At first glance, this statement may seem more heretical than it actually is, as it appears to be saying that all baptized Christians, including Protestants, are members of the Catholic Church. However, the key to understanding this (and the entire Synodal process) resides in the statement’s identification of the church in question as “Synodal” rather than Catholic. The “Synodal Church” — which is the one now represented by Francis, and possessing most of the buildings of the Catholic Church — is the “different Church” announced by Francis in his October 19, 2021 address to open the Synod on Synodality:

“Father Congar, of blessed memory, once said: ‘There is no need to create another Church, but to create a different Church’ (True and False Reform in the Church). That is the challenge. For a ‘different Church,' a Church open to the newness that God wants to suggest, let us with greater fervour and frequency invoke the Holy Spirit and humbly listen to him, journeying together as he, the source of communion and mission, desires: with docility and courage.”

The “Synodal Church” — which is the one now represented by Francis, and possessing most of the buildings of the Catholic Church — is the “different Church” announced by Francis in his October 19, 2021 address to open the Synod on Synodality.

The Synodal Church is much like the “Ape Church” foretold by Bishop Fulton Sheen:

“Because [Satan’s] religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.” (Bishop Fulton Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West)

Francis and his collaborators have not yet started to refer to their Synodal Church as the Ape Church, but that is perhaps the most accurate description of what they are creating. And, if the Synod closes as anticipated in October 2024, it will be ready for the Antichrist if he seeks to make use of it.

In fairness to Francis and the Synodal heretics, though, the notion of including all baptized Christians in the Mystical Body of Christ — which is the Catholic Church — was introduced long ago. As the Council Daybook entry for December 1, 1962 describes, Cardinal Augustin Bea had the concept in mind even before Vatican II:

“In recent years, it was said, Augustin Cardinal Bea, S.J., president of the council's Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, has stressed the teaching that all non-Catholic Christians who are validly baptized are in some way members of the Mystical Body, although they do not share  in the full graces of God since they are not formally members of the Catholic Church.” (p. 104)

Cardinal Bea distinguished between the Mystical Body of Christ and the Catholic Church, but it was a false distinction. As he well knew, Pius XII had clearly taught that the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, in his encyclical on the Mystical Body of Christ, Mystici Corporis, which included this all-important paragraph 22 on the membership of the Church:

“Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. . . . As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit.”

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In his biography of Cardinal Augustin Bea — “Because he was a German!”: Cardinal Bea and the Origins of Roman Catholic Engagement in the Ecumenical Movement — Fr. Jerome-Michael Vereb wrote about the way in which Bea became interested in the question of membership in the Mystical Body of Christ. According to Fr. Vereb, it began with Josef Hofer’s interpretation of Pius XII’s words:

“Hofer felt that this statement, while soundly based in the principles of Christology, does not take into consideration the new dispensation of the glorified Risen Christ, in which the Holy Spirit is active to assemble the body of the Church. He sought an inclusivity which had not yet been addressed by magisterial authority.” (p. 139)

Of course the Church’s magisterial authority had addressed the question of inclusivity. What Hofer wanted was a reconsideration of the principles set forth in paragraph 22 Mystici Corporis. By Fr. Vereb’s account, Hofer convinced Father Augustin Bea to take up the task of trying to have the Church reconsider what seemed so certain with Pius XII:

“Hofer deepened his insight while serving the Fulda Bishops Conference as a member of the Mixed Commission on Una Sancta affairs. Here he first addressed his reservation regarding paragraph 22. He carried the quest to find an answer for this lacuna with him to Rome, where he presented it to Father Bea at the Biblicum. He declared later in life that it was he who made Cardinal Bea an ecumenist. Continued discussion of this topic with Bea is how he did it. Bea, the scholar, never forgot the question nor its import.” (p. 139)

As the entry from the Council Daybook above makes clear, Bea believed that the key to solving the “ecumenical problem” of Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis was to argue that all baptized Christians were members of the Mystical Body of Christ, even though Pius XII had made it abundantly clear that baptism was only one of the criteria for membership, along with profession of the true faith and unity with the Catholic Church.

The Synod’s Instrumentum Laboris includes 66 mentions of “People of God” in its 60 pages (and, of course, does not mention of the “Mystical Body of Christ”).

In one of his speeches at the Council, Cardinal Bea elaborated upon his belief that the “common bond” of baptism that Catholics share with heretics is far more important than what separates them:

“The primary requirement of all ecumenical activity is that we have an accurate knowledge of [non-Catholics], sincere admiration, and genuine Christian love. For this reason the Sovereign Pontiffs, beginning with Leo XIII, have repeatedly shown what ‘traces of Christ and gifts of the Holy Spirit’ are found among our non-Catholic brothers, and this because of their baptism itself and the graces which flow from baptism. Now anyone who assails this way of acting automatically attacks the Sovereign Pontiffs from Leo XIII to Paul VI.”

Although Bea was able to achieve many ecumenical victories in the documents of Vatican II, he was not able to have the Council accept the notion that the Mystical Body of Christ included all baptized Christians. On this point, he had to settle for refining the concept of “People of God,” as Fr. Vereb described:

“Hofer had warned Bea in the 1950s about the ambiguity of paragraph 22 in Mystici Corporis. Bea did not tear down the image of Mystici Corporis but built upon it by reference to the Pauline biblical texts. . . . By his efforts he helped pave the way for a new and inclusive reference to the Church as the ‘People of God.’”

Chapter II of Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, deals with the concept of the “People of God”:

“All men are called to be part of this catholic unity of the people of God which in promoting universal peace presages it. And there belong to or are related to it in various ways, the Catholic faithful, all who believe in Christ, and indeed the whole of mankind, for all men are called by the grace of God to salvation.”

