Cardinal Zen: Pope Francis Uses Synods in Attempt To ‘Change Church’s Doctrines’

I will go further than His Eminence. Francis is using the Anglican template of synodal government as a blueprint for destroying the Church!

From LifeSiteNews

By Michael Haynes

In a recent article published in multiple languages, Hong Kong’s emeritus Cardinal Zen once more delivered a strident criticism of the recently concluded Synod on Synodality.

Cardinal Joseph Zen has issued a renewed critique of the Synod on Synodality, saying that Pope Francis uses synods in an attempt to “change the Church’s doctrines or disciplines.”

In a recent article published in multiple languages, Hong Kong’s emeritus Cardinal Zen once more delivered a strident criticism of the recently concluded Synod on Synodality. In the company of a number of vocal prelates, Zen has been a consistent critic of the Synod – which ran from fall of 2021 to October 27, 2024.

“To call this Synod on Synodality a Synod of Bishops is a misnomer,” Zen wrote, re-iterating a point he and many others have made in recent years. Due to Pope Francis’ direct intervention, the Synod involved the novelty of having lay men and women as voters, thus transforming it away from the original expression of a “Synod of Bishops,” as was outlined by Pope Paul VI.

Zen noted that a pope can “convene any form of consultative meetings,” but with this style of meeting he could not claim it remains a synod of Bishops. “He used the name ‘synod,’” wrote Zen, “to replace the ‘Synod of Bishops’ with a hybrid kind of meeting.”

Francis’ pontificate has been marked throughout by a number of synods, many of which have been controversial: the Synod on the Family, the Amazon Synod, the Synod on Synodality. Zen attested that such events are part of a plan to overhaul the Church’s teachings:

From the ‘Synods’ held under Pope Francis, we can see that he wants to change the Church’s doctrines or disciplines each time rather than discuss how to safeguard these doctrines and disciplines.

The Hong Kong cardinal pointed to a number of Francis’ previous synods, outlining how they were evidence of the statement that Francis uses the meetings to change ecclesial teaching:

He used the Synod on the Family (2004-2005) to try to let the divorced and remarried Catholics receive Holy Communion. He wanted to use the Synod of Amazon to introduce “the ordination of highly respected married laymen (viri probati) as priests. And for the Synod this time, from the two leading figures he appointed and the documents issued by the secretariat, we can see that he has some broader goals: to change the hierarchical system of the Church (replace with a democratic group of baptized people); to establish female deacons (opening way for female priests); to abolish priestly celibacy; and to change the traditional doctrine on “sexual” ethics (beginning with the blessings the homosexual couples).

The Synod on Synodality’s second session was criticized by activists of female ordination for not officially having the topic as part of the discussion. It was – along with a number of other more controversial issues – moved to 10 various study groups born out of the Synod’s 2023 meeting. For this, the Synod was criticized by liberals as having achieved nothing.

Alluding to this, and other failures of the Synod to win over public support amongst Catholics for its efforts, Zen wrote that “their agenda failed.”

The Synod’s study groups served to prolong troublesome issues of the Synod, Zen wrote, whilst also not going far enough to satisfy “the radicals.”

Synodality as Church’s identity and future

Synod members repeatedly highlighted a need to move away from a “pyrimidal” style of Church leadership towards a “synodal” one, positing the Church’s future as being intrinsically linked with being synodal. Much debate also took place during the synod about the proposal for bishops’ conferences to have doctrinal authority. Calls were also made for councils at various levels of the national church to be made mandatory, thus enforcing a “synodal” style of devolved exercise of authority.

Given this, and the open-ended questions of the Synod’s final document, Zen warned of the danger that the Catholic Church could become similar to the Protestant style:

Doesn’t that mean the Catholic Church becomes the same as the Anglican Church? We will no longer be the one, catholic, apostolic Church? Nor the holy Church, because there are no longer reliable ethical teachings to lead the faithful to distinguish good from evil.

“The future remains very fluid,” he opined, based on assessing the final document.

One of the chief issues highlighted by Zen about the Synod on Synodality is that, though it has ended, it has not in fact stopped working. Francis also made the momentous decision to accept the Synod’s document and make it his own, without writing an apostolic exhortation himself.

But Zen queried this, raising a number of concerns he has about the Synod – being a mix of bishops and laity – and who precisely is responsible for its contents:

What is the value of this synod conclusion? Who wrote the draft of this document? Is it a group elected by the Synod plenary assembly that can really represent them? Will the members of the plenary assembly have sufficient time to study this document? Who handles the “amendments” proposed by plenary assembly members? Has each amendment been discussed and voted on by all members? The study of the document and the discussion of the “amendments” are complicated operations. Such a long document can’t be seriously made in a hurry. I ask again: How can the Pope be fully responsible for such final document?

According to the Synod secretariat, Cardinals Jean-Calude Holleirhc and Mario Grech oversaw the commission which had responsibility for compiling the report. However, the secretariat was at pains to say that the drafting commission was simply compiling the various small table reports from the Synod members, and was not writing any new content themselves.

Amendments were subsequently made in the final week – including the insertion of the open ended question of female deacons – and the text approved passage by passage in common vote.

Zen suggested that Francis himself was ultimately responsible for the contents of the Synod’s final report, downplaying the argument that such was a “conspiracy theory.”

“Everyone knows the Pope believes in ‘process’ (time is greater than space),” he wrote. “What could not be achieved in this assembly, can be achieved in the process that begins now. The Synod has ended, but the Synodal Church begins now! We have to live in it!”

Zen’s final thoughts are indeed supported by the Synod organizers themselves. Issuing the final report Cardinals Hollerich and Grech said that though the event has ended, the Synod will continue as the process “includes the implementation phase.”

With the Synod study groups set to report in June 2025, it remains to be seen in what manner the Synod will implement swift change. However, with the example of Fiducia Supplicans unilaterally ushering in topics discussed by the Synod – though actioning them away from the Synod – such a move is not to be ruled out in the future.