This has, I guess, turned into a post on the Synod on Synodality.
The Synod on Synodality is a three-year process of listening and dialogue beginning with a solemn opening in Rome on October 9 and 10, 2021 with each individual diocese and church celebrating the following week on October 17. The synodal process will conclude in 2024.
Pope Francis invites the entire Church to reflect on a theme that is decisive for its life and mission: “It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.” This journey, which follows in the wake of the Church’s “renewal” proposed by the Second Vatican Council, is both a gift and a task: by journeying together and reflecting together on the journey that has been made, the Church will be able to learn through Her experience which processes can help Her to live communion, to achieve participation, to open Herself to mission."
United States Council of Catholic Bishops.
I am, if the truth be told, in such a tone of mind that I shun every assemblage of bishops, because I have never yet seen that any Synod had a good ending, or that the evils complained of were removed by them, but were rather multiplied….
St. Gregory of Nazianzus writing to Procopius in 382.
Originally, when I started this post, I was going to post Bishop Strickland's letter to his flock, and then held back on it as it generated so much controversy, from this already controversial Bishop, whom I don't know much about, that I thought better of it. Immediately, the terms schism and the like came in.
Then two things occured, followed by a third.
The first was a weekend homily from our young priest on the principal reading for August 27, which was:
Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply,
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
Mathew, Chapter 16.
This is one of the most important Gospel readings in the New Testament, as in it, Christ gives the keys to St. Peter, the first Pope.
In his homily, without referencing Bishop Strickland or the Pope at all, the young priest stated that the Catholic Church was the only thing holding back the destruction of the culture in the United States. That's a big claim, but frankly, correctly understood, he may be very well correct.
Another thing, which I learned of after Sunday, was that the Pope spoke to a group of young Jesuits in Portugal, where he was asked as series of question. He's been quoted in part (but largely only in part) regarding one question, which was about the Faith in the United States. As is so often the case with Francis, he was not quoted in full, or fully in context.
The question, and his answer, were:
Q. Pope Francis, I would like to ask you a question as a religious brother. I am Francisco. Last year I spent a sabbatical year in the United States. There was one thing that made a great impression on me there, and at times made me suffer. I saw many, even bishops, criticizing your leadership of the Church. And many even accuse the Jesuits, who are usually a kind of critical resource of the pope, of not being so now. They would even like the Jesuits to criticize you explicitly. Do you miss the criticism that the Jesuits used to make of the pope, the Magisterium, the Vatican?
A. You have seen that in the United States the situation is not easy: there is a very strong reactionary attitude. It is organized and shapes the way people belong, even emotionally. I would like to remind those people that indietrismo (being backward-looking) is useless and we need to understand that there is an appropriate evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals as long as we follow the three criteria that Vincent of Lérins already indicated in the fifth century: doctrine evolves ut annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate. In other words, doctrine also progresses, expands and consolidates with time and becomes firmer, but is always progressing. Change develops from the roots upward, growing in accord with these three criteria.
Let us get to specifics. Today it is a sin to possess atomic bombs; the death penalty is a sin. You cannot employ it, but it was not so before. As for slavery, some pontiffs before me tolerated it, but things are different today. So you change, you change, but with the criteria just mentioned. I like to use the “upward” image, that is, ut annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate. Always on this path, starting from the root with sap that flows up and up, and that is why change is necessary.
Vincent of Lérins makes the comparison between human biological development and the transmission from one age to another of the depositum fidei, which grows and is consolidated with the passage of time. Here, our understanding of the human person changes with time, and our consciousness also deepens. The other sciences and their evolution also help the Church in this growth in understanding. The view of Church doctrine as monolithic is erroneous.
But some people opt out; they go backward; they are what I call “indietristi.” When you go backward, you form something closed, disconnected from the roots of the Church and you lose the sap of revelation. If you don’t change upward, you go backward, and then you take on criteria for change other than those our faith gives for growth and change. And the effects on morality are devastating. The problems that moralists have to examine today are very serious, and to deal with them they have to take the risk of making changes, but in the direction I was saying.
You have been to the United States and you say you have felt a climate of closure. Yes, this climate can be experienced in some situations. And there you can lose the true tradition and turn to ideologies for support. In other words, ideology replaces faith, membership of a sector of the Church replaces membership of the Church.
I want to pay tribute to Arrupe’s courage. When he became superior general, he found a Society of Jesus that was, so to speak, bogged down. General Ledóchowski had drafted the Epitome – do you young people know what the Epitome is? No? Nothing remains of the Epitome! It was a selection of the Constitutions and Rules, all mixed up. But Ledóchowski, who was very orderly, with the mentality of the time, said, “I am compiling it so that the Jesuits will be fully clear about everything they have to do.” And the first specimen he sent to a Benedictine abbot in Rome, a great friend of his, who replied with a note: “You have killed the Society with this.”
In other words, the Society of the Epitome was formed, the Society that I experienced in the novitiate, albeit with great teachers who were of great help, but some taught certain things that fossilized the Society. That was the spirituality that Arrupe received, and he had the courage to set it moving again. Some things got out of hand, as is inevitable, such as the question of the Marxist analysis of reality. Then he had to clarify some matters, but he was a man who was able to look forward. And with what tools did Arrupe confront reality? With the Spiritual Exercises. In 1969 he founded the Ignatian Center for Spirituality. The secretary of this center, Fr. Luís Gonzalez Hernandez, was given the tasks of traveling around the world to give the Exercises and to open this new panorama.
You younger ones have not experienced these tensions, but what you say about some sectors in the United States reminds me of what we have already experienced with the Epitome, which generated a mentality that was all rigid and contorted. Those American groups you talk about, so closed, are isolating themselves. Instead of living by doctrine, by the true doctrine that always develops and bears fruit, they live by ideologies. When you abandon doctrine in life to replace it with an ideology, you have lost, you have lost as in war.
