Pope Francis kicks off Synod with ceremony confessing woke ‘sins’

(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of Faith & Reason, John Henry-Westen, Frank Wright, and Stephen Kokx discuss the Synod on Synodality, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) getting an apostolic visitation from Rome, Pope Francis meeting with four “transgender” men, former President Donald’s Trump recent social media posts on St. Michael the Archangel and abortion, and more.

The panel discussed Pope Francis and leading cardinals of the Roman Curia leading a penitential service at St. Peter’s Basilica on the eve of the Synod of Synodalit. During the ceremony, the prelates confessed new sins against peace, creation, indigenous populations, migrants, women, poverty, synodality, communion, and participation of all, using doctrine as “stones to be hurled,” among others. The panel watched a clip of Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández confessing his sins against synodality, including the sin of “indoctrinating the Gospel and risking reducing it to a pile of stones to be thrown at others.”

Westen noted how he confessed these “sins” right in front of the famous statue of St. Peter. “This is really, really pathetic!” the host said. The panel then looked at a clip of Bishop Athanaisus Schneider in an interview with Raymond Arroyo on The World Over, saying that the “sins against synodality” are “invented sins.” “There are no such sins in the divine revelation,” the auxiliary bishop said. Schneider added that the confession service was a tool to push a “new agenda” and “doctrines.” 

Finally, Westen noted one of Cardinal Cristóbal Romero’s prayers during the penitential service. Romero asked for forgiveness “for when we turned our head to the other side in front of the sacrament of the poor, preferring to adorn ourselves and the altar with guilty valuables that steal bread from the hungry.” 

Kokx said Romero’s comment reminded him of what Judas said in the Gospel. “He said, ‘Why? Why do we have this expensive ointment? We could use this for the poor.’ And we know that in his heart where he was really coming from was not a point of care for the poor or for the oppressed.”

The reporter then pondered when the cardinals might publicly confess their involvement in covering up the abuse of seminarians by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and others. “Maybe even Pope Francis [can] go on the record about his involvement in some of that which, again, Archbishop Viganò has mentioned.”

“Most of these so-called sins are also ambiguous; not only are they so-called against creation, etc., which, again, we don’t know exactly what that means. They have a Masonic tint to them, a humanistic aspect, throughout all of them, and a very this-worldly aspect,” Kokx said.

Wright commented: “Well, if you want to get rid of something people love and they respect, which is old and traditional, and you want to replace it with something new, what’s been done in human history is you demonize the old, and thereby you present the new as something refreshing and an escape from that state.”

The journalist noted that the first clip of Cardinal Fernández reminded him more of a Bolshevik struggle session – in which citizens would confess their “sins” against communism and Bolshevism, be publicly humiliated, and terrified into compliance – than a speech by a Catholic cardinal, before diving into some other parallels between the current Vatican and communist regimes.

“During the famine that was caused by the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine, where people ended up eating each other and their children, a sign in Russian still exists which says, ‘People eating each other because of famine are not cannibals. Cannibals are those who do not want to give the Church’s gold to the starving.’ It is a direct echo of the words that we hear from the Vatican today, which again echoes Bolshevism… and it is a shameful thing to see coming from the See of Peter.”

Later in the episode, the panel shifted gears to U.S. politics, discussing former President Trump posting the St. Michael prayer on X and Truth Social. The panel watched a clip Father James Altman sent Westen in reaction to the news, as it was Altman who had delivered a St. Michael statue to the 45th president through his son Barron, and it allegedly now sits on his bedside table.

Kokx underscored that Trump sees an opportunity to win over Catholic voters, a key voting bloc in the November election, which would explain some other recent actions of his, such as an X post wishing the Blessed Virgin Mary a happy birthday and restarting the Catholics for Trump coalition. The journalist then noted that the Harris campaign is also trying to reach Catholics, recently launching Catholics for Harris and highlighted the type of people in the coalition’s initial Zoom meeting.

“It featured prominent liberal social justice activists. [Sister Simone Campbell] from the Nuns on the Bus was there. … Congresswoman [Rosa] DeLauro from Connecticut, she has ties with communist groups. So they’re the types of folks that are backing Kamala Harris,” Kokx said, also noting how Pope Francis weighed in on the race by saying he didn’t know who the lesser of two evils was and comparing pro-abortion positions to strong immigration policies.

I mean, comparing Kamala and Trump, who’s the lesser of two evils? Well, one has persecuted actively judicial appointees from the Knights of Columbus and said, ‘I’m not supporting you. I’m openly attacking you.’ One has served in the Biden administration, where we’ve seen Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven, be targeted [and] had his house raided by FBI agents for his pro-life activism. Kamala Harris has supported after-birth abortions; technically, she has voted for medical care to be denied for children who survive abortion attempts. She’s further supported LGBT issues that restrict [the] religious liberty of Catholics. And I think the choice is pretty obvious, and so for the Pope to weigh in on that, to make that moral equivalency, is quite contrary and quite repugnant.

For more discussion on Vatican’s penitential ceremony, Trump posting the St. Michael prayer, and much more, tune in to this week’s episode of Faith & Reason.

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