Perspectives, Paradigms, and Catholicity
As the first full week of the final session of the Synod on Synodality begins today, little is emerging that has not been heard many times before. Some delegates have expressed pleasure at reconnecting with friends they made last year. It’s no small thing to make friends, good friends, true friends, anno Domini 2024, even in the Church. And while that may not lead to much as many were hoping for in the synodal way – the new way of “being Church,” “listening,” “walking together” – at least it may help keep some measure of calm in the synod hall.
News has been so slow that, at a press briefing the other day, there were just a few more journalists than there were panelists. That may change as things unfold. But there’s “not much there there” – except for Australian Bishop Anthony Randazzo who, on Friday, deplored the focus on so-called “hot button issues,” as if the Church were involved in a political campaign. He dismissed all that as merely being driven by a small number of ideologues. Progressives in the media, however, love to give that small group a big megaphone.
But there was one remark in a previous press briefing that caught my attention. Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas has been the synod point man for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Amid some hard-to-get-a-grip-on meandering in the general direction of synodality, he raised a question that will not go away when the synod ends. Or after. Ever. Because it can’t.
