Guest
Timothy Flanders is the Editor-in-Chief of OnePeterFive.
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• Crusade of Eucharistic Reparation
Transcript
Eric Sammons:
The final session of the years-long Synod on Synodality just ended. What did it ultimately accomplish? That’s what we’re going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Well, I’m Eric Sammons, your host, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. Before we get started, I just want to encourage people to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel. Don’t bother hitting the notify button because you have a life outside the internet.
Also, you can subscribe to our email newsletter. Go to crisismagazine.com for your email address, and we will send your articles, our news articles every day, usually about two articles a day. That’s the best way to keep up with us.
Okay. So, today, we have Timothy Flanders coming back. He’s editor-in-chief of OnePeterFive, our sister publication. Also, I would encourage you to subscribe to the OnePeterFive YouTube channel, to subscribe to the email newsletter for OnePeterFive. Find out about what’s going on there. He is doing great work over there.
But I thought I’d bring Tim on because we’re going to talk about the Synod on Synodality. But before we do that, I just want to note that literally two minutes ago before we went on air, we found out that we’re both Star Trek fans. We bonded over it, and so now this is great. But yes, that’s how we found out. He has a Picard Riker 2024 mug. Ask if I got the joke, and of course I did because I’m also a Star Trek nerd.
Timothy Flanders:
This also expresses our common political cynicism basically of-
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. That’s right.
Timothy Flanders:
… deep fake and I think you are more of a Trumper than I am. I’m going to vote for Trump reluctantly. I don’t like Trump. I think he’s a disaster, but what can you do in Michigan? It’s so funny. Anyways, moving on to Synodality. Let accompany each other and-
Eric Sammons:
Yes. So, we’re going to accompany each other Synodality. So, the Synod on Synodality has been going on since 2021, I believe is when they first started the whole process. And we’ve had two major sessions and the second one, well, one last year and one this year, and last one just ended last week. So, I wanted to go over it. But first before we do, why don’t you give us a recap of just what the Synod on Synodality proposed to do and what were the hopes and dreams of the progressives and the fears of conservative and traditional Catholics about the Synodality, when it got started and over the past few years?
Timothy Flanders:
Sure. One, I think that the easiest way to do this is to say that this is just a continuation. We can just talk more about this later, but a continuation of the general tactics of liberalism or communism, i.e. mob violence, which is basically just stirring up the mob to try to put pressure on authorities to change doctrine or whatever. And this is what they’ve been doing since Vatican I. They did it at Vatican I. They did it even more at Vatican II because they had more media and now, they’ve got even more media and they try to agitate for change. And this is what the so-called progressives. They’ve been pushing for this.
And then unfortunately, many good guys, I would call John Paul II Ratzinger, good guys. They’re on the good side. They care about the tradition at least. They had just been either naive about these agitators or they’ve been soft on them.
And so, this is just another continuation of that. Under this pontificate, all these agitators came out of the woodwork as it were. And so, there’s been so much controversy about the synod since way back in
Amoris Laeitita in 2014, 2015. And the same process has been going on, the same tactic. This is like 1776. This is like we know with how this tactic works, but unfortunately, people still talk like it’s not happening.
So, the tactic has been there and now the whole concept, the whole subject matter is basically Synodality, but what they mean by that is this whole tactic of doing things. It’s like we’re just going to democratize the church. We’re going to create it so that if we just create a bunch of voters, majority of vote, we can change Coke into Pepsi, black into white and women into priests. That’s one of the main goals here.
So, in other words, it’s just volunteerism. It’s against truth itself. It’s against tradition. So, that’s been the progressives aims and obviously traditionalist conservatives, they’ve increasingly been concerned under this pontificate for this whole process, which has been going on more and more and more and more since the first Synods. So, that’s the long and short of it.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. Actually, that’s great. What I feel like it’s almost like the point is the agitation, as much as it is the changing of doctrine. I mean we always focus as conservative, Orthodox, traditional Catholic, whatever you want to call us, we focus a lot on doctrine as we should and the potential change doctrine like women deacons, women priests, LGBT acceptance, whatever, but it almost seems like the purpose is the agitation. And I guess the ultimate goal is the changing of doctrine, all that, but the agitation itself accomplishes goals of the progressive, does it not?
Timothy Flanders:
I wrote in my book, City of God vs. City of Man, that the fundamental presupposition of Liberalism, i.e., and when I say liberalism, I’m talking about 1776, 1789 American and French revolutions, that liberalism, is that human dignity is power. If you do not have power, you have no human dignity. Therefore, we hold these truths to be self-evident.
If we don’t vote, we don’t have human dignity. And therefore women, if they don’t have power, they don’t have human dignity, feminine dignity. So, they want power. So, it becomes a power struggle between the sexes, a power struggle between the classes in Marxism, a power struggle between the voters and the president and it’s just all about power. We’re just fighting with each other, which is totally unchristian. The Christian model is the family, the father and the mother and the children, and it’s a harmony of hierarchy.
And so, yes, I would agree that the agitation is the point because they’re trying to express their human dignity under this false presupposition of liberalism. Whereas the Christian model is the father, the hierarchy, he who is as our lord said, he who is the greatest is the servant of all.
So, there’s no threat to hierarchy. The father’s not a tyrant over his family because he’s the patriarch. No, he has to lay down his life and shed his blood for his bride and his children. He has to die for them as Christ did. That’s the model, which is based on love and service. But we must admit that there are tyrants out there who have given patriarchy or episcopacy a bad name. There’s bad popes and whatnot, and that’s the whole reason this liberal agitation gets any credibility. The only reason communism got any credibility is because the poor will be in a press.
