It’s good that our Holy Father isn’t worried about an American schism, since there won’t be any. Hopefully, though, he’s keeping a close eye on the Germans. Reinhard Cardinal Marx, head of the German bishops’ conference, is planning to convene a two-year-long “binding synod,” in which certain influential laymen will be invited to participate. Its stated topics are a laundry list of progressive euphemisms: the “authority and separation of powers” (Gallicanism), “sexual morality” (legitimizing adultery and homosexuality), “the priestly mode of life” (abolishing clerical celibacy), and “women at the service of ecclesiastical offices” (female deacons, priests and bishops). In June, Pope Francis sent a letter rebuking his ally Marx and all the participating bishops, ordering them not to go ahead with the sham synod. Marx ignored the pontiff. Then, last week, the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops sent a letter to Marx informing him that the synod was “not ecclesiologically valid,” and th
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