Whither the Synod? by Regis Martin

By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine, Oct. 10, 2023

Regis Martin is Professor of Theology and Faculty Associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He earned a licentiate and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

The Synod organizers themselves don’t really know where any of this is going, but we’re all supposed to be on the way anyway.

None of us knows where he’s going, but we’re all on the way!    

Of all the absurdly stupid things I’ve ever heard, this was far and away the nuttiest, most insanely silly of them all. And yet it was often and annoyingly said to me during the dark days I spent in Vietnam, driving a handful of officers around in an old jeep because my skill set as a foot soldier was less than zero. In later years, I would tell people that if the Army hadn’t sent me there, we might actually have won the war. None of my superiors were the least bit amused by my pathetic performance; and when asked why exactly I needed to be there, they would simply say, “Son, none of us knows where he’s going, but we’re all on the way!”

Not entirely helpful, I’d say. Still, it was pretty much what you’d expect from the Military: standard-issue stupidity. However, one doesn’t look for looniness from the Church, does one? At least not every day. But with the Synod now going on in Rome, it’s become a staple diet among the organizers, who seem never to tire of repeating the same boilerplate, which is that we are to listen to diverse voices and heed the Spirit moving mysteriously through rank upon rank of all those marginalized members of the Church. In other words, while we really don’t know where any of this is going, we’re all of us on the way anyway. …

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