…but a long, slow, painful, stinking death by gangrene.

A WUWTS exclusive: Maureen Mullarkey (yes, that Maureen Mullarkey) shares her prediction on how it will all play out. She reiterates a thought I had before it started. Given the way they have set things up, with none of the bishops’ interventions being published, we have absolutely no way of knowing whether the things we’re being told they’re talking about are indeed the things they’re talking about. In fact, from the perspective of the faithful, the bishops might as well have just stayed home. They’re clearly only there to provide an air of legitimacy to the cabal’s goals. HJMW

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Truth to tell, I am not keeping track of the fluctuations of the Synod all that closely. For one thing, we are really not following the proceedings; we are following only selective comments made to the media. There is something of a dog-and-pony show about it. Francis has already short-circuited it with his motu proprio — placed grandly under the protection of the Mother of God, we are told. And there is little doubt Francis already knows what he will do.

At the end of the day, he is the final arbiter of whatever comes out of this Synod. Reactions to what is revealed in the media will be useful in crafting his response. But the substance of his intentions will have been given an airing for all the world to see. And to cheer. (He has made the papacy popular with secularists. What subsequent pope will be inclined to reverse that?)

The Synod is not a boxing match. Trying to follow it blow by blow gets us nowhere. This is a chess match being played with generational pawns on a board that extends beyond your lifetime or mine. Leonardo Boff’s love letter to Francis, “Francis of Rome, Francis of Assisi,” makes a point that applies here. He says that Francis knows he will not be able to achieve all that he wants to achieve in his tenure, but he will have planted seeds.

Precisely so. The Church has time on her side. No need to rush. One Synod is no more than a first, tentative turn of the screw. The traditionalists, like Pell and Burke, who are thorns in the papal side, will die off. Younger men will come from a generation already primed to assent to the ethos of their times. Eventually, those seeds will bear the wanted fruit. This is a waiting game.

Predictions are hazardous things. They are often wrong. So I should be very brief in offering my own thought on how this Synod will end: I do not expect any bombshells. I expect orthodoxy will prevail. But it will be tainted by the perception that it is fungible.

We will breathe our sigh of relief, bask in a sense of victory: There, you see,

the Spirit was with us all along! Meanwhile, Laudato Si will worm its way through Catholic pulpits, agencies, and press. And the world will be the worse for this pope. Ignorance — ideological fixity – and cunning are a dangerous combination. Francis embodies both.

Francis is too sly to trigger schism. All will be resolved to the satisfaction of orthodoxy. And all will stink of sulphur.

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