What Constitutes a “Synod on Synodality”?

Part 3

Never has one occurred before in the history of the Church. Think about that for a moment. While it is called a General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops  —  like every synod convened before it — its membership is far broader, including homosexual advocate Fr. James Martin, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, the co-founder of the Homosexual advocacy group New Ways Ministry (and three staff members, all of whom personally met with Francis for nearly an hour) homosexual advocates and Cardinals Cupich, Robert McElroy, Joseph Tobin, Mario Grech of Malta, Luis Antonio Tagle (Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples), Kevin Farrell (Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life.) and Leonardo Ulrich Steiner of Brazil.

It also included laywomen, laymen, as well as non-practicing Catholics and dissident Catholics —  and each of their votes had exactly the same weight as that of cardinals. This is particularly worrisome given the systematic absence of catechesis in America and elsewhere since Vatican II. Lay Catholics who are even minimally aware of Church teaching, let alone knowledgeable about it, are few and far between. And in this Synod, they have an equal vote concerning things Catholic. This is worrisome. A uniformed vote is worse than no vote at all. Think about that, too. What are we left with?
 

Take a deep breath …

“A gathering of largely disaffected and poorly catechized Catholics — including bishops and cardinals — to discuss how the “oppressive structures” of the Catholic Church have been getting it all wrong for 2000 years, “lording it over” (wo)-man and environment; and how a good and loving God has kept us in darkness for two millennia until the epiphany of Francis dawned upon the aboriginal Amazonian awakening in 2013, leading an outdated, wayward, despotic, and totalitarian Church into the liberating and autoerotic ways of modern man, emancipating us, at long last, from our sinful, male-dominated, clerical and patriarchal ways to at last discern the hidden ways of God that He has lovingly and benevolently concealed from us from the creation of Adam, the proto-dominator of Eve and our Mother Earth — for two millennia — to the 266^th papacy under Jorge-the-Walker-in-the-Way-of-Accompaniment, who, with real machismo, finally wrenched the truth out of a reluctant God Whom he routinely confuses with a once-upon-a-time-pagan female deity, Pachamama, who inhabits the inaccessible margins of correct aboriginal consciousness.”

You can breathe now.

To understand this novel concept meaning anything and therefore nothing, we must brazenly delve into its absurdities without fear of contradiction (since the absence of reason and logic precludes any possibility of contradiction) —  the better to explore this newest iteration of the Encounter Groups of the groovy 1960s in which its adherents were first schooled (Jorge was in his 20s then.)

No, we are not making this up (see: “Letter of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to the People of God” paragraph 2)

What do either/both of these mean? We are not certain at all that they mean anything! But we will attempt to plumb these mysterious depths nonetheless as we continue to explore this madness unfolding in Rome.

Oh, yes! Some of the “Buzz Words” around which this “Synodal Process” is framed! It’s a lot to unpack, but here goes:

October 31, 2023
Vigil of All Saints