While addressing a South American youth gathering in 2015, Pope Francis defined his pontificate when he told them to go out and “make a mess.” And a mess is what he has emanating from the Vatican.

Enter the Synod on Synodality, where barrels of ink have been spilled leading up to its initiation, now underway in the Eternal City.  And if the recycle dumpster is to be believed, much that has been written on the synod has been deposited unopened. 

Many baptized Catholics have no idea what a synod is nor do they even care.

The Vatican’s Instrumentum Laboris is a working document for the Synod.  At 27,000 words, it lives up to its Latin root, as it is a laborious and penitential read, with its fair share of sociological and bureaucratic bloviation.  Terms like “inclusivity, accompaniment, listening, the marginalized, LGBTQ, and journey together” litter the document.  It says nothing about the Church’s mission: the salvation of souls and very little about sin, repentance, redemption, judgment, Heaven, Hell, and yes — Jesus Christ.

The political and social have superseded the moral and divine.

The growing progressive wing of the Church’s episcopate views the synod as a de facto Vatican III, where the opportunity to implement heretical changes presents itself in distorting doctrine and subverting tradition while questioning the magisterium.    

Included but not exclusive are the blasphemous unbiblical blessings of gay unions, unrestricted lay preaching, the ordination of women, canceling priestly celibacy, weightier decision-making by the “People of God,” and the integration of pagan rituals.  Listening to “voices from the peripheries” is just another wave in the secular tide to Gehenna.

It was nearly a century ago that Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton prophetically wrote, “The next great heresy will be an attack on morality, especially sexual morality.”  Doctrines that oppose debauched sexual mores and radical feminism are argued as antiquated that stem from an uncompromising past.

Naturally, any contested doctrine will be scrutinized and found wanting and therefore must be changed.  Anyone who opposes such synodal enlightenment are to be condemned and ostracized as being intolerant and uncharitable.  

Divinely revealed doctrines that run counter to the modern ethos are all the rage.  A favorite one is that eternal salvation for all is guaranteed.  God is too loving to condemn anyone to Hell.  Jesus should not be taken literally when he speaks about souls being punished eternally.  One of the most telling quotes in all of Scripture is Matthew 26:24, when Jesus addresses the fate of Judas, who is arguably the most tragic person in the Gospels: “It would have been better for him had he never been born.”

The Church is obviously not paying attention to what is occurring within mainline Protestant congregations.  Timeless truths are dismissed in favor of modern untruths, fashioned in the chaos of social and political preferences — turning humankind into God.

The Church is not a democracy.  Truth is the obstacle in uniting humankind in fraternity, understanding, and of course climate sustainability.  The only sin is to be too traditional and orthodox.  The faithful have a moral obligation to resist such sophistry, confusion, and heresy. It was Bishop Fulton Sheen who said the laity will save the church.

It seems Pope Benedict XVI’s prophecy of the Church going back to the catacombs and becoming a remnant is happening in real time.  The “smoke of Satan” that Pope Paul VI wrote about has now turned into a raging wildfire.

The New Testament predicts that before the Second Coming, there will be a great falling away from the faith (2 Thess. 2:3a) and how the city of Rome in the final century will be a lot how like it was in the first century.

American cardinal Raymond Burke wrote the synod is “a revolution at work to change radically the Church’s self-understanding, in accord with a contemporary ideology which denies much of what the Church has always taught and practiced.”

Pope Francis will talk up potential changes in his ambiguous fashion, leaving in its wake continued confusion and division. 

As the hurricane of apostasy and heresy spins about this synodal mess, our Lord’s promise that “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church” reigns supreme and is hope personified.

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