VATICA CITY (LifeSiteNews) –– Prominent American prelate Raymond Cardinal Burke has warned that “synodality” and “synodal” have become “slogans” used as a front to “radically change the Church’s self-understanding, according to a contemporary ideology that denies much of what the Church has always taught and practiced”.
The severe criticism of the current cardinal Synod on synodality it comes in the prologue of a recently published book about the Synod. Written by researchers and theologians José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo de Izcue, the book is entitled “The synodal process is a Pandora’s box.” (Ann on line i downloadable You can find a copy of the book at the links provided, while hard copies can be ordered here)
The book is described by the authors as “a wake-up call” to the “heretical voices within the Catholic Church” who are promoting a “radical agenda” through the Synod on synodality. This agenda, the two authors point out, can be summed up as “distorting doctrine, subverting tradition and dismantling the hierarchical nature of the Church”.
TO READ: Synod’s main document on synodality highlights need to ‘welcome’ polygamists, ‘LGBTQ+ people’
“A plan is underway to reform the Holy Mother Church which, carried to its ultimate consequences, could subvert its very foundations,” wrote Ureta and Loredo. “A maneuver is being made to overthrow the Holy Mother Church by erasing the basic elements of its constitution and organic doctrine, making it unrecognizable.”
Synod slogans that support a ‘revolution’ against the Church
Formed in a catechetical style of 100 questions and answers, the book has received praise and support from Burke. In his foreword to the text, Burke issued a clear warning against the Synod and the “contemporary ideology” it espouses.
The cardinal pointed to Pope Francis’ regular interventions on how the Church must become “synodal”, stating:
We are told that the Church we profess, in communion with our ancestors in the faith since the time of the Apostles, is one, holy, catholic and apostolic, now it must be defined by synodality, a term that does not have history in the doctrine of the Church and for which there is no reasonable definition.
TO READ: Swiss bishop: ‘Synodal’ church is ‘Protestantized’ rejection of Catholic faith
He denounced “synodality” as a front for a “revolution” working to “radically” alter the Catholic Church in accordance with a “contemporary ideology” that rejects much of the Church’s teaching:
Synodality and its adjective, synodal, have become slogans behind which a revolution is opening to radically change the self-understanding of the Church, in accordance with a contemporary ideology that denies much of what the Church he has always taught and practiced. This is not a purely theoretical question, because the ideology has been put into practice in the Church of Germany for some years now, spreading confusion and error and its fruit, division, even the schism, to the grievous harm of many souls.
The damage of Germany’s Synodal Way, Burke wrote, is probably to be found in the Synod on Synodality, since “the same confusion, error, and division will be visited upon the universal Church” and “have already begun.”
Catholics become “marginalized” in the synodal Church
Ureta and Loredo summarized Burke’s themes, noting that faithful Catholics can feel “lost, discouraged, confused, perplexed” because of the enduring persecution of the authorities that rule the Church. They used the words of Scripture, taken from the Psalms: “I have become an outcast to my relatives, a stranger to my mother’s children.” (Psalm 68:9)
But Burke encouraged both the authors and defenders of the Catholic tradition to turn to the “truth of Christ … as it is handed down to us in the immutable and immutable doctrine and discipline of the Church.”
Only this truth, Burke continued, “can effectively address the situation by uncovering the ideology at work, correcting the deadly confusion, error, and division it propagates, and inspiring the members of the Church to undertake the true reformation which is the daily conversion Christ lives for us in the teaching of the Church, its prayer and worship, and its practice of virtues and discipline.”
As such, he praised the authors’ text for presenting the perennial teaching of the Church in the “most troubling current situation of the Church”.
The latest text guiding the upcoming month-long meeting of Synod participants in Rome this October is stands out for its inclusion and the promotion of a series of topics that contradict Catholic teaching. The working paper (instrument worked) proposes a discussion about the diaconal “ordination” of women, married priests and the need to “welcome” the “divorced and remarried, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people”.
Ureta and Loredo argue that the Synod’s use of the term “inclusion” is based on a secular understanding of “providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized.” This would mean that issues such as the priesthood only for men or the reception of Holy Communion only for those in a state of grace would be considered by the Synod’s advocates as excluding women or LGBT people.
A “listening process” until when?
Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, has argued that both the document and the entire Synod are a “listening process”, despite the clear attention paid to the issues on which the Church has already spoken and condemned. .
LifeSiteNews spoke to key personnel to the Synod team earlier this year, asking about how the so-called “listening” phase would deal with issues the Church has already taught very clearly about. Asked about the prominence of LGBT issues in synod documents, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the Synod’s general relator, denied to LifeSite the idea that LGBT issues were a “theme” of the Synod, saying the event is about “synodality”. , and it is not homosexuality, it is not in the ordination of women.”
“It has a very defined theme: synodality, communion, participation and mission,” said the cardinal.
Meanwhile, to Mr. Natalie Becquart, an undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops and the Vatican’s first female member of the Roman Curia with synodal voting rights, was asked how the Synod would ensure that “listening” did not take precedence over Catholic teaching. Becquart replied that the pastors and the Synod itself must focus on “discernment” and listen to the “sensus fidei”. He highlighted a “tension between the truth, the teaching of the Church and mercy”.
She could not answer how the “pastors” would implement Catholic teaching after so much attention to “listening”. Instead, Becquart called for pastors to teach with different cultures and “experiences” in mind which would be a “more pastoral approach.”
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