Free Republic

Who Is Managing the Synod on Synodality?NEWS ANALYSIS: Voices supportive of Church teaching are not being given adequate exposure.VATICAN CITY — In light of the controversy stirred up by the working document for the next stage of the multiyear Synod on Synodality, questions have arisen over who prepared it and how it came into being.The 45-page “Document for the Continental Stage” (DCS), published Oct. 28, attempts to summarize discussions with the lay faithful, clergy and religious who participated in the synod’s first stage of “listening and discernment” and aims to be the basis of the work for the second...

[Catholic Caucus] German Synodal Way proceeds after bishops ‘encouraged’ by meeting with Pope FrancisGermany's Bishops Conference looks set to continue the controversial, and heterodox Synodal Way, following its much anticipated series of meetings with the Pope and Vatican officials last week.VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The president of the German Bishops’ Conference told reporters on Saturday that he was “encouraged” by their meeting with Pope Francis, adding that Germany’s Synodal Way wants “to be Catholic differently.” The German bishops refused a request from the Vatican to place a temporary “moratorium” on their national Synodal Way, and also took renewed aim at...

Schneider: The Results of the Synod on Synodality are Conceived in AdvanceBishop Athanasius Schneider assumes that the results of the Synod on Synodality are already in place. He said this in an interview with @cjm-media and Gloria.tv (17 November).Already at the 2014/2015 Family Synod, several bishops reported to him that their objections were not taken into account and Amoris Laetitia, the result of that synod, appeared conceived in advance.Schneider expects that the current Synod will juxtapose ambiguous/wrong and correct statements in order to "reassure the conservatives".This is how Vatican II proceeded, as well as Amoris Laetitia, but with the current...

[Catholic Caucus] Apostate Bishops Have Their Unholy Synod, Will Faithful Bishops Call an Imperfect Council?In his 2018 article in The Remnant, Can the Church Defend Herself Against Bergoglio?, Christoper Ferrara presented the case for bishops to call an imperfect council to remove Bergoglio:“So what can be done to defend the Church against Bergoglio? That the mode of papal election by cardinals has persisted for nearly a thousand years has led to the general impression that it pertains to the irreformable divine constitution of the Church, but it certainly does not. As to matters of purely ecclesiastical law such as this...

German Bishop: German Synod Only Implements Francis' ProposalsAachen Bishop Helmut Dieser, Germany, would like Francis to understand "that I want to do precisely all that Francis proposes to us."Without being asked, Dieser told Dw.com (8 November) that he did not want to preach Church teaching to practicing homosexuals. For him, the urges of such persons are "not unnatural" and therefore they must live not chastely but: "As Church we must answer these questions anew."Contradicting the Bible, Dieser considers homosexual acts "positive," but defines it in a consistently negative way as "not a mishap," "not a disease," "not an expression of...

Peeking Inside the Synod on Synodality’s BoardroomCOMMENTARY: Austen Ivereigh and the other ‘experts’ at the recent synodal summit in Frascati act as if John Paul II’s papacy added nothing constructive on the lay faithful, families, clergy and other topics related to Vatican II.The latest step in the synodal process on synodality for a synodal Church was unveiled in late October, a document for the “continental” stage. That stage will occupy the meeting agenda until next March, when all of the new papers generated will be returned to Rome for further collating, summarizing, synthesizing and drafting. The cud at this...

Francis’s Synodal Tent Evicts Catholicism to Make Room for Everything ElseIn his Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, Bishop Rudolf Graber quoted a 1968 article in the Paris journal of the Freemasonic Grand Orient de France, “L’Humanisme,” describing the changes which would eventually take place in the Catholic Church:“Among the pillars which collapse most easily we note the Magisterium; the infallibility, which was held to be firmly established by the First Vatican Council and which has just had to face being stormed by married people on the occasion of the publication of the encyclical Humanae vitae; the Real Eucharistic...

The Pope and Synod: Hangmen of the Great CommissionI will not follow this new synodal listening blueprint, and I will not oblige Pope Francis’ reproach of Catholic proselytization. I will listen to God. And I will hold fast to Christ’s words of the Great Commission.While I buckled into my window seat before departing Mexico City, the passenger beside me was conducting business from her phone. A new marketing strategy, at a cost in the upper hundreds of thousands of dollars, was being chewed over. The 40-year-old female I would be rubbing elbows with for the next three hours, I quickly...

[Catholic Caucus] "And the Word became ideology": At the Synod, a falsified Church "And the Word became ideology": At the Synod, a falsified ChurchLuisella ScrosatiLa Nuova Bussola QuotidianaNovember 7, 2022(source)On Oct. 27, Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the Synod, spoke first during the press conference presenting the Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod, a document summarizing what emerged from all the diocesan consultations. "Enlarge the Space of Your Tent" (this is the title of the document) is the "synthesis of syntheses."In fact, the various responses of the faithful were transmitted to...

Working Document for Synod’s Continental Stage Calls for Reform of Church StructuresNEWS ANALYSIS: Canonists offered a mixed reception to the text released Oct. 27, with some dismissing its call for major reforms as a nonstarter.WASHINGTON — The Vatican’s Synod on Synodality issued a working document designed to set a framework for the second, or “continental,” stage of the three-year global process launched by Pope Francis in 2021. But the text’s explicit call for the transformation of Church structures stirred controversy, raising the stakes for Church leaders in the U.S. and Canada, who will begin their formal deliberations in January...