The Pope, who seems to get caught off guard with his comments relatively frequently, is trying to move past this one right now. This was sort of accidentally helped when he made a comment praising Russian imperial rulers, which may have been taken out of context, but which was bad timing. That brought a disappointed comment from the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Indeed, Ukrainian Catholics have been loyal to Rome in spite of persecution both by the Communist in the USSR and historically by the Russian Orthodox Church. Imperial Russia, after the schism, was not a friendly place for Catholicism.
Now, frankly, the Pope's comments overall regarding the US, which have been extracted down to just a few lines, are not nearly as incendiary as they're being portrayed. But Pope Francis has a tendency to speak without a lack of clarity, as well as offhand. His comments caused some very orthodox and mainstream American Catholic apologist to ask "who are you speaking of"" and it frankly isn't very clear.
There's an enormous fear right now that Francis is going to follow the wayward German bishops into destruction. I don't think he will, and he likely knows that if that were to be attempted, which I don't believe he wants to attempt anyhow, it will cause a schism in the church. Added to that, for devout, orthodox and believing Catholics, the Church cannot be lead into error due to the protection of the Holy Spirit, so a lot of the criticism shows a certain element of disblief.
That doesn't mean, however, that Pope Francis must be viewed as a great Pope.
Right now American, and other conservative, Catholics are routinely mentioning schism as a fear, and while its hardly noticed here, the Eastern Rite Catholic Syro-Malabar Church is in outright defiance of Rome, and darned near in schism, over an issue in their liturgy that didn't need to become one and which Pope Francis has elevated to the level of a contest between their clergy and him. It recalls, in serious ways, the issues that partially gave rise to the Great Schism, or the separation of some Eastern Rite Catholics from the Roman Catholic Church and into the Russian Orthodox Church about a centuray ago, and is something we truly don't need. Rome should back off.
All of this now comes in the context of the Synod on Synodality.
More than a few rank and file loyal Catholics are pretty skeptical on the Synod on Synodality. Indeed, I suspect, without knowing, that part of the Syro-Malabar Church crisis is due to this as well. The Eastern Churches are famously dedicated to tradition, and the Vatican has been upsetting that, and then retreating from the upset, and then upsetting it again, since 1965. Added to that, anyone who has ever sat on a Parish Council probably is, as so often the people drawn to such matters in terms of organizing them, and this Synod involves laity, are the people who have time to do it. That doesn't tend to be the busy Catholic orthodox businessman, or the highly educated Catholic lawyer or engineer. It tends to be older people who formed their views in the 1970s on the left and who are massively out of touch with the young people in the pews, or at least older people. The Catholics that Trads like to point to, the young couples with children at a Latin Mass, aren't likely to have time to attend synods.
Maybe the laity delegation will be different here, but if it omits the orthodox, Trads, and the Rad Trads to any significant degree, there's reason to fear that it'll be made up of let wing Catholics who often have all kids of complaints about the Catholic Church, or so many orthodox, conservatives, and Trads (and they aren't all the same thing) fear.
These fears amplified a great deal are what caused highly traditional Bishop Joseph Strickland, much in the news recently, to issue his recent letter, which read:
August 22, 2023
My Dear Sons and Daughters in Christ:
May the love and grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you always!
In this time of great turmoil in the Church and in the world, I must speak to you from a father’s heart in order to warn you of the evils that threaten us, and to assure you of the joy and hope that we have always in our Lord Jesus Christ. The evil and false message that has invaded the Church, Christ’s Bride, is that Jesus is only one among many, and that it is not necessary for His message to be shared with all humanity. This idea must be shunned and refuted at every turn. We must share the joyful good news that Jesus is our only Lord, and that He desires that all humanity for all time may embrace eternal life in Him.
Once we understand that Jesus Christ, God’s Divine Son, is the fullness of revelation and the fulfillment of the Father’s plan of salvation for all humanity for all time, and we embrace this with all our hearts, then we can address the other errors that plague our Church and our world which have been brought about by a departure from Truth.
In St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he writes: “I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by {the} grace {of Christ} for a different gospel {not that there is another}. But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach {to you} a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, and now I say again, if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed!” (Gal 1:6-9)
As your spiritual father, I feel it is important to reiterate the following basic truths that have always been understood by the Church from time immemorial, and to emphasize that the Church exists not to redefine matters of faith, but to safeguard the Deposit of Faith as it has been handed down to us from Our Lord Himself through the apostles and the saints and martyrs. Again, hearkening back to St. Paul’s warning to the Galatians, any attempts to pervert the true Gospel message must be categorically rejected as injurious to the Bride of Christ and her individual members.
Christ established One Church—the Catholic Church—and, therefore, only the Catholic Church provides the fullness of Christ’s truth and the authentic path to His salvation for all of us.
The Eucharist and all the sacraments are divinely instituted, not developed by man. The Eucharist is truly Christ’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, and to receive Him in Communion unworthily (i.e. in a state of grave, unrepentant sin) is a devastating sacrilege for the individual and for the Church. (1 Cor 11:27-29)
The Sacrament of Matrimony is instituted by God. Through Natural Law, God has established marriage as between one man and one woman faithful to each other for life and open to children. Humanity has no right or true ability to redefine marriage.
Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, male or female, and all people should be helped to discover their true identities as children of God, and not supported in a disordered attempt to reject their undeniable biological and God-given identity.
Sexual activity outside marriage is always gravely sinful and cannot be condoned, blessed, or deemed permissible by any authority inside the Church.
