“This has the logo of the Synod (“walking together”) of Bishops. ” Prepare for a rough ride.

When I first saw this, I thought it was a spoof account.

It isn’t.

A first, second and more glances bring one to the conclusion that the people who posted this “art”, approve of the content. Therefore, they hate the Church and are trying to morph it into an NGO. The buck stops on the desk “high atop the thing”.

Let’s imagine that the organizers of the Synod (“walking together”) also asked traditionally minded Catholics for art to express their hope for the Synod (“walking together”).

Are you doing that?  Imagining?

When you are finished laughing, ….

Let’s look at some things. In this one, between the arm and leg “What is revolutionary love?” Yes, what is that? Note the “celebration” area is dominated by “diversity”. This has the logo of the Synod (“walking together”) of Bishops.

In this one, note “Reckless”, divided into two words, because the words on the left side are bad and those on the right are good. On the left: liturgy (I’ll agree with that in a restricted, experiential sense), Scripture (1). On the right, Gospel (?), social change, LGB etc.

The Church “can be” refuge? No, it IS refuge. But they mean for illegal immigrants. Not for us. Note cliche riff on the creation of Adam. This has the logo of the Synod (“walking together”) of Bishops.

And this one… I guess we are making a macrame banner, just like the in 70’s, even with a guitar.  I’ll get you anything that the music note standings for Kumbaya.  Not sure what that thing is in the lower left.  This has the logo of the Synod (“walking together”) of Bishops.

This time the bad stuff is on the right: including LGB… blah blah discrimination and “priest biases” (not grammatical but whatever).  Down in the  aloe plants in the lower left corner, “community”, “acceptance”, “tolerance”, “change”, etc. This has the logo of the Synod (“walking together”) of Bishops.

Finally, note the female in priestly vestments behind the guy with the “pride” shirt.

However, the Traditional Latin Mass must be suppressed because the wrong kind of young people want that.

Remember: It’s not just because they hate and fear the content of the Traditional Mass, they hate and fear the people who desire it.

UPDATE:

There’s more.

Note the two candles on the same side of the altar? This was an Italian nun thing and now, I fear, it is priest thing, too, if you get my drift. Good comment on the church HERE.

UPDATE:

A rough ride. Indeed.

What’s going on here? Here’s clue. This is from tweets, put together with a thread reader. I had to do screen shots to get the whole thing.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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43 Comments

  1. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    While it’s alarming enough that “liturgy” is on the wrong side of “reckless,” I almost immediately spotted “Charity” there as well.

    “Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.” I’m glad they were smart enough to notice that liturgy and Charity are inseparable. Just like in the Gospel when the demons confess our Lord’s power, these demoniacs can’t help themselves.

  2. jason in kc says:

    One: I guess they forgot to post the panel that talks about Christ, repentance, sacrifice, denying oneself, conversion, etc. Maybe in tomorrow’s posts.

    Two: The weaving of the strands of the various identity churches really speaks to the unity of the Roman rite. It’s a nice touch that the LGBTFU community is not called a church but is a “church” strand nevertheless.

    Three: I cannot imagine there’s any person under the age of 30 who actually said that they “desire to be on an advisory council.”

    Four: I can’t make it out entirely, but surrounding the “church can be a refuge” it looks like it says “Reckless Love,” which was a somewhat controversial evangelical protestant song lyric that created a slight stir in the past 3-5 years. So hooray for that.

    Five: It’s also a nice touch that “hierarchy” is in the same section as other purportedly bad things. Gives a new meaning to “singing a new church into being.”

    Six: I for one am delighted that they want to do away with “hipocracy.” Rule based on what is popular or faddish is obviously a terrible system of government.

    Seven: “We are the young people of the future.” Does that mean they’re not young people now? Oh wait, the future is now I guess, so that would mean they’re not the young people of the future after all, since the future is already here. Or perhaps they are asserting they can bi-locate in time? That would be as impressive as the stoic disposition of the poor soul on panel #1 with a fractured and apparently melting leg. Although he should really get some blood work done with that nasty feet swelling going on.

  3. summorumpontificum777 says:

    From the illustrations, the modus operandi of the Synod is apparently the wholesale remaking of the Catholic Church in the image of Episcopalian Church USA, complete with priestesses and “pride.” Does anyone in sunny Roma care that Episcopalian Church USA is, by any relevant metric of ecclesiastical health, a pathetic, moribund failure? Apparently not. Or perhaps their definition of success includes very happy LGBT clergy with little regard for much else. Is the Church at a multi-century nadir? Or do things let a lot worse from here? Kyrie eleison.

  4. Somebody needs to be sent to art school and also taught how to spell hypocrisy (no need for lessons on how to practice it).

    [I dunno. I like the spelling just the way it is.]