[Catholic Caucus] SINod on SINodality: Prominent Bishops Resist Great Reset of Catholic Church“The 2023 Synod is shaping up into hostile takeover of the Church. If they succeed, it will be the end of the Catholic Church.” ~Cardinal Gerhard Müller World Over EWTN, October 6, 2022“The synodal process has begun disastrously in Germany, and matters will become worse unless we soon have effective papal corrections on, for instance, Christian sexual morality, women priests, etc…some faithful German Catholics are already talking, not of the synodal way, but the suicidal way.” ~Cardinal Pell October 13, 2022“The synodal process is being manipulated in the...

'Words, words, words' - Synodality synod reports, by the numbers“In the Working Document for the Continental Stage,” the most common words were “church,” “synodal,” “people,” “continental,” and “life.”In the national summary produced by the USCCB - based on the input from all regions of the bishops’ conference - the most frequently used words were “church,” “synthesis,” “region,” “synodal,” and “people.In the documents published by US dioceses, and in USCCB regional summary documents, the most common word (after exclusions) was “church,” followed by “people,” “parish,” “many,” and “faith.”Perhaps unsurprisingly, the global document shared its most common word - “church” - with...

[Catholic Caucus] Some "Highlights" from the Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod on Synodality You may have heard that the "Working Document for the Continental Stage" of the "Synod on Synodality" was released today. (You may not have heard, in which case, I apologise for this article!) Numerous Catholic news outlets (of varying quality) have already commented on this document, but I thought I would provide a few of my own "highlights" for readers.1. The document claims that "Globally, participation exceeded all expectations" (n. 5). Given that the participation of even those Catholics who attend Mass...

Homosexualist Hollerich Calls Sin "Love"Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of Francis' Synod, told OsservatoreRomano.va (October 24) that he had met a girl in her twenties a few weeks ago who wanted to leave the Church because God rejects homosexuality.This made Hollerich “think a lot.” Had the girl criticised the sorry state of the bishops, Hollerich would have remained indifferent.He acknowledged the fact that Protestant groups which have fallen into homosexualism do not have a greater [but a much smaller] appeal among young people.But then he goes on to affirm that in his religion "no one is excluded" from God's...

Is Anyone Listening to Catholics in the Pew? GIVE US THE MASS!Newly elected Pope Francis with St. Gallen Mafia member Cardinal Danneels (seated)Ever since Jorge Bergoglio came out on the balcony as Pope Francis (the first of that name - poor St. Francis), we've been bombarded with words like "pastoral".... "listening".... "dialogue".... "collegiality"...."synodality"....etc. ad nauseum. Like the Big Brother ministries in Orwell's 1984, the reality is the exact opposite. There is no pastoral treatment, listening, or collegiality for those who hold fast to the perennial teachings of Holy Mother Church. All the listening goes one way. Atheists, dissenting priests and...

[Catholic Caucus]“Listening”, Or: The Rigid And Hateful Blog PostWhen I was a little child, I was taught my prayers, and the Commandments. I was taught about heaven and hell, the serpent and the apple, Noah and the Ark. When I grew up I grow more acquainted with the concept of sin. As temptations came to become a part of my daily life, I already knew what Christianity said about them. Nobody, not as a child or as an adult, ever, taught me to “listen to the Spirit”. The fact is: there is nothing to listen. What there is to do...

America’s Grave Sensus Fidei-less OpinionsIn private conversations, off-the-record interviews, and moments of candor, Catholic journalists have known what German Cardinal Gerhard Müller recently revealed in plain sight when discussing the Synod on Synodality on EWTN’s The World Over television program: Our Lady’s prophecy to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa in her apparition at Akita, Japan, a half-century ago is now an irremovable part of the ecclesial landscape: The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops.Of course, the first half of Mary’s prophesy has been...

Müller: "How Is It Possible That Cardinal Grech Is More Intelligent Than Christ?"The Vatican Synod’s approach of "listening to the individual [homosex] experience and desires" is wrong, Cardinal Müller told EWTN.com (October 6).The Church needs to listen to God’s words, not to "our strange reflections" and a "self-revelation,” Müller said explaining that Church’s doctrine isn’t “like the program of a political party” than can be changed by votes.Commenting on the cheep slogan “all are welcome,” he stressed that one has to confess one's sins and change one’s life according to God’s Commandments to be "welcome" in the Church.The Vatican’s Synod...

Faithful Catholic says Synod artist used ‘false identities’ like ‘queer,’ ‘Muslim’ in graphic to ‘fit skewed agenda’(LifeSiteNews) – A conservative Catholic accused an artist who used him and his friends as models for Vatican Synod on Synodality artwork of labeling the youth with “false identities,” such as “Muslim” and “queer,” to “fit a skewed agenda.”Becky McIntyre, whose controversial artwork for the synod has been featured by the Vatican’s official Secretariat for the Synod Twitter account, created several illustrations that accompany a synod summary report written for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. One of the report’s artworks by McIntyre illustrates the “Demographics”...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Admits: A "DIFFERENT Church" Is Emerging From SynodA "different church" is emerging from the synod process, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Vatican synod, revealed to AmericaMagazine.org (21 September).He had spoken to Francis after the Amazon Synod about married priests, Grech said. Francis replied, "Do you know why I did not accept this proposal? Because I felt that there was no discernment during the synodal assembly."At the time, however, Benedict XVI also intervened and defended celibacy. Asked if Francis' response was "not a rejection", Grech replied, “We need time!"