Photo Credit: © Maarten Jansen – CC BY-SA 3.0
The latest fashion in Church governance is the Synodal Church. It features Church clergy and laity gathering to discuss the needs and desires of “the people.” Everyone is asked to be especially attuned to what “the Spirit” is saying.
Thus, this Synodal Church considers itself a listening church. Everyone must listen more and speak less. Nothing could be more democratic and accommodating. Everyone, everyone, everyone should have a voice in Pope Francis’s inverted pyramid Synodal Church.
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That is how it is supposed to work in theory. However, that is not how it works in practice.
A Message Ignored
People, especially young people, are practically shouting out what they want to strengthen their Faith. And “synodal” Church officials are ignoring them. No one is listening.
It appears the listening process is a bit more complex than what appears on the surface. It depends upon the message and finding the right “Spirit” (or “spirit”).
It takes a brave prelate to listen to what some consider an unwelcome message.
A Bishop Speaks Out
Dutch Bishop Johannes Hendricks of Haarlem-Amsterdam is one such official who is not afraid to read the signs of the times and push back against dangerous currents inside the Church.
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In an interview with the German newspaper Die Tagespost, Bishop Hendricks said he has no doubt “the Holy Spirit is at work” among the youth of his diocese. And he is listening to what they have to say.
He joyfully reports that young Catholics are “appearing out of nowhere” and seeking out the roots of the Faith, especially more traditional liturgies. Many converts do not even come from Catholic families. Some were Muslim. Many share their Faith with friends and bring them into the Church.
Disoriented by a postmodern world of uncertainty, youth are seeking fellowship, truth and Faith. The obvious course of action would be to facilitate the action of God’s grace in their souls by giving them the tradition they desire. Bishop Hendricks is helping them along this path.
Going Down the Wrong Path
However, the bishop also dares to note that this new direction is contrary to the trends of synodality now being imposed upon the Church.
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He notes that those older Catholics (the few who still attend church in Holland) are attached to the old progressive themes of the Dutch “Pastoral Council,” a progressivist experiment of the sixties that ended badly. This earlier manifestation of “the Spirit” emptied the churches and led to “a strong secularization. People turned their backs on the Faith.”
The bishop now warns that the German Synodal Path experiment is heading in the same direction of “watering down the faith” and causing division and discord. He hopes that the Germans might learn from the mistakes of the Dutch and not go down that fateful path.
Indeed, Catholic commentators Jose Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo denounced the Synodal Church as a Pandora’s box that, once opened, will wreak havoc upon the Church. Bishop Hendrick’s warning confirms this observation entirely.
The Need to Listen
With all the talk about listening, someone should listen to the bishop’s warnings and the youth’s pleas for tradition.
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The unexpected appearance of young people, avid for the Faith, should be a sign that something important is happening inside the Church. It is a moment of opportunity and grace that must not be missed.
The same cries for tradition are not limited to Holland. They are echoed all over the Catholic world as young people and couples flock to traditional liturgies and pilgrimages and return to the beautiful and meaningful traditions long abandoned.
A recent story in the Free Press, for example, reported on the proliferation of chapel veils at all liturgies in America. Young women find great satisfaction in wearing mantillas as an expression of beauty and Faith and are doing so without any official encouragement.
In the mania to listen, no one wants to hear the voice of young people. It is as if everything is done to discourage these positive trends and encourage the unpopular synodal paths headed nowhere.