- The Daily Knight
Interview with the Superior General of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X
The Daily Knight
The latest orientations of Pope Francis’ pontificate Interview conducted by FSSPX.Actualités in Menzingen 5th May 2023, on the Feast of Saint Pius V
They advocate a Church without doctrine, without dogma, without faith, and in which there is no longer any need for an authority to teach anything. Everything is dissolved into a spirit of ‘love and service’, without really knowing what this means and to where it leads.
FSSPX.Actualités: Rev. Father General, His Holiness Pope Francis recently celebrated ten years of his pontificate. What, in your opinion, is the most significant point of these last few years?
Don Davide Pagliarani: After his two central and innovating ideas of mercy, understood as a “universal amnesty”, and the new morality based on the respect for the earth as the “common home of all humanity”, it is undeniable that recent years have been characterised by the idea of synodality. This is not an absolutely new idea 1 [1], but Pope Francis has made it the priority axis of his pontificate.
This idea is so omnipresent that many have, to a certain point, lost interest in it, even though it represents the quintessence of a mature and perfected modernism. From an ecclesiological point of view, the synodal revolution is supposed to impact and profoundly transform the Church in its hierarchical structure, in its functioning, and above all, in its teaching of the faith.
Why have people become weary of this synodality?
It is possible that it has been overly perceived as a German-speaking problem, or perhaps – while keeping all things in proportion – that it is basically a Belgian problem, and its universal dimension has been lost over time. It is certain that the Germans have played a particular role in the synodal process, but the problem itself is a Roman problem – and therefore universal – and thus, it concerns the Catholic Church as a whole.
How would you define this synodal process?
First of all, this process is a concrete reality, rather than a predefined doctrine. It is a confused method, or better still “a praxis”, which has been launched without knowing in advance all the possible outcomes. In concrete terms, it is a determined desire to turn the Church upside-down. The teaching-Church no longer sees itself as the custodian of a Revelation coming from God, and of which it is the guardian, but as a group of bishops associated with the Pope, who listen to the faithful, and in particular to all the peripheries, i.e. with particular attention paid to anything that the most alienated souls might suggest. It is a Church where the shepherds become the sheep and the sheep become the shepherds.
The underlying idea is that God does not reveal Himself through the traditional channels of Holy Scripture and Tradition, which are safeguarded by the hierarchy, but through the “experience of the people of God”. This is why the synodal process began with a consultation of the faithful in all the dioceses throughout the world. On the basis of this data, summaries were drawn up, at the level of the bishops’ conferences, leading to a first Roman synthesis published a few months ago.