Unless you’ve been living under a rock – which has its appeal in an increasingly cacophonous and coarse world – you’ll know that something very important is being lost to the world and to humanity that will utterly change how we interact and tell stories about ourselves and about each other. I’m not talking about shrinking blue glaciers, or threatened species of insect or animal, I’m actually talking about facts, hard facts.
I remember a young adult telling me that there were five million Chinese people living in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. When confronted with the fact that Ireland’s total population is 5.2 million they doubled down and said they meant in the whole of Ireland.
When that too was contested based on facts from the Irish census (and that fleeting of intelligences: common-sense) their jaw dropping response was “Well, that’s your opinion and I have mine, we can agree to disagree”. Actually, no we can’t. I can’t respect or agree with your ignorance or stupidity.
Jonathan Swift put it nicely: “You can’t reason someone out of something they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place”.
Opportunities
However, facts to the contrary probably won’t cut it for deniers. They’re too embedded and personally involved in their ignorance.
In his book, “On Disinformation – how to fight for truth and protect democracy”, author Lee McIntyre says that what a denier believes isn’t just what they think, it is who they are, so if you attack their beliefs you are in a sense attacking them.
“The point of propaganda is not just to get you to believe false information, but to feel that those on the ‘other side’ are your enemy.” And if the other person is given enemy status then you don’t want to listen and prefer to hurl insults and abuse. He suggests that talking to deniers personally creates opportunities to not just share facts but to break barriers of distrust. It’s easy to label someone evil on social media, harder to do when you are looking them in the eye.
So, when Cardinal Gerhard Müller says that the Synod is a ‘hostile takeover’ by people who want to change doctrine, the Cardinal needs to be told that he is spreading disinformation. Where are your facts Cardinal?
There is nothing in the working document of the Synod that calls for a change in doctrine and even those opposed to the Synod acknowledge that it has no power at all to change anything, let alone doctrine. It is also clear that many of the bishops attending the Synod were not part of the earlier discussions and some may not have participated at all in any synodal events. How these uninformed bishops are supposed to be part of some grand conspiratorial take-over is only something the cardinal can possibly explain for us, and them.
What those like Cardinals Burke and Müller never seem to address are the actual problems facing the Church and how she should deal with them. They remind me of the notorious Protestant leader in Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley, whose constant refrain through bigoted spit and shout was ‘No, No, No’ until one day, after much bloodshed and hate, he sat down with his enemy and finally entered government with them.
The problems of the Church, and this was amply demonstrated in the synodal listening process throughout the world, is that the Church of Jesus Christ, led by its clerical 1% of members, oversaw and in far too many places continues to do so, the abuse and cover-up of the sexual exploitation of children.
Crisis
But you won’t hear Burke and Müller speak about this key issue for the Synod. What did they have to say about the revelations of child sexual abuse in Switzerland this September?
Perhaps the former CDF head and German cardinal could answer why Switzerland didn’t listen to other German speaking nations on their experience of the abuse crisis; how is it possible that the Swiss Church can’t listen to its neighbour, 20 mins by train, that has the same culture and same language? If ever Cardinal Müller needed evidence for a Church cover-up, here’s lots of material to get started on.
However, a new religious community that is starting out in Portland, Oregon, The Sisters of the Little Way of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness is talking about it as reported by Paul Fahey of the ‘Pope Francis Generation’ on Substack (https://www.popefrancisgeneration. com).
This is what this new order of sisters say is their mission: “Called and consecrated within Christ’s Heart and in the heart of the Church, we joyfully live a mission of listening, healing outreach, spiritual reparation, and solidarity with people who are despairing, doubting, and hopeless, and people on the fringes or outside of the Church, especially those people who have been wounded, scandalised, or abused by members of the Church”.
Paul Fahey writes: “There are not many Catholic spaces for people who have been abused, harmed, and betrayed by clerics and lay leaders in the Church. Often people respond with ‘defend the Church at all costs’ or ‘burn the Church down’. There are few spaces where both the harm we’ve experienced and our love for the Church is believed and valued. The Sisters of the Little Way are building that space”.
Renewal
The Sisters also understand the need for reform and renewal for the simple reason the Church is bleeding members as they outline – see below. It’s a huge crisis that Pope Francis is attempting to try address.
*In the US the percentage of Catholics who belonged to a parish declined to 58% from 76% between 1998 and 2020—twice the rate of decline among Protestants (Gallup).
*37 percent of American Catholics in 2019 say news of reported sexual abuse by priests had them re-examining their religion, up from 22 percent in 2002 (Gallup).
*A 2021 survey found that 31% of adult US Catholics said the abuse crisis has made them embarrassed to identify themselves as Catholic (CARA at Georgetown University).
The Sisters conclude: “These signs of darkness in the Church make clear the need for deep renewal and healing. This sorely needed, profound reform calls us to leave behind the status quo, take risks, reorganise our efforts, and embrace new ways of thinking rooted in the Gospel”.
Unity
The Synod will not change doctrine, it is not a hostile takeover. It is an attempt to figure out how the Church of the global north speaks to the global south, how do we think as a one world Church? How do we have diversity in unity in the Church? How can the Church be more accountable?
Lee McIntyre writes: “The truth does not die when liars take power; it dies when truth tellers stop defending it. So, let’s expose and name the truth killers…we have been born into an age in which science and reason – indeed truth and reality itself – once again need defending”.
We need to fight back.
