By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing - It’s a warm bath in varieties of victimhood, marginalization, “pain and anxiety,” and vulnerability, with the unborn tucked in among LGBTQ+ and other concerns. Listening, healing, walking together, accompaniment: the vocabulary of t.. The impulse behind the synodal process is essentially sociological. It presumes a horizontal model of the Church. It can easily become just another form of inwardly-focused sclerosis, a creature of the bureaucratic arts. he current pontificate understandably dominates throughout. But the effect is reminiscent of post-sweetener fatigue.