A couple of years ago I was invited to take part in our diocesan "listening session" to solicit feedback from the faithful in a spirit of "dialog" and "journeying together" in preparation for the upcoming Synod of Synodality. As both a generally naive person and as someone who worships in the usus antiquior, I felt reluctantly spurred to give a voice to the traditionalist community who probably compromise less than 1% of the diocese, but who adhere to Catholic teaching and desire to transmit the faith to their children. I wasn't expecting much, but figured I at least had to show up, make the case for Tradition, and try to keep my inner-cringe from getting the best of me.
We were presented with intellectually probing questions such as: "How is “journeying together” happening today in your local Church?" and "What steps does the Spirit invite us to take in order to grow in our “journeying together”?" and were assured our responses would be summarized and sent to Rome. The session was everything you would expect: much listening, much "dialoguing," much sharing. From the fonts used in the handouts to the colorful pre-pubescent imagery and effeminate ethos, it was if the Church was doing its damnedest to drive every last self-respecting man from the pews once and for all.
It didn't take too many ounces of cynicism to concur that this absurdly titled "Synod on Synodality" was a complete farce meant to underscore the involvement of the laity in the post-conciliar Church and highlight Pope Francis' spirit of "going to the margins" so that All Are Welcome, but accomplish very little. When I reviewed the "synodal mission" during these participatory sessions, the theme was "communion, participation, mission."
What struck me as I was re-reading an essay I had published about the Hundred Flowers Campaign proposed by General Zedong Mao between 1956-1957 was the similarities between the approach of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Vatican "on the correct handling of contradictions among the people" (to borrow the term from Mao's kick-off Hundred Flowers speech) The intent of the campaign was purported by Mao as "the policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science."
Some historians are of the school of thought that Mao was sincere in his intentions at discourse for the strengthening of the Party. But others felt it was a ruse meant to expose political rightists and counter-revolutionaries from the start to "flush the snakes out of their cave". Author Jung Chang maintains that "Mao was setting a trap, and...was inviting people to speak out so that he could use what they said as an excuse to victimize them" (Jung Chang; Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape. p. 435).
One of the differences, I believe, between the CCP's approach under Mao and the Vatican's approach under Pope Francis is that traditionalists were not the main focus of the synod, as the Chinese intellectuals and rightists were for Mao, and most traditionalists (at least in my experience) had no desire or intention to take part in this farcical lay pre-synod, antithetical as it was to traditionalist sensibilities. The Pre-synodal listening sessions were primarily comprised of your average lay, sixty-something-year-old Catholics from the local diocesan parishes. Traditionalists in the Church are more or less out in the open (at least for now), "snakes" in the field, as it were.
Like many who are skeptical of (and turned off by) this effete process of faux-democratization of the Church across a horizontal axis, it seems it is simply a way of justifying pre-contrived outcomes as the "will of the church" to justify the crushing of "dissidents" when it ensues. We've already experienced precursors of this in the past few years with Traditionis Custodes and its initial implementation at the diocesan level.
Maybe more is to come, or maybe by some grace we will be spared. To what degree resistance can be offered is debatable. And far be it from me to know the mind of Pope Francis. What is certain, though, is that very little will come of this "synod" this coming October that has not already been predetermined.
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