Vatican’s Synod calls for ‘Female Diaconate’ and ‘Radical Inclusion’
[This writer’s critical analysis and comments are seperated in bold text & brackets.]
A large, majestic tree, full of wisdom and light, reaches for the sky. A sign of deep vitality and hope, which expresses the cross of Christ. It carries the Eucharist, which shines like the sun. The horizontal branches, opened like hands or wings, suggest, at the same time, the Holy Spirit. The people of God are not static: they are on the move, in direct reference to the etymology of the word synod, which means, "walking together". The people are united by the same common dynamic that this Tree of Life breathes into them, from which they begin their walk.
[How can people of God be one with atheists, those who practice false faiths, sexually permissive, and not baptized Christians?]
?The Synod on Synodality, now officially extended until 2024, called for a 'permanent aggiornamento' in light of the Second Vatican Council. Below is the main symbol from the Vatican that represents Synod on Synodality.
October 14, – The Vatican unveiled the document to guide the next stage of the Synod on Synodality calling for more inclusion of the divorced and “re-married,” LGBT groups, and proposes a “female diaconate.
The?Synod on Synodality?team: Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich (relator general of the Synod), Cardinal Mario Grech (general secretary of the Synod of Bishops), Professor Anna Rowlands, Father Giacomo Costa (consulter of the General Secretariat of the Synod), and Monsignor Piero Coda (secretary general of the international theological commission).
[Many of these “team leaders” have publically directly or indirectly support abortion.]
There is no hierarchy between these people who are all on the same footing: young, old, men, women, teenagers, children, lay people, religious, parents, couples, singles; the bishop and the nun are not in front of them, but among them.
[Without any hierarchy, who will teach the bible and gospels?]
?Quite naturally, children and then adolescents open their walk, in reference to these words of Jesus in the Gospel: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children”. (Mt 11:25)
The contents of the working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod, entitled “Enlarge the space of your tent,” will now guide the next stage of the Synod on Synodality, which has been?extended?until 2024.
The document itself was compiled by a group of “experts,” theologians, laity, and bishops over the course of a number of days in September 2022. As previously reported, these “experts”?comprise?a number of individuals who both oppose the Traditional Mass and support contraception.
[That is revealing! Why are the really faithful Catholic traditionalists excluded?]
The DCS is a summary of the numerous reports submitted by 112 of 114 bishops’ conferences, along with 17 of the 23 Roman Curial dicasteries, and from all Eastern Catholic churches.
[Who independently verified these reports as accurate summaries?]
The authors noted that the document is not “a conclusive document, because the process is far from over,” nor is it part of the “Church’s Magisterium, nor is it the report of a sociological survey.” Instead, “it remains a theological document in the sense that it is oriented to the service of the Church’s mission: to proclaim Christ dead and risen for the salvation of the world.”
[Christ’s mission to the apostles was and remains to teach the gospels to the world. Without any hierarchy, who is capable and responsible for teaching the gospels?]
Writing that the synod has so far produced “abundant fruits, new seeds that promise new growth,” the document added, “there is no lack of clear expressions of rejection,” with “skepticism about the actual effectiveness or even the intent of the synodal process” also expressed in the quotations drawn from the examined reports. "The Church must be ‘more welcoming’ to LGBT and ‘remarried’." ?
[Hence, we should welcome all persons who practice unnatural sexual acts and all sinners who decline to confess and refuse to be redeemed? That is not what Christ taught! This is not acceptable to the Bible or Gospel.]
Role of women and ‘female diaconate’
Much attention is given to the role of women in the new document, including calls for female ordination. The document stated that there was a dual need to draw “men to a more active membership in the Church and enable women to participate more fully at all levels of Church life.”
Addressing the assembled media at the press conference, Rowlands stated that “the question of the diaconate for women came up repeatedly, across many, many reports.”?Rowlands was supported by the text of the DCS, which noted that many submitted reports: [Asked] the Church to continue discerning on a series of specific issues, namely the active role of women in the governance structures of the Church bodies, the possibility for women with adequate training to preach in the parish setting, the female diaconate. Much more diverse positions are expressed with regard to the ordination of women to the priesthood, which some syntheses call for, while others consider the question closed.