The belief that all men and women will be saved regardless of how they live their lives (a concept commonly referred to as universalism) is false and is dangerous, as it contradicts what Jesus tells us repeatedly in the Gospel. Jesus says we must “deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.” (Matt 16:24) He has given us the way, through His grace, to victory over sin and death through repentance and sacramental confession. It is essential that we embrace the joy and hope, as well as the freedom, that come from repentance and humbly confessing our sins. Through repentance and sacramental confession, every battle with temptation and sin can be a small victory that leads us to embrace the great victory that Christ has won for us.
In order to follow Jesus Christ, we must willingly choose to take up our cross instead of attempting to avoid the cross and suffering that Our Lord offers to each of us individually in our daily lives. The mystery of redemptive suffering—i.e. suffering that Our Lord allows us to experience and accept in this world and then offer back to Him in union with His suffering—humbles us, purifies us, and draws us deeper into the joy of a life lived in Christ. That is not to say that we must enjoy or seek out suffering, but if we are united to Christ, as we experience our daily sufferings we can find the hope and joy that exist amidst the suffering and persevere to the end in all our suffering. (cf. 2 Tim 4:6-8)
In the weeks and months ahead, many of these truths will be examined as part of the Synod on Synodality. We must hold fast to these truths and be wary of any attempts to present an alternative to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or to push for a faith that speaks of dialogue and brotherhood, while attempting to remove the fatherhood of God. When we seek to innovate upon what God in His great mercy has given us, we find ourselves upon treacherous ground. The surest footing we can find is to remain firmly upon the perennial teachings of the faith.
Regrettably, it may be that some will label as schismatics those who disagree with the changes being proposed. Be assured, however, that no one who remains firmly upon the plumb line of our Catholic faith is a schismatic. We must remain unabashedly and truly Catholic, regardless of what may be brought forth. We must be aware also that it is not leaving the Church to stand firm against these proposed changes. As St. Peter said, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn 6:68) Therefore, standing firm does not mean we are seeking to leave the Church. Instead, those who would propose changes to that which cannot be changed seek to commandeer Christ’s Church, and they are indeed the true schismatics.
I urge you, my sons and daughters in Christ, that now is the time to make sure you stand firmly upon the Catholic faith of the ages. We were all created to seek the Way, the Truth and the Life, and in this modern age of confusion, the true path is the one that is illuminated by the light of Jesus Christ, for Truth has a face and indeed it is His face. Be assured that He will not abandon His Bride.
I remain your humble father and servant,
Most Reverend Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop of Tyler
That's the letter as written. Let's break it down again, with some text in bold.
In this time of great turmoil in the Church and in the world, I must speak to you from a father’s heart in order to warn you of the evils that threaten us, and to assure you of the joy and hope that we have always in our Lord Jesus Christ. The evil and false message that has invaded the Church, Christ’s Bride, is that Jesus is only one among many, and that it is not necessary for His message to be shared with all humanity. This idea must be shunned and refuted at every turn. We must share the joyful good news that Jesus is our only Lord, and that He desires that all humanity for all time may embrace eternal life in Him.
Once we understand that Jesus Christ, God’s Divine Son, is the fullness of revelation and the fulfillment of the Father’s plan of salvation for all humanity for all time, and we embrace this with all our hearts, then we can address the other errors that plague our Church and our world which have been brought about by a departure from Truth.
In St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he writes: “I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by {the} grace {of Christ} for a different gospel {not that there is another}. But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach {to you} a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, and now I say again, if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed!” (Gal 1:6-9)
As your spiritual father, I feel it is important to reiterate the following basic truths that have always been understood by the Church from time immemorial, and to emphasize that the Church exists not to redefine matters of faith, but to safeguard the Deposit of Faith as it has been handed down to us from Our Lord Himself through the apostles and the saints and martyrs. Again, hearkening back to St. Paul’s warning to the Galatians, any attempts to pervert the true Gospel message must be categorically rejected as injurious to the Bride of Christ and her individual members.
Christ established One Church—the Catholic Church—and, therefore, only the Catholic Church provides the fullness of Christ’s truth and the authentic path to His salvation for all of us.
The Eucharist and all the sacraments are divinely instituted, not developed by man. The Eucharist is truly Christ’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, and to receive Him in Communion unworthily (i.e. in a state of grave, unrepentant sin) is a devastating sacrilege for the individual and for the Church. (1 Cor 11:27-29)
The Sacrament of Matrimony is instituted by God. Through Natural Law, God has established marriage as between one man and one woman faithful to each other for life and open to children. Humanity has no right or true ability to redefine marriage.
Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, male or female, and all people should be helped to discover their true identities as children of God, and not supported in a disordered attempt to reject their undeniable biological and God-given identity.
Sexual activity outside marriage is always gravely sinful and cannot be condoned, blessed, or deemed permissible by any authority inside the Church.
The belief that all men and women will be saved regardless of how they live their lives (a concept commonly referred to as universalism) is false and is dangerous, as it contradicts what Jesus tells us repeatedly in the Gospel. Jesus says we must “deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.” (Matt 16:24) He has given us the way, through His grace, to victory over sin and death through repentance and sacramental confession. It is essential that we embrace the joy and hope, as well as the freedom, that come from repentance and humbly confessing our sins. Through repentance and sacramental confession, every battle with temptation and sin can be a small victory that leads us to embrace the great victory that Christ has won for us.
In order to follow Jesus Christ, we must willingly choose to take up our cross instead of attempting to avoid the cross and suffering that Our Lord offers to each of us individually in our daily lives. The mystery of redemptive suffering—i.e. suffering that Our Lord allows us to experience and accept in this world and then offer back to Him in union with His suffering—humbles us, purifies us, and draws us deeper into the joy of a life lived in Christ. That is not to say that we must enjoy or seek out suffering, but if we are united to Christ, as we experience our daily sufferings we can find the hope and joy that exist amidst the suffering and persevere to the end in all our suffering. (cf. 2 Tim 4:6-8)
In the weeks and months ahead, many of these truths will be examined as part of the Synod on Synodality.We must hold fast to these truths and be wary of any attempts to present an alternative to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or to push for a faith that speaks of dialogue and brotherhood, while attempting to remove the fatherhood of God. When we seek to innovate upon what God in His great mercy has given us, we find ourselves upon treacherous ground. The surest footing we can find is to remain firmly upon the perennial teachings of the faith.
