At First Things there is a really helpful piece by Gerhard Card. Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a present participant in “Walking Together about Walking Togetherity”.
Card. Müller gives some background to the history and theological placement of what a “synod” is and he identifies modern dangers if misapplied.
Toward the top, I found these paragraphs of great interest.
[…]
Many observers think that Pope Francis wants to correct what might be called the hierarchical, or “primacy” element, of church leadership by appealing to the synodal element of leadership allegedly preserved in the East. Since Vatican I, so-called “Rome-critical” theologians have described the Church’s emphasis on primacy as excessive. It would be good, here, to be guided by Pope Francis’s predecessor Leo the Great. His pontificate shows that, theologically and pastorally, the principles of primacy and synodality do not oppose each other, but rather mutually condition and support each other.
Leo often gathered the bishops and the Roman presbyters for joint consultations. Calling such a synod was not for the purpose of distilling a majority opinion or establishing a party line. In Leo’s time, a synod served to orient all to the normative apostolic tradition, with the bishops exercising their co-responsibility to ensure that the Church abides in the truth of Christ.
[…]
Leo the Great (+461) was one of the first Bishops of Rome to give shape to what is now the modern “papacy”. Note the direction of the “direction”. From Leo to the bishops. Why? “To orient all to the normative apostolic tradition.”
There is a huge difference between the situation of bishops in the 5th century and today. For example, we have had seminaries for centuries. We have over a millennium of theological reflection on the nature of the Church. We have basic catechisms which you would think that today’s bishops would have been steeped in from childhood. There is far deeper and more precise theological information for bishops today than ever there was in the 5th century.
However, I am mindful of something that Benedict XVI wrote in his forward to his first book on Jesus of Nazareth. HERE. He wrote about Biblical scholarship that many have forgotten how to read Scripture properly. They are technocrats who applied modern tools of investigation which pretty much dissects without truly understanding. Instead, Benedict said that we ought to return to reading the Fathers of the Church and see how they read Scripture, and strive also to read like they did without abandoning modern tools of scholarship. We have to recover from antiquity was had been obscured.
Another pair of paragraph from Müller and then I will let you go… my emphases…
[…]
As is well known, theoretical reflection on the principles of being, knowing, and acting is considerably more difficult than talking about concrete things. Thus there is a danger that an assembly of almost 400 people of different origins, education, and competence, engaged in unstructured back-and-forth discussion, will produce only vague and blurred results. Faith can easily be instrumentalized for political agendas, or blurred into a universal religion of the brotherhood of man that ignores the God revealed in Jesus Christ. In the place of Christ, technocrats can present themselves as saviors of humanity. If the Synod is to keep the Catholic faith as its guide, it must not become a meeting for post-Christian ideologues and their anti-Catholic agenda.
Any attempt to transform the Church founded by God into a worldly NGO will be thwarted by millions of Catholics. They will resist to the death the transformation of the house of God into a market of the spirit of the age, for the whole of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in “matters of belief” (Lumen Gentium). We face a globalist program of a world without God, in which a power elite proclaims itself the creator of a new world and ruler of the disenfranchised masses. That program and power elite cannot be countered by a “Church without Christ,” one that abandons the Word of God in Scripture and Tradition as the guiding principle of Christian action, thought, and prayer (Dei Verbum).
[…]
I agree with His Eminence on that point about the faithful. The FAITHFUL will because of the sensus fidei fidelium. However, not all the “faithful” are FAITHFUL. Sensus fidei is not automatic. It is fostered, maintained, enriched for a lifetime. Do all the “faithful” do that? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Therefore, I think we have to make a serious commitment to know our FAITH well and be, as Peter, says, “always ready”.
What do you do to foster, enrich and maintain? For yourself and others?
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The Pope called for a day of prayer and fasting on 27 October. Did the Synod participants pray and fast that day?
Reading this article my thoughts go to the schism of the Orthodox Churches. First there was the language barriers between Rome and Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem. This caused a distrust. Also unlike today, news and decisions from Rome took months or even years.
The best results of the WT would be a reaffirmation. of Catholic Truth. It would shut down all this confusion and kaos.
“There is far deeper and more precise theological information for bishops today than ever there was in the 5th century.”
It is, as you say, obscured. While I agree that is obscured by the philosophically Kantian, deeply anti-semitic, and archeologically incorrect, German protestant “higher criticism,” I think that the problem is more deeply seated. Most of those who were elevated to the Episcopate in the 5th century were deeply literate, and normally possessed an astute philosophical training.
To produce, rather than repeat, is an indicator of this. I can understand the distinctions of “physis” and “hypostasis” and “homo-ousios.” But to have discovered and discern them is far beyond my capacity. The level of education required is astonishing. We have lost it.
Hi! For myself, I listen to the Catechism on podcasts (Bp Schneider has a series, also Fr. David Nix), listen to Catholic Podcasts, daily Rosary, Confession, weekly Bible study and Catholic Production videos as well as reading. I fall way short on bring the good news to others. I have no idea how to do this without coming off as some religious zealot who people just roll their eyes at. Trying to bring people back to the faith has proven difficult.
Bravo, to the great Cardinal! May there be many more who follow this thinking! Please anoint them, Holy Spirit! However, it was said (wasn’t it our holy Benedict) that the Church would be preserved, even if only a “remnant”.
The internet has been a great tool in learning the faith. This blog has been a great help to me over the years. It’s amazing how much sound catechism and talks can be found on YouTube. The Thomistic institute is phenomenal. Sermons from the Oratory in Toronto on line. Lives of the saints and documentary’s. All good stuff.
For learning proper critical thinking like the church fathers, I have found nothing better than the Catena Aurea (Golden Chain) by St. Thomas Aquinas. It employs a fictional roundtable format of the Fathers discussing and debating each of the Gospel readings, using their actual writing and sermons. I highly recommend the four volume set by Baronius Press at baronius.com.