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Pope Francis at his September 2022 'Economy of Francesco' event in Assisi.Screenshot/Twitter

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has called for a “Church open to everyone” which is marked by a “synodal style,” claiming that “this is what God expects” of the Church today. 

The Pontiff made his comments as part of the “Pope Video” project, which released a new video and prayer intention every month.

October’s intention is for a “Church open to everyone,” and focuses on the Synod on Synodality – linked in part to the key document which will guide the next stage of the synod being released later this month. It is also now 12 months since the multi-year event was launched in October 2021.

The “synodal” style has been described by Newark’s Cardinal Joseph Tobin as Francis’ “long-game” plan to effect change in the Church. Indeed, Francis has previously stated that “the Church is either synodal or it is not Church.”

READ: Pro-contraception theologian, controversial papal biographer writing key document for Synod on Synodality

Liturgical scholar and Thomist Dr. Peter Kwasniewski previously warned LifeSiteNews about the dangers in the modern understanding of synodality, declaring that “we see a continual submersion in bureaucracy, a surrender to the modern mentality of administration as the cure for all evils, which keeps the Church busy gazing at its navel while real evangelization withers and the pews empty out.”

Synod is about ‘opening doors to those outside the Church’

Opening with light guitar music and cartoon style graphics scattered across the screen, the video opens with Francis asking “What does it mean ‘to synod’?” 

“It means walking together: syn-od. This is what it means in Greek: ‘to walk together’ and to walk on the same road,” he stated.

Speaking from his customary chair, Francis declared that a synodal Church is the will of God: “And this is what God expects of the Church of the third millennium – that it regain its awareness of being a people on the road and of having to travel together.”

Highlighting key words of “listening” and “hearing,” Francis stated that this process involved “opening doors to those outside the Church.” 

Nor is a synod a “survey,” he said, but a process of “listening to the protagonist, the Holy Spirit. It’s about praying.” 

“Let us pray that the Church, ever faithful to the Gospel and courageous in preaching it, may live in an increasing atmosphere of synodality and be a community of solidarity, fraternity, and welcome,” he closed.

Since the commencement of the Synod on Synodality last autumn, high-ranking prelates have struggled to explain exactly what the process is, including Cardinal Mario Grech who, as general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, is one of the events’ chief organizers. While Francis described the process as a “listening” to the Holy Spirit, the synodal reports from dioceses across the world have been inundated with numerous elements which contradict Catholic teaching, such as the promotion of LGBT ideology, support for Holy Communion for the divorced and “re-married,” along with female priests and married priests.

READ: UK vicar general calls for female priests, ending celibacy requirement to ease clergy shortages

Such concepts are not surprising, however, given that in the preparatory documents, Pope Francis called for an “act of discerning” which entails listening to “people who have left the practice of the faith, people of other faith traditions, people of no religious belief, etc.”

But Grech praised the various reports, saying that the response “shows clearly how the Spirit is at work! Today, many of the faithful ask themselves how to continue the journey they have begun.”

Father Frédéric Fornos, S.J., International Director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network which works in conjunction with the Pope Video project, echoed Grech’s words.

“It shouldn’t surprise us that in this month, in which we celebrate one year since the beginning of the synodal journey and in which Francis invites us to pray for a Church that is open to everyone, he is helping us understand what it means to discern,” he said.

“For the ongoing synodal journey to be a true spiritual process, it requires listening, dialogue, prayer, and discernment. There is no discernment without prayer.”

Yet while Vatican and Curial officials persistently promote “synodality” and “listening,” the former prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura Cardinal Raymond Burke has warned against the process. During an interview with LifeSiteNews in 2018, after the closing of the “Youth Synod,” he remarked that “synodality” has “become like a slogan, meant to suggest some kind of new church which is democratic and in which the authority of the Roman Pontiff is relativized and diminished — if not destroyed.” 

Burke continued, raising concern that some people, “not understanding the notion of a synod correctly[,] could think, for instance, that the Catholic Church has now become some kind of democratic body with some kind of new constitution.”

Bishop Athanasius Schneider has also raised concerns about the concept of synodality, saying in a 2018 interview that the term is being used by some to “promote their own agenda” within the Church with the intention to “transform the life of the Church into a worldly and Protestant parliament style with continuous discussions and voting processes on matters that cannot be put to a vote.”

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