In what would be some of his last words, Cardinal George Pell warned Pope Francis and the Catholic Synod of Bishops shortly before he died that its current revisions about synodality – the mission of the Church – were a toxic nightmare couched in Neo-Marxist jargon and that the process being undertaken was liable to manipulation.
Unfortunately, his sudden death prevented this issue from being debated further. You now have the opportunity have a debate on this topic, if you wish. An article outlining Cardinal Pell’s views is in the documents section under Theology category.
Postscript
Cardinal Pell’s actual article and the Vatican booklet he was criticising can now be found in “DOCUMENTS” under the THEOLOGY CATEGORY.
5 Responses
Synodality is currently the big issue in most dioceses, at the moment. Cardinal Pell was a major player in the Church, internationally. Whether he is right or wrong in his views. his views should be seriously considered by everyone and a debate should be taking place. Synodality is something entirely new to the Church. It is being implemented without any serious debate. This makes not sense. Cardinal Pell has suggested major flaws in the concept, but – No debate!?
Where are our theologians.
There has been a “Big Silence” in the Chruch for many years now. It is time that the silence was broken.
Where can I find the actual article by Cardinal Pell?
Our Late Cardinal Pell was a bold voice towards the end of his life. In recent times most of us live in fear of recrimination if we speak out. Those who do tend to lose their jobs.
The real question for the church today is why are the churches near empty and why do the young people who are educated in a catholic school fail to adhere to their religion or attend church.
As a person educated pre-Vatican 2 (before 1964), I attended church regularly and tried my best to be a Christian. In the first instance I was astounded at some of the new post-Vatican 2 rulings which had previously told us that we would be excommunicated if we did not follow the rule, but now it was OK. But I carried on.
The churches were full pre-Vatican 2. Lay people were appointed as ushers so that the empty parts of the pews at the front of the church could be used to seat the people standing up the back. If you arrived on Sunday 5 minutes late, you could not easily get into the church due to the crowd spilling out the doors. Now large numbers of pews are fully empty.
My children attended a catholic primary school and have told me that they only received one or two religion lessons each year! Did I waste my money sending them there?
Although I do not suggest that we now return to the pre-Vatican 2 processes of the church, I think that we should look at what the changes that followed it have done to turn parishioners away and to take action which will reverse and correct this. I won’t make a list of them here, but listening to the comments coming from the pulpit on Sundays, the local priests do not seem to have any understanding as to why the churches are empty and promote side issues as to the possible ,cause.
Our catholic leadership, the same leadership that gave us Vatican 2, are now proposing further changes along the same line to bring the church up to date. From reports I have heard, unpopular views are not included in the report of the discernment. So much for the churches admonition to listen to others. Instead the idea seems to be to induce the zeitgeist (ie the spirit of the time, a popular theme in secular world at this time). That is do the things that seem to be popular at this time.
These popular new processes include things such as climate change (the secular community seem to be handling this well without our help), blessing gay couples (which at least brings us closer to re-unification with the C of E) and ecumenism, whose original intention was to bring us closer towards the eastern churches and the C of E. Instead it has driven us away from the eastern churches, whose belief are so close to ours, and towards Islam (as exemplified by the construction of the Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith complex in Abu Dhabi holding “churches” for various faiths including catholic). Our catholic faith can never bring us into a common international religion which honours all faith beliefs.
At stations of the cross in Easter 2023, the priest told us at one of the stations that the earth was suffering from climate change as much as Jesus suffered of the road to Calvary (I don’t think so). And where in the bible is climate change mentioned?
When the outcome of this latest synod process comes out, I believe that it will necessitate me to leave this church and follow an eastern church such as Greek Orthodox which has remained more faithful to the teachings of Jesus, the bible and the apostles.
Let someone make a list of the things that have gone wrong since V2, and the reasons which caused them to change. Implementing the zeitgeist will do nothing to correct the mistakes that we have made so far and will lead to us making further error. Just stay close to the teachings of Jesus and we will be alright. After 2000 years of working things out, a new modern approach is not needed.
Synod Sceptic
The coming Synod is based on the Plenary Council. it was not a success from the point of view of the laity. It promised much, but delivered very little.
We did not see the reports which were written about our meetings. Transparency was missing. There were no clear results apparent.