Pints With Aquinas - Synod on Synodality EXPLAINED? | Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

Father Pine Explains what the Synod on Synodality means based on what we as Catholics know and believe about the Church, Her Responsibilities, and Christ. 🟣 Join Us on Locals (before we get banned on YT): https://mattfradd.locals.com/ 📖 Fr. Pine's Book: https://bit.ly/3lEsP8F 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd We get a small kick back from affiliate links

Hello, my name is Father Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St. Joseph, and this is Pines of the Quinas. In this episode, I'd like to talk a little bit about the synod, so the synod on synodality. You've probably heard some things about the synod, but there have been developments of late. So we had the first plenary session this past month, and then there was a letter written to the people of God, and then there was a summary report circulated. So we'll have to wait for the second plenary

session in October of next year for the final report and then for whatever publication follows thereupon. But at present we already have things to consider, to judge, and to incorporate into our lives, specifically as we continue to discern or to distinguish what it means for us to be the body of Christ, what it means for us to be the church. And so you have various proposals or various expressions of this question in the synod and its conversations. But I think that we need to be careful not just to think with the mind of the world, which can be a temptation because a lot of the issues that are raised are also being raised by our secular contemporaries. And it can be a temptation because a lot of the issues that are raised are also being raised by our secular contemporaries. And it can be a subtle temptation just to think with the mind of the world.

So we want to think with the mind of Christ to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. And insofar as that's the goal, I think that we need to be careful about the principles and the arguments that we advance in the service of this type of discourse. So let's think about what it means to be the church according to the mind of Christ in light of the sentence findings. Here we go. Okay, so one thing I was struck by specifically in the letter was this call

to listen to everyone and especially to the most poor. So there's a particular paragraph that begins with these words in English translation. To progress in its discernment, the church absolutely needs to listen to everyone, starting with the poorest.'" Okay, cool. Sounds Christian to me. "'Insofar as our Lord identifies with the poor, He doesn't counsel but commands service

of the poor.'" I think often of this line from Archbishop Charles Chaput who says that, "'God gave the rich to the poor to provide for their needs, and God gave the poor to the rich to keep them from going to hell.'" So, there's no way around that, right? It's just part of the gospel. Not that one would seek a way around that, please, God. But then when it goes and delineates further, it identifies certain subpopulations which especially need to be listened to, and it will talk about victims of racism, talk about indigenous populations whose cultures have

been scorned, it'll talk about those who have suffered abuse by members of the ecclesial body. So here this is interesting because in every instance it entails some sort of violence or oppression. And there's always a subtle temptation when, you know, your contemporaries, your secular contemporaries who think with the mind of the world are talking about oppression and victimhood to just think along those lines. So I think there's something distinct about how we think about these issues as Christians in the ecclesial body, and it's worthwhile for us just to consider

that for a couple minutes. So, you know, according to the mind of the world, you have certain established conditions of this discourse, you know, like we're working within a kind of politically liberal situation or the dispensation of political liberalism, but in many of our institutions things are tending more Marxist or kind of communist in the sense that you have a kind of oppressed underclass and that oppressed underclass is working to kind of seize the means of production, whatever they are on the pertinent circumstances, so as to usher in some utopic or apocalyptic final times in which everybody will be equally represented and have equal access to the goods, whatever goods are concerned.

But the way that our secular contemporaries, right, those who think with the mind of the world are currently managing this conversation is by dialectic, right? So let's say that you pertain to a population which has had its voice heard in the past. You're being told now, no one cares. Don't speak. You're a violent oppressor of, you know, whatever sort, which is tough. But then it leads to this kind of strange under-representation of those who formerly were overrepresented rather than like thinking about it in terms of a synthesis or rather

thinking about it in terms of transcending the dialectic of violence, of like push and pull or of out muscle and out tug, which I think we as Christians actually have a hope for. So like we as Christians believe that it's possible not so much to establish a lasting peace here on earth, but to work towards it, to live towards heaven, to transcend the dialectic of this current evil age, and to not get overly lost in social or political types of arbitration when truth be told, we're called to an ecclesial transcendence. So what do I mean specifically? Well, there are certain features of the life of the church which aren't up for debate or which aren't going to go away because they may have been an occasion or cause of

potential oppression or the visitation of violence upon populations. And I think that that's good to have in mind, that the Church is instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ as a kind of instrument, as it were, of salvation in which the sacraments, the fullness of the means of grace and salvation, abide in a kind of flowing or moving way. And that the Lord has appointed priests in service of that church and those sacraments. And that's part of his plan, from the depths of his wisdom, that's part of his plan for our salvation and his glory. So we talk about the church as the mystical body. A body has

