Originally published at crisis magazine
Is it any coincidence that the leaders of the Catholic Church discovered in 1962 that the Catholic Church must be more “participatory” and less “clerical”—in other words, more democratic? After 2,000 years the Holy Spirit, we are to believe, came upon Holy Mother Church and decided that it was time for this ancient institution to reflect modern political trends?
We are being told the same thing today, that the Church must continue on the path that she embarked on with the Second Vatican Council and must be more “synodal.” The left wing of the Catholic Church is, to say the least, uncomfortable with the hierarchal structure of the Church. So last century! The “Synod on Synodality” is partly a lame boomer attempt to make Catholicism cool again by chipping away at that outmoded structure. As if we haven’t suffered enough from the guitar band and kumbaya-singing at Mass, we are forced to witness another grave assault on our patrimony.
Cardinal Zen has just warned that, “obviously, the purpose of this conference [the Synod] was to overthrow the hierarchical class of the Church and implement a democratic system.” The general theme of the “Synod on Synodality,” apparently, is how to democratize
