A Synod of No Surprises
Passing through the D.C. Metro recently, I noticed a (muted) Pride-Month poster – rainbow strips peeping between black bands – and a caption that read something like, “The Metro Authority believes that transportation is for everyone.”
Washington PR consultants doubtless did very well out of this ad campaign – as “consultants” of all kinds tend to do in our society – speaking out bravely against a view (Public transportation for white Christian nationalists only?) held by absolutely no one. But unlike the Instrumentum Laboris (IL), the Vatican’s recently issued Working Document of the Synod on Synodality, at least the D.C. Metro does not believe that the central value of transportation is transportation itself. The Metro actually embodies the once-obvious human view that the value of transportation means moving in predictable ways from one place to another, towards a specific goal, for an identifiable reason.
The IL opens with a proclamation: “The People of God have been on the move since Pope Francis convened the whole Church in Synod in October 2021.” Really? Meetings have certainly been held. Long and windy and vague texts produced. All this, it’s said, better to preach the Gospel.
But what is that Gospel?
