The Logic of Synodality: Secular Progressivism

I stand corrected: in a recent essay I described "synodality" as lacking any shape, definition or purpose. But Carlo Lancelotti, writing on DelNoce (not on synodality) in Humanumenlightened me: there is indeed a logic to it, that of atheistic progressivism. DelNoce realized that modernity has replaced traditional metaphysics and religion with a Marx-like trust in "the direction of history" as an inevitable, irresistable progress into a glorious, liberated future out of an oppressive, ignorant past. In our present, this does not take the shape of an integral hegelian dialectic, but of an evolutionary technologism rooted in the science and expertise of the elite that increases its control over life in all its contigencies and liberates us from a dark past. To be sure, the project of synodality as intended by the Vatican is not explicitly atheistic, but it is animated by that interior spirit, a trust in change, in discontinuity with a rigid past, in a romantic if vague future of liberation. This is identical with the "Spirit of Vatican II" which presumed a superiority of the enlightened, educated, scientific present over the superstitions, rigidities and oppressions of the the past, tradition and authority.

Such is the polar opposite of Catholicism, the religion of memory. Our core belief is that the Eternal was revealed, once and for ever, in the person-life-death-rising of a single man, Jesus Christ. Such will never be surpassed. All of subsequent history is an unfolding of the meaning of that drama. For sure there is fluidity, novelty, creativity,and surprise as we move forward in history, but it is always an unraveling of dimensions of what is already given in Christ. So, our practice is one of constant remembering: contemplating the words and works of Jesus, in light of the history of Israel, and unravaled in the journey of the Church as well as our own specific itineraries.

For example, the actual, historical Vatican Council II was an exercise in resourcement, a return to the sources, scripture and the fathers/doctors of the Church. A remembering. A retrieval, But in a new context so with new and serendipitous revelations, but always in the light of the deposit of faith.

Catholic life and practice, in all its symphonic splendour, is a constant refrain: remembering and rediscovering anew in the present what was already given but now overflowing organically, extravagantly, magnanimously. This occurs in Eucharist, scripture study, the prayer of the Church, the rosary and all the devotions. It is an Eternal Event, ever new but ever ancient.It is not synodality.