Is Pascal "Synodal"?

The Synod on Synodality is being held in Rome from October 4 to 29, 2023. On June 20, the working document (Instrumentum laboris (IL)), which serves as the central theme for the synod fathers, was made public.

We find that, as Martin Grichting, former Vicar General of the diocese of Chur (Switzerland), remarks, “the words ‘repentance’ (2 times) and ‘conversion’ (13 times) are found in the IL. But if one takes into account the respective context, one notices that these two terms in the IL almost never refer to man’s turning away from sin, but signify a structural action, that is, of the Church. It is not the sinner who must repent and convert; no, it is the Church that must convert—‘synodality’—to the ‘recognition’ [in an expression of mercy] of those who profess that they do not want to follow its teachings and therefore God.” In this case, this refers to the divorced who are civilly remarried, LGBTQ+, and so forth.

The Swiss prelate proposes an illuminating parallel between the lax Jesuits of the 17th century and their synodal successors: “The fact that the directors of the synod no longer talk about sin, repentance, and the conversion of sinners leads one to think that they now believe they have found another way to take away the sin of the world” (Cf. The fifth dubium of the five cardinals).

“All this recalls the events described by Blaise Pascal, born precisely 400 years ago, in his ‘Provincials’ (Les Provinciales, 1656/1657). In them Pascal addresses the Jesuit moral theology of his time, which undermined the moral teachings of the Church with a casuistry made up of sophisms, almost to the point of turning them into their opposite. In his Fourth Letter, he cites a critic [François Hallier, 1596-1659] of Etienne Bauny [Etienne Bauny, 1564-1649] who said of this Jesuit: ‘Ecce qui tollit peccata mundi,’ behold him who takes away the sins of the world, to the point of making their existence disappear with his sophisms.”

This also applies to the Jesuit cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, who considers the teaching of the Church on homosexuality now obsolete: “I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation at the basis of this teaching is no longer adequate” [KNA, 2 Feb 2022]. In fact, the morality of this prelate no longer relies on revealed doctrine, but on an evolving sociology (Cf. The first dubium of the five cardinals).

So how then can Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Letter Sublimitas et miseria hominis (June 19, 2023), make Pascal a model for today? The French philosopher did not demonstrate any complacency for morality conformed to the taste aof the day. This is the same man who wrote quite directly: “Those who believe that human welfare is in the flesh, and that what’s bad for man is what turns him away from sensual pleasures—let them gorge themselves on those pleasures and die in them! But those who seek God with all their heart, who are troubled only by their not seeing him, who have no desire but to possess him and no enemies but those who turn them away from him, who are grieved at seeing themselves surrounded and dominated by such enemies—let them take comfort, as I bring them good news. There exists a redeemer for them.” 

Despite all of these attempts to salvage such an argument, Pascal is not synodal and cannot be so taken hostage, even by the skill of Jesuits.