LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD - 2023: #1

Edited by Xavier Rynne II

One of the most important tasks of Synod-2023 will be the clarification of its own specific character and authority—and just what is meant by “synodality.” Continue Reading »

2 Oct 2023

The Fatal Message of Synodal Activism

by Martin Grichting

What is currently being pursued under the name of “synodality” represents the continuation of the Tridentine hierarchy-centered understanding of the Church. Such immobilism risks making Christianity irrelevant. Continue Reading »

7 Aug 2023

Synodality and the Spirit of Truth

by Michael Hanby

“Facts and great personages in world history occur, as it were, twice . . . the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” The Synod on Synodality seems destined to confirm Marx’s words (themselves a revision of Hegel). The tragedy arises from the deep theological and philosophical division . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2023

What Henri de Lubac Would Think of the Synod on Synodality

by Robert P. Imbelli

De Lubac warned of the danger of transforming the search for the kingdom of God into a search for secular social utopias. The participants of the ongoing Synod on Synodality could learn from his Christocentric vision of the Church. Continue Reading »

28 Jul 2023

Synodality and Sanctity

by George Weigel

If October’s Synod on Synodality is going to contribute to the evangelization of a world sorely in need of holiness, then the Synod is going to have to take the saints far more seriously than its Working Document does. Continue Reading »

19 Jul 2023

The “Synodal Process”: Talking a New Church into Being?

by George Weigel

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., Synod-2023’s relator general, said that the Synod’s purpose was not changing Catholic teaching but “listening.” To which one must ask, “listening to what end”? Continue Reading »

12 Jul 2023

Synod 2023: Reversing Vatican II?

by George Weigel

The Synodal Assembly in October will have to rescue the Synod from its Working Document. This has been done before, and it can and should be done again, in fidelity to the spirit and letter of Vatican II.  Continue Reading »

5 Jul 2023

Walking the Synodal Way . . . Off a Cliff

by Raymond J. de Souza

The Instrumentum Laboris is laborious indeed. Whether all that labor will be an instrument for anything other than more labor remains to be seen. Continue Reading »

29 Jun 2023

A Laborious, and Vacuous, Instrument

by George Weigel

There is much in the Church in need of renewal and reform. The Working Document for the Synod on Synodality does not advance that cause. Continue Reading »

28 Jun 2023