Synodality? Or Sanity?
By CHRISTOPHER MANION
Last January, the USCCB suggested “seven attitudes we can all adopt as we continue our synodal journey together.” These included “innovative outlook, inclusivity, open-mindedness, listening, accompaniment, co-responsibility, and dialogue.”
“Which one inspires you the most?” the bishops asked.
Samuel Gregg calls this missive “the tweet heard round the world” and he’s right — the response was a well-earned excess of derision. Dr. Gregg noted one response suggesting that the bishops might have done better by recommending the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, but alas, it was already clear a year ago that the bureaucrats had something else in mind.
Two weeks ago we found out just what that was when the Vatican Press office announced the “Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod for a Synodal Church.”
It was a disaster.
Fr. Gerald Murray ignored the psychobabble and went straight to the doctrinal core.
The document “unapologetically calls into question various Catholic doctrines,” he wrote, “under the guise of listening to the Holy Spirit who, remarkably, is somehow speaking through the complaints and criticisms of those who reject what the Church teaches and has always taught.”
“The teaching of the Church, given to her by Christ, is the problem. The Church is being asked to seriously discuss discarding teachings that contradict the beliefs and desires of those living in adulterous second ‘marriages,’ men who have two or three or more wives, homosexuals and bisexuals, people who believe they are not the sex they were born as, women who want to be ordained deacons and priests, [and] lay people who want the authority given by God to bishops and priests.”
This is what America’s “Listening Church” has apparently been “hearing” for the past year.
And what has America heard?
The day after last Tuesday’s election, the abortion lobby was ecstatic. “The Dobbs effect is real: Voters, still angry about the Roe overturn, turned out to protect abortion,” preened Salon, a magazine for rich liberals.
From the Left, it’s been all about abortion. Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization came down in June, America has been inundated with the most aggressive pro-abortion campaign in memory. As Democrats gave up on defending their disasters, they spent $320 million on ads promoting abortion. State Media and Big Tech provided propaganda and persuasion worth untold millions more.
A Voice From The Pews
While the USCCB has been touting “accompaniment,” accompanying the unborn doesn’t seem to be on its radar. True enough, the bishops voted two years ago this month to make abortion their “preeminent issue,” but then went silent as soon as they adjourned. All they could come up with on the day after the elections was a Campaign for Human Development award to a pastor-political organizer in Iowa who “knows firsthand the daily struggles of the immigrant families he serves since his own father was deported twelve times.”
There you go. The award was appropriately named after Obama’s favorite bishop, Joseph Bernardin. They should have simply pulled back the curtain and named it after the Satan fan and patron saint of community organizing, Saul Alinsky, and be done with it.
When it does come to abortion, all we hear from our shepherds is admonitions not to endanger their nonprofit status with the IRS by preaching about pro-abortion Democrats.
But wait — we did find last month this valiant statement regarding the responsibilities of the faithful regarding moral issues.
“The ‘preeminent’ moral issue of our time is the widespread crime and sin of abortion. There is no equivalence, or ‘seamless’ connection, with other issues (such as tax reform, immigration, etc.).”
“Catholics and all Christians must prioritize their voting support for pro-life legislation via support for pro-life legislators. Easily enough, they can learn who the pro-life candidates are. Canon 915 is not an option for bishops; it must be followed as the law of the Church and its implementation must be universal and publicized.”
Whence cometh this ray of celestial truth? Is this the statement of a prelate of whom he have not yet heard?
No, the author is not a bishop. He is an acclaimed international lawyer, canonist, and longtime friend of The Wanderer, Charles Molineaux.
And his point is clear: It’s up to the laity.
Cardinal Dolan’s
Meandering Path
There are undoubtedly good bishops and many fine priests who have spoken out on abortion who need our support. But over the years, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan has provided an anemic example for a generation of bishops.
Many of his colleagues have found his “stay popular but equivocal” approach to be attractive and worthy of emulation. Consider: Four years ago, he observed that, once upon a time, many Catholics had become loyal Democrats because of their regard for the rights of the unborn. “I remember my own grandmother whispering to me, ‘We Catholics don’t trust those Republicans’,” he wrote.
Cardinal Dolan duly reflected that sentiment when he was president of the USCCB In 2012. The bishops were “some of your greatest supporters,” he told President Obama, and they longed to be his “cheerleaders” — if only ObamaCare wouldn’t fund abortions. Obama supported them in everything else but the life issues, and the feeling was mutual.
But the bishops paid a price. Obama had lied about abortion and ObamaCare. And by 2018, Cardinal Dolan had changed. He wrote a curious piece in The Wall Street Journal recounting how, once upon a time, the Democrats’ “support of the dignity and sanctity of human life, the importance of Catholic schools, [and] the defense of a baby’s civil rights” prompted many “Catholics to become loyal Democrats. I remember my own grandmother whispering to me, ‘We Catholics don’t trust those Republicans’,” he wrote.
But those days are over, he continued. These truths “largely have been rejected by the party of our youth. Democrats have abandoned Catholics,” he concluded.
But he still stuck to his guns, leaving them loaded but safely in his holster. In 2017, when asked about Canon 915 and pro-abortion politicians, he replied, “I think most bishops have said, ‘We trust individual bishops in individual cases.’ Most don’t think it’s something for which we have to go to the mat.”
In 2019, after Fr. Robert Morey had denied Communion to Joe Biden in Florence, S.C., Fox News asked Cardinal Dolan about it.
“I think that priest (Fr. Morey) had a good point, you are publicly at odds with an issue of substance, critical substance, we’re talking about life and death and the Church,” he responded
But would he deny Joe Biden Communion?
“I wouldn’t do it,” the Cardinal replied.
Good Meeting, Good Meeting!
As pro-abortion forces mount an unprecedented offensive against life in the womb, have our bishops actually been performing their consecrated duties — as opposed to playing religious and secular politics?
It’s a question worth asking, but when they meet in Baltimore this coming week, they won’t have much time to devote to the question.
All too often, America’s bishops have ducked their canonical responsibilities and their consecrated duties, allowing their permanent bureaucracy of the USCCB to speak for them.
But beyond abortion, there are other pressing issues which demand action. According to the Pew Foundation, the second largest religious denomination in America is ex-Catholics. They acknowledge the massive loss of faith among the faithful in the True Presence of the Eucharist, but leave Canon 915 literally in the footnotes in their response.
The collapse of Sunday Mass attendance, the war against the Traditional Latin Mass, the wave of closed and sold parishes and schools — and yes, the new challenge of each state’s independent responsibility to chart the future of life after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — these require attention by our own beloved bishops here and now, not by a horde of international church bureaucrats after two years of “Synodality” kicking the can down the road until 2025.
Sanity, not synodality, is the answer. Let us pray.