At long last, after a three year run, the conciliar circus known as the Synod on Synodality has come to an unceremonious close with the publication of its Final Document, “For a Synodal Church.”
And we should care, why?
Yeah, I get it.
From 2013 to present, the shenanigans of the Bergoglian regime have increasingly taken on the appearance of a poorly performed Saturday Night Live skit. For many Catholics with eyes to see, the clown show in Rome has become tiresome and, frankly, boring. Even the name, Synod on Synodality, is like a joke that wrote itself, a laughable tautology that fittingly represents all that the church-of-man has to offer.
Even so, I spent way more time exploring, highlighting, and examining “For a Synodal Church” than I’m prepared to admit publicly.
At first, my motive for doing so was to, God willing, bring some clarity to persons of good will who as yet do not have eyes to see the conciliar church and the man at its head for what they truly are. As it is, however, my examination of the Final Document ended up requiring more effort than I had ever imagined it would.
Along the way, my view of the Synodal program and its relevance to faithful Catholics has changed. Initially, I largely dismissed it as a blundering bureaucratic effort on the part of conciliar churchmen laboring to make their dying institution and its vapid theology seem more relevant than it actually is.
Now, however, I recognize the synodality movement as a potentially critical chapter in the whole of salvation history. Perhaps, dear reader, if you choose to devote the considerable time necessary to follow this lengthy essay to its conclusion, your opinion of synodality will also change.
The first thing to know about the Final Document is that Francis left no room for confusion as to his intent with respect to the text.
In a Note issued to accompany its publication, he wrote:
The Final Document will form part of the ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter (cf. EC 18 § 1; CCC 892), and as such I ask that it be accepted. It represents a form of exercise of the authentic teaching of the Bishop of Rome…
NB: For those who, in good faith, look to Francis as Holy Father, this removes all justification for downplaying the gravity of the document, or dismissing it as being something less than magisterial. In citing CCC 892, Francis is making it perfectly clear that, as papal magisterium, the faithful are to adhere to this text “with religious assent.”
[NOTE: Novus Ordo Watch provides an in-depth treatment of religious assent HERE.]
This requirement rests upon the belief that “Divine assistance is given to the Successors of the Apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter,” even when doing so in a non-infallible manner. (cf CCC 892)
The Final Document itself is at pains to make certain that the text is viewed as a product of Divine assistance, so much so that it paints Francis as a Christlike figure in his calling of the Synod:
Lake Tiberias is where it all began. Peter, Andrew, James and John had left the boat and the nets to follow Jesus … The synodal journey also began like this: we heard the invitation of Peter’s successor, and we accepted it; we set out with him and followed his lead.
Based upon Bergoglio’s innumerable faithless words and deeds, even the most committed of his supporters cannot help but shudder at the comparison.
In reviewing the Final Document, one will find a number of recurring themes offered in service to something far greater (to be identified later). Among the minor themes that stood out the most to me include conversion, mission, and evangelization, each one well and truly entangled with the others, while none are ever clearly defined.
Despite the ambiguity, one thing is entirely certain: When the Synod speaks of conversion, mission, and evangelization, it does not mean to do so according to the traditional understanding of what these words mean. This was to be expected: As Pope St. Pius X warned, the modernists “change the meaning of words and things.”
For example, when the Synod urges the work of “conversion,” it’s not talking about calling to conversion those outside the Church, urging them to enter her, such as took place on the day of Pentecost when the Apostles evangelized the Jews, a prime example of the Church carrying out her God-given mission. Rather, the Synodal version concerns the idea that it is the Catholic Church herself that stands in desperate need of evangelization and conversion.
This understanding of conversion, in fact, is the mission.
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