"Synodality no longer exists, because it's a made-up concept."

Fr. Gerald Murray does not think the synodal process is irreversible. He thinks it can be stopped, and in Part 2 of this conversation he lays out exactly how: suspend the process now, restore the office to what it was, rename it the Synod of Bishops, and send it back to what Pope St. Paul VI actually built - periodic meetings of bishops on real pastoral questions. His argument is that undoing it is not radical, because there was nothing there before to undo. "If we shut it down, that's just returning to what happened before."

Then Germany. On 17 June 2026 the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments refused the German bishops' request for lay preaching in place of the homily. The president of their conference answered that he has "a lot of respect for the tradition we have here in Germany." Fr. Murray's read is blunt: "It's a direct act of rebellion, and it should be suppressed."

And at the end, the moment that stops the conversation cold - priests being sent to give last rites to people who intend to take their own lives. "The world is laughing. The devil's laughing at that."

Part 1 of this interview: PASTE_PART1_URL

CHAPTERS
00:00 "The devil's laughing at that"
01:05 The article - Selling Radical Synodality as Social Prophecy
01:17 If you could reverse it, how long would it take?
01:36 Step one: suspend the process now
01:46 The Ecclesial Assembly of 2028 - bishops under half
02:18 Restore the office. Rename it the Synod of Bishops.
03:10 Germany: the vehicle to revolutionize the Church
03:51 "That's just returning to what happened before"
04:07 Lay preachers at German Masses - has Rome gone soft?
05:24 Cardinal Marx defied Rome and was reappointed
06:37 "A direct act of rebellion"
07:53 Last rites for a man about to take his own life

REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE

• Fr. Gerald E. Murray, "Selling Radical 'Synodality' as 'Social Prophecy'" - The Catholic Thing, 18 August 2026
• The Ecclesial Assembly of 2028 - Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, has said bishops will be fewer than half the participants
• Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments - letter of 17 June 2026 declining the German Bishops' Conference request of 30 March 2026 for an indult permitting a commissioned lay person to preach in place of the homily
• Pope St. Paul VI - the Synod of Bishops, established after the Second Vatican Council
• Pope St. John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae (1979) - on handing on the faith
• Fiducia Supplicans (2023) - Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith

"Be not deceived, God is not mocked." - Galatians 6:7, Douay-Rheims

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.

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