Germanicum
101 - 11th Dec 21 - Synedrion
Rev dear Rev: What is the point of the Synodal Way here in the Ecclesia Germanica if all it leads to is confusion in the Church and chiefly among the rank and file?
Needless to say, this Quaesitum comes from GDR Germany, the old Eastern Bloc kind that used to belong to the organisation known as Comecon. Central Planning a key feature of that zone. But here too one must sound a note of optimism - normally synods and councils are summoned pro tem to deliberate upon some matter that is causing grief to the churches, and then something positive is hammered out among all the attending bishops. This is called the "Solutio per Compromissum" and is a key part of the process of mete which we call the synedrion, and when that structure is a permanent one, it becomes the Synodal Way [of Governance] of the Church Germane.
Like everything in traditional GDR Germany, it all sounds wunderbar at the beginning of the Historio-genesis-punkt or ausgangspunkt of the broad overall planning of the idea, but by the time it matures, wunderbar initially because of something called HGI or Historical Germanic Idealismus, but by the end of the process, it all goes pear shaped and begins to fall apart. This happened too to the Synodal Way last year, when a lovely sweet process of consulting the flocks, following the enthusiasms of the elder Dr Ratzinger for the Oxford Fr Newman, degenerated into controversy as more and more flocks expressed a wish for gay wedding rituals and gay solemnities at baptisms and the like. HGI church processes are like this as they progress from the initial joys of Hegel's Idealism, then to the fiery discourses of revolution of a Feuerbach, then to the struggles and conflicts and flat disasters of Bismarck's Kulturkampf. So it all goes pear shaped in the end.
But is this just another example of the triumph of chaos begetting chaos, or is there a genuine underlying reason why such efforts and initiatives do go pear shaped for the Idealismus guided Germans in their Churches, ever since Martin Luther? A good question. And I am not going to answer it here as we are here simply to account for the confusion among the rank and file of the Synodal Way in this time-frame. Human Idealismus cannot substitute for the gifts of the Spirit, even glossolalia. A synedrion is only as good as the Holy Spirit who calls it. If it is not prompted by the same Spirit, but is merely another exercise in the bureaucracy of mankind or German philosophy of a merely human provenance, rather like the problem posed in religion by the praxis of Enthusiasm according to the genius analysis of Mgr Knox, then clearly it will not stand the test of time or even of controversy. Such processes will fold and fade into oblivion very quickly over time. And this has occurred in Germania Superiore.