Speaking of which, I want to just emphasize here as an important aside here, the comments by Bishop Snyder, where he talks about Synodality and he said he was involved in some synod meeting in Kazakhstan. Let’s just read a few sentences here from him. He said he was involved in such a meeting in Asia that he was roped into. He didn’t want to be a part of this. He said, “The meeting costs $250,000 from church funds.”
Imagine. Basically, it was $250,000 thrown to the wind, and he says, “They created a huge document nobody’s going to read.” He said, “We got to chop this document in half and still nobody’s going to read it. We had minimal time for prayer. Is this the Church of the poor? If we could reduce drastically the frequency of these meetings, we could give millions of dollars every year to the poor around the world. To me, this is a sin that churchmen are committing today.”
And we have the new Rupnik controversy, the Principi case, which is purported to be worse than Rupnik. We have all sorts of financial and sexual and moral scandals going on with the Vatican bank and all sorts of problems with money. And they want to spend who knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent to bring all these people to Rome away from their diocese, away from their flocks, away from all the concerns that they should be caring about to produce some massive long document that nobody’s going to read.
This is a very, very serious concern. We have refugees, serious problems in the Middle East. We have wars. We have poor. There’s so many more resources that this could have been devoted to. So, that’s I think number one considerations is the money that goes into these things. So, that’s one important aside I wanted to make.
Eric Sammons:
I was going to say, I was reading the biography of Ratzinger, Joseph Ratzinger, and it was amazing when he was a priest in Germany in the ’70s, and I think this might have been when he became bishop, there was a synod because this whole synod mechanism, I want to explain for a second the history of synods, but the whole mechanism of synods as the modern mechanism of synods came up in the ’60s and they were doing one in Germany, and it was the same type of thing here where it was mostly just the agitators wanting to get women priests, things like that.
And Joseph Ratzinger, I think it was a priest. Now, I can’t remember if he was a priest or a bishop of time, basically he was trying to get roped into, he is like, “No, I don’t want nothing to do with this.” And he basically said what you just said, which was this is completely distant from the actual needs of the people in the pews of the world, of the concerns, and we’re just wasting our time and resources, and it’s just people getting up there and spouting off producing documents that nobody reads.
And so, I was just like, wow. I mean, he condemned it. He saw it immediately for what it was back in the ’70s. And of course, it continues to be the way forward. Now, I will say, I just want to make this as a quick aside, just for people who are maybe getting a little technical. Yes, there have always been synods in the church. Synods of bishops are a good thing in the sense of they were done in the early church, stuff like that.
If a group of bishops, a geographical, for example, if the American bishops wanted to gather at a monastery in Oklahoma and pray, fast together and then maybe discuss some pressing issue for American Catholics, for example, the fact that nobody’s going to mass anymore, something like that, there’s nothing wrong with that. Actually, that would be a good thing if they did that.
Timothy Flanders:
Yeah. Council of Baltimore, Baltimore Catechism.
Eric Sammons:
Right. Yeah, right. Yeah. Exactly. Council of Baltimore. So, these things are not in and of itself, and that’s actually though again, that’s what the liberals use when you criticize Synodality or synods are like, oh, my gosh, you’re going against … Early church had synods, and we’ve always had synods like, yes, but they’ve been transformed into something different.
This four synod of bishops in Rome University, because synods typically were localized. They were local bishops in a region that were dealing subsidiarity. They were dealing with the local issues because the issues of American Catholics are not the same as the issues of maybe Nigerian Catholics.
And so, the Nigerian Catholics getting together and talking about how do we bring people to Christ great? Same with American bishops. But again, I don’t know about you, but the conference of the USCCB always meeting in these hotel conference rooms, it drives me crazy because I mean, just the optics are bad.
But I also think, it’s like a bunch of bishops in hotel rooms with their TVs and everything. I mean, I’m sure some of the bishops are being holy and praying and stuff like that and whatever, but the point is is it does not lend towards it. Whereas if they met at some monastery somewhere, I’m sure there’s plenty of them that have plenty of space these days, where they could actually be praying the hours all day and spending most of their day in prayer, and then they come together to talk about issues. That’s something completely different than what’s been going on in Rome.
Timothy Flanders:
Yes. We need to make a few very important things and say that there is one divine institution of the church, and that’s the office of the bishop. That is the divine institution. Everything else that’s been instituted is instituted by humans with the authority of the church. Yes, but that’s the divine institution. The Bishop of Rome obviously has the headship over all the other bishops, and he can organize them and do as he likes. But the bishops conferences are not a divine institution. As far as I’m concerned, a bishop can just refuse to be a part of any sort of bishop conferences if he doesn’t want to.
But an important thing that you’re trying to make this distinction between the false Greek resource amount of the neo-modernists, because this is what heretics always do, this is what Martin Luther did, John Calvin, they’re like, “Oh, we’re going back to the early church.” Take a look at this. They find some true thing that’s somewhat abstractly related to their errors in the early church, and they use that to justify whatever they want to in the present. That’s the tactic of the heretics for centuries. We know that tactic.
What they’re doing now is they’re doing this false Greek ressourcement to try to impose a false Synodality, which we need to oppose that to the true Greek ressourcement, which is a very good thing. We do want more Greek wisdom and more of the traditions of the east, that much of it has been obscured or lost for various reasons.