Regrettably, it may be that some will label as schismatics those who disagree with the changes being proposed. Be assured, however, that no one who remains firmly upon the plumb line of our Catholic faith is a schismatic. We must remain unabashedly and truly Catholic, regardless of what may be brought forth. We must be aware also that it is not leaving the Church to stand firm against these proposed changes. As St. Peter said, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn 6:68) Therefore, standing firm does not mean we are seeking to leave the Church. Instead, those who would propose changes to that which cannot be changed seek to commandeer Christ’s Church, and they are indeed the true schismatics.
I urge you, my sons and daughters in Christ, that now is the time to make sure you stand firmly upon the Catholic faith of the ages. We were all created to seek the Way, the Truth and the Life, and in this modern age of confusion, the true path is the one that is illuminated by the light of Jesus Christ, for Truth has a face and indeed it is His face. Be assured that He will not abandon His Bride.
Bold words.
But in large degree, Bishop Strickland is correct on the spirit of the times. That doesn't mean he can't be questioned on everything. He certainly can, and some of his other statements, including some regarding a radical traditionalist priest, and some regarding Pope Francis, would nearly require a loyal Catholic to hold some reservations about him.
Where we may start off with a bit of doubt is here. Has an "evil and false message. . . Invaded the Church, Christ’s Bride" and is it "that Jesus is only one among many, and that it is not necessary for His message to be shared with all humanity"? I'm not sure what the Bishop is referring too, but I don't see evidence of that inside the Church's structure or its clergy.
It's long been the case that the Church has held that salvation can only come through the Church, but we don't really know how that occurs, so those who are not Catholic may be saved. I don't think Bishop Strickland is questioning that, but it could be read that way.
Beyond that, Bishop Strickland is expressing fears that are widely held, and not without good reason. The German Bishops, presiding over a Church that's rich due to the Church tax but poor in terms of parishioners actually in the pews, is in fact expressing views that orthodox Catholics view as not only wrong, but immorally wrong. The fear is that they're going to bring their errors into the synod, the need for which is not largely appreciated.
Those fears may be misplaced, and I've written on that earlier. Declared doctrine cannot be changed, and there's no evidence that Pope Francis is going to attempt to do so. But Pope Francis' managerial style is simply maddening. Having come up in Argentina, which really only turned to democracy recently, he appears to be attempting to somewhat democratize the Church while not really grasping that the conveyance of clear information is a vital feature of that.
A potential result of the Synod may well be a correction of the errors of recent years in more liberal wings in a way that those liberals have to accept, or which will require them to go into outright schism. I basically expect that to occur, which is not the expectation that most are expecting. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, a very conservative, orthodox Priest who runs a significant blog, posted:
My view is that there are two, not three, possible outcomes for the Synod (“walking together”). They are a) it’ll fizzle into pointless posturing after which there will be a mainly yawn-inducing document with a couple of crowbar-inviting ambiguities or b) something disastrous will swiftly emerge out of a spirit of radical discontinuity.
What will not happen is c) sound, pastoral proposals will be brought to light based on a clear ecclesiology rooted in tradition.
He makes it plain that he expects number "b" to occur. Fr. Dwight Longnecker has more or less indicated that something less than "a" will occur in his view.
I frankly expect something more like "c".
We may, and I feel likely will be, surprised. But the Pope's words certainly aren't calculated to derive comfort for the loyal orthodox in the pews.
Indeed, and ironically, what the Pope might be seeking to achieve may be a necessary, or not, restructuring, which also not only brings risks, but is problematic due to the ongoing problem of the Boomers in control.
What the Pope has noted is that the Eastern Orthodox govern themselves through synods. There have come to be some doctrinal differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches, but they are not huge, and the East does have apostolic succession. What the Pope seems to admire is the individual synods those Churches have within themselves, and he might be aiming to establish them in the Catholic Church.
If that is the aim, and there is reason to think it is, it has a problem right off the bat in that the local synod for the Latin Rite would be one big synod. It would dwarf the largest of the Eastern synods. Maybe, however, he's thinking of more local synods and giving those local synods something that approaches autocephalous status. If that's the case, however, his recent actions in regard to the Syro-Malabar Church cut the other way. That doesn't mean it isn't the goal, however.
If that is the goal, however, it automatically has a problem in that the German Church, which is unfortunately supported by taxes, has already pretty much gone in another direction and, if it keeps heading that way, is going to disappear a law Episcopal Church. That pathway is so clear, with the Episcopal Church operating to take away crosses in much of its territory (although it had dissident portions that remain very traditional), that its lost its meaning and, at the same time, its members. If the German Church was seeking to address attendance, what it ought to do is support orthodoxy and demand that the Bundestag eliminate the Church Tax, which really is an unfair tax on average Germans.
What the Church Tax reveals, however, is the mentally lax way that many Catholics in Catholic countries view the Church. Southern Germany, which is where most German Catholics live, is pretty much all Catholic, but people have acclimated themselves to being Christmas and Easter Catholics and ignoring everything else, and still conceiving of themselves as good Catholics. In Catholic countries that have vast geographies, which includes most of South America, that's also the case. Even the clergy in these regions often takes that sort of view, not really challenging the faithful to live up to the Faith, and being comfortable with "we're all Catholic", as if that's enough.
