Paolo Suess on the Amazon Synod

A year on from the #AmazonSynod, liberation theologian Paolo Suess laments that despite “great openness to real reforms,” in the end "traditionalists" prevailed. They “pushed the Pope into a corner,” he says, and accused him of heresies and division
https://t.co/xdyoKAwFFn

— Edward Pentin (@EdwardPentin) October 21, 2020

What Sort of Handle on the Patriarchate?

#PopeFrancis has revealed that that, during the #AmazonSynod, the debate over married priests became too polarised - it is for this reason that he didn’t go forward with the proposal

/1https://t.co/fqMvoIRmMm

— Christopher Lamb (@ctrlamb) September 4, 2020

Recent Synods of the Patriarch of Rome

The “Historic” Amazonian Synod, Revisited by George Weigl

Also published at CWR.

Weigel's purpose is to protect the true legacy of Vatican II and of the popes of Vatican II, and so he compares the Amazon Synod to previous synods called by the patriarch of Rome. We see the same pattern over and over ago, attempts at top-down reform using existing institutional practices, which are mostly bureaucratic in nature. I'll just comment upon a few of these synods that Weigel considers to be more "historic" than the Amazon Synod.

The 1974 Synod on evangelization was a donnybrook, reflecting the turbulence in the Church a decade after the Second Vatican Council. The synod fathers couldn’t agree on a final report, so they handed the synod’s materials to Pope Paul VI with the request that he do something. Pope Paul responded with the great apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (Announcing the Gospel). It was Paul VI’s last pastoral testament to the Church and the first summons to what John Paul II would call the “New Evangelization”: the grand strategy that animates the living parts of the world Church today.

This is the same pope that failed to give any sort of modicum of leadership at a time when papal authority still carried some weight with bishops. This is also the same pope who created the turbulence with a disastrous liturgical reform. A pope who was wrongly canonized for the sake of institutional reasons. How can there be a "evangelization" by Christian peoples who cannot give credible witness with respect to their private lives, non-existent parish lives, and liturgical worship? The bishops failed to focus on the basics; if they had done so, they wouldn't need a document from Paul VI about evangelization.

The 1990 Synod debated priestly formation and seminary reform. The propositions adopted by the synod fathers helped shape John Paul II’s 1992 apostolic exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Shall Give You Shepherds). Where it was taken seriously (as in the United States), that exhortation helped apply the brakes to the silly season in seminaries and laid the foundation for the reformed seminaries of today.

Assuming that seminaries, during a time of contracting local churches and budgets, would remain a viable option for educating future deacons and bishops was a mistake. Weigel's assessment of the current state of American seminaries, like his judgment of many other aspects of the patriarchate of Rome, is excessively positive. How many of these seminaries have implemented a program of scripture study even close to something like Pius X wanted? (What is the typical Latin seminarian's knowledge of Greek and Hebrew like?) How could Latins come to a new appreciation of the fundamental Kerygma without returning to the language of scripture, away from the jargon of neo-scholasticism?

And then there was the special Synod of 1985, which met on the 20th anniversary of Vatican II’s fourth and final session to explore what had gone right, and what had gone not-so-right, in implementing the Council. Its final report’s description of the Church as a communion of disciples in mission provided the thread that wove the 16 documents of Vatican II into a coherent, compelling tapestry of Catholic faith. Like Evangelii Nuntiandi, the special Synod of 1985 was a crucial moment in the journey from Vatican II—the council Pope John XXIII called to give the Church new missionary energy—to the New Evangelization.

Second Extraordinary General Assembly - The Twentieth Anniversary of the Conclusion of the Second Vatican Council (24 November-8 December 1985)

Vatican II remains the paradigmatic example of the use of an ecumenical council Latin synod to try to reform the patriarchate of Rome with respect to its theological outlook. (Even if one were to assume that the Ressourcement approach to theology and liturgy was the correct one, and this Latin traditionalists will still dispute.) It was the wrong instrument to accomplish this task, and could only fail. A Latin could argue that Vatican II was merely following Trent as a council of reform, but the Tridentine fathers had certain reforms in mind, which could be readily ascertained as to whether they were implemented or not. There was no questioning of the Latin ecclesial tradition at that time, but just a clarification of dogma in response to the Protestants (but really a solidification of scholastic theology as dogma), and how to reform the institutions of the Latin churches so that this dogma could be promoted. With respect to Vatican II, in contrast, a renewal of Latin theology and spirituality (which would necessarily involve an integration of the two), by its paradoxical combination of simplicity and complexity, could not simply be legislated into existence. It requires a true paradosis, and churches not acting as institutions but on a humane scale. Knowing the Gospel or Kerygma, witness, and the Christian life -- all touched upon in the synods after Vatican II, which did nothing permanent to arrest the decline of the Latin churches, as the same institutional practices remain in place.

Pope Francis on Tradition

The pope who is "not a theologian" and apparently it shows.

CWR: The Idea of Tradition in Querida Amazonia by Eduardo Echeverria

Pope Francis leaves unspoken the relation of Tradition to the normative Scriptures, the Sacraments and Liturgy, creeds and confessions, councils, the theological exposition of the Church’s dogmas and doctrine, and the magisterium of the Church.

"Ordinary Magisterium"

If the synod is not a real synod but a rigged one, then of what value is it, and of what value is the opinion of the pope on the synod, when he has no infallibility with respect to the judgment of particulars? The defenders of Rome's claims may go as far as to say that the pope's judgment about what is a legitimate synod and what is not falls under his authority and may even be "infallible" but is that true?