  5. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    @Anita Moore OP

    The last thing we need this century is to flirt with the possibility of more Germans getting rejected from art school. It is fitting, though, just how much “walking together” reminds me of a parade square. Or how the rants against us “backwards restorationists” resemble the bunker rant from the end of “Downfall.”

  6. Adam Piggott says:

    “We are the young people of the future.”

    So the Church is now fully invested in the cult of youth. This is also reflected in the preschool level artwork, a feature that has been with us for a number of years, particularly in regards to anything written. Every aspect of this is infantile.

  7. majuscule says:

    Many of “the young people of the future” have no future because they’ve been aborted.

    As far as the picture of what appears to be a female in not-quite-correct priestly vestments—perhaps it is a biological male. Who are you to judge?

  8. Fr. Reader says:

    “Hierarchy” is also in the side of the “evil things.” So, why do they want to become “priestess” in the first place?

    For a moment I wanted to open a Twitter account just to comment on this, but there is no need, since 98% of the comments are very critical of this garbage.

  9. David Spaulding says:

    When we received the survey in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, my wife and I filled ours out and dutifully submitted them.I did not then think it mattered and do not thing so now.

    As I understand it, the surveys are reviewed at the parish level and a summary sent up to the Archdiocese. The Archdiocese then summarizes them and sends them up to the USCCB. Those are then summarized and sent up to the Vatican.

    That format gives all of the power to the same hierarchy these “art” pieces condemn to interpret the results as they see fit. Let’s be honest here, those who want to corrupt the church’s teachings don’t really hate the hierarchy, they hate the minority of the hierarchy who stay true to their God.

    We filled out our surveys because we are daughters and sons of the Church and it is our duty to participate in her mission as best we can but we expected it was all a fraud and, to all appearances, we were right.

  10. JonPatrick says:

    I guess all this emphasis on “Listening” is somewhat selective. It does not seem to me that anyone is listening to the young people that want the Traditional Latin Mass. I guess you have to be a member of the right groups such as LGBT+ or whatever to be qualified to be “listened to”. I would not call only paying attention to the groups whom you already agree with as true listening.

    Of course I realize this is all a sham, that they already know what they want to do and have no intention of paying attention to anyone whose views do not fit the agenda.

  11. Benedict Joseph says:

    The upside of this grotesque visualization is that it plainly exhibits the cognitive disorientation of a current submerged in a woke protracted adolescent narcissistic ideology. While it pinches some churchy imagery, there is not an iota of reference to our Lord, Jesus Christ nor of His Virgin Mother or the Communion of Saints.
    They dare not do so because they are deliberately alienated from the heart of the Faith.
    This image merely depicts costumed ideologues and their notions hellbent on an amoral Marxist metamorphosis of Catholicism.
    The process is agonizing to observe, but the more they unmask themselves the better. There is no longer any ambiguity they may hide behind. They are Babel.

  12. Gaetano says:

    My first thought about the art was that the Episcopalian church had a fire sale on art from the Kathy Schori years and the Synod media people got it for discount.

  13. Tradster says:

    Can there be any further doubt that the upper hierarchy of the Conciliar Church (not referring to the liturgy, most priests, or the laity) is no longer Catholic?

  14. Uniaux says:

    -“This is not about democracy. This is not populism. A synodal process is about listening to the spirit…”
    -The common threads of the pictures are bad art and ‘LGBT’ness, with the pictoral journey starting with a guy trampling what appears to be a bible.

    I think the bishops all need to take a step back and learn a thing or two about the discernment of spirits, and take a few weeks to meditate on the four last things.

  15. Lurker 59 says:

    The art style is weirdly phony. I don’t know the name of the specific style, but it is very prevalent in Latin American culture (especially as street art) where the typography is in Spanish or another Latin American country’s language. It is not the art of English speakers so why is the typography in English? This screams “manufactured”, which just underlines the whole manufactured phony nature of the Synod.

  16. Lurker 59 says:

    @summorumpontificum777

    “Or perhaps their definition of success includes very happy LGBT clergy with little regard for much else. Is the Church at a multi-century nadir? Or do things let a lot worse from here?”

    Yes, sort of. The cabal of LGBT clergy seeks to be “very happy” and approved of, but they will find that, if they get what they want, they are not happy and are just pawns in the larger game. Pawns and pawns that are promoted to “queens” can wreak havoc on the board, but orthodox Catholics should not get distracted by their movements and pay attention to the unfolding of the long game and position themselves for the end game.

    Things can get a lot worse and will get a lot worse. As an example, we don’t, as of yet, have open Temple Prostitution going on.

  17. Ariseyedead says:

    Hipocracy.
    That has got to be one of the funniest Freudian slips of all time! I can think of no better word (and being a made up word makes it even more rich) to sum up all of this modernist, aging hippie nostalgia, synod on synodality nonsense.

