“The Listening Church”
October 6, 2023
A DELUGE of words has burst from the marauders in Rome.
You can get a taste of it in the “National Synthesis of the People of God in the United States of America for the Diocesan Phase of the 2021-2023 Synod.”
It’s a synthesizing synod on synodality for the synodally synodal. Or is it a synthesizing synod for synodal synodality? Only the synodal can say.
Socrates died rather than face tricks of language like those emanating from the sinfully synthesizing Synod of Apostasy. The ancient Greeks with an affinity for reality hated this kind of thing. Indeed, death seems like a picnic by comparison.
Failing businesses often resort to focus groups to tell them what they are doing wrong. The participants in focus groups haven’t given the slightest thought to the company’s problems. But the company listens reverently to their every half-baked observation and then compiles them in a formal report.
Soon the failing business is the bankrupt business.
So it is with the synodal synod. So it is with its “Listening Church.”
The Listening Church listens to the “People of God” but not God.
The Listening Church listens to unrepentant sinners but not saints.
The Listening Church listens to malcontents but not philosophers.
The Listening Church listens to feminists and sentimentalists but not children.
The Listening Church listens to utopians not realists.
The Listening Church listens to sickly rainbows not stained-glass.
The Listening Church listens to ugliness not beauty.
The Listening Church listens to clenched fists not prayer.
The Listening Church listens to gangsters and intellectual bullies not prophets.
The Listening Church listens to politicians not common sense.
The Listening Church listens to consultants not wisdom.
The Listening Church listens to sophistries not truth.
The Listening Church listens to its own listening. What is more open-minded than listening?
Pray for the listeners. Listen to the listeners. They are telling you that the multinational business of creating something new out of something eternal is bankrupt.
God is listening. He hears every banal slogan, every emotionally-manipulative phrase and every claptrap lie. We can safely say that God is not happy with the People of God. God has even stopped going to church. There are too many “People of God” there.
He has never asked for a focus group. When He tires of listening to the listeners, the fire of truth will burn away all the lies, all the manipulations and the vain, preposterously arrogant pretense of listening.
“For our God is a consuming fire.”
Hebrews 12:29
— Comments —
Kathy writes:
Spot on. The stale tropes coming out of the Vatican reality-creators have jumped the shark into the surreal.
This was priceless:
“It’s a synthesizing synod on synodality for the synodally synodal. Or is it a synthesizing synod for synodal synodality? Only the synodal can say.”
Glad that I’m not the only one who thinks a “Synod on Synodality” is ludicrous, reminiscent of Monty Python. Perhaps the synodiest synod on synodality to ever synod???
The Church doesn’t “listen”, the Church dictates objective morality. A church that “listens”, and denies objective morality, isn’t a church, it’s a free-for-all fraud. A church that only “listens” to select amoral voices is something even more evil.
Laura writes:
Thank you. I think the “synod on synodality” title is deliberate mockery. We’re dealing with high-level subversion here.
A reader writes:
I just watched Raymond Arroyo on EWTN. The conservatives are really wringing their hands about the synod deal. One of them actually said the gay stuff and Communion for adulterers will become doctrine.
Laura writes:
Anyone surprised by this has had his head in the sand. Of course, they can’t change the doctrine; they can only pervert the practice. The Faith is inviolable.
This is all the inevitable unfolding of the principles of Vatican II and of a false hierarchy, which has abdicated its authority. The only answer is to pray at home, availing ourselves of Spiritual Communion and Acts of Perfect Contrition, — avoiding the false solutions of Traditionalists who set up chapels without any authority and the blatant schisms and heresies of “Orthodoxy” or Protestant sects.
The role of conservatives is to wave at the train as it rushes by.