The heterodox Women’s Ordination Conference?welcomed?these sections of the DCS saying that it was “encouraged” by the promotion of the “near universal calls for women in governance, women preachers, and ‘a female diaconate.’”
[Pope Saint John Paul II had already condemned female ordination, writing in his 1994 Apostolic Letter?Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”?
Questions of liturgy and Eucharist: The aspect of the Church’s liturgy was addressed, with DCS highlighting how the liturgy can be linked to “the situation of indigenous peoples. Their spirituality, wisdom and culture have much to teach us.”
[What can indigenous peoples teach us? That is certainly not what Christ taught! This is not acceptable in the Bible or the Gospels. Participation in pagan rituals is sin against the primary Commandments of God.]
Renewed calls for female roles in ministry were reflected in this aspect also, with the document stating that questions raised in the various reports ranged “from the redesign of a liturgy that is too centered on the celebrant, to the modalities of active participation of the laity, to the access of women to ministerial roles.”
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The DCS stated that “many reports echo the pain of not being able to access the sacraments felt by remarried divorcees and those in polygamous marriages. There is no unanimity on how to handle these situations.”
[The Christian answer is stop sinning and accept the Mercy and Love of Christ.]
Highlighting a report from the U.S., the document also noted that “many regret the restrictions on the use of the 1962 Missal.”
Synod a continuation of Vatican II’s ‘aggiornamento’ The?Synod on Synodality?has already been compared to the Second Vatican Council, and?by commentators as promoting a “parallel church.”
Such a description was supported by the text of the new document, which noted that the “conversion and reform” of the synod “translates into an equally continuous reform of the Church, its structures and its style, in the wake of the desire for a permanent ‘aggiornamento,’ a precious legacy of the Second Vatican Council to which we are called to turn on its 60th anniversary.” The message of the synodal journey is simple: we learn to walk together and sit together to break the same bread, so that everyone can find their place. Everyone is called to take part in this journey, no one is excluded.
[This is false! Sinners who refuse the redemptive Mercy and Love of the Lord, by their own free choice are excluded from the bread of life].
This is what we feel called to do in order to credibly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus to all peoples. This is the road we seek to follow for the continental stage.?
[This is the road to damnation, and ultimately to hell—not Christ’s loving salvation.]
In what is one of the rare occasions of a description of synodality itself, the DCS outlines how the synod deals with the many “tensions” highlighted during the event: “[A] synodal spirituality can only be one that welcomes differences and fosters harmony, and that draws from the tensions the energy to move forward.”
[The Church should not make deals with communists, evil spirits and Satanists.] ?
Next steps in synodal process: The synod is still in a “listening phase,” said Anna Rowlands, with the next stages still being a continuation of this “listening.”?However, the DCS calls on the Church to already begin implementing a process of change: “All the institutions of the Church are called to question themselves on how to integrate the synodal impulse into the exercise of their functions and mission, renewing their structures and procedures or introducing new ones.”
Following the release of the new text, bishops around the world are now to draw up their own local reflections on the document.?After this, seven continental meetings of bishops’ conferences will take place, to be held in Africa, Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and North America. With all the resulting documents from these meetings having been compiled, they will in turn form the basis of the working document (Instrumentum laboris) – finalized by June 2023 – for the Synod of Bishops to be held at the Vatican, October 4 through 29, 2023. As with the original Preparatory Document, the DCS called for the futures stages of the synod to give “particular attention” also to “representatives of other religions and faith traditions; and people without religious affiliation.”
(LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Gerhard Müller ripped into the Synod on Synodality in some of his strongest comments yet about the direction of the Catholic Church under Pope Francis, describing the synodal process as a “hostile takeover” of the Church that threatens to “end” Catholicism.
In an explosive interview Thursday on EWTN’s?The World Over, the former head of the Vatican’s highest doctrinal office condemned heterodox ideas expressed by Synod leadership and in synodal reports and slammed the initiative’s focus on “self-revelation” as opposed to the Catholic faith. “This is a system of self-revelation and is the occupation of the Catholic Church” and “the hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ, which is a column of the Revealed Truth,” Cardinal Müller told EWTN host Raymond Arroyo.
“This has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, with the Triune God, and they think doctrine is only like a program of a political party who can change it according to their voters.”
