christ.
The truly important and definitive part of the synods is the Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, promulgated by the Supreme Pontiff and containing the magisterial teaching left by the assembly, usually one year after its conclusion. That is to say, such a document should see the light of day by the end of 2025. And Pope Francis' age and infirmities suggest that by that time he will have left this world, or will be in final preparations. "Let the next one manage," he [effectively] says, following the permanent tactic of the Peronist governments, which we know well in Argentina: during their periods of government they spend, spend, spend, and get into debt in order to please the masses and their own pockets -- and then they leave the "little gift" of fixing the mess they caused to the governments that succeed them.
On July 8, 2013, a little more than a hundred days after Bergoglio's election, we said at this blog that the nascent pontificate was characterized by "the absence of theologically consistent and, above all, connotative speeches, which are replaced by daily bergologoumena that end up saying nothing."
After almost four thousand days, we must say the same thing, and the Instrumentum Laboris corroborates it. Pope Francis began his Roman career with three or four poor disruptive ideas, in order to present himself as the pope who came to renew the Church and embody the leadership of progressivism in the world. Having reached the end of his career, we find that he continues to insist on those same three or four worn-out ideas (ideas and not deeds, because synodality is only in words; in deeds, his is a dictatorial pontificate). He hastens the pace of the Church towards its final dissolution, and of his pretended planetary leadership nothing remains but pitiful monkey-business (just look at the inefficient and non-existent role he played in the war in Russia and Ukraine, beyond his cackling, from which Cardinal Zuppi had to come to his rescue).
As we said at the beginning, a dèjá vu: the themes and even the words that appear in the Instrumentum Laboris could have been enunciated ten years ago without the need to be a prophet.
Finally, and as has been pointed out by several commentators, the Instrumentum "Labori" (yes, it appeared in its first version with that gross Latin spelling error) is a document intended for the reading of only a few ascetic specialists. No faithful Catholic, of average piety and mental health, will sit at home and read with unction such a mammoth tome, in keeping with the production of unheard-of tons of words that say nothing, as we have seen in recent years.
The spectacle of prelates, priests, nuns, laymen and laywomen "working" with those pages will be a sight to behold. It has been announced that the meetings will be held not in the Synod Hall but in the Paul VI Hall, in order to be able to set up numerous tables around which the working teams of twelve people each will gather. This topographical arrangement, explains Fr. Giacomo Costa, "facilitates the dynamics of the conversation in the Spirit". It would not be strange if a group of experts in educational sciences asked the synod fathers and "mothers" to express their ideas and feelings through little animals kneaded in plasticine, jointly elaborating a poster and ending with a dramatization. All of this is a matter of the "breath of the spirit."
Just as it happened with the Amazon Synod, which plunged the Church into great stress to arrive at nothing more than the grotesque spectacle of the Pachamama being walked around St. Peter's Basilica (and into the Tiber), this year we will have another pathetic pontifical vaudeville, destined, like this entire pontificate, to cause scandal to the faithful and harm to the Bride of Christ.
Caminante Wanderer
June 26, 2023
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