  18. roma247 says:

    Wow. So on the “Bad” side are not only Scripture, Liturgy and Doctrine, but even Charity???

    It’s not just that this isn’t Catholic, apparently it’s not even Christian.

    “And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.”

  19. Ariseyedead says:

    I’m not sure if this was the little angel whispering in my right ear or the little devil whispering in my left ear, but the thought crossed my mind that it would be utterly delightful if a traditional Catholic hacker were to replace all that hideous artwork with some of the classic graphics from the Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism. The looks on the faces of the Vatican bureaucrats after they saw the results of the good deed would be priceless!

  20. APX says:

    There’s actually a group of traditional Catholic Music Directors over at Musica Sacram trying to compose traditional music for the 2025 Jubilee hymn contest. Many are struggling with the lyrics because they’re not sure if it’s their ability to translate Italian, or if it’s the Italian text itself that is “theologically questionable”.

    Pellegrini di speranza
    By Pierangelo Sequeri

    Refrain:
    Fiamma viva della mia speranza
    questo canto giunga fino a Te!
    Grembo eterno d’infinita vita
    nel cammino io confido in Te.

    1. Ogni lingua, popolo e nazione
    trova luce nella tua Parola.
    Figli e figlie fragili e dispersi
    sono accolti nel tuo Figlio amato.

    [Refrain]

    2. Dio ci guarda, tenero e paziente:
    nasce l’alba di un futuro nuovo.
    Nuovi Cieli Terra fatta nuova:
    passa i muri Spirito di vita.

    [Refrain]

    3. Alza gli occhi, muoviti col vento,
    serra il passo: viene Dio, nel tempo.
    Guarda il Figlio che s’è fatto Uomo:
    mille e mille trovano la via.

  21. Geoffrey says:

    As someone who “came of age” during the pontificate of St John Paul the Great, I cannot believe what I am seeing and reading most days…

  22. Brian64 says:

    Wow! Just bad. The art itself is immature and the messages are anything but Catholic. And speaking of Catholic, what is with “Asian church”, “black church”, “college church”? There should be one strand: Catholic Church. No matter where it is located, no matter the skin tone of who attends, the Church is the same. This is either ignorant (I hope!) or nefarious (trying to split apart the Church).
      
    This seems like it was directed by the synod leaders, not by any concerned laity. The idea that the Church should hold councils and find out what the people want from the Church is anti-Catholic. Jesus did not ask people what they wanted, He told them how to get to Heaven. Peter and the other Apostles did not travel the world asking pagans what they wanted from the Church, they told them what Jesus said about getting to Heaven. The idea that the Church should be run based on the feelings of the laity (or the clergy for that matter), is a modern idea that has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. Any Christian should be able to spot that from miles away. But, hey, better to attract one sodomite couple and help them on their way to perdition while also alienating thousands of actual Catholics than to hurt their feelings – and maybe start them on their path to Heaven.

  23. Brian64 says:

    Ugh! After reading past the horrible art work I felt a need to post another comment. It is beyond arrogant for any person to think he has something to add to the Church that Jesus Christ founded on here on Earth. God is not asking us for input on how best to love Him and serve Him on Earth in order to spend eternity with Him in Heaven.
      
    The historical change that these people write about is nowhere near the type of change they want to force. The historical changes were simple things dealing with outward appearances of the Mass or the administration of the Church. What these people are advocating is the wholesale rejection of the idea of sin. That is not the natural evolution of the Church. That is the destruction of the Church. Is there not one bishop with the strength to publicly condemn this garbage?

  24. iamlucky13 says:

    @ TheCavalierHatherly

    “While it’s alarming enough that “liturgy” is on the wrong side of “reckless,” I almost immediately spotted “Charity” there as well.”

    It doesn’t seem the the artist or those promoting the art comprehend the idea of caritas, which is different from secular charity on a very foundational level.

    It presumably arises from the Marxist view of charity as the way the wealthy throw their table scraps to the masses to make them feel grateful for receiving anything at all.

    The colors also seem to tell the viewer which “virtues” these “vices” are opposed to. Charity is presented in opposition to social change. Observe how Catholic identity is also placed on the left side, opposed to another identity.

    @ APX

    “There’s actually a group of traditional Catholic Music Directors over at Musica Sacram trying to compose traditional music for the 2025 Jubilee hymn contest. “

    That’s wonderful! As for the lyrics, at this point, if there is at least a way to interpret them according to an orthodox understanding, I think it is worth proceeding in order to present beauty of the Catholic musical tradition. It seems likely that introducing something “old” will be very new to a lot of people. Or to draw from the art work: it will be a chance for the Jubilee hymn committee to practice inclusion (even of tradition) and radical hospitality.

