It is more than likely that the Catholic Church’s Synod in Rome – called by Pope Francis and set to take place in October – is going to end badly. It seems set to cause yet more division, more rancour and more bad press.
You only have to look at the document sent in by the Church in Ireland – a synthesis of 26 diocesan reports seeking “reforms” – to know that the Synod will not end well. What “the national synthesis” really demanded was to change the Church so that it looked more like what the directors of a box-ticking Netflix programme wanted than something which would suit the modern Church.
I have a feeling that the Irish document is bad news because it was “hailed” by former Irish President Mary McAleese as “explosive, life-altering, dogma-altering, Church-altering.” It certainly was – but not for the better. Liberals would like to bin all the rules concerning divorce, teachings on same-sex relations, and not having women priests or allowing priests to marry. You can sense that people like McAleese are not going to take no for an answer.
Much of the media, of course, couches all this is terms of wanting the Church to be more inclusive, yet the Catholic Church has always been inclusive. If you are same-sex attracted, or divorced and remarried – or, indeed, a woman – you are more than welcome to attend Mass. If you are a Catholic you can receive Communion if you are not in a state of sin and do not intend to walk out the door and carry on that sin—just like everyone else. What the Church will not do is endorse or encourage sinful behaviour, and you cannot expect the Church to change for your convenience.
The liberal bias of the synodal reports has been noted. As the Bishop of Waterford & Lismore, Alphonsus Cullinan, said: “from my own interaction with some ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional believers’ it was clear that many did not engage with the synodal process at a parish level”.
Posting on his diocesan website, he continued: “It would be interesting to research why this was so. Is it because they themselves feel marginalised? Or because they felt that Church teaching cannot be changed and that there was no need for this synodal process and that little fruit would ensue? Or perhaps they felt they simply had better things to do with their time?”
We have been down this road before. Many Protestant churches have gone liberal and their numbers continue to decline. If you want to see a church full of young children, then head to the Latin Mass. GK Chesterton once said that “a Catholic is a person who has plucked up the courage to face the incredible idea that something else may be wiser than he is.”
I was born and raised in Ireland and know first-hand the fallout from the dreadful child-abuse scandals which rocked the Church there. The power and influence that the Church had was too great and was ripe to be corrupted, and it was corrupted in the most evil manner imaginable. However, that does not mean the teachings should be changed in a desperate attempt to win back believers.
The cultural power of the Church lives on. The way to win back Catholics is certainly to be welcoming and inclusive, but it is not to water down fundamental teachings. This is an attack on Truth itself, an attack on the faithful who have tried to live by the Faith, and an attack on the wayward by risking their souls in telling them that their sinful behaviour is unproblematic. Sacrificing the teachings of the Church will not win you back numbers – we can see that in the liberal Protestant churches that continue to decline.
It would be a disaster to pretend that truth can be changed on a whim to satisfy those who, in reality, will likely never be truly satisfied.
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