"Zero is the number of parishioners who have come up to me in the last four years praising synodality." Fr. Gerald Murray has been a parish priest in New York for decades. He is also a canonist, and he does not think synodality is a movement of the Spirit — he thinks it is a bureaucratic maneuver wearing spiritual language.

In Part 1 of this conversation, Fr. Murray takes apart the vocabulary: Sr. Nathalie Becquart calling synodality "a social prophecy" and "a grammar of peace"; the Synod Secretariat classifying Catholics who disagree not as people with differing views but as "resistance"; and the question nobody in Rome has answered — where in the world do we find a Catholic mandate to invent a church in a different way?

Part 2 tomorrow.

CHAPTERS
00:00 "Zero parishioners have praised synodality"
01:06 The article - Selling Radical Synodality as Social Prophecy
01:27 Is this just marketing language?
02:22 What is a "grammar of peace"?
02:54 Calling disagreement "resistance"
04:32 Pachamama, and the Catholic Biblical Association
06:32 "Would we put a Mormon in charge?"
07:24 "Holy Father, what is synodality?"
09:23 Counter-revolutionaries: how the Synod treats its critics
10:42 A word from CatholicMatch.com
11:54 Bishop Mutsaerts' open letter to Pope Leo
14:02 Four years, zero parishioners
14:39 "A Protestantizing effort" - and the HR question

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REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE

• Fr. Gerald E. Murray, "Selling Radical 'Synodality' as 'Social Prophecy'" - The Catholic Thing, 18 August 2026
• Sr. Nathalie Becquart, Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops - address to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Florida
• Bishop Rob Mutsaerts, Auxiliary Bishop of 's-Hertogenbosch - open letter to Pope Leo XIV on the fruits of the Synod
• Pope St. Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) - on how the Church is formed and hands on catechesis
• The Ecclesial Assembly of 2028, at which Cardinal Mario Grech has said bishops will be fewer than half the participants

ABOUT FR. GERALD MURRAY
Fr. Gerald E. Murray is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, a canon lawyer, a regular contributor to The Catholic Thing, and a familiar voice to Catholics who follow Rome closely.

A CATHOLIC TAKE
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