Queer Synods, Quiet Cardinals, And Cowboy Apologists

Germany rewrites Catholic morality, Cardinal Dolan refuses to condemn a gay TV star confirmed with his “husband,” Knoxville strangles the old Mass again, and Jimmy Akin refutes his entire career.

The Rainbow Reich And Its Favorite Scapegoat

Edward Pentin’s piece on Germany begins the way these things always do.

The problem, we are told, is not the council, not the new theology, not the Vatican who spent a decade flattering the German Synodal Path and stuffing it full of Francis-approved talking points. No, the problem is that Rome did not “correct” the Germans quickly enough.

So we get a long lament about the latest “orientation aid” from the bishops’ conference telling Catholic schools to treat “diversity of sexual identities” as a fact, to present sexual morality as disputed, to let students decide for themselves whether the sixth commandment exists this week.

Everyone pretends to be shocked.

Gabriele Kuby gives a sincere and often accurate diagnosis of gender ideology. Children are being groomed and mutilated. Conversion therapy is banned. Priests are gagged. Parents are abandoned. All true.

Then comes the move.

The bishops, she says, “do not follow the pope.” Francis is painted as the strict father whose heartfelt letters to Germany were tragically ignored. Leo XIV is the new hope who will finally “take up the battle” against the very moral revolution his predecessor spent twelve years blessing, winking at, or ambiguously massaging into magisterial shape.

The same essay that rightly calls this a “great apostasy” ends by cheering that Leo will help us discern artificial intelligence with the help of Encounter Ministries and “charisms.” So the solution to the doctrinal meltdown caused by charismatics, synodality, and weaponized ambiguity is more charismatics, synodality, and ambiguity.

You almost have to admire the denial involved.

Germany is not rebelling against Rome. Germany is simply acting out, with Teutonic efficiency, everything Rome has been hinting at since the council.

The Rainbow Index: When Apostasy Gets A Scorecard

The Infovaticana report is even more revealing.

A professional LGBT activist theologian, deeply embedded in the Archdiocese of Munich, explains that the synodal process is the key engine driving “queer inclusiveness” across Europe. The Rainbow Index of Churches in Europe now hands out scores.

Germany’s Catholic Church earns thirty seven and a half out of forty seven points. Number one among Catholic countries. Ninth overall, rubbing shoulders with liberal Protestant sects nobody believed in even before they ran out of members.

Why the high score.

Because Germany has what Rome wants everywhere. Permanent LGBT pastoral structures. Bishops and auxiliary bishops dedicated to “queer ministry.” Lay councils that function like shadow synods. A thick bureaucracy where every doctrinal question is routed through committees committed to “inclusion” before the Gospel is even mentioned.

This is precisely what the universal synod is designed to reproduce.

Pentin and Kuby wring their hands that this might spread to the rest of the world. Meanwhile the Rainbow Index calmly tells you it already has. Countries with more intense synodal activity show higher queer scores. Places where the process has been “cosmetic” fall behind.

In other words, if you take synodality seriously, you get rainbow Catholicism. If you treat it as a box-ticking exercise, you remain slightly less corrupt.

And every time the Vatican tells you synodality is simply “walking together” under the Spirit, remember that the activists have numbers, charts, and metrics showing you what actually happens when the walk begins.

New York: Confirming Sin, Confirming Collapse

Then there is Manhattan.

A prominent television anchor, publicly “married” to another man, is confirmed and receives Communion. His “husband” serves as sponsor and also receives the Eucharist. The parish is openly pro-LGBT. The order running it is dying, its priests more famous for rainbow ministry than preaching repentance.

Fr James Martin is on the altar, naturally. He and the other priests are thanked publicly for teaching that “God’s loving mercy is unconditional” and that the convert has discovered the Ark of the Covenant not in the tabernacle but in his “heart,” where God allegedly stored it by creating him “exactly as I am.”

The Federalist piece lays out the Catechism, cites Cardinal Sarah, quotes Romans and John and Mark, and asks the obvious question. Is anyone in authority going to do anything.

The answer, as always, is no.

Cardinal Dolan has the canonical authority to discipline the priests involved. He has the responsibility to safeguard the sacraments. He has the example of even John Paul II rebuking a Sandinista priest on a runway.

Instead the cardinal is busy posting feel-good videos on social media about whatever committee meeting he just attended, sprinkling jokes over a collapsing archdiocese while the sacraments are turned into props for a lifestyle brand.

The article pleads for excommunication, or at least suspension. It will get a shrug.

This is the real message of the new regime.

If you are openly living in grave sin but affirm the council, the new liturgy, and the latest papal talking points, you will be treated as a model of “accompaniment.”

If you are trying to live chastely, raise a large family, and drive several hours to attend the old Mass, you are the problem.

Which brings us to Tennessee.

Knoxville: Obedience For The Sheep, Options For The Wolves

The bishop of Knoxville has written a long, sorrowful letter to traditional Catholics in Johnson City. He assures them he has listened to their pain. He acknowledges the spiritual fruit of the 1962 Missal. He thanks them for their letters and their testimonies.

Then he tells them they may drive six hours round trip once a month if they want to assist at the Mass of their fathers.

The rest of the time they are expected to show up at the local parish and absorb whatever liturgical experimentation and catechetical fog is currently on offer, so that the diocese can achieve the sacred goal of “a unitary form of celebration.”