St. Paul clearly stated it wasn't.
Pope Francis is an Argentine, and that's probably, as already noted, one of the problems here. The US, which he is criticizing, is a Protestant country, and to be a real Catholic here always meant to be part of a fighting faith.
Indeed, everywhere the Church as been strong in the last century, it's had to be a fighting faith. It was in the US, that was true in Ireland, and that was true in Southern Germany. The Catholic Church, with its adherence to the Faith, tends to suffer when times are really good and when there's little societal opposition to it.
There is a lot of societal opposition to it right now in the US, and it's been interesting to see the growing strength of orthodoxy in reaction to it.
Indeed, it's hard for American conservative Catholic not to feel, at some point, that the Pope is one of the group of at least somewhat liberal Catholic attacking them. An author in First Things, whose article postdates everything written in this essay above, put it well for a lot of them, and at least somewhat for myself, when he noted:
I am a “conservative” Catholic, but I am no traditionalist, in the TLM sense. I was deeply formed by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and am committed to the Novus Ordo (the Mass of Vatican II). I embrace the universal call to holiness as developed during Vatican II. I love the Scriptures. I support the preferential option for the spiritually and materially poor. I view the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a north star for our faith. I think the Church has much to say to the modern world.
I also reject the notion that doctrine can change, as opposed to develop. I think certain actions are intrinsically evil. I do not think it is compassionate to affirm individuals in their sin. I think the Church’s tradition is a great spiritual treasure.
These things should be uncontroversial, and yet the impression the Holy Father creates is that to hold all of these positions is to be a rigid, backward-looking Catholic as opposed to one led by the Holy Spirit. He seems to think that the rock-solid belief many American Catholics have in the deposit of faith and the Church’s historical moral teachings is a rejection of authentic development of doctrine. But this portrayal is a cartoon.
Pope Francis notes that doctrine “progresses,” but that this “change develops from the roots upward, growing in accord with [St. Vincent Lerins’] three criteria [for authentic development articulated].” I don’t know a traditional Catholic who disagrees with this. But I do know many who vehemently disagree that the Vatican’s free-wheeling questioning of long-held teaching meets these criteria. Pope Francis oversees a curia where the Relator General for the Synod on Synodality claims the Church’s teaching about homosexual acts is “false,” where the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life endorses a book that calls for a complete reversal of the Church’s teaching on contraception, and where the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith espouses an openness to blessings for same-sex couples—to name just a few recent examples of churchmen flatly opposing the authentic development espoused by the Holy Father. Meanwhile, Francis gives the Germans freedom to push heretical positions. And yet somehow, he brands as “backwards” the Catholics who dislike it when high-ranking Vatican prelates bandy about serious errors.
And for this reason, it's not surprising that many conservative Catholics, who weren't already at least somewhat lacking in enthusiasm for the upcoming synod, are losing their enthusiasm for it. That doesn't mean that there's going to be big doctrinal changes. There will not be. But it may mean that the results will either be surprising or that they will be disappointing.
Indeed, Catholics must recall that the Church is protected from error. So fears about the Synod are overdone. And not every change that is proposed is an attack on dogma, such as the often suggested lifting on married clerics.
But we also might remember that we're not promised that everyone who steps into the shoes of the Fisherman is promised to really well them well. They're still people. And Pope Francis, who is no doubt a holy man, is also a very old one in an age in which it seems that the world is full of old leaders whose vision often looks back to a liberalism of their youth, while the younger mass of humanity looks back to the best things that the same liberalism lost.
A Chilean military officer reported to the US Station Officer in Chile that a coup was planned and asked for U.S. assistance. Associasnce was refused, which is routinely ignored in stories about this event.
The US was therefore aware that it was planned, and did not warn anyone, but it did not plan it or cause it.
Prime Minister Badoglio and King Victor Emanuell III made their way through German lines to escape to Allied held Italy.
Twenty-two Italian ships arrived at Malta.
The Vatican closed the doors of St. Peter's Basilica and blocked the Sant'Anna Gate at noon to give sanctuary to Italians who had fled there.
The Berliner resistance movement the Solf Circle was betrayed by an uncover Gestapo agent, Dr. Paul Reckzeh, following a tea party attended by the group. Reckzeh was a Swiss physician. The groups downfall would ultimately lead to the downfall of the Abwehr as the group had connections with it.
Most of the members of the group, although not all of it, would later be executed. Reckzeh was arrested by he Soviets and held after the war until tried by them in 1950. He was released in 1952 and lived in East Germany, where he betrayed his daughter Barbara to the East German authorities when she tried to flee to the West. He died in 1996 in Hamburg, having spent most of his adult life in Germany and having had a role in two hideous acts for two hideous regimes.
P-39 Airacobra at Berry Field, Tennessee, September 10, 1943.
DA Wills replied to Representative Jim Jordan, giving him a dope slap.
This is thick with irony. Not only has Willis basically told Jordan he's a butt sitting ignoramus, but Jordan's actions flew in the face of a favored populist idea that states have supremacy over the Federal Government. Willis actually exercised an example of where the states are in fact supreme, state criminal charges.
It has also been learned that the grand jury wished to bring in broader referrals than actually resulted in charges, including one against Lindsey Graham. I tend to agree with the prosecutor's choice to limit the number of accused to what was done, but that should be a warning signal to Trump et al. The Grand Jury was obviously irate, and the criminal jury is likely to be as well.
The U.S. Army VI Corps and British X Corps landed at the Gulf of Salerno. German forces offered heavy resistance. The landings were not proceeded with areal bombardments in an effort to keep the element of surprise.
The Italian fleet put to sea in an effort to avoid capture by the Germans, as the Germans rushed to occupy the country. Those ships that could not sail were scuttled.