And I want to highlight a very important synod that was a huge success after Vatican II, which is very little talked about, which is very sad, which is the synod of Krakow under Karol Wojtyła, Karol Wojtyła, future John Paul II. He left Vatican II, and this is actually a successful implementation of Vatican II. I don’t know where else in the world maybe it was successful, but it was definitely successful in Krakow.
What he did was he had his own diocesan seated where he said, “Let’s all come together. Let’s read through all the documents of Vatican II. Let’s pray. Let’s fast. Let’s go to the mass together.” And then he produced his own book, it’s called Sources of Renewal. This was Wojtyła’s book that he wrote for his diocese to implement everything into his context. And this is part of the critical anti-communist movement that Wojtyła was at the head of in Poland and Eastern Europe.
And so, he was applying Vatican II in an anti-communist way, basically in a very good way. We’re talking about freedom and human dignity in the context of Soviet domination. It’s a lot different message when we talk about freedom and human dignity in 1973, Roe versus Wade situation in the western. It’s a totally different ball game here.
So, that’s I think a good model for the modern world, where a bishop can govern his flock. He doesn’t have to ask permission from Rome. He can call his own synod. He can get the people together. He said, “Let’s go. Let’s take on the world. Let’s evangelize.” Something like that. But bishops don’t know how to do that because they’re constantly looking to Rome because they think the Rome is their CEO, and they’re just vicars of the Roman pontiff, and they’re not vicars of the Roman pontiff. And that’s what Lumen Gentium 27 says. You’re not vicars of the Roman pontiff. But many bishops still think they’re vicars of the Roman pontiff, unfortunately. And they can’t take the initiative like Karol Wojtyła did.
Eric Sammons:
Or they just think they’re part of the USCCB here in America. I mean you see that where they feel like they have to be part of that. They can’t go against their fellow bishops in any real way, and they have to go along with whatever USCCB says. I mean, there’s be nothing wrong-
Timothy Flanders:
Yeah, but perhaps they’re struggling, right.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, unfortunately. But here in Ohio, for example, the Ohio bishops could get together. I mean the funny thing is people don’t recognize this, but there is actually a hierarchy within the hierarchy of, for example, there’s metropolitan seas which aren’t really talked about or used much in the Roman Catholic Church, but for example, in Ohio, the archbishop of Cincinnati is actually over in a certain sense the other bishops in Ohio now. Each bishop is over his diocese completely in a real way.
But the point is, for example, the archbishop of Cincinnati could say, “Hey, Ohio bishops, let’s get together.” Not for just a little meeting. I’m sure they have meetings of Ohio conference of Bishops on Zoom or whatever, but for prayer fasting, and let’s talk about what are the needs of Ohio Catholics.
And the funny thing is it would actually be a fulfillment of what you often hear they talk about with the Synod on Synodality of the people actually at the localized level living out is Communio church, which I’m going to talk about here in a second with Bishop Barron.
But yeah, so I think we need to be clear about, because some people will do the … Well actually, synods have always been around. Yes, but this is completely different. So, this leads me though, this is a clip, Bishop Barron, actually Robert Barron, I think everybody knows who he is. He was at the synod. He was one of the American appointees bishops who went. And obviously, in comparison to a lot of the appointees we hear, he leans much better.
And I’m not doing this video of him to pick on Bishop Barron, but at the same time, I do think it evidence some tone deafness. And actually, let me just play it a little bit and then we’ll talk about what he said because he’s talking about the whole point of Synodality and what does it mean. So, here we go.
Bishop Barron (video):
Hey, everybody. I’m here on the roof of the North American College where I’m staying. We just finished week one of the Synod on Synodality. I mentioned how much they work us. I mean, we go all week Monday through Saturday. So, today is Saturday evening. We just finished our work.
The main thing we’re doing is we’re looking at the Instrumentum Laboris. We’re looking at it in our small groups, and then we hear from everyone that wants to speak in the large group. Today, our table refined our contribution. So, it’s our analysis of this first section, what we think is really good, what’s problematic, et cetera. So, that was the work of the week.
And then with each module, each section, we’ll do basically the same thing, finally producing at the end of a document that speaks the mind of the synod. I want to say just one simple thing, and I don’t think I’m giving away any great secrets from the synod, but one of the issues that we’ve talked about, I know it’s been on the mind of a lot of people, is well, what do you mean by Synodality? The Synodality mean church becomes a democracy. We base our doctrines and practices on the consensus of the baptized. I know people have expressed concerns to me about that.
Well, I’m pleased to tell you that this issue came up very directly in the conversations, and what emerged to me really clearly is that the delegates of the synod fully understand Synodality does not mean some democratization of the church. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to put our doctrines up for a vote. We’ve insisted that Synodality, and this way I put it actually in our small group was Synodality is the practical expression of the communio Ecclesiology that comes up out of Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, and out of the papal magisterium of the post conciliar period.
Now, what am I talking about? Well, go back to Lumen Gentium, go back to the Vatican II. And you see this great idea of the church not so much as institution primarily, but as communio, it’s communion, mystical body if you want to use older language. And that communio is grounded in the communio of the trinitarian persons and the church is the means by which the whole world is to be drawn into the communio of those divine persons. Think of, I don’t even see it behind me there, but the colonnade that comes out from St. Peters like two great arms gathering in the world, that’s communio ecclesiology if you want.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. That’s enough of Bishop Barron, I have thoughts, but I sent you this yesterday. I wanted to get your reaction of how Bishop Barron describes Synodality and how he expresses it.
