The chaos wreaked by the House of Representatives in Washington should not be confused with an ideological battle for the soul of the Republican Party. It’s the tie-dye version of MMA fighting, where betrayal and insults replace – barely – punches and knee strikes.
The Republican Party left its soul on a Trump Tower escalator in June 2015. The great political tent founded by Abraham Lincoln and bringing together men as diverse as Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan is now home to opportunists and racists and servile supporters of Donald Trump.
Trump has one great quality: he doesn’t hide his game. He says it loudly, writes on social media, and pushes his followers to take the actions he plans to take when he returns to the White House. He will be vengeful against those who opposed him; he will undermine the authority of the FBI and Justice Department, which exposed his misconduct; He will shake the pillars of American democracy just to protect himself and his family’s affairs.
A MAN’S PARTY
The former president could hardly have found a better student than Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman who took over for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy this week. Gaetz doesn’t hide his intentions either: he doesn’t want to bow to any compromise; he doesn’t try to rule; All he wants is the chaos from which, he believes, the providential leader Donald Trump will emerge.
The Republican Party debaptized and excommunicated; it has closed itself into itself until it has become the party of a single man and his whims. The Catholic Church is trying to take the opposite approach.
TALK TO EVERYONE ABOUT EVERYTHING
This week the Catholic Church – Francis’s, and certainly not that of many American bishops if they had their way – embarked on the great adventure of a synod that could be revolutionary, even if the Vatican refuses to use that label use.
Even in the Catholic Church there is a group of opportunists, men who care about respect for an idea of the sacred that implies submission and quiet deference to an ecclesiastical hierarchy, drunk on its superiority over their flock.
This synod on the theme of synodality – essentially a major working session on the question of cooperation – enforces Pope Francis’ vision of a collegial and inclusive Church that requires bishops to listen to their faithful and work with them to better respond to the needs of modernity enter into.
HELLO COMPANY!
After two long years of global consultations, Francis invited his bishops, but also laypeople, including around fifty women, not only to debate but also to vote on the path that the Catholic Church could take.
Traditionalists following American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke emerged and expressed serious doubts about the legitimacy of such a gathering of bishops and laity in an exchange of letters with Francis.
In the United States, the future of the major Republican Party no longer appears to be limited to one man; In Rome, the Catholic Church under Francis understands that its own future belongs to everyone. No matter what Americans think… as luck would have it.
The Synod on Synodality
26 days in Rome
A total of 494 supporters
- 365 with voting rights, including 269 bishops
54 women, including 25 religious and 29 lay people
- A first in the history of the Catholic Church
43 laypeople: 29 women, 14 men
5 official languages
- French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Canadian representatives
- Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development
- Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, Archbishop of Quebec
- Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for Bishops
- Michael Miller, Archbishop of Vancouver
- Raymond Poisson, Bishop of Saint-Jérôme-Mont-Laurier
- William McGrattan, Bishop of Calgary
- Marc Pelchat, Auxiliary Bishop of Quebec
- Sami Aoun, political scientist, professor emeritus at the University of Sherbrooke
- Sister Chantal Desmarais, member of the Community of the Sisters of Mercy of Sainte-Marie
- Catherine E. Clifford, theologian, professor at Saint Paul University in Ottawa
- Linda Staudt, former director of the London School Board, Ontario