The Luftwaffe attacked the Italian battleship Roma, sinking it through the use of a guided bomb. 1,253 of its 1,849 man crew died, including the commander of the Italian Navy, Carlo Bergamini.
The wreckage was not discovered until 2012.
The British landed at Taranto.
The Germans and the Italians commenced fighting on Rhodes. Grossly outnumbering the Germans, but less well-equipped, the two-day battle would result in an outsized Italian defeat resulting in large numbers of Italian surrendering. The Italian commander, Admiral Inigo Campioni, would become a POW and ultimately be executed by the Germans, showing a real idiocy in regard to their own situation given that by this point in the war, they'd clearly lost it.
The Italians, now at war with Germany, did sink two German submarine tenders and five naval barges in the Action off Bastia.
Greece accepted the humiliating suggestions of the Allied Commissioners. What else could it do, having just lost a war to Turkey and having undergone a quasi violent change in government.
So said an elderly Trump supporter I met back when he was President.
Honestly, what makes a person insult everyone who is against him?
And what makes a person support somebody who acts like that.
All the other problems aside, this is contributing to the accelerating decay of American civil life, and civil morals. And it's childish in the extreme.
We're becoming, or have become, a nation of ill disciplined toddlers.
King Victor Emmanuel of Italy before the war. He was king from 1900 to 1946.
Italy officially surrendered to the Allies, although the deal had been worked out several days prior.
Prime Minister Badoglio read in a statement:
The Italian government, recognising the impossibility of continuing the unequal struggle against an overwhelming enemy force, in order to avoid further and graver disasters for the Nation, sought an armistice from general Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of the Anglo-American Allied forces. The request was granted. Consequently, all acts of hostility against the Anglo-American force by Italian forces must cease everywhere. But they may react to possible attacks from any other source.
The "other source" was, of course, Nazi Germany. The reservation for resisting "other sources" effectively put Italy at war with Germany.
70,000 Allied POWs walked out of Italian POW camps, their guards having departed.
Adolph Hitler, down one ally, and his only really significant one in Europe, delivered a radio address to the German people attributing the Italian surrender to "failure or ill will of those elements which by systematic sabotage have caused capitulations." The Germans, anticiapting the Italian surrender for some time, commenced Operation Achse, occupying Rome and the Italian occupied portions of France, as well as Salerno where US invasion forces were soon to land.
Corsican's rose up in rebellion against occupying Italian and German forces, taking the capital city of Ajacco.
In reality, at the point at which Italy surrendered, it was obvious that Germany's other allies in Europe would as well, when it became possible and necessary.
Franklin Roosevelt delivered a fireside chat, in which he stated:
My Fellow Americans:
Once upon a time, a few years ago, there was a city in our Middle West which was threatened by a destructive flood in the great river. The waters had risen to the top of the banks. Every man, woman and child in that city was called upon to fill sand bags in order to defend their homes against the rising waters. For many days and nights, destruction and death stared them in the face.
As a result of the grim, determined community effort, that city still stands. Those people kept the levees above the peak of the flood. All of them joined together in the desperate job that (which) had to be done -- business men, workers, farmers, and doctors, and preachers -- people of all races.
To me, that town is a living symbol of what community cooperation can accomplish.
Today, in the same kind of community effort, only very much larger, the United Nations and their peoples have kept the levees of civilization high enough to prevent the floods of aggression and barbarism and wholesale murder from engulfing us all. The flood has been raging for four years. At last we are beginning to gain on it; but the waters have not yet receded enough for us to relax our sweating work with the sand bags. In this war bond campaign we are filling bags and placing them against the flood -- bags which are essential if we are to stand off the ugly torrent which is trying to sweep us all away.
Today, it is announced that an armistice with Italy has been concluded.
This was a great victory for the United Nations -- but it was also a great victory for the Italian people. After years of war and suffering and degradation, the Italian people are at last coming to the day of liberation from their real enemies, the Nazis.
But let us not delude ourselves that this armistice means the end of the war in the Mediterranean. We still have to (must) drive the Germans out of Italy as we have driven them out of Tunisia and Sicily; we must drive them out of France and all other captive countries; and we must strike them on their own soil from all directions.
Our ultimate objectives in this war continue to be Berlin and Tokyo.
I ask you to bear these objectives constantly in mind -- and do not forget that we still have a long way to go before we attain (attaining) them.
The great news that you have heard today from General Eisenhower does not give you license to settle back in your rocking chairs and say, "Well, that does it. We've got them ('em) on the run. Now we can start the celebration."
The time for celebration is not yet. And I have a suspicion that when this war does end, we shall not be in a very celebrating mood, a very celebrating frame of mind. I think that our main emotion will be one of grim determination that this shall not happen again.
During the past weeks, Mr. Churchill and I have been in constant conference with the leaders of our combined fighting forces. We have been in constant communication with our fighting Allies, Russian and Chinese, who are prosecuting the war with relentless determination and with conspicuous success on far distant fronts. And Mr. Churchill (he) and I are here together in Washington (here) at this crucial moment.
We have seen the satisfactory fulfillment of plans that were made in Casablanca last January and here in Washington last May. And lately we have made new, well-considered (extensive) plans for the future. But throughout these conferences we have never lost sight of the fact that this war will become bigger and tougher, rather than easier, during the long months that are to come.
This war does not and must not stop for one single instant. Your (our) fighting men know that. Those of them who are moving forward through jungles against lurking Japs -- those who are (in) landing at this moment, in barges moving through the dawn up to strange enemy coasts -- those who are diving their bombers down on the targets at roof-top level at this moment -- every one of these men knows that this war is a full-time job and that it will continue to be that until total victory is won.
And, by the same token, every responsible leader in all the United Nations knows that the fighting goes on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and that any day lost may have to be paid for in terms of months added to the duration of the war.