Timothy Flanders:
Well, first, I want to give His Excellency, Bishop Barron, a lot of credit because he’s doing probably a thousand times more than most bishops to evangelize. And I’m sure many, many souls have been brought to the church by his work. So, we thank you, your excellency for this. So, with all due respect, I’m not trying to criticize you or anything.
But I am concerned by what archbishop … In fact, at Vatican II, he suggested that they should make two documents, they should make the theologians documents and then documents for the laypeople. Because this language is so complicated and so mystical that it’s so difficult for the average layperson to even understand what’s being said, talking about communio. Maybe an easier way to say this would be that the church is not a building, it’s the people in the mystical body of Christ is the persons. Perhaps you could say that, but it’s a difficult concept, I think.
And so, that’s one concern. And if you start with that, you can lend yourself to that democratization nevertheless, because there’s no safeguard against that. But I like the fact that he’s saying that this is the same thing as the mystic body of Christ doctrine. He’s trying to equate them, which is good. That’s like continuity here, but we’re trying to attempt here.
On the other hand, I do want to say very strongly that there is a very traditional aspect to the ecclesiology of Vatican II, which is eucharistic ecclesiology, meaning that the church, the Catholic Church refers to the bishop celebrating his Eucharist with his people with his flock. That’s the Catholic Church, full stop. And then he is in communion with other bishops who also form the Catholic Church in Cincinnati, the Catholic Church in Michigan, the Catholic Church here in each diocese. So, the diocese itself is the Catholic Church, the wholeness, and then that is in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
So, that doctrine restores subsidiarity, it restores a traditional, the office of Bishop, the Divine, not these bishops conference everything that’s up here. So, that is a very powerful concept. It also helps with a true ecumenism with the east.
So, that’s a very, very important aspect that is not well discussed. That’s also, by the way, why I would consider the SSPX not to be in schism is because of the ecclesiology of Vatican II, which is in more tradition. So, why could I see that? So, those are some of the aspects of this, and I think that’s my main concern is a restoration of subsidiarity and the divine office of the bishop.
Eric Sammons:
The funny thing is when Bishop Barron was sharing some videos on X about being at sin, this was shared very early on in the sin and process, so early October. I honestly was looking forward to hearing his perspective because I knew he’s not Mueller, he’s not going to be even Strickland or something like that there. But I was like, “Okay, this is a guy. Clearly, he is trying to bring souls to Christ and he’s trying to do his best to be a Catholic bishop and he’s there.” So, I’m like, “Okay.”
But I was so disappointed by this video. I admit it. And the funny thing is the comments, a lot of them were the same as me. They were just, “Honestly, Your Excellency, I understand less now than I did before I watched this.” I mean, it’s like he wants to use his $10 words to explain it, and it’s like there’s such a break there.
I know he said he threw back the comment about the mystical body, but really, there’s a break in his mind or something between pre-Vatican II and post Vatican II. I mean, because he talked about this is all post conciliar, the papal magisterium post conciliar church. There is no such thing as a papal magisterium of post conciliar church. There’s a papal magisterium.
And so, anything that came after the council has to be in continuity of what came before the council. And the funny thing is, of course, is I know he’s a big Herman continuity guy, but in this case, it looks like he’s really trying hard to fit a square peg into a circle hole. And he’s like, “Okay, I’m here. I got to do my best to make this work.”
And so, I’m just going to try to put it in this context of communio ecclesiology, Vatican II, things like that. But ultimately, I agree with the comments that people said he made it more confusing in a lot of ways. Because it just, I think honestly, I wonder if there’s a certain naivety here that Bishop Barron being a good guy, he is looking for the best in people like Father James Martin and others at Cardinal Fernandez and people like that at the synod.
And so, he’s trying very hard to say, “Okay, I’m going to fit this into what I believe is the proper context,” which is Vatican II, communio ecclesiology. But I think it fails. I think ultimately, what it does is it ends up endorsing some bad aspects, kind of what you were saying, the agitation, the communist way of trying to revolutionary type of attitude that a lot of people.
So, I think he ends up being a, I was going to say useful idiot. I don’t mean that in the most derogatory way. I just mean he ends up being somebody who the agitators is useful for the agitators because he gives it a conservative Orthodox veneer to some real problems that are going on there.
Timothy Flanders:
And excuse me, that makes me think of bishop, so Bishop Barron has published the Vatican II collection, which is, in my opinion, actually I’m thankful for these because to me it’s the best primary source collection of Vatican II documents. But his introduction, His Excellency’s interaction basically puts Vatican II in a hermeneutic of rupture with the past because he says it this way. He said there was a neo scholastic approach before the council, and he says this quote, “It is fair to say that they, the neo scholastics before the council, were clearly defeated at the council.”
And then he says, the radical traditionalists, that would be me I guess, of the present moment, represent an energetic comeback of the neo scholastics who lost the day at Vatican II. So, he’s using this liberal language basically, and he talks about the vote counts. He’s like, “Oh, they were all overwhelming majorities.”
So, to me, this is not a Catholic way of thinking about the tradition because any council, excuse me, any council, it’s like a building. A council is something that’s put on top of the next building. It’s just like another level of the building. And the whole building can only stand if all the other parts stand.
But he wants to say, “Oh, this council threw out that part, and they lost the day. They were defeated at the council.” This language is not Catholic. And that’s very problematic to put Vatican II in opposition to what came before because that’s what he accuses the progressives of doing, which they do, do. That’s correct.