differentiated parts, right? So St. Paul describes this at length in his letters. And the hierarchy is one part and the laity is another part. So you'll have in the documents of Vatican II, in Lumen Gentium, for instance, a description of the priesthood. And there's a distinction there between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood. So we all participate in the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're all called to offer spiritual sacrifice. But there's a difference

between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood, not just of degree, but of kind. So they're ordered towards each other, right? But there is a difference. So we think about priests as mediators in a peculiar way, in that they offer the prayers and sacrifices of the people to God, and then they bestow divine things from God upon the people, specifically within their, not mere role or function, but identity, right? And mission as priests at the heart of the church. So the church is a mystical body. It's meant to function kind of organically or organismically.

And the hierarchy is part of that organism, a part of that organic life in service of the la organic life in service of the laity, in service of the church more broadly. But part of this is, you know, like those who are ordained, right? So the hierarchy or the ministerial priesthood is meant to exercise a certain rule or governance. Like that's what order is for, right? So it's for rule, it's for governance. And so with their ordination, the grace of their ordination, the office that they occupy, the jurisdiction that they have, there comes a responsibility and

an exercise of rule and or governance. And that's a perennial feature. So, you know, like we tend to think in the 21st century in the West, you know, everything's kind of moving democratically or communistically or, you know, kind of socialistically, but the church isn't like that. It's constituted in a different way, and that's not just a relic or a kind of fossil of the past. That's something that's intended for the present. So then that's just the one to speak of rule or governance. But then the other thing would be like, okay, in these conversations,

we're talking about inspirations and testimony and expressions of the genuine trajectory of the church's ongoing development for its mission to the Gentiles or to its own people who have fallen away or to its people who have not fallen away. And so we're looking for ideas from all different kinds of corners. I think that when it comes to rule and governance, you're always going to have a stable source of grace, you know, the life of the church from the hierarchy because it's ordained to that end, it's stably constituted for that end. So yeah, so that's going to be principled and in a certain sense primary in our deliberation or discernment.

But then, like, we're also going to see inspiration or ideas, maybe, to speak more simply, well up from other sources. And this way, I think, like, you know, the synod has given good impetus, you know, like listening, hearing, to try to cultivate a communal consciousness of our responsibility for the life of the church, right, for its identity and for its mission. And so, yeah, you like, you want to be in touch with those who might not be represented in this way because there might be ideas or inspirations that well up in corners that you did not anticipate they would well up from.

But what is the basis then of that inspiration or what is the kind of source of those ideas? I would submit to you that it's not violence or oppression, as is suggested by those who think with the mind of the world often enough, but it's holiness. And insofar as prejudice or closed-mindedness makes one blind or insensate to holiness in places where you wouldn't expect to find it, then that's a problem that needs to be contended with. But just because somebody has suffered racism, or just because somebody has suffered abuse, or just because somebody has suffered abuse, or just because somebody pertains to an indigenous population doesn't thereby mean that they will have ideas and

inspiration. It's more an expression of solicitude for those who have not been listened to or heard from, right? With a kind of understanding that as prized of a human dignity and as capable of, you know, the healing and growing of grace, that this person is made for sanctity, that this person is made for holinessity, that this person is made for holiness, and that we should look for holiness in all corners of the life of the church. Okay, so I think that that's kind of like one simple way in which I might try to frame the conversation and the types of responses that we proffer thereunto. So I think that we all as human beings, by virtue of the natural law and press within our members, have an access to the truth.

we all as human beings, by virtue of the natural law and press within our members, have an access to the truth. But on account of the fact that we're fallen, that we're sinful, our minds have been obscured, our hearts have been twisted, and so we rely upon healing and growing grace to get us out of a situation in which we are blind to the solution or hardened against its implications. And so we can't just presume everybody's going to have ideas and inspirations. We're looking especially for ideas and inspirations from those who are seeking to live in the church, right? They're seeking to respond to the church. They're not trying to like manipulate or control or change the church, right?

