The Beginning of the End Or. . . . by Robert Royal

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By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing, Oct. 2, 2024

Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

Note: Be sure to tune in tomorrow – Thursday, October 3rd  at 8 PM Eastern – to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on ‘The World Over.’ TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal (from Rome) will join contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray and host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the second session of the Synod on Synodality now underway, as well as other developments in the Universal Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

 

As the second (and final?) session of the Synod on Synodality opens today, many people are still asking: What is synodality? There seems to be no good answer to that question. Indeed, the synod organizers think the very question is wrong. The best that anyone with some authority to say has been able to come up with is that synodality is not a “what” but a “process.” It “is” what it “does.”

What kind of process, other than continued talking with one another, is hard to say. But it’s an open-ended process that is to continue beyond the closing date of the synodal session later in the month – the end of the beginning, so to speak, not the beginning of the end. Not only for the chosen delegates and those appointed by Pope Francis to ongoing “study groups” slated to report at the earliest in June of 2025, but for the future of the worldwide Catholic Church. …

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