And I want to emphasize here too, Joseph Ratzinger, to his credit, he thoroughly opposed what was done at the council, even though Joseph Ratzinger was a critical part of doing this. He said they shouldn’t have thrown out the original documents. He was criticizing de Fontibus’ Revelationis. He said, “This document has a lot of issues.” He was very critical of it, but he said, “It shouldn’t be thrown out.” We shouldn’t just throw them out because they threw all the original documents made new ones, and that was the main of the winning of the day.
So, Joseph Ratzinger was in favor of a much more moderate approach than Bishop Barron seems to be advocating in his own text here. And so, that’s very problematic and that’s what gives the agitators their power, is that we are going to create this liberal framework of seeing we’re just going to get all the votes and then we can move on and throw out these neo scholastics. And I don’t think that’s very good.
Eric Sammons:
And I think this reveals that fundamental difference. I mean, this is going to be very crude, but the best way to put is, there’s three major camps among Catholics today, and that’s the progressives or liberals, conservative Catholics who are more hermeneutic continuity, that’d be a Bishop Barron. And then more traditionalist.
And this is the real crux of the debate between who want good things. I have a hard time trusting the progressives, let’s be honest. But I trust that the conservative Catholics like a Bishop Barron want Christ to reign and all that stuff. And then the traditionalists, because I think ultimately, they do, like you said, they advocate for hermeneutic continuity, but it is a hermeneutic rupture in the end because they look at everything from Trent to Vatican II as something to be just at the very least ignored if not discarded completely.
And so, I think this is where we really have a problem. And you see this in what Bishop Barron said, and he’s trying to make this Synodality, the Synod on Synodality work in the context of Vatican II because he’s not willing to criticize some of the issues with Vatican II itself, which ultimately, we’re not going to get into here, but I just thought that was an interesting perspective he had.
But I want to talk about, now that I’ll move on, we talked about this generically, but this synod session itself, I feel like I’m thinking about titling this episode, the Synod on Synodality Fizzles Out because I feel like in a lot of ways, this was a big defeat for the progressives. And I’m not saying this with rose-colored glasses trying to be like Mr. Optimist. I really do think that’s the case because in fact, there’s been articles last week or two about the progressives being very upset with how the synod went.
In fact, I have this quote here. It said, “We are told repeatedly that this synod is by a new way of being church.” This is a Zac Davis in America Magazine. “I worry that many Catholics will come away from this process disillusioned if the new way leads to the same results.” In other words, the progressives went into the Synod on Synodality expecting that when it’s over, there would be real doctrinal changes that you would have women deacons approved. You would have some type of approval for same-sex relationship like that. And none of that happened.
And so, I think they’re disillusioned. I mean, would you agree that ultimately the Synod on Synodality, if it wasn’t a defeat for the progressives, at the very least it wasn’t a defeat for traditional and conservative Catholics either?
Timothy Flanders:
Yeah. I think I would say there is, on the one hand, I agree with you in the short term. So, in the short term, I think that there is a defeat because this was a very drawn out process, three plus years, and they were producing the official Vatican graphics. I was trying to find it before I commented, but I couldn’t find it. But if you recall, one or two years ago, I can’t remember, but there was this official Vatican sponsored graphic that had a woman priest and these young people who were saying, we are the generation, whatever it was sort of thing. So, this is the hopes and dreams.
But on the other hand, I think there is a long-term victory that has been won over these 10 plus years of this pontificate, which is the dream of the St. Gallen Mafia to create a synodal church. And as I said, this was already happening back in Vatican II and even Vatican I, by the way. Like I said at OnePeterFive, it’s not just Vatican II that’s any issue. It goes back to Vatican one and before.
But this agitation process is what Cardinal Martini and the other members of the St. Gallen Mafia, they were disappointed of a Vatican II. To them, Vatican II was a defeat, but they said at least it opened the door to this whole process that we want to continue because they succeeded to a degree at Vatican II because they succeeded throwing out the original documents, creating this atmosphere of rupture at least, where it just isn’t implicit, at least in Bishop Barron, like I said.
So, I do think that we can see it in another sense in terms of the Synod on Synodality in the fact that Pope Francis did not do a final document himself. He just let it go. That can be interpreted in two different ways. One positive, one negative. Positive thing is that we can see the subsidiarity of the office of divine right of bishops to be restored, so the good bishops can take back control of their diocese in the sense in one sense.
But on the other hand, we could see that move as a giving a win to the long-term goals of the St. Gallen Mafia, which is basically the pope is just going to say, “Whatever you guys work out, I’m just going to let it go.” And so, because the other context of the Synod on Synodality is the German schismatic way that’s been going on during it concurrently, and they’ve been pushing for all sorts of things.
We just published an article at OnePeterFive by a German Catholic, and she says, “The German Catholics just shrug when Pope Francis says something heretical.” Because they hear so many worse things from their bishops all the time that would make American Catholics go crazy if they heard these things. But this is just routine in Germany.
And so, they have this whole process that they’re doing. So, I see this as creating the Synodal church in a bad way, this democratization of the church that the mob agitators can just get what they want. And the bishops are effeminate in terms of they can’t manfully stand up to the feminist mob. They’re scared to say, “Wives submit to your husbands,” or some scary doctrine like that.
So, I see that as a long-term victory because Pope Francis now, he’s dying, he’s going to die soon in the next five years, at least, probably. God rest his soul. God grant him a higher place in heaven. God save his soul. But I feel like on the other hand, you can see a long-term victory in that sense. What do you think?
