Cardinal Burke Denounces the Risk of Schism in the Synod

Even secular journals like this are beginning to take notice of what Francis is trying to do, make his decisions as irreversible as possible.

From The European Conservative 

By Hélène De Lauzun

As a new phase of the ‘Synod on Synodality,’ launched in 2021 by Pope Francis, is being prepared for October 2023, many voices within the Church are denouncing the risks and abuses in the project. A new book in the form of questions and answers, with a foreword by Cardinal Burke, takes a critical look at this initiative, warning that it will bring about a number of upheavals for the Catholic Church, with potential consequences that are clearly uncontrolled—and uncontrollable.

In his preface to the book co-authored by José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo de Izcue published in 8 languages on 22 August entitled The Synodal Process is a Pandora’s Box, Cardinal Burke attacks head-on this project which is supposed to reshape the face of the 2,000-year-old Catholic Church from top to bottom. The conservative Cardinal, who in recent years has repeatedly denounced what he considers to be Pope Francis’ errors, begins by taking issue with the very term ‘synodality,’ calling it “a term which has no history in the doctrine of the Church and for which there is no reasonable definition.” 

Pointing to what has been happening in Germany for several years, placing Luther’s country once again in a situation of schism, he fears that the phenomenon will extend to the universal Church: “it is rightly to be feared that the same confusion and error and division will be visited upon the universal Church,” he says. In fact, he notes that division already reigns at the local level and that the worm already is in the fruit. 

The ‘Synod on Synodality’ is meant to take place over several successive phases: a local phase, a national phase, and finally a ‘universal’ phase. In October 2023 we will enter the universal phase with the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will bring together bishops and lay people in the Vatican. For the first time, equal voting rights have been granted to bishops and other members. A new assembly is then due to be held in 2024.

The chaotic tone was set by the Instrumentum laboris, a working document published in June 2023 on the directions to be taken by the next Synod of Bishops: the traditional hierarchy of the Church is turned upside down, to the benefit in particular of women and lay people. The text recommends collective and standardised decision-making within the Church, in contrast to all its former practices. The document also asks the Church to consider the ordination of married men to the priesthood and the ordination of women to the diaconate. Finally, it envisages the dilution of the Roman See, proposing that groupings of local churches in major regions of the world should have as much influence as Rome on major decisions. Alongside these systemic reforms, we also find a whole range of concerns that are very much in tune with the times: the planet as a victim of climate change, migrants, rejected minorities such as divorcees and LGBT people, and the place of women.

The Synodal Process is a Pandora’s Box is presented in the form of a traditional catechism, with one hundred questions and answers to help us understand the ‘synodal approach,’ how it works, its proposals, and its dangers. The tone is clear and precise, without cultivating polemics for polemics’ sake; the bare facts speak for themselves. Question 9 rightly puts the finger on the root of the problem: how can we accept the very principle of ‘synodality’ without opening the door to chaos in the event of disagreement? 

What Would Happen if a Significant Number of the Faithful Disagreed With and Rejected the Decisions of the Synod or the Pope?

[The Synod implementation] says nothing about what would happen if a disagreement arose between the People of God and the pastors regarding concrete applications of synodal orientations. If the pastors’ will prevailed, the whole listening process would appear vain, and the rhetoric of synodality could appear largely insincere. If the will of the People of God prevailed, the Church would have been transformed into a de facto democracy.

Cardinal Burke is not the first to mount an assault on this infamous synod, described as worrying and “throwing up trouble,” in the words of French Vatican expert Jean-Marie Guénois from Le Figaro. There is no shortage of critical expressions from eminent figures in the ecclesiastical hierarchy to express the mistrust inspired by the Synod on Synodality. Cardinal Müller spoke of a “hostile takeover” of the Church. The late Cardinal Pell described it as a “toxic nightmare.” Guénois now fears an “autumnal shock,” after the “sweet summer consolation” of the World Youth Days in Lisbon.

The Synod comes at the end of a path that Pope Francis has been carefully marking out for a long time now, to reform not only the governance of the Church, which he wants to be more democratic and decentralised, but also its doctrine, which must adapt to the changing times and therefore become in essentia progressive rather than conservative, and finally his succession—prepared by massive appointments of cardinals who will be responsible for continuing to work in the spirit of Pope Francis. 

All observers agree that, since the death of the emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis’ work has accelerated, with the aim of making his decisions as irreversible as possible. According to Guénois, “the adjective ‘irreversible’ even comes up a lot in his speech, according to several people close to him.” So there is nothing ‘conspiratorial’ about considering that this is, indeed, his intention in carrying out the reforms he has in mind. 

Although Pope Francis knows how to place his pawns, control his collaborators, and push through his decisions with formidable efficiency, he does not have complete control over the consequences of the process that he himself launched. There is growing discontent and dismay, not only among the most conservative, but also—and this is a new development—among a whole section of the faithful and the clergy who could be described as ‘moderate’ and who find themselves bewildered by the whirlwind upheavals promised by the Synod on Synodality. Guénois quotes the testimony of a moderate priest, whose anxiety is growing:

This synod is generating a great deal of anxiety among people who are interested in the Church, and profound indifference among others. While there should be no debate about the participation of lay people—they should have their place—Catholic ecclesiology is based on ministries, with the priest’s ministry at the heart of it. But what is in the offing is a disarticulation of this backbone of the Church.

Another younger priest made the same observation:

Many people are overwhelmed when they read the synod’s working document. They see in it not the strengthening of the faith but the catastrophe of the deconstruction of the Church. As for the living forces of Catholicism, whether of classical or traditional sensibility, or of African origin or from overseas regions, they don’t feel concerned by this synod whose orientations they won’t follow.

Under these conditions, the Pope’s vigorous exhortation to openness in Lisbon, with its striking slogan “todos, todos, todos,” is likely to ring hollow for many believers, who are suspicious that the forthcoming synod will deprive them of the very Church to which they are attached.