Feel like a castaway these days? Feel like those who should have the greatest care of you have sloughed you off for the sake of the ways of the world? You are not alone.
With that as a preamble, if you have not seen it yet, go to The Catholic Thing and read the piece by Bp. Athanasius Schneider about the working document or Instrumental Laboris for the upcoming Synod (“walking together”) on Synodality (“walking together-ity”) or SOS (and, truly, SOS… HELP US!).
A bishop gave it to me before it was publicly released. After I threw up in mouth a few times, I decided not to write much about it. On reflection, people need to know what is being perpetrated in their name. You see, all sorts of shenanigans will be attempted at the SOS in the name of the faithful which the hierarchy is supposed to “confirm”. If not, clerics who don’t go along are “against the Spirit” and own “restitution”. What could go wrong?
Go over the The Catholic Thing and have a look, even a cursory look.
That “restitution” thing. I’m not making that up. The Instrumentum includes a “Question for discernment” under the heading
B. Communion, participation, mission. Three priority issues for the synodal Church.
[..]
B 3.2 How can we develop discernment practices and decision-making processes in an authentically synodal manner, that respects the protagonism of the Spirit?
So, the premise you are to admit … you ARE – TO – ADMIT!! – is that the Holy Spirit is the protagonist. Originally a term from ancient drama, the protagonist is the “main character” or, by extension, the leader or principal person in a movement, cause. Don’t you dare dissent.
Get this:
7) How can we deal constructively with cases in which those in authority feel they cannot confirm the conclusions reached by a community discernment process, taking a decision in a different direction? What kind of restitution should that authority offer to those who participated in the process?
Their role is to “confirm” what the “community” comes up with. Never mind if this community in this SoS (and who chose them?) come up with wacky stuff. They must “confirm”.
When does one offer “restitution”?
Consultation of a dictionary reminds us.
The point of restitution is to return what has been lost or stolen or to repair the damage or injury that has been done so that things can be returned to how they originally were or as close as possible.
Firstly, this is hilarious. If there is anyone in the Church who, in justice, ought to be offered restitution it would be those who desire traditional Catholic worship and doctrine. Yes, please, gimme some of that “return to how things were”.
However, note that restitution is given to those who are harmed. In this case, the “community” that came up with whatever goofy thing they came up with that serious bishops still having the Three Bs can’t go along with… because it’s a) stupid and b) not Catholic?
Say the SoS – which will be comprised now of a kind of Mos Eisley diverse mixture of people from various walks of life – never mind that this is supposed to be a meeting of the Synod (“walking together”) of BISHOPS – determines that, according to the Question for discernment under B 1.2 should be made concrete…
6) How can we create spaces where those who feel hurt by the Church and unwelcomed by the community feel recognised, received, free to ask questions and not judged? In the light of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, what concrete steps are needed to welcome those who feel excluded from the Church because of their status or sexuality (for example, remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people, etc.)?
That part about polygamous marriages was frisky. They forget bestiality, however, which is speciesist.
Again, you are simply to accept the premise that “concrete steps are needed”. So, you are now to confirm the kind of concrete steps the discerning community came up with.
The questions are not questions.
Say that the SoS votes, or whatever it is they will do in a post-Pachamama Synod (“walking together”), perhaps consults entrails of former nuns booted from terminated backwardist convents, that Communion is not to be denied to the civilly divorced and remarried. Say, then, that some bishops disagree and do not go along with the concrete steps demanded by the Spirit through the discerning community.
Those un-confirming bishops should offer restitution. Why? Because people who put in tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of hard work were denied what they wanted… er um… what the Holy Spirit told them we must have. Since they and the whole Church – which is groaning not for the revelation of the sons of God but rather (pace St. Paul) for untrammeled distribution of the white thing during the gathering. Those obstructionist bishops are hurting people. Consequently, they must be made to pay.
Perhaps they should have a couple of right-thinking bishops sent on the sly for a visitation of their diocesan finances.
Check out Bp. Schneider’s piece.
BTW… S.O.S. a “prosign” used in Morse Code to call urgently for help. It is usually remembered mnemonically as being “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship”. “Our Ship”. The Barque of Peter?
Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all. All: Pater noster … Eia mater, fons amoris, me sentire vim doloris fac, ut tecum lugeam.
Joseph Card. Ratzinger – Via Crucis – 2005 – 9th Station
And I have a proposal for a much more effective “SOS”, one surely more pleasing to God.
“State buoni se potete… Be good if you can” (St. Philip Neri)
Take on some penances.
Go to confession.
Loading ...
Cardinal Grech has made the comment that “the Synod will be hijacked by the Holy Spirit.” Cardinal Hollerich has said that the Synod is about “letting the Holy Spirit lead us.”
It’s extremely troubling, as I think we all suspect where this is heading. Their rigged Synod is going to clamor all the same things that they’ve been demanding for years (i.e., ordination of women, abolition of clerical celibacy, acceptance of homosexual acts/”marriage,” abolition of Humanae Vitae, yada yada yada)… but this time, it’s actually the Holy Spirit demanding this stuff, not them. If you disagree and oppose them, then you’re blocking the very will of the Holy Spirit. And that’s a profoundly serious charge. What Catholic wants to thwart the will of the Holy Spirit?
It takes a special sort of hubris (or cynicism) to claim that their policy preferences are coterminous with those of the 3rd person of the Holy Trinity, but that’s exactly what they’re hinting at. I do wonder, though, if the Holy Spirit will tolerate being mocked in this way. Stay tuned…
This Instrumental Laboris, and the SOS itself, is nothing less than an attack on the very foundation and life of the Church herself.
