Dogma or Die, by David Warren

By David Warren, The Catholic Thing, Nov. 8, 2019

Note: Many thanks to those of you who responded to our fundraising appeal yesterday, the first day of our Fall campaign. It’s a good beginning, but there’s a long way still to go. And the stakes could not be higher. Not only has the world turned away from the Church, but the Church itself – as David Warren argues below – has departed in several crucial respects from itself. It’s no wonder that a weakened message, in which nothing very important seems in play, excites little enthusiasm. The remedy for this, as always, is the fullness of the Gospel, in changed conditions now to be sure, but the Truth that went out and changed the history of the world. We need to remind ourselves and others now at every possible turn of that life-changing power. And at The Catholic Thing we do that to the very best of our ability, every day, 365 days a year. Please, if you value that mission, click the button below and follow one of the several options for donating – or consider an automatic monthly donation, which gives us greater ability to plan our work for the coming year. All contributions are fully tax-deductible and the process couldn’t be easier. So what are you waiting for? – Robert Royal

In order to advance an agenda, one must have an agenda. It will have to be something outwardly positive, for advancing nothing wouldn’t count.

Hence the cornucopia, or welter of proposals that came with the Amazon Synod, and has come with every other “synodical” exercise by which Catholics have been afflicted through the last six years and seven months or so.

I thought I knew what a synod was, until recently; that I grasped the outline of its history and many of its associations. My mental picture was of a classical meeting of bishops, under their metropolitan, generally to affirm the faith on some substantial matter, or settle regulatory issues. It was the same thing as a council.

A meeting of world bishops under the pope was an “ecumenical council,” of grand significance, but not different in kind from a provincial or plenary session. It was not a parliament.

For we are a kingdom, not a republic or democracy. We are united under the Kingship of Christ, and our government is a hierarchy descending from Him. One is free to call that a tyranny or dictatorship, but that is not a Catholic view. In the Catholic view, in Christ is our freedom.   ….

Read more at  https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/11/08/dogma-or-die/