  25. redneckpride4ever says:

    Lefebvre was right.

  26. Danteewoo says:

    Impossible to take the official Church seriously anymore. Shall I try to convert my non-Catholic son-in-law? How?

  27. Dave P. says:

    Getting flashbacks from when I participated in the Milwaukee Archdiocesan Synod in the late 80s. I can tell you that the results of the listening sessions have already been written and ready for release…

  28. ArthurH says:

    AAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

  29. Sprouting Thomas says:

    Hipocracy’s the one where the horses are in charge, right?

  30. JakeMC says:

    Couple of other things on the wrong side of reckless that have question marks spewing out of my head. Fidelity? Scripture? Catholic identity? Since when are these bad things?
    .
    We’re hard-pressed to find anything divine about the new Church the synodists are trying to “sing into being.” Has anyone figured out what some of their favorite buzzwords even mean?

  31. Gigot says:

    Christ never leaves His mystical bride, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Fr. Z once suggested that the Church is in a Job period of suffering and purification. It has endured heresies, revolutions, sinful members (myself included). It will prevail because God wills it. I just wish that this cup of suffering, the present crisis, would pass us by.

  32. MB says:

    Thank you Dave P! Yes, listening sessions! That was what came to my mind too. Our parish has recently been visited my a consultant from the “Next Generation Parish,” who is trying to convince us that the reason participation is dwindling is because we don’t have a ‘Vision Statement.’ My proposed vision statment is “Saving Souls from the Fires of Hell.” Do you think he’ll like it?

  33. Gaetano says:

    Any convert from American Mainline Protestantism in the past forty years has already seen this happen in their former churches.

    The conclusions are preordained, and promote heterodoxy & heteropraxis. They further herald an institutional collapse into demographic oblivion.

    The architects will congratulate themselves on their fine work ushering in the New Springtime, while jeering the naysayers warning of the inevitable & manifestly obvious consequences.

  34. Grant M says:

    @Sprouting Thomas

    “Hipocracy’s the one where the horses are in charge, right”

    That would be hippocracy with two P’s, as depicted in the fourth book of Gulliver’s Travels. Humans have degenerated into Yahoos, live in trees and sh*t on intruders.

    Ok, we can agree, that is a Bad Thing and happens far too often these days.

  35. Bosco says:

    I thought Peter Max was dead.

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  37. chantgirl says:

    Let’s just be blunt. Men who have pledged themselves to celibacy want the blessing of the church to violate the laws of God and their own nature, and they will use the useful idiots in the pews to speak for the Holy Spirit to get what they want.

    A little honesty would be great instead of this expensive charade to pretend that the Holy Spirit is now telling the church that gay sex is ok.

  38. Marguerite says:

    Peter Max isn’t dead and he’s fabulous.

  39. Chiara says:

    All these posters are heretical, but the one with the “young people” in front of a church (which looks like my parish church, in fact) especially sets me off.

    This is absolutely dreadful and so out of touch with what is really going on at our parishes. My parish is also home to the Newman Center of our local university. The students I see bear no resemblance to those pictured and described in this article. They are joyfully devout. Many attend daily Mass, often helping as servers and readers. And they dress modestly – some of the young ladies even veil. When our pastor first arrived 4 years ago, within his first month, they requested monthly Adoration and Confession. He happily agreed, and it is not unusual to have 30-50 of them show up along with the rest of the parishioners. They do not go to the beach and drink for spring break – they work at soup kitchens, volunteer to renovate homes in impoverished areas, and make themselves useful at the parish.

    This poster seems disastrously stuck in caricatures from the late 1960’s, and apparently our hierarchy and their employees seem to be as well. It might be better, if instead of making assumptions based on reports from the often-biased and agenda-driven media, they rather make an effort to visit parishes and acquaint themselves with what is going on here in flyover territory. They might be pleasantly surprised and encouraged by what they find.

    [This all being the case – the posters don’t reflect reality – what do you conclude?]

  40. oakdiocesegirl2 says:

    @ Anita Moore OP: We need to spell synod better. In this one, the spelling should be SIN-odd. and SIN-oddality. #SinningChurch

  41. Bosco says:

    @Marguerite – Peter Max may be ‘fabulous’ as you say, but to me it is all reminiscent of the art work in the Beatles 1968 psychedelic cartoon “Yellow Submarine”. The Synodal artwork of Pepperland.

  42. Suburbanbanshee says:

    I’m fairly sure that three of the four artworks are by the same person, and the fourth one might be the same person using Photoshop.

    This is not religious art. It’s modern Communist political art. The artist is not even pretending to do anything different.

  43. Hidden One says:

    The should have hired Daniel Mitsui.

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