By David Warren, The Catholic Thing - 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… In the Catholic view, in Christ is our freedom… The pope, on this view, is head of the Church on this planet, but under Christ, not vice versa… Rome has become a town in which they hold lots of meetings, and something is expected to come of them. Calling them “synods” somehow makes it worse, and filling them with clerics who have an “agenda” makes it worse still… these synods are called to propose “developments of doctrine” – using that phrase of Saint John Henry Newman in a sense precisely opposite to the way he used it.