The Pope’s Slippery ‘Synodal’ Way

American Spectator ^ | February 16, 2020 | George Neumayr

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The Pope’s Slippery ‘Synodal’ Way

His exhortation about the Amazon synod raises more questions than it answers.

ypical of a Jesuit,” said Archbishop Bruno Forte in 2016, as he reflected on the deviously indirect style of Pope Francis. Forte, a close aide to Pope Francis, recalled that the pope didn’t want to spell out his support for Communion for the divorced and remarried in his exhortation Amoris Laetitia, lest it cause too much backlash. Forte quoted the pope saying, “If we speak explicitly about Communion for the divorced and remarried, you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.”

In his latest exhortation, Querida Amazonia, the pope adopts a similarly opaque style. After having engineered a synod in which he had chosen all the fathers — a synod that he knew would reach conclusions in favor of married priests and female deacons — he decided to write an exhortation silent on those questions. The exhortation amounts to a papal punt. The question now is: Who will pick it up?

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The popes of the past would have found such talk to be dangerous nonsense. But for this pope, it has become habitual. Both his style and substance are “typical of a Jesuit.” We are witnessing a revolution that moves in fits and starts, under a pope who gushes about every religion except his own.

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Ping

[Mrs. Don-o]

I admit I thought, for about 24 hours, that Pope Francis was perhaps providing some small pushback against the rich, insolent and schismatic Germans (in their feather-and-paint Rain Forest disguises-- "Ich bin ein Amazonianer!" ") --- but now I realize it's no such thing.

It's a head-fake and an alley-oop to Marx for the slam dunk.

You wait and see.

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I think Pope Benedict and Cardinal Sarah were just enough to cause Francis to back-off on his exortation a tad.

Just a bump in the road.