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. I think the Synod on Synodality had two potential paths to harm the church. One is it actually tries to change doctrine. I mean, we could talk about it could actually do that, but it actually says things like, “We’re going to implement women deacons now,” or something like that. The second thing is just the cause of bad thing is the cause of just what we’ve talked about, the agitation, just making everybody question, making a Catholic confused about what does the church actually teach on this? Are these things open for debate? Things like that.
I think on the first part, I think we won in the sense that that didn’t happen. And in fact, it pretty definitively didn’t happen. On the second part though, we lost in a sense, because you’d have to reject the whole Synodality process in order to win that aspect.
I do want to look a little bit more because I feel like, let’s be honest, trads can be a little pessimistic at times. I do want to look at the victory though, because there were people definitively declaring that when the synods is over, we’re going to have women deacons, we’re going to have all this stuff, and we don’t.
And I think it’s like, let’s take a moment and appreciate that fact that we don’t have. I know that maybe you could say it’s a low bar, but the fact is there were a lot of powerful people in the Catholic church who were trying to make that happen and they failed. And I think that’s something we had to remember.
And I think there’s a couple reasons, and I want get your input on this as well, why they failed? I think a big one is the response to both Traditionis custodes, but more so the response to Fiducia supplicans. What we saw in both cases was a real pushback from bishops. With Traditionis custodes, it was a little softer pushback. It was kind like, “We’re going to just ignore this a little bit.” A lot of bishops just were like, “We’re not going to implement this.” But it was real. I mean, bishops were not as enthusiastic about it as I think Vatican officials like Roche and others wanted it to be.
But Fiducia supplicans, that I think was the big one because that was of course just last December. And the African bishops were just like, no, we not only won’t implement this, we reject this. You had the usual suspects rejecting like a Bishop Schneider, God bless him, and Strickland and others, I mean, thank God for them. But it expanded.
And all of a sudden, the bishops, I think bishops looked around and said, “Wait a minute, we can do this. We can actually say, ‘No, because this is not part of our tradition, this is not what we believe, we’re simply going to reject it, even though it’s a Vatican document that’s got the approval of Pope Francis.'”
And I think definitely Pope Francis and maybe others at the Vatican were like, “Oh, I, maybe the power we have isn’t quite what we thought it was.” And I think there was a pullback. And we see it. I almost feel like I want to knock on wood if I was superstitious, but I feel like there’s been a lot of losing esteem when it comes to implementing Traditionis custodes. Fiducia supplicans has been just basically rejected.
And so, the idea, I think a lot of people at the Vatican realize, and if we try to do this, it’s going to fail because the bishops will speak out. They will finally just say, “No, we’re not.” So, if they had produced a document that said women deacons today, I think for example, the African bishops, a lot of American bishops, other bishops would just be like, “Nope, that’s not happening.” And I think they knew that.
So, I feel like we want to look at everything bad going into church. I get that, but that is a victory, a real victory that we don’t have women deacons. Yes, I know the final document said it’s still open for discussion and really, it’s not. So, I’m not doing a touchdown dance here or anything like that, but at the same time, we got a first down at least or something. So, I mean, what do you think about, am I being too rose-colored glasses here?
Timothy Flanders:
No, I agree. I mean, they tried to kick the game winning field goal and they didn’t make it. They have not won the game because they didn’t get their rubber stamp. And I want to strongly emphasize the contrast between the mob agitation that we’ve discussed and these filial appeals is what I would call these. The way the bishops of Africa worded their rejection, it was so filial. They basically said, “Oh, we talked to the Holy Father and we consulted with him and this is what we’re going to do.”
So, it was like, “Wow, you had no opposition to the Holy Father even though you’re clearly opposing the Holy Father.” And this is what St. Paul says to St. Timothy. He says, “An ancient man, an elderly man, rebuke him not, but appeal to him as a father.” And that’s the difference right there. We’re not agitating like liberals, communists or whatever. We are sons of Holy Mother church, and we appeal to you Holy Father, as your sons.
And that is the Christian response. Even if your father is abusive, you cannot harden your heart against your father. You still must love him and fast for him and pray for him and appeal to him as a father. And if you must resist him to his face to protect yourself and your siblings who are being abused by the abusive father, you will do so, but you will not break with him and agitate against him and hate him as the mob violence does.
So, I think that this is showing, I love what you said, Eric, because I think it’s showing the strength of Catholic culture, which I would say that the Latin mass is the centerpiece of the strength of that culture because we’ve seen how this beleaguered little group of people, Latin, mass Catholics, some with the SSPX, others in these little hamlets and hotels all throughout the world, persecuted for decades, maligned. Now they just endured. And we have continued as a traditionalist movement.
And after Traditionis custodes as you said, many bishops, most bishops ignored it. You had the support of non-Latin mass Catholics like Novus Ordo Catholics attend the new mass. They were supporting us too. And as you said, Fiducia supplicans was just very, very much rejected.
And then they had the rumor of the new Traditionis custodes 2.0 this summer, and there were significant appeals, they were petitions, but again, they weren’t mob agitators, they were filial appeals. And this according to the reports, all we know is that this seems to have moved the Holy Father in some sense, whether he was the unrighteous judge of the parable of our Lord, when the unrighteous judge gives widow, gives the widow justice, even though he fears neither God nor man.
Maybe that was the case with the Holy Father or maybe he was truly moved. I don’t know. He just released what appears to be a beautiful encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. So, that’s exciting. But I don’t know, but I agree with what you just said. We need to be grateful for what we have. We have way more than we deserve.
