An Open Letter to Synod 2024 Participants

September 30, 2024

The Feast Day of St. Jerome

An Open Letter to the participants of the final session of the Synod on Synodality, as well as to the Faithful who are watching it unfold:

I am writing this letter to you on the Feast Day of St. Jerome, a Doctor of the Universal Church and one of the Four Great Latin Fathers. On Wednesday, October 2nd, to Sunday, October 27th, 2024, the Sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, also referred to as the Synod on Synodality, with the theme “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation and mission,” will hold its second and final session.

During this synod so far, we have seen false ideas placed on the discussion tables alongside ancient truths of revelation with the attitude that some of these ancient truths need to change or simply be erased. It is a great travesty when the pearl of great price is mixed haphazardly with the baubles of a confused and sinful world. I beseech all who are participating in this synod to have the audacity of faith which cries “non possumus” – we cannot!

We read in the Psalms that God has “strengthened the bars of thy gates…” (Psalm 147:13). These gates are the gates of His Church. Do you who are priests, bishops, and cardinals realize that you are watchmen at those gates?  St. Jerome wrote: “If only the Lord would grant me the privilege of being a bar in the gates of Sion! If any heretic dared to force a way through those gates, I would stand astride them and prevent him. Let Eunomius come, let Arius come, and I will refute them.”

Have those of you who are participating in the Synod also cried out, “If only the Lord would grant me the privilege of being a bar in the gates of Sion!”? Instead of serving as a bar in the gate of Sion, many of you seem to be weeping by the stream of confusion in Babylon.

To all those who are participating in this Synod, I ask you this question, “Where do you dwell?” For the Lord calls you out of the world, out of Babylon, to be a watchman for His Church. “Upon the walls of Babylon set up the standard, strengthen the watch; set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes; for the Lord hath both purposed, and done all that he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.” (Jeremiah 51:12).

We were told that scandals would come – but are you one of those causing the scandal?  “Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless, woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.” (Matthew 18:7).

Quoting St. Jerome again: “To avoid scandal, avoid Babylon. I myself went to Babylon awhile where I enjoyed the poetry of Cicero and Plautus, but then I was sent a dream in which I was before the judgment seat of Christ, and I was told to declare what I was. I answered that I was a Christian, but the Judge said, ‘You lie. You are rather a Ciceronian for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ He ordered me to be scourged. After my punishment, I awoke, and I found myself to be a changed man, and the marks were still upon me. I was then a man who was fit for the study and interpretation of Sacred Scripture. I walked no more in Babylon. But I find there are more shepherds now who dwell in Babylon than in Sacred Scripture.”

As this final session of the Synod on Synodality takes place, I call out to those participants who are walking with the world, who dwell in Babylon, and who are striving for harmony with the world rather than Christ. We cannot abide by a process of synodality that usurps authority that is rightly possessed only by God, and we cannot strive to walk in harmony with those who are on a path other than the true path set by Jesus Christ.

In recent weeks Pope Francis has insisted that it matters not what god people embrace as we are all on the same path. This flies in the face of the basic teaching of our faith, the words of Christ Himself, and the long arduous journey of the chosen people of Israel. The Old Testament can be described as the story of God’s constant fidelity as Israel repeatedly departed from the true path and went after false gods.

The first commandment of the Decalogue is: Thou shalt not have false gods before me. If a synodal conversation gives even the impression that false gods can be mixed into the Sacred Deposit of Faith, we must denounce this as anathema.

We see many who have been called to participate in this Synod who make allowances for the sins of Babylon – among them the perversions of Sodom and Gomorrah. The heretic Martin Luther said, ‘To be continent and chaste is not in me.’ Luther, in a letter to Melanchthon, wrote, ‘Sin will not destroy us in the reign of the Lamb, although we were to commit fornication a thousand times in one day.’ How untrue those words are, and yet these are the words we now hear among many of those who participate in this synod as they push an agenda that departs from celibacy and/or natural marital relationships and embraces fornication and sodomy.

Despite it being said that LGBT issues were not the focus of synod discussions, Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe, a synod participant, has written during this synodal time that same-sex desires are “God-given” and need to be “educated” instead of denied, and he praised “mature gay Catholics” who are in “committed relationships.” Father James Martin who founded the pro-LGBTQ group Outreach, and who is also a synod participant, has written much in regard to same-sex attraction that is not in accordance with Catholic doctrine. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” also states clearly that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved.” (CCC, 2357-2358).

Pope Francis has decided that there will be study groups that will work on this issue and some of the other most controversial issues of the Synod, and it is concerning that the emphasis in these groups seems to be unity with diversity rather than unity with Our Lord and His precepts. Pope Francis said about the Synodal path that we are called to dream a church that is the “servant of all.” However, it is harmony with Christ rather than harmony with man that we should seek.  

I beseech all of the shepherds of the Church, especially those participating in this session of the Synod, to defend the Deposit of Faith and to stand firmly for Christ, even though it puts you at odds with the world. As shepherds, we must say with St. Jerome:

“Would to God that all the infidels would rise up together against me, for having defended the name and the glory of God! I wish that the whole world would conspire in blaming my conduct, that I may, by this means, obtain the approbation of Jesus Christ. You are deceived if you think that a Christian can live without persecution. He suffers the greatest who lives under none. Nothing is more to be feared than too long a peace. A storm puts a man on his guard, and obliges him to exert his utmost efforts to escape shipwreck.”

And now to the Faithful, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let me say that to follow any other than Christ in communion with His Church is the sure path to eternal life without God, which is to be damned. In this time of so-called “synodality,” many will say that my words are harsh and judgmental, but these are Christ’s words, and they reveal the most profound love the world has ever seen – for His desire is that none should be lost. He has given us the Catholic Church which is not a mere human institution – it is a work of God, an instrument and sacrament of salvation and of communion with Him. It is not true that all religions, all paths, will lead you to God. Christ is The Way, The Truth, and The Life, and as St. Cyprian stated, “No one can have God for his Father who does not have the Church for his Mother.”

Therefore, do not accept any synodal process that contradicts the Deposit of Faith of the Catholic Church, and that does not have Christ as its authority. Do not be as the people spoken about in Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

It is important to understand that regardless of your state in life, you bear responsibility to abide by God’s Divine authority. Certainly prelates, all of the ordained, vowed religious, and parents all have a specific level of authority, and are all called to exercise their authority in a manner which always respects God’s Supreme Authority. However, regardless of your status, each and every person has a responsibility to follow the Divine authority of God.

Rather than succumb to the siren call of the modern world, let us cling instead to the one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism that leads us to Jesus Christ. Let us rejoice in the fullness of the faith as Catholics and let us never accept any change which would seek to alter the unchanging Deposit of Faith given to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ and safeguarded by His Holy Church. Non Possumus!

May St. Jerome, Doctor of the Universal Church, intercede for us as we remain steadfast in the True Faith.

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland 

Bishop Emeritus of Tyler