We have not written too much on the Amazon Synod, by and large since I can scarcely bear to read about it, and others on other sites, such as First Things, offer a play-by-play far more detailed than anything we might muster from our more distant vantage point.
But about the recent theft from of what some perceive to be pagan statues of an indigenous women-with-child, which were subsequently punched unceremoniously off the bridge into the Tiber, all filmed: I appreciate people’s frustration, to play the Saint Boniface and chop down the quasi-divinized oak tree, but like the theologians who hastily accused the Holy Father of heresy, this only plays into ‘their’ hands. And by ‘their’, I mean those who seem to be setting out to re-make the Church into an image different from the one Christ intended. To offer them fodder of our own disobedience is folly.
Yes, I fear schism, along with death, judgement and hell, as much as the next fellow. But, for now, I prefer, and would advise, Padre Pio’s exhortation to ‘pray, and not worry’. God has all things in His hands, and, whatever happens or unfolds, good will be brought therefrom. Civil disobedience may well soon be a duty – and in some cases already is – but, like Thomas More, we should each bide our time for that moment, so that God’s grace be with us, and we rely not only on our own fallible and wayward wills. Recall his advice to his son-in-law Roper, who wanted to tear down the laws to ‘get’ King Henry: What fierce winds would blow then, and when the devil turned around to face you, what would we ourselves do, without the protection of law?
The same applies to the election results pouring in as I write, and which, like the various goings-on at the Synod, can scarcely be watched, with the east coast turning its expected crimson red. As Stan Rogers put it so poetically, ‘that government dole will rot your soul’. Anyone who could now vote Liberal, regardless of what cash and baubles they hand out, is holding their soul – their conscience – quite precariously in their hands, to allude to More once more.
For, in the end, it really is about souls, and each of our own personal decision for, or against Christ, a choice that is becoming clearer with each passing day.