News Related Reflections on the Synod

Pope Francis has written a letter to four German Catholic laywomen who quit the German Synodal Way earlier this year, expressing deep reservations about the direction of the Catholic Church in Germany, warning that steps currently being taken “threaten” to undermine unity with the universal Church.
 
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Article by Jane Adolphe (Executive Director of ICJF). Are we witnessing the hollowing out of the Catholic Church’s origins, foundation, mission, and liturgy—including the proclamation of the Gospel—for purposes extraneous to the Church?
 
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Members of the International Catholic Jurists Forum reflect on some of the issues that emerged in the meetings or sessions prior to the synod.
 
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ICJF advisor, Pia de Solenni, reflects on how the preparations for the synod could have provided moments where the church could teach while at the same time engaging Catholics’ everyday concerns. But as things stand, many have an unrealistic expectation that the church will change its teaching on hot-button issues as a result of the synod.
 
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Janet E. Smith, ICJF advisor and co-authors (Dr. Deidre Byrne, and Rachel Campos Duffy)  “A Declaration of Catholic Women on ‘Synod of Synodality’  demanding an affirmation of the faith from bishops attending the Synod.”
 
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For notwithstanding the happy-talk propaganda barrage that followed Synod-2023’s solemn closing on October 29, more than a few Synod members experienced October 2023 as a trial.
 
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The ultimate clericalism is to assume the authority to call truth falsehood and falsehood truth—or to claim that good is evil, and evil good. This is in fact the great blasphemy, the great sin against the Holy Spirit which may not be forgiven.
 
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A tribute to Cardinal Geroge Pell and his concerns regarding “the attack on divine Revelation” arising from the Synod of Synodality.
 
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If a blessing is the preparation for a sacrament, for which sacrament are same-sex unions preparing? If blessings are not the preparation for sacraments, then the practice of blessings, one of the spiritual treasures of the Church, has been reduced to a good luck charm – perhaps even a superstitious practice.
 
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In an open letter to Cardinal Dominik Duka, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has strongly criticized the response by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to dubia that the Czech cardinal had submitted, regarding the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia.
 
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Cardinal Burke addresses speakers and participants at a conference given in Rome on the Synod of Synodality.
 
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Who is sitting with whom at the Synod on Synodality, and what topics are they discussing, exactly? The managers of the assembly, which runs through Oct. 29, refuse to say, leaving outsiders in the dark about how the gathering’s small discussion groups are operating.
 
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Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun has criticized some of Pope Francis’ responses to five dubia that he and four other cardinals sent him ahead of the Synod on Synodality, saying among other criticisms that the Pope’s guidance on the blessing of same-sex unions is “pastorally untenable.”
 
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Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, archbishop emeritus of Guadalajara, Mexico, and one of the five signatories of the recent dubia sent to Pope Francis on matters of doctrine and discipline in the Catholic Church, assured that “a synod does not have doctrinal authority … and the danger is that they give it to it.”
 
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It is hard to avoid viewing the Synod as a stalking horse for changing the Church’s moral theology when so many of the prelates that Francis has promoted to high office have said exactly that.
 
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Cardinal Zen’s letter warns of attempts to depart from the traditional ecclesiastical order, suggesting any apparent democratic reorientation is coupled with proposed revolutionary changes in Church constitution and moral teachings on sexuality.
 
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The Synod has been distorted with its opening to non-bishop members. In the new Synodal Church it is the people who instruct the bishops on the meaning of the Faith. This is the liberal project denounced by Newman, with grave danger for souls.
 
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Originally submitted by the archbishop emeritus of Prague on July 13 on behalf of the Czech Bishops’ Conference, the response — signed both by Pope Francis and new doctrine prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández — had been issued to the Czech cardinal on Sept. 25.
 
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Five cardinals have sent a set of questions to Pope Francis to express their concerns and seek clarification on points of doctrine and discipline ahead of this week’s opening of the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican.
 
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Bishop Robert Barron reflects on the Synod of Synodality as he prepares to leave for Rome. In response to the idea that the synod may change Catholic moral teaching, he notes that feelings, however intense, do not in themselves constitute a theological argument.
 
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