Vatican officials: ‘Querida Amazonia’ is magisterium, Amazon synod’s final doc is not

The text of the Post-Apostolic Exhortation.



CWR: Pope Francis’ Amazon exhortation calls for holiness, not married priests
Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis’s much-anticipated post-synodal apostolic exhortation, presents the pope’s “four great dreams” for the Pan-Amazonian region’s ecological preservation and “Amazonian holiness.”

5 things to know about ‘Querida Amazonia’
America Magazine: Five Takeaways

What Will It Say Regarding Clerical Celibacy?

CWR Dispatch: Pope’s exhortation on Amazon synod to come out next week
Sources say something similar to the process for ordaining married Anglican clergy coming into communion with Rome is being suggested in the case of the Amazon.

Genie Back in the Bottle?

Rorate Caeli: Exclusive: Francis “is not opening up” to viri probati and the priesthood for married men

In Anticipation of the Apostolic Letter

Synodality at Work!

Rorate Caeli: Vatican - Bishops, Get Ready: The Amazon Fake-Synod Bomb is Coming Up! (Confidential Letter)

Fake Synodality and Agendas

CWR: The Final Report of the Amazon Synod and the “conversion” of the Church by Thomas R. Ascik
A limited number of bishops from a limited locale of the Church has promulgated the agenda for the “synodal conversion” of the worldwide Church.

Cardinal Ruini Breaks His Silence

Sandro Magister: Cardinal Ruini’s Return to the Field. On the Amazon, Married Priests, Risk of Schism, Alienation from God

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the Amazon Synod

LSN: Abp Viganò: ‘The abomination of idolatrous rites has entered the sanctuary of God’ (Exclusive)

Letters from the Amazon Synod Part 9

I didn't post the last 2 installments as they were primarily Weigel's ruminations on Weigel's favorite topics.

First Things: LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD-2019: #9

First something on liberation theology:

The fact that “the project” is a northern European export has long been clear, although digging deeply into the history of ideas in modern Catholicism is necessary to grasp the point. For over forty years now, the world media’s presentation of liberation theology as an indigenous, populist phenomenon native to Latin America—a bit of fake news amplified by Catholic enthusiasts for “the project”—has done a good job of obscuring who-taught-what-to-whom. The fact of the matter, however, is that virtually nothing in the various Latin American liberation theologies criticized by St. John Paul II at the 1979 Puebla conference of the Latin American episcopate, or rejected in the 1984 Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was native to Latin America. The reading of history, the ecclesiology, the concept of the sacraments and the ministry that shaped most liberation theologies was exported to Latin America from Belgian, French, and German theological faculties through which Hegelian and Marxist winds had blown with considerable force in the late 1960s. Those radical reconsiderations of the nature of the Church, its mission, and its relationship to both the unconverted and to politics—some of it the work of very intelligent but deeply wrongheaded men—was carried home by romantic and passionate young Latin American priests who had studied in those faculties, and who would become bishops in the latter part of the twentieth century. These currents of thought were highly influential in the Brazilian bishops conference in particular.

And he raises a good question, but it may be too late for such an untangling to resort, at least not without drastic changes in the practices of the "institutional" Church.

In several major cities of Latin America, especially the old viceroyal capitals,  the visitor cannot help but notice the proximity of the viceregal palace to the cathedral, usually in a great plaza. Has that historic linkage between Church and state power—whatever its historic accomplishments—become an obstacle to realizing the evangelizing mission of the Church in the twenty-first century, especially when the alliance today is with failed socialist regimes? That certainly ought to have been a topic of discussion in a synod dedicated to “new paths for the Church.” Was it? If so, its echoes outside the Synod Hall were faint.

As usual with regards to the Amazon synod, he overestimates the problem because he cannot see that the patriarchate of Rome is not identical to the Church Universal, but he is probably correct in identifying the difficulties posed by the synod and the current pontificate of Francis, which serve not to undermine the Church but actually Latin claims about the office of the bishop of Rome with respect to the Church Universal.

See also Rod Dreher, The Pachamama Synod Ends and Marco Tosatti

Edit.
Weigel's essay was also republished at EPPC.

More on the Pachamama Cover-Up

CWR Dispatch: Analysis: Why ‘Pachamama’ took a dip by JD Flynn

Can We Say "Rigged" Yet?

CNA: Amazon synod document calls for married priests and increased role for women
In his remarks in the synod hall on Saturday, Francis said that he hoped to issue an exhortation before the end of the year, time permitting.

(CWR)

World Over - 2019-10-24 - Cardinal Gerhard Müller with Raymond Arroyo

full episode

"Synodality"

Sandro Magister: The Conclusions of the Synod For the Amazon Were Already In the Pope’s Mind Five Years Ago

Trolled

CNA: Amazon synod’s controversial carved figures thrown into Tiber River

What's Really Happening in the Amazon?

“Dis-evangelized” Amazon. The Numbers of a Catholic Church Reduced By Half
At the Synod, a Climate Expert Speaks. Sure Predictions: Married Priests and a Female Ministry

Letters from the Amazon Synod Part 6

First Things: Letters From the Synod-2019: #6 by Xavier Rynne II

The conversation at Synod-2019 drinks more deeply from the wells of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Margaret Mead than from the living waters of biblical revelation.