I’m grateful to Archbishop Schneider for pointing this out so clearly – now, where are his brother Bishops?
I think that you are taking too alarmist a view of that section on “restitution”.
It asks what do we do when those with the authority say NO. You should take heart from this as it affirms that it is up to those in authority to say yes or no, NOT simply to confirm what a discussion has “discerned”. That is, I understand, the Jesuit, and thus PF way, the boss has wide ranging discussions takes advice and then takes the decision. The decision may be like that when Lincoln discussed the Emancipation Act with his cabinet, should he sign it into law? “Well gentlemen, eight NOES and one AYE – the AYES have it”
[Methinks you missed the core of this.]
The Answer to all of this is simple. The Holy Father needs to stand before the world and say ,”The Catholic Faith is the One and Only Way to Salvation.” Period ! no ifs, ands or buts.
Many years ago I was working at a home of an old German couple. I always look at peoples bookshelves. I saw that they had Latin Missels. The conversation ensued. I told them where I attend Mass. (back when there where very few latin Masses available). They told me that growing up in Catholic Gemany ,they were always taught the Catholic Faith was the One True Faith.
One wonders if this “indumentum imperatoris,” happened to come out of the Postmodern Essay Generator. (https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/)
Once again I hear the faint, far off sound of Anglicans snickering…
I don’t understand who all this hubbub is for. They have their many Catholics who attend the NO and seem to accept the innovations without question. I’m not trying to insult the Catholics who attend the NO, it’s just that they don’t seem to have much problem with NuChurch.
The bishops are mostly quiet, so they don’t have to worry about them for the most part. We see parents bringing their own innocent children to drag queen story hours where naked men twerk in front of their eyes, or act out sexual bondage displays mere feet away, and parents offer their children up for this. No word from bishops, with one or two exceptions. Washington just had a bill in play where it was decided whether or not to allow mere children, who can’t vote, smoke cigarettes, or drive, who, as someone said, wouldn’t know which base to run to if they were playing T-ball, to be given puberty blockers which inflict catastrophic damage on them and then sexual mutilation. How many bishops have tried publicly to alert parents to the reality of what they are doing, how sinful it is and how threatening to their very souls to offer their precious child to Moloch in this way? The bishops of Washington issued a statement. It was “no comment”.
So who is the SOS for? It can’t be for the Catholics who attend the TLM. The church has no regard for them and it is clear they want us to leave the church. Surely they Synodizers realize this kind of mind game manipulation is useless on them. They see through it like glass. God has given spiritual discernment, and praise God for that. Thank God for the few voices who are willing to speak out, but for the most part, crickets from those who should be shouting from the rooftops. We should be surprised the very stones do not speak, the silence is glaring.
These men can do whatever they want with their NuChurch. It’s theirs, they can have it and make it whatever they want.
A few years ago a Pew Center poll of American Catholics revealed that around 70% do not believe in the Real Presence. Furthermore, a sizable proportion polled were aware of the Church’s teaching on transubstantiation, but persisted in their belief that Christ is not truly present in the Eucharist, and that the Eucharist is merely a symbol.
Let’s forgo for a moment contemplating the train wreck that is the state of catechesis in the Church in America today, and just ask ourselves what information like this Pew poll tells us about this stupid ‘synod’.
What it says to me is that if this synod’s process truly is a “listening to the voice of the people” and not just manipulated by Certain Prelates, then it’s a synodal process of listening to the worst-catechized generation of Catholics in ages— and a decision to give them what they demand. And if they don’t get their demands met, there must be restitution.
Stupidity doesn’t begin to describe it.
It’s a frightening event. It will cause unbelievable harm to parishes. It’ll probably cause those who take Catholicism seriously to go elsewhere, often to the SSPX. For those who can’t the pain will escalate. What a cruel bunch running the Church.
Thank you for linking this Father Z.
That is the MOST EPIC SMACKDOWN I have ever read! It alone would seem to make Bishop Schneider a candidate for sainthood one day—perhaps as soon as 50 years from now?
I love, love, love how he can turn a phrase: “Unctuous” in regards to “conversation in the Spirit”. Pentecostalism indeed! The entire piece is a rollicking journey through the platter of swill that will be dished up in October. They say a pinch of poison renders a meal deadly. There are ladles full of arsenic heaped into the SOS pot. Catholics beware!
He is brilliant, articulate, and a TRUE SHEPHERD.
Father,
You’re a bit unclear above. You make it sound like you threw up a little in your mouth after reading Bishop Schneider’s piece, not I.L.
I fear we are living witness to the demise of two things (at least as they are today – both will survive, but one will be much smaller but more vibrant): The U.S. and The Catholic Church. Both from within and both largely due the abomination and simultaneous acceptance of homosexual perversion.
Pingback: Bp. Schneider: Prohibition of the Traditional Latin Mass is an Abuse of Ecclesiastical Power | Fr. Z's Blog
“I’m not trying to insult the Catholics who attend the NO, it’s just that they don’t seem to have much problem with NuChurch.”
It may be more a case of “beggars can’t be choosers” — i.e., there simply are not any TLM parishes available in their area and if they have to choose between going to an NO and missing their Sunday obligation altogether, they will choose the former — than it is of “they don’t seem to have much problem with NuChurch”.
Several thoughts on this, most of which are now happily drowned out by the cantina song spurred by the Mos Eisley reference.
Pingback: MONDAY MORNING EDITION – Big Pulpit
Pingback: What will the Synod (“walking together”) on Synodality (“walking together-ity”) be like? The LIST of participants is out. | Fr. Z's Blog