Eric Sammons:
Right. And I think a couple of these things that happen at the end of this synod session, I think we’re just peculiar. I do think the fact that Pope Francis did not issue an apostolic exhortation just said, “Here’s the final document.” I understand that they made a declaration a couple years ago that this is now part of the ordinary magisterium when he does this.
Okay. I’m not going to get into technical canon law and stuff like that, but I’m going to talk about just the optics. I think it’s obvious that to the average Catholic, I mean most average guys aren’t paying attention to stuff. I get that. But the point is, even for those who are paying attention, this final document has way less real-life authority than if the Pope had written an apostolic exhortation. It said basically the same things, because this is a beer crack document, like you said, nobody’s going to read it and it’s just going to have some points of context.
And whether you want to say it’s an ordinary magisterium or not, it has no real authority now in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of Catholics. And I think that’s meaningful. I also think that literally, a couple days before the synod is over, the Pope basically steals all the thunder by issuing a document on the Sacred Heart of Jesus that’s completely unrelated to anything the synod’s talking about.
Timothy Flanders:
That’s good point.
Eric Sammons:
I read it. I mean, I’m not saying I studied it. I’m saying I went through it and I quickly read it and I thought it looked very solid. It has some Francisms in it, and I get that. It has some more modern ways of looking at things. I get that. But it quotes lots. I mean, it’s funny. This is probably not good on my part, but I’ve gotten a habit that when a new Vatican document drops, I look at the footnotes first and if I want to see if all the references are to post-Vatican II stuff.
Timothy Flanders:
Or Pope Francis stuff.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. Right, right, exactly. And this was not the case. I mean, tons of references to past saints, theologians, all this stuff. I mean, that was the Catholic news last week wasn’t the Synod. I mean literally this dropped I think three days before the last day of the synod. Instead it’s the papal encyclical, which is only his fourth I think, encyclical. It’s about something that’s spiritual. It’s what a pope should be writing about. And I felt like that undercut the Synod as well.
And so, like I said, I felt like the whole thing fizzled out. There’s all this activity and pushing for it and all this sound and fury for years, and in the end, it signifies nothing. And the progressives are mad. I think we should recognize that and be happy about that because if they’re mad, something good happened.
Timothy Flanders:
Any type of the heretics throw a fit that’s a cause for joy.
Eric Sammons:
That’s right. And again, I understand it’s not complete victory. It’s like you said, they had the game weighing field gold and they missed it. It doesn’t mean we won. It just simply means they didn’t. I mean, I want to get your honest opinion. What do you think Francis is doing here by releasing encyclical then, by not having an apostolic exhortation and seeming to undercut the synod itself? I mean, I don’t know. What do you think?
Timothy Flanders:
I mean, I think there’s two ways to see it. On the one hand, you have the dictator pope interpretation, which is that Pope Francis, the Holy Father does not care about anything but power. And so, he’ll do one thing for one people and then he’ll contradict himself in the other and he doesn’t care about anything but more power. And one of those things is the vainglory in the eye, the praises of men. And so, if he gets praises from men from doing this, then he’ll do it that way. And so, he’s just playing on all cylinders because he loves power. That’s interpretation number one.
Interpretation number two, which pious Catholics should hope and pray for is that Pope Francis is meditating upon his death, which is imminent, and he’s thinking about the fact that he’s going to die and he’s going to stand before the judgment of Almighty God, which will be the strictest judgment that any human person can have is that of the pope.
And he’s thinking about how Dante put various popes in hell because of what they did. I think that Boniface VIII he put in hell. And Pope Francis is thinking, “Is it really worth it to continue this Gallen Mafia dream and all this stuff that I thought was so great?” And so, then he publishes Sacred Heart of Jesus because maybe he’s afraid of the fires of hell, and he’s thinking, “I want to think about the Sacred Heart of Jesus instead of all this progressive dream.”
So, let’s hope it’s that. He said, “No, I’m not going to crack down the Latin mass because all these people are freaking out. I’m just not going to do that as you wanted me to this past summer.” He’s going to publish this, which totally under by.
I didn’t even think about those optics. That’s a great point. His Sacred Heart document totally undermines the whole Synod of Synodality. It’s been working on for three years. So, that’s pretty significant if he’s really thinking through the optics of what this looks like. So, let’s hope it’s number two and not number one.
Eric Sammons:
And I just want to also be clear that, and I know you think this too, that we’re not being insensitive to those people who attended Latin mass that has been canceled and some were canceled this summer, and so I don’t want to be insensitive to them. It’s a real cross that they’ve had to bear and we pray for them that would be restored.
But there was a lot of talk about it being completely abolished everywhere and that just hasn’t happened and the steam behind it has run out. I also want to say that I know I’ve at least seen them on X and other places, social media, there are Catholics who would just reject interpretation number two is not possible. And I’m saying that that’s heretical to think that.
Timothy Flanders:
Yeah, I would agree.
Eric Sammons:
It’s heretical to think that a person on earth cannot be converted, cannot change their heart because what you’re saying is that the person actually resists the grace of God or unable to accept the grace of God, I should say, and that’s just not the case. Yes, you can have a hard heart until your death and die and face the fires of hell. Obviously, we believe that that’s a possibility and that’s one we fear for ourselves. But we also have to believe that every single person until the moment of their death can convert. And conversion doesn’t always happen overnight. It happens over time.