He cites Traditionis Custodes as “guided by the Holy Spirit.” He repeats the line that the reform of the liturgy directed by the council fathers and implemented by Paul VI and John Paul II is a “gift of the Holy Spirit.” He explicitly says he has chosen not to ask Rome for a dispensation to allow the old Mass in parish churches.

So the German bishops can spend years publicly undermining Catholic sexual morality, bless same sex couples, promote transgender ideology in Catholic schools, and Rome cannot quite bring itself to impose any meaningful penalty.

Traditional Catholics in east Tennessee, who simply want to worship as their ancestors did and as saints did for centuries, are told they may drive to a retreat center once a month because anything more generous might threaten “communion.”

The synodal path leads to rainbow flags in Cologne. The synodal path in Knoxville leads to families hauling infants and toddlers into a car for three hours each way to attend the one Mass Benedict XVI promised they would always have.

If you are wondering which group the hierarchy considers expendable, look at who gets punished.

Jimmy Akin Accidentally Joins The Resistance

And then there is Jimmy.

(Above, Jimmy Akin theologically analyzes whether it would be morally licit to have sexual relations with an alien.)

The world’s most reliable apologist for every novelty since the council has discovered that lay people can correct clergy.

In his latest video promo he asks whether the Church teaches that it is “not appropriate” to pray after Communion, because some priest allegedly discouraged private prayer when returning to the pew. Jimmy plans to explain “why he is wrong.”

Pressed on X, he cites Saint Paul rebuking Peter in Galatians, and Athanasius contradicting Arius when Athanasius was still a deacon. When someone is wrong, he says, “pointing it out is a spiritual work of mercy.” We have been warned against clericalism. Respect for priests does not mean “being silent when they are saying something factually false and imposing burdens on others.”

If you have spent the last decade watching Jimmy scold anyone who questions Francis, fiddle with the meaning of “assent,” and treat every papal interview as if it were Vatican I on stilts, you could be forgiven for blinking in disbelief.

So a layman in a cowboy hat can publicly correct a priest with delegated ordinary jurisdiction and a canonical mission who was “sent” by the Church to preach, teach, and instruct laity over a judgment about post-Communion prayer, complete with YouTube thumbnails screaming “WRONG.”

But when priests, theologians, and entire communities point out that the Francis/Leo regime has approved sacrilegious blessings, muddled the death penalty, rewritten catechism paragraphs, and tolerated sacrilege in places like Manhattan and Munich, they are accused of “attacking the pope,” flirting with schism, or failing in charity.

Jimmy is right about one thing.

It is a spiritual work of mercy to correct those who are wrong.

The tragedy is that conservative Catholic media will support him when he punches down at some random parish priest, but will denounce anyone who speaks the same way about Leo and his bishops who are dismantling Catholic doctrine in full view of the world.

The System Is Working Exactly As Designed

(Photo courtesy of Complicit Clergy)

Put the pieces together.

Germany proudly tops a “queer inclusiveness” index because synodality gives activists permanent leverage over doctrine and practice. Vatican officials wag fingers on paper, then look the other way as the revolution accelerates.

New York priests showcase a gay civil “marriage” at the altar, confirm the man in that lifestyle, communicate both partners, and gloat on social media about unconditional mercy, while the cardinal records cheerful videos and hopes no one asks what Saint Paul meant by not being conformed to this world.

A southern bishop, professing his love for the old Mass and his compassion for suffering faithful, methodically implements Traditionis Custodes to ensure their children grow up in the new rite and the old rite slowly dies from exhaustion and distance.

And Jimmy Akin, whose entire career has been spent telling anxious Catholics that the pope cannot really lead you into error because the Spirit will not permit it, suddenly discovers that laymen may and must “correct” clergy who misteach and impose burdens.

The hierarchy reserves its outrage for kneelers, mantillas, and Latin.

The system works. Just not for you.

What Real Resistance Looks Like

There is a quiet temptation in all this to cling to the last respectable hope. If only Leo XIV sees what Francis did not. If only Dolan channels Cardinal Hayes. If only Rome finally reins in the Germans. If only some orthodox celebrity on YouTube drops the right episode.

The reality is harsher and, paradoxically, more liberating.

The same theological virus runs through the Synodal Path, Fiducia Supplicans, Knoxville’s implementation of Traditionis Custodes, the rainbow confirmation in Manhattan, and Jimmy Akin’s double standard. It is the belief that the postconciliar project itself is beyond question. The only permissible critique is that someone has gone “too far” in applying it or not far enough.

You, however, are under no obligation to pretend that contradictions are harmony. You can look at the last sixty years, look at the fruits, and say what any sane Catholic in another century would have said.

Blessing sodomy is evil. Confirming an unrepentant public sinner is evil. Forcing families to drive six hours for the ancient Mass while lavishing compassion on activists who mutilate children is evil. Using saints like Paul and Athanasius to justify policing a friar while shaming anyone who resists Bergoglian novelties is grotesque.

There is nothing clericalist about saying so. Quite the opposite.

If bishops and cardinals will not defend the faith, fathers and mothers will have to do it. If cowboys in leather fringe can take it upon themselves to correct a priest about post-Communion prayer, lay Catholics can certainly call out the far graver scandals that are tearing souls away from Christ.

The German activists are right about one thing. A new discipleship is rising.

The question is whether it will be another charismatic brand bolted onto the same collapsing structure, or a remnant that finally stops gaslighting itself, admits that the revolution was a revolution, and begins the long, costly work of returning to the faith that saved the world once already.

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