As though he needed to give one more example about worshipping Vatican II and synodality, Cardinal Grech gives one more brilliant example of the idolatry of synodality and human pride combined, where God is not even mentioned. If there ever was a golden calf, this is it!
In his homily on February 8th at the European synod, I defy you to find anything that is remotely Trinitarian, Christological,, Marian, biblical, or having to do with sin, damnation and forgiveness and salvation, soteriology. I dare you!
Holy Mass in Prague Cathedral
Wednesday 8 February 2023 – 18:00
Homily of Cardinal Mario Grech
We do not have one common language, but there is something common in our languages. We speak different languages, we come from different linguistic traditions, but all the languages on our continent make use of prepositions. Prepositions are essential to make ourselves understood. Nouns without prepositions, which indicate location, direction, temporality, would make little, or even no, sense. Prepositions are indeed essential. Without them, language fails….but not only language.
Even theology, our discourse about God and humanity, precisely because it is a discourse, would fail without prepositions. Let us look at what Jesus says in today’s gospel. It is a difficult gospel to understand. How harder would it be without prepositions. Indeed, the entire meaning of the gospel rests on the prepositions employed. Nothing is outside of the human being which enters into the human being which can corrupt it, but that which comes out of man; that is what corrupts man. This phrase would make no sense without the prepositions. Indeed, the emphasis seems to be placed on the prepositions. Nothing is outside of the human being which enters into the human being which can corrupt it, but that which comes out of the human being; that is what corrupts man. Extra, in, de are the prepositions employed by the Vulgate.
In this gospel, the prepositions are used to distinguish, and to make distinctions clear. What is outside is different from what is inside, and one should not be confused with the other. Prepositions are here employed to explain movement, to specify what goes in and what goes out. But there is more to prepositions. They always imply a relationship. They qualify the relationship between one object and another, or between an object and time or space. In other words, there is no preposition without relationship. This is clear in today’s gospel. What is external, can only be understood, as external, when considered in relation to the internal. The going in can only be understood as going-in, when comprehended in relation to the going-out. There is no distinction without a relationship. Every distinction implies and presupposes a relationship. And all of this is carried and communicated through prepositions. A might be different from B, but A cannot be understood as distinct if not considered in relation to B, and vice versa. And this is what Jesus does, he clearly delimits the inside and the outside. But what is internal cannot be understood if not in relation to the external, and the external cannot be understood if not in relation to the internal.
How is all of this relevant to the event that we are celebrating today? How is this relevant for our synod on synodality. I believe it is very relevant. I believe that our synod is and should be a synod of prepositions. A prepositional synod — not necessarily a propositional synod — but definitely a prepositional synod.
What do I mean? The synod has often been portrayed — by theologians, people of the church, the media — in terms of prepositions. And that is the right thing to do. The question, rather, is: have we understood prepositions correctly? For, how often has this synod been portrayed as a battle of the conservatives against the liberals? How often has it been read as an opposition between the west and the east, the north and the south? In other words, how often has this synod been read with an over-emphasis on the distinguishing-factor of prepositions? How often have prepositions been used exclusively insofar as indicators of distinctions and separations?
There is, however, an opposite and equally problematic way of reading the synod. How often have we heard that this is a synod that should eliminate all distinctions? How often have we heard that this synod should be open to change, and blur the distinction between what is within the Catholic tradition and what is outside? While the first approach accentuates prepositions, the second approach eliminates prepositions. The first wants to emphasise distinctions, the second wants to eliminate distinctions, and therefore employs no prepositions. A synod without prepositions, is a synod without distinctions. It is a synod in which everything goes.
Both of these interpretations forget something important that I mentioned earlier about prepositions. Prepositions do not simply indicate a distinction, but a distinction within a relationship. Something is different, only insofar as different from another. The distinction implied through a preposition cannot be understood without the relationship implied in the preposition.
I think that something similar should happen in the synod. The synod is not there to destroy distinctions, to destroy the Catholic identity. It is not there to raze distinctions. Rather, it is there to uphold distinctions, to understand the Gosple and what makes the Catholic Church truly One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. But, as with prepositions, these distinctive traits of the Church can only be understood deeply when considered in relation to that from which they are distinct. The unity of the Church can only be understood in relation to diversity. Its holiness only in relation to what is unholy. Its universality in relation to what is particular. And this is never a static relationship, but a dynamic one. Prepositions should not be said once and for all. The prepositions have to be uttered every day. Every day we have to ask what makes us distinct as a Catholic Church. But we also have to ask, in what way does that which makes us distinct imply that we are also in relation? For, in the words of Rowan Williams, ‘language creates a world, and so entails a constant losing and rediscovering of what is encountered. The connectedness of language to what is not language is a shifting pattern of correlation not an index-like relation of cause and effect.’[1]
It is in this way that I understand and look, with hope, at the Synod on Synodality. May our endeavor not become an exercise in exclusive distinction, between those who are in and those who are out. In other words, a distinction without relation, which ultimately results in no distinction. However, may our endeavor also not become a relation without distinction, which ultimately results in no relation. May our God, who is the totally different yet totally in communion, guide his Church to become distinct, yet in relation.
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