The?Synod on Synodality, launched by Pope Francis in 2021, is a multi-year process that involves gathering opinions of lay Catholics – and?even non-Catholics?– in every diocese in the world ahead of the Synod of Bishops in Rome next October. Pope Francis has described the goal of the Synod as creating “a different Church,” and top synodal officials have indicated that it could lead to changes in Church?doctrine?and?leadership.
The relator general of the Synod, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, sparked outrage and?accusations of heresy?earlier this year for claiming that Catholic teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts is “no longer correct” and needs “revision.” National synodal reports from multiple Western countries have also?highlighted?calls?for doctrinal change, including on homosexuality and the ordination of women, and the official Vatican website for the Synod has?repeatedly infuriated?Catholics by promoting?homosexual relationships?and?dissident activist groups.
Asked whether the Synod on Synodality is shaping up to be “an attempt to destroy the Church,” Cardinal Müller responded starkly, “Yeah, if they will succeed, but that will be the end of the Catholic Church.”
He compared the state of the synodal process with the heresy of Arianism and the “Marxist form of creating the truth,” insisting that Catholics “must resist” it. “It’s like the old heresies of Arianism, when Arius thought according to his ideas what God can do and what God cannot do,” the cardinal said. “The human intellect wants to decide what is true and what is wrong.” Synod leaders are “dreaming of another church [that] has nothing to do with the Catholic faith” and is “absolutely against” it, Cardinal Müller slammed. “They want to abuse this process for shifting the Catholic Church and not only in another direction, but in the destruction of the Catholic Church.”
“Nobody can make an absolute shift and to substitute the revealed doctrine of the Church,” he emphasized, “but they have these strange ideas,” such as that “doctrine is only a theory of some theologian.” That’s not at all the case, the German prelate stressed:The doctrine of the Apostles is a reflection and manifestation of the Revelation of the Word of God. We have to listen to the Word of God, but in the authority of the Holy Bible, of the Apostolic Tradition, and of the Magisterium, and all the councils said before that is not possible to substitute the Revelation given once and forever in Jesus Christ by another revelation.
Responding to a?recent image?published by the Synod’s Facebook account that featured a women priest and LGBT “pride” imagery, Cardinal Müller said, “I think there’s a desire to take over a power which doesn’t exist. They want to be more intelligent than God Himself.”
He also agreed that the Synod on Synodality is an attempt to create an unofficial Third Vatican Council. “It is very astonishing that is allowed under the authority and in this context of the Vatican,” he said, “and that gives the impression that this is really possible, that the Church with the Pope or with this secretary general of the Synod, they are authorized to be the audience of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is only a function for them, it’s only instrumentalized.”
“This has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit … who reveals Himself in the Holy Trinity,” Cardinal Müller continued. “This is a way to undermine the Catholic faith and Catholic Church.”
Cardinal Müller reserved some of his most scathing comments for?staunchly liberal,?pro-LGBT?Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, whose office is responsible for synthesizing synodal reports submitted to the Vatican from around the world. Grech, who is widely seen as a possible papal candidate,?suggested?last month that the Synod could usher in radical changes to Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality and said “complicated issues” such as giving Communion to the divorced and remarried and “blessing” homosexual relationships?“are not to be understood simply in terms of doctrine.”
“What has the Church to fear if these two groups within the faithful are given the opportunity to express their intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience?” Grech said in a presentation to more than 200 U.S. bishops and other Catholic leaders. “Might this be an opportunity for the church to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through them also?” he asked.
Cardinal Müller blasted Grech’s comments as “absolutely against Catholic doctrine” and compared them with Protestantism and the heresy of Modernism: ?“How is it possible that Cardinal Grech is more intelligent than Jesus Christ?” asked Cardinal Müller, questioning where Grech gets “his authority to relativize the Word of God.”
He also rebuked Grech’s?recent claim?that the Synod on Synodality is able “to open up scenarios” not even “imagined” by the Second Vatican Council. “Everybody knows who studied the first semester of theology that the Church and the authorities of the Church cannot change Revelation,”?Cardinal Müller retorted. He added that?Grech, moreover, is not even “a recognized theologian” and “has no importance in academic theology.”
“How he is here presenting a new hermeneutic of the Catholic faith, only because he is a secretary of a Synod which has no authority about the doctrine of the Church?” Cardinal Müller asked. “All these synods of the bishops and the synodal process have no authority, in no way magisterial authority.”