In our parish, we are participating in the second round of the synodal process which is being hyped by Catholic leadership. It's like dying, only without the good parts.
The synodal process is just that - a process. We have been told not to set goals or look for outcomes, but participate in the process of listening and understanding. To illustrate this, we've been given a 20-page booklet with helpful guidance and real-world examples. Ohioan will recognize this immediately as symptomatic of the very worst of the strategic planning teams we ever had the misfortune to join at work.
In one of these examples, a priest in our diocese wrote about a decision he and some leading members of the parish made to use parish buildings to house "migrants," i.e. illegals. He then talked about the synodal process where some members of his parish objected.
Our parish, xxx, initiated a migrant shelter in October of 2023. The question that was quickly coming to us as we are using a much-needed community space, is "how long are we going to do this?" My fellow priests and I felt, after a few months and some good advice, that we needed to give this shelter a full year to see the ups and downs of migrant cycles in order to make a good discernment. We are hoping that this year of discernment includes a variety of voices. While I will probably give more credibility to the voices of those who are more involved in the shelter, one of my brothers points out that we also need to listen to the voices of those who are not so crazy about the idea, or those who feel like we are putting too much of our attention in the shelter to the neglect of some other programs.
Emphasis mine. You see, he is going to listen, undoubtedly with a condescending and smarmy smile on his face, to those "who are not so crazy about the idea" and then he's going to do exactly what he wants because he's already gamed the system by giving greater weight to the pro-migrant crowd.
Welcome to the synodal process! God is love!
We had a planning meeting to discuss how we will do our own synodality synoding and got an earful of just this kind of thing. An AWFL brought up the migrants in our session, insisting that we make them a big part of our topics for synodishness. Trying to be helpful, she had been taking notes on just who in the parish had shown bigotry recently and just how they had been doing it. It was lovely and full of love and lovingly served the God of love.
At that point, I and the others who didn't want to see the synodification devolve into house-to-house fighting in the parish had a choice to make. We could either push back or we could remain quiet and see if it would blow over. One woman asked if she could hear the names and the crimes. The AWFL refused to do so in a most synodalicious way. Personally, I couldn't think of a way to push back that didn't end in shouting, so I kept quiet.
In retrospect, this perfectly encapsulates almost all interactions with progressives. They are full of love and you are a bigot. From that starting point, you are supposed to engage in dialog.
On the plus side, the rest of the country isn't as stupid as San Diego. We are the only diocese dumb enough to engage in Round 2 of Synodalizing. In fact, here in the diocese of San Diego, as I understand it, more than half the parishes have simply refused to participate. It's no wonder. The thing is doomed to end in shouting and tears. After all, there are just so many bigots out there and they are all so full of hate.
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| Synodality in action. |
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