They're trying to genuinely respond to its call to holiness and then build the church up, you know, in the way in which they're intended to do so within the life of the body, right? With this particular place and this particular role. So yeah, I would say like, you know, by virtue of the fact that you have a human nature, you have a certain insight into the human condition and the truths offered as a solution to our human problems. On account of the fact that you were baptized, right, bestowed with grace, you know, healed

and grown beyond sin, you know, adopted as a son or daughter of God, you have a certain insight, you have certain ideas, as it were, in part, you know, well, because you pertain to the body, because the life of the body, you know, flows through you, it moves through you. So, as a baptized person, you're a bearer of rights and duties, you have a voice in a certain sense, but your voice can always stand to strengthen, right? And so, it's not so much like seizing the means of production or getting access to whatever power. It's a matter of growing in holiness. It's a matter of becoming the saint whom God intends you to be, because then when you're somebody like St. Catherine of Siena, then you can tell the

Pope to go back to Rome to quit his, you know, captivity and Avignon, because that's where he's meant to be, and because of the holiness at work in your life, you can testify with a kind of power because, yeah, the kingdom of God consists not merely in words but in power. So I think that what I'm trying to focus on is that we should look for answers, we should look for solutions among the saints, right? Those who have gone before us and have died, those presently in our midst, those who could potentially be numbered among them but who perhaps have not yet heard the word of God

or received the life of grace into their souls. But basically, it's like we have a hierarchy which exercises rule and governance from whom we can expect to receive God because they're instrumentally ordained to such an end. And that's not going to change, right? We're not going to move beyond that. So we're not making the church a democracy or we're not making the church something other than it is, but within the established ranks, right? Within the church as it is so constituted, we're looking especially to those who are holy as giving peculiar and maybe intense and intimate expression to the life of the church.

Not that the church is just like a spiritual reality and only the holy people pertain to it. I'm not saying that by virtue of the fact, again, that you're baptized, you have rights and duties, you have a place at the table, you have a voice with which to proclaim, with which to testify, with which to speak. But we shouldn't muddy the waters just because those of our secular contemporaries who think with the mind of the world might kind of, I don't know, call us into fear that we have to conform to their standard of discernment. Because we've put on the mind of Christ and we have a distinct and distinctively Christian

standard of discernment. So we want to be conformed of Christ and we have a distinct and distinctively Christian standard of discernment. So we want to be conformed to Christ and we want to testify and witness as the one worshiping Christ, right? With, in communion with the saints in heaven, in communion with the elect, the saints on earth. So yeah, when we look to underrepresented communities, we shouldn't look because they're of a different race or ethnicity or because they've suffered violence and oppression, because that's actually kind of racist, right?

For a variety of reasons, which other people have commented upon, like more effectively, right? Because we're not just going to reduce them to the fact of their having suffered oppression, their having suffered violence or whatever else. We want to actually hope for them, right? Hope for their salvation, hope for their healing and growth and grace, and for the types of words and deeds which will issue from that transformation as they are incorporated into the body of Christ, you know, presuming that they're not, or as they are strengthened in that bond within the midst of the body of Christ, presuming that they are, so that, yeah, together we might, head and members,

constitute that one body of Christ. So I'd say we should be on the lookout ultimately for sanctity, in deference to the church as it is so constituted, not looking to revolutionize or not looking to undermine, but ultimately looking to transform this present, even age with the church as it is and our participation in its life as saints. Yeah, so bold and beautiful pastoral ideals or evangelical ideas will often come from those who are nearest the Lord as, you know, kind of ordained, that is to say, like by office grace and jurisdiction, or as those sanctified, right, by the working of grace, virtue, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So just a general thing

to be aware of in our conversations about synodality. Sure, you know, like we're on the way, but we're on the way to Christ. The point is to arrive at Christ. The point is the destination, and the destination is conformity with Christ and the life of holiness within the Church, which perdoors unto ages of ages. So yeah, Christ gets us there because He is there. So that's what I had hoped to say. I hope it's helpful for you in your own discernment, it's helpful for you in your own conversation. This is Pines with Aquinas. If you haven't yet, please do subscribe to the channel, push the bell and get other sweet updates when things come forth. And then also, check out God's Planting. We've had a couple of conversations

apropos of this theme, specifically about synodality, which you can find by just typing in God's Planting, Synod, or Synodality, and you'll find a hit, or two, or three. And then the last thing is I wrote a book. It's called Prudence. Choose confidently, live boldly. If you haven't yet read it, consider it. I'd appreciate it, because I think, yeah, I wrote it for you, and I hope that you profit from it.

All right, guys, that's all I got. No more my prayers for you, please pray for me, and I'll look forward to chatting with you next time on Pines with Aquinas.