Every campaign, every single operation in all the campaigns that we plan and carry through must be figured in terms of staggering material costs. We cannot afford to be niggardly with any of our resources, for we shall need all of them to do the job that we have put our (undertaken) shoulder to.
Your fellow Americans have given a magnificent account of themselves -- on the battlefields and on the oceans and in the skies all over the world.
Now it is up to you to prove to them that you are contributing your share and more than your share. It is not sufficient to simply (to) put (money) into War Bonds money which we would normally save. We must put (money) into War Bonds money which we would not normally save. Only then have we done everything that good conscience demands. So it is up to you -- up to you, the Americans in the American homes -- the very homes which our sons and daughters are working and fighting and dying to preserve.
I know I speak for every man and woman throughout the Americas when I say that we Americans will not be satisfied to send our troops into the fire of the enemy with equipment inferior in any way. Nor will we be satisfied to send our troops with equipment only equal to that of the enemy. We are determined to provide our troops with overpowering superiority -- superiority of quantity (quality) and quality (quantity) in any and every category of arms and armaments that they may conceivably need.
And where does this our dominating power come from? Why, it can come only from you. The money you lend and the money you give in taxes buys that death-dealing, and at the same time life-saving power that we need for victory. This is an expensive war -- expensive in money; you can help it -- you can help to keep it at a minimum cost in lives.
The American people will never stop to reckon the cost of redeeming civilization. They know there never can be any economic justification for failing to save freedom.
And we can be sure that our enemies will watch this drive with the keenest interest. They know that success in this undertaking will shorten the war. They know that the more money the American people lend to their Government, the more powerful and relentless will be the American forces in the field. They know that only a united and determined America could possibly produce on a voluntary basis so huge (large) a sum of money as fifteen billion dollars.
The overwhelming success of the Second War Loan Drive last April showed that the people of this Democracy stood firm behind their troops.
This (The) Third War Loan, which we are starting tonight, will also succeed --because the American people will not permit it to fail.
I cannot tell you how much to invest in War Bonds during this Third War Loan Drive. No one can tell you. It is for you to decide under the guidance of your own conscience.
I will say this, however. Because the Nation's needs are greater than ever before, our sacrifices too must be greater than they have ever been before.
Nobody knows when total victory will come -- but we do know that the harder we fight now, the more might and power we direct at the enemy now, the shorter the war will be and the smaller the sum total of sacrifice.
Success of the Third War Loan will be the symbol that America does not propose to rest on its arms -- that we know the tough, bitter job ahead and will not stop until we have finished it.
Now it is your turn!
Every dollar that you invest in the Third War Loan is your personal message of defiance to our common enemies -- to the ruthless savages (militarists) of Germany and Japan -- and it is your personal message of faith and good cheer to our Allies and to all the men at the front. God bless them!
Italy has tended, in histories, to be regarded as almost a third class power during the war, but it really was not. And the surrender of Italy was not only significant as a fact, but symbolically. Italy had been the first fascist power in the world, and was originally the more significant of the two Axis powers.
That Italy was drifting towards the far right and becoming aggressively expansionist was in evidence shortly after World War One, when various elements of the Italian far right viewed territorial expansion into areas with minority Italian populations as their right following the war. Italy had been expansionist in a colonial sense before World War One. But with the rise of the fascist, it took a new and much more aggressive turn. Italy built a serious military machine which, ironically, would essentially peak too soon, in some ways reflecting that it arrived upon the fascist scene first. It contributed fascist troops and equipment, including armor and aircraft, to the Spanish Civil War, where they proved effective but also where many of the most dedicated fascist combatants lost their lives.
By the Second World War, Italy had passed its peak and could no longer sustain the arms race that preceded the war. Even during the early stages of the war, rank and file Italian troops were often ineffective in combat, although not to the degree which popular histories have tended to portray. The war in North Africa really proved to be is last gasp, and by the time of Operation Husky it was effectively defeated on land and knew it. Its navy, however, remained fairly effective in some ways right up until September 1943.
The country was between a rock and a hard spot in regard to its surrender, and essentially threw itself on the mercy of the Allies as it was obvious that it would be invaded by Germany. It pledged itself, effectively, as an Allied power, but it was not going to be an effective one as its energy was spent. The remainder of the war, and the immediate peace thereafter, was a deeply human tragedy for the Italians featuring extreme deprivation and desperation.
The Allies launched the Dodecanese Campaign in an effort to seize the Italian held Dodecanese Islands. Conducted without air cover, the Anglo Italian campaign would ultimately fail, giving the Germans a mid war victory at a time at which those had effectively ceased.
The U.S. Army Air Force raided German headquarters at Frascati, resulting in 485 civilian deaths.
On the same day, the Red Army entered Stalino.
The Germans ordered the removal of 5,006 Jewish residents of Theresienstadt.
1943 The first woman lookout was assigned in the Medicine Bow National Forest. Perhaps it is coincidence, but this event occurred during World War Two when women were occupying many traditional male occupations due to labor shortages. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
Captain Edward H. Watson ordered a squadron of 14 ships to make a fast passage to San Diego in heavy fog resulting in the USS Delphy, USS S. P. Lee, USS Young, USS Woodbury, USS Nicholas, USS Fuller and USS Chauncey beaching and sustaining irreparable damage.
It remains the largest peacetime loss in U.S. Navy History.
Watson was court-martialed for the event. He was not universally condemned for the disaster, which some attributed to a failure in newly developed technology. He went on to be Assistant Commandant of the Fourteenth Naval District in Hawaii until he left active duty in November 1929. He died at age 67 in 1942.
After killing innocent people to achieve them, Italy's demands were adopted by the ambassadors appointed to mediate the dispute.
