Letters from the Synod – 2024: #1

In his September 27, 2024, “Houses of Worship” column in the Wall Street Journal, the estimable Fr. Gerald Murray of the Archdiocese of New York noted that Pope Francis had taken virtually all the so-called “hot-button issues” agitated at Synod-2023 off Synod-2024’s agenda, assigning them to “study groups” that will issue reports to this October’s synodal assembly, but which won’t finish their work until months after Synod-2024 ends. Fr. Murray suggested that this reduces the hundreds of participant-delegates in Synod-2024 to spectators, at least insofar as those “hot-button issues” (such as the ordination of women to the diaconate and the LGBTQ agenda) are concerned. That may well be the case, although it seems certain that “progressive” Catholic lobbyists within and outside the Synod will continue to press their causes, not least through a global media obsessed with such matters.