Here it bears emphasizing that the entire point of Cardinal Bea’s exercise to broaden the definition of the Mystical Body of Christ to include non-Catholics was ecumenical — he wanted to achieve the unity of all Christians. With that in mind, we can look briefly at a few of his other ecumenical initiatives and their relation to the Synod on Synodality, beginning with this concept of the People of God.

Whatever “People of God” means, it is no mere coincidence that it involves ecumenism and baptismal dignity, the key concepts in Bea’s attempt to overturn Pius XII’s definition of the Mystical Body of Christ.

People of God. The Synod’s Instrumentum Laboris includes 66 mentions of “People of God” in its 60 pages (and, of course, does not mention of the “Mystical Body of Christ”), beginning with the first sentence of Paragraph 1:

“The People of God have been on the move since Pope Francis convened the whole Church in Synod in October 2021.”

Instrumentum Laboris never gives us a clear picture of who belongs to the People of God, let alone where they have been moving since Francis “convened the whole Church.” Page 33 of Instrumentum Laboris features this loaded statement on the significance of the People of God, suggesting that it probably includes everyone with baptismal dignity:

“All the Final Documents of the Continental Assemblies highlight the close relationship between synodality and ecumenism, and some devote entire chapters to it. Indeed, both synodality and ecumenism are rooted in the baptismal dignity of the entire People of God.”

Whatever “People of God” means, it is no mere coincidence that it involves ecumenism and baptismal dignity, the key concepts in Bea’s attempt to overturn Pius XII’s definition of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Local Churches. As discussed in a previous article, Instrumentum Laboris focuses on the contribution of “local churches” to the process of shaping the Synodal Church. As Fr. Vereb described, local Churches were vital to Cardinal Bea’s ecumenical vision:

“Bea wrote in 1959 that the role of the local Church and the responsibility of its bishop must be the very first item to be addressed at the Council.” (p. 210)

As Bea wrote in his “Vatican Council Ecumenical Report” (in Peace Among Christians), the role of individual bishops, and the local Churches they represent, was vital to the ecumenical movement:

“In order to show the significance of this doctrine from an ecumenical standpoint, it shall suffice to mention the position the episcopate occupied in the Christian Orient, and the role played by the alliance of the diocese with the patriarchates and auto-cephalic Churches. Furthermore, when one considers the extent to which the Pope’s primacy is frequently equated with the most extreme type of centralization in the thinking of non-Catholic Christians, then one will also understand how important it was to the concept of unity when the Second Vatican Council clearly and solemnly proclaimed the doctrine that it was the assembly of bishops of the entire Catholic Church, with St. Peter’s successor at its head, which represented the highest authority within the Church.” (p. 41)

Thus, the Synod’s elevation of local Churches in importance truly is intended as an ecumenical counterweight to the Pope’s primacy.

The Synodal Church is Bea’s dream church; it is the “different church” envisioned by Congar; and it is the ape church, and mystical body of the Antichrist described by Bishop Sheen. Thanks be to God, though, it is not our Holy Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.

Role of the Laity. Throughout the Synod on Synodality we see countless indications of the importance of the laity. Indeed, the entire ridiculous premise of the Synod is to listen to the laity to find out where the “spirit” is leading the Synodal Church. Another indication of this is the April 2023 announcement that laity will vote in the Synod’s “General Assembly”:

“Neither the nature nor the name is changing—which remains the Synod of Bishops—but the composition of the participants in the October 2023 General Assembly in the Vatican on the theme of synodality is set to change, since a sizeable group of "non-bishop" members will also take part. These 70 individuals will include lay people appointed directly by the Pope, 50 percent of whom shall be women and among whom shall be included several young people. All 70 will enjoy voting rights at the Assembly, which will consist of around 370 voting members out of more than 400 total participants.”

Bea would have applauded this step, just as he applauded Vatican II’s treatment of the laity:

“Another doctrine which has, so to speak, awaited clarification for centuries is the one concerning the position of laymen within the Church . . . . In order to give this subject the consideration it deserves, the Council, in the chapter of the constitution on the Church dealing with the People of God, first of all granted the same dignity and position to all Church members and summoned them to their calling towards holiness and the apostolic mission by means of the common priesthood.” (Peace Among Christians, p. 42)

The emphasis on the laity (and their “common priesthood”) obviously plays a vital ecumenical role because there are no Catholic priests outside the Church. And, Bea would doubtlessly rejoice that the Synod has tied this common priesthood to baptismal dignity common to all Christians:

“Baptismal dignity is readily linked to a common Priesthood as the root of the baptismal ministries, and the necessary relationship between common and ministerial Priesthood is reaffirmed since they are ‘interrelated’ with each one ‘in its own special way’ being a ‘participation in the one Priesthood of Christ’ (LG 10).”

These examples should make it clear that the Synod on Synodality is a continuation of the ecumenical work that Cardinal Bea began before Vatican II. It is, therefore, part of the project to overturn Pius XII’s definition of the Mystical Body of Christ, for purposes of uniting all Christians, regardless of the faith they profess. Many critics of the Synod have rightly focused on the immorality and anti-Catholic ideas it promotes — but the key to understanding these elements is the recognition that a Synodal Church must embrace all faiths, and thus all sins and all religious ideas.

The Synodal Church is Bea’s dream church; it is the “different church” envisioned by Congar; and it is the ape church, and mystical body of the Antichrist described by Bishop Sheen. Thanks be to God, though, it is not our Holy Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. May God grant us the grace to remain always united to His Church, and always opposed to the Synodal Church that Satan appears to be preparing for the Antichrist. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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