![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2018\/08\/Otto_von_Habsburg_funeral_procession_2280.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
So, readers, I had intended to write up something on the Youth Synod, but there was so little meaningful information throughout the synod, and after it was over, the final document was so disappointing that I didn\u2019t feel there was much to say about it.\u00a0 Near as I could tell, the document was full of mindless platitudes like \u201cwe should listen to the young people\u201d with a bit of a head-scratcher, out-of-nowhere paragraphs on synodality, tossed in for good measure.<\/p>\n
And in the days following the synod it was easy to find posts lamenting this development, for instance at the National Catholic Register<\/a> or the Catholic Herald<\/a> in the UK, because, indeed, there is the potential of synodality, that is, devolution of much of the business of \u201cbeing church\u201d down to national bishops\u2019 congregations or individual bishops, eventually turning the Catholic church into something much less \u201csmall-c catholic\u201d \u2013 that is, with local bishops\u2019 conferences not merely coming up with their own sense of the best way to minister to young people as the focus of the synod, or to Catholics in general, within the confines of universal doctrine and liturgy, but diverging in more substantial ways.\u00a0 One simple \u201csynodal\u201d change would be to allow each bishop or bishops\u2019 conference to decide for themselves what the parameters around the ordination of married men might be, or whether women (religious or lay) heavily involved in ministry might be given some special status.\u00a0 One can also imagine that local churches might change \u201cchurch law\u201d by decreeing that, as an alternative to merging of parishes or priests driving from one church to another to say mass, lay people may hold communion services to meet the Sunday Obligation, or, in a quest to follow a mega-church Sunday morning model, that a \u201cworship service\u201d of praise music + sermon suffices.\u00a0 Taken even further, would this mean a<\/span>llowing bishops\u2019 conferences to re-interpret teachings on contraception, non-marital sex, divorce, LGBTism, etc., in such a way as to make the \u201creal\u201d church teaching a sort of vague ideal which can be discarded for any sort of \u201cgood reason,\u201d and elevating \u201cconscience\u201d to so high a position that so long as one does what \u201cfeels right\u201d there\u2019s no need to take into account church teachings on these issues, or even using the desire for \u201cpastoral care\u201d as a reason to bless nonmarital unions?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 It seems like a mess, like a very risky endeavor and it certainly appears that it was a betrayal of the young people themselves to use a synod claimed to be seeking to find better ways to minister to them, in order to advance the cause of synodality \u2014 but on the other hand, it hardly seemed like the idea of a Synod on Youth was well-conceived enough in the first place to emerge with any new insights.<\/p>\n So that being said, the latest gathering of bishops was not really on my radar until I started seeing tweets this morning.\u00a0 And whaddaya know, there\u2019s a Fall General Assembly going on now, at which the U.S. bishops were scheduled to vote on a series of reforms which would have provided the same sort of accountability for bishops as for priests \u2014 except that the surprise of the morning was the Vatican instructing them<\/a> not to conduct such a vote until after the general meeting of bishops to discuss the topic in February.\u00a0 What is going on, why the Pope would prevent this, I don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 Maybe he has the intention of having all bishops implement the same measures and doesn\u2019t want non-American bishops to feel like they\u2019re being forced to copy the U.S.\u00a0 But maybe this is a stalling tactic.<\/p>\n But at the same time, the bishops\u2019 yammering about \u201cwe have to regain trust,\u201d just doesn\u2019t do anything for me.\u00a0 Cupich is full of nice words, but when it comes down to it, when his feathers were ruffled because he said some pretty appalling things in an interview<\/a> and then got upset that the reporter, well, reported on it, he forced every parish in the Archdiocese<\/a> to read a letter at mass in which he defended himself and criticized the news station.\u00a0 Yes, he ultimately apologized for his words during that interview<\/a>, but, to the best of my knowledge, he did not apologize to the reporter herself (see this letter from the station manager<\/a>), nor to the parishes for his abuse of his power in mandating this letter.<\/p>\n I admit that I was skeptical of him in the first place \u2013 I tried to balance out the fact that every time I heard about him, it was in the context of some sort of political action like illegal immigration amnesty advocacy, with the intellectual recognition that the newspaper is naturally more likely to report on his political activities than whatever ministry he might be up to with Chicago\u2019s Catholics.\u00a0 But it\u2019s tough to see what he\u2019s up to and not feel that his attitude is that suburban Catholics just need to take care of themselves, so long as they keep sending money downtown \u2014 and all the more since I am convinced that his 2015 Archdiocese-mandated fundraising campaign, with the seemingly-incessant asking for money, had the effect of even emptier pews.<\/p>\n