So, if you think it’s just impossible like, no, there’s no way that interpretation number two is correct. That’s actually a heretical thought to reject that out of hand. And honestly and more prudentially, that is what you should be hoping and praying for as well. If somebody says, I think interpretation one is more likely, okay, fine. Obviously, that’s just what you’re analyzing things, but you can’t just reject interpretation two as not possible, and it should be something you hope for.
Timothy Flanders:
Yeah. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. If you have a very strict judgment of the heart of Pope Francis, do you not fear God that your own judgment will be just as severe and even more strict because you failed to have … Think of the unmerciful servant. I mean, Lord Jesus have mercy upon our souls. The unmerciful servant when choked his fellow servant and then the Lord says, “So will my heavenly Father deal with you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
So, if you’re hardhearted towards the Holy Father, you could end up in hell even if the Holy Father is a terrible. The other thing I would say is go read one of those beautiful prayers of repentance is actually the Prayer of Manasseh. And this shows up in the Greek liturgy in Great Compline, and it was published by St. Jerome in the Vulgate in an Appendix, so it’s like apocryphal.
But go read the story of King Manasseh. He was like the worst king ever of Israel. He burned his sons in the fire. He worshiped the idols. He did all sorts of terrible things and God punished him severely and then he repented at the very end. And there’s this beautiful, the Prayer of Manasseh that’s attributed to him is one of the most beautiful prayers of repentance ever I think. It’s like Psalm 51, but perhaps even more beautiful than Psalm 51, if that can be said. So, we should never despair of anyone repenting at the last second.
Eric Sammons:
Right. Yeah. So, I’m going to wrap it up here because I think that’s a good way to end it. I just think as Catholics, the way we look at this, we can’t be like the Marxists who look at everything from a very political aspect as these are our enemies, we need to defeat, we need to crush. We need power instead of them having power.
I think that’s a whole wrong way to look at it because like you just said before, who has not had any power in the church for 50 years? The traditionalist. Who has moved the needle though more than probably any group in recent years? Probably the traditionalist. I mean, which one is the one where all the energy of the young people is? It’s the traditionist. Was it through the levers of power? Yes, we had a favor from Pope Benedict, obviously, and we should be very grateful for that and be thankful for him.
But ultimately, we had no power. There was no bishop who was advocating for the traditional Latin mass other than who wasn’t SSPX bishop. And they were obviously ostracized and sidelined. And so, you did not have any power yet. And so, I do think that’s a lesson for us when we try to analyze the Synod on Synodality from a purely power structure viewpoint.
No. Instead what we should be thinking is we’re being faithful. We’re doing prayer and penance for our leaders. We’re trying to do our best in our own families, building up our parishes, things like that. And I think we can see it has a real impact.
I honestly do believe the prayers, the penances of the people of the faithful is why we don’t have women deacons being instituted today, even though people were guaranteeing just a year or two ago, we’re going to have women deacons by now and we don’t. It may be five years from now, something happens and they started trying to do that. I don’t know. But the point is right now it didn’t happen. So, we should continue with that path forward in responding what these things are going on.
Timothy Flanders:
Yeah. It’s the prayers of the pious grandmother who is sacrificing and she’s holding back the wrath of God from us, and she’s holding up the church just a single saint. As St. James says in his epistle, Elijah was just a man, but he stopped up the heavens and the Marxists and liberals just think about numbers, how many numbers, how many souls, but we think about the intensity of the holiness of a single saint can just move mountains.
And I totally agree with you. There’s just saints among us. It’s great that we have All Saints Day, which is the feast day of all the unknown saints in particular. So, we thank you for all the unknown saints out there who are meriting the graces that we need to conquer all these enemies and convert them to Christ.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. So, the next time you get annoyed because that old lady can’t at church is not praying the rosary in sync with everybody else when you’re praying it together, remember she might be literally the person who’s holding back Satan.
Timothy Flanders:
There we go.
Eric Sammons:
So, for me, it’s like, just remember that before you get too. That’s a pet peeve of mine. That’s why it came to my mind. So, I got to remember that for myself. Okay. Well, we’ll finish it here. I appreciate you being on. Again, go to OnePeterFive, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Tim’s putting out some great content there. Subscribe to email newsletter, also Crisis as well. So, anything else, anywhere else that we should point people to, Tim?
Timothy Flanders:
Onepeterfive.com/crusade. If you want to join to try please God, to be a saint, to move mountains. We want all the faithful Catholics to join our crusade, Bishop Schneider’s Crusade, onepeterfive.com/crusade, which is where we offer eucharistic reparation to our eucharistic Lord. And that’s the fundamental spiritual effort that we’re trying to offer. And so, go there and join our lay sodality.
Also, I should say, I mentioned that it’s not all about Vatican II. One thing we promote at OnePeterFive is the big problems with Pope Benedict XIV way back in the 1800s when he allowed meat during Lent. We think that’s a huge no-no, a big, big wrong move we made. So, we promote the fasting sodality onepeterfive.com/fast. St Martin’s Lent is just a few weeks away to start St. Martins Lent aka the Advent fast, so you can join hundreds of Catholics throughout the world practicing traditional fasting, which is critical to cast out the demons as Jesus Christ himself said.
So, join us. Let’s stop complaining on the line and let’s get to work.
Eric Sammons:
Amen. I’m looking forward to St. Martin’s Lent. I’d forgotten about that. I did St. Michael’s Lent for the first time this year, and it was transformational for me, so it’s great stuff we need to recover. So, okay, everybody, we’ll end it there. Until next time, everybody. God love you.