Robert Reich is here to tell you, along with every other Democratic pundit, that if you aren't voting for Joe Biden, you are a traitor to democracy. Indeed, he states:
Let me be absolutely clear. Third-party groups such as No Labels and the Green Party are in effect front groups for Trump in 2024, and should be treated as such.
That's BS.
Let's be frank, the Democratic Party's love of democracy was rediscovered during the insurrection. At that point, it suddenly realized that anti-democratic forces are bad. Prior to that, and even now, what it really is for is rule by Liberal Ivy League Educated Judges.
The Democrats regard voters as besotted fools. They have for years, with it really becoming apparent following 1973's Roe v. Wade decision. They still feel that way. They hate the thought that courts can't descend from wooden walls and tell the peasantry what to think.
One of the things that they hate the most about recent years is that the Supreme Court has torn down some totally defective prior decision and told the people that they'll just have to figure things out for themselves. The Court, for example, hasn't "taken away" a non-existent "right to abortion". There was never one. The Court could have decided, on natural law principles, that abortion is contrary to the laws of nature on an existential basis and declared a right to life, but it didn't do that, in spite of all the howling. It just said that people, through their state legislatures, have to figure this out for themselves.
The Democrats hate that thought, and for good reason. It means that in many places, if left to their own devices, people would decide all sorts of things that Democrats regard as individualistic rights aren't. And the reason is plain. The driving force of the Democratic Party essentially believes that if you regard yourself as a feline asexual Bhutanese princess, you should be able to force everyone else to agree with you. Most people just don't think that way, however.
That doesn't mean that Trump should be elected, either. The GOP has abandoned democracy in favor of authoritarianism, and that always leads to disaster. The dirty little secret as to why Trump has so much support in the rank and file of the GOP isn't because most Republicans believe the election was stolen, no matter what they say, but rather than they've grown so disgusted with the Democratic Party and establishment Republicans that they no longer regard Democrats or establishment Republicans as legitimate, and therefore don't think they should count. Indeed, we have gotten to where we are at as the Democrats regard voters as unwashed vulgarians who should merely be entertained with the thought their votes mean something, the country club Republicans regard the electorate as mindless consumers whose opinions don't count, and a certain section of that electorate just has had enough of it.
In other words, the Democrats viewed the electorate as too stupid to influence anything, and the Republicans viewed them as Walmart customers only.
That this may mean the end of American democracy is both parties' fault.
That either of those parties would now have the gall to suggest that parties that actually reflect people's views shouldn't be voted for is maddening. If we'd had parties that actually reflected people's views all along, we wouldn't be here now. And the thought that the diversity of political opinion can be summed up with two choices is flatly bizarre.
The argument, by either party, that "you must vote for us or else it's Trump" is an argument of last resort. The challenge for the Democrats isn't to present Biden as the only choice to Trump, but to give the voters somebody they feel comfortable with. Somebody who isn't 80 years old and hasn't gone so far to the left. The challenge for Republicans, which may be a party that is now too far gone, is to give us somebody who will really do conservative, but not fascist, things rather than just say they will.
And frankly, the challenge for American democracy is to make a choice between Republicans and Democrats much, much less important. Why aren't there members of the Green Party and the American Solidarity Party in Congress? Why do the Paul's run as Republicans when they're really Libertarians? Why does Bernie Sanders "caucus" with the Democrats when he should be looking for a Socialist to join him? These are questions that shouldn't have to be asked.
Heinrich Himmler issued his "scorched earth" order requiring that German forces completely denude areas in the East they were retreating from in every sense.
German recruiting poster aimed at the Dutch. Around 20,000 to 25,000 Dutch nationals joined the SS, the largest group of foreign nationals, outside of Soviet citizens, to volunteer to serve Germany.
Scorched early orders are surprisingly common in warfare, and are designed to prevent an advancing army from using a conquered area's resources. More than most armies of World War Two, both the Germans and the Soviets depended on local resources. For some areas in the East this would be the second time they'd been subjected to this during the war, as the Soviets also practiced it, and for Ukraine, it was part of an ongoing series of disasters afflicting residents of the region.
Sarah Sundin notes for this day:
Today in World War II History—September 7, 1943: German 17th Army begins evacuating the Kuban bridgehead in southern Russia as the Soviets advance. Actor Orson Welles marries actress Rita Hayworth.
I honestly didn't know that Welles and Hayworth had ever been married.
Interpol was founded as the International Criminal Police Commission in Vienna. It changed its name in 1956.
Katherine Campbell won the Miss America pageant for the second time, being the only person ever to do so, and making her the second and third Miss America.
The rules of this odd, archaic event barred running after being crowned in subsequent years.
Students at the Massachusetts Naval School, now the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, were photographed on the Nantucket, a masted sailing ship.
Founded in 1891, up until 1990 it was strictly a merchant marine school.
Big takeaways 1) they went to eliminate sugar subsidies (I agree with that), 2) they're unhappy with the current school lunch program (agree with that too), they want to do away with the CRP program, which I strongly disagree with.
The more money that is vested in a middle class, with a very broad middle class, and the less that's vested in remote corporate boardrooms, means that the economy itself is vested at the widest possible self-sustaining level.
Jefferson's yeoman, so to speak.
"San Augustine, Texas. A meeting of the town council to discuss buying a new water tank to replace the one which was destroyed by the March tornado. Left to right around the table: Troy Mitchell, city manager; J.W. Ritchie, tinner; H.D. Clark, department store owner; Mayor Alonzo Rushing, druggist; Mr. Ramsey, city attorney; R.V. Hall, grocer; Clyde Smith, grocer; and Frank Phillips, city secretary". April, 1943.
Conversely, if your economic well-being depends on a giant corporate employer with headquarters far away, you will none the less be inclined to vote their interests, irrespective of whether they are your own.
