While we were busy with our conference, the Synod continued, and continues still. What is capturing a lot of attention now is the Holy Father’s speech on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s institution of the Synod of Bishops. In it, Pope Francis speaks of a more “synodal” Church that will be, according to Edward Pentin’s summary, “a more collegial, decentralized and ‘listening’ Church.”
The progressivists consider this a victory.
It is a fair question to ask whether those listened to in this process will include laymen like the American, Ross Douthat, and the Englishman, Damian Thompson, who probably have many members of the ecclesia discens agreeing with them. And will it include clerics like the Anglican Ordinariate priest, Father John Hunwicke, who seems unimpressed with the liberal talk of Archbishop Cupich related to the business of the present Synod?
Time will tell. Meanwhile, as many of our conference speakers reiterated in different ways, those making headlines in the Church today, those trying to alter her traditional teaching through a “pastoral” back-door, are powerless to prevent us from being as Catholic as we want to be.
The work of conversion — and the work of living the Catholic life, which is an ongoing conversion — is the work of grace. The Mediatrix of All Grace is more powerful than the purveyors of ecclesiastical novelty, who will come and go while the Cross stands still.
