After modernists start using a new Orwellian language, traditionalists and modernists are no longer using the same language

Sin or fragility? The linguistic revolution in the Church

Every revolution also brings with it a linguistic revolution because erasing a certain reality to replace it with a new one entails, at the same time, erasing all those terms that define the present reality to make way for a new vocabulary capable of describing the new world which, by definition, is always better than the old one. Even the revolutions in the Catholic house on faith and morals follow this lexical rule. A few examples.

Let us take first of all the word "sin", which has been severely ostracised in favour of the term "fragility". "Sin", a term now in the dock, evokes a doctrinal definition of principles, as well as an offence against God, and thus refers to a transcendent level, to a voluntariness expressed by the person and therefore to his or her responsibility. Hence, in the collective imagination, associated with "sin" are concepts such as commandment, error, injustice, guilt, reparation, punishment. Fragility" lowers the moral temperature with respect to the concept of "sin". In fact, this slogan refers more to the being - 'a fragile person' - than to the action, the behaviour. But morality is primarily about action and therefore about rules of conduct. It follows that fragility is capable of freeing itself from the constraints of morality.

And furthermore, frailty, again in the collective consciousness and from a psychological perspective, can be inherent to the person and therefore inevitable and irreproachable. Moreover - and now we turn to the theological perspective - this term seems to evoke, in the Protestant sense, that condition of intrinsic and irremediable weakness of our human nature wounded by original sin. And here too, frailty is something we can neither suppress nor eradicate. Therefore, it cannot provoke any condemnation and, on the contrary, it immediately leads to its justification and, therefore, to solidarity.

It goes without saying, then, that the concept of fragility excludes God from its horizon, because fragility offends no one, least of all the Creator, who will come into play, if at all, to heal the fragile in confession, a place that has become only an infirmary and not even a tribunal to admit one's faults. Fragility, on the contrary, eliminates this aspect and presents the sinner only as a wounded person who is wounded through no fault of his own. Therefore, it is necessary to murder sin in self-defence in order to lead a peaceful life.

Another term that has been dropped is "doctrine". In its place we find "pastoral". There is no longer a set of norms and principles of faith and morals to guide the believer in praxis, which pastors in their evangelising action must put into practice. The hierarchical relationship in which doctrine is at the top and pastoral care at the bottom has been inverted. In fact, to be more correct, we could say that pastoral care coincides with doctrine. It is the contingent, the particular that reveals the equally contingent and particular norm. In this idea of the Church there is no place for doctrine, but only for a heavy manual of experiences. Universal rules no longer exist: casuistry dictates the law. The only universal rules are very general principles, good for all times, which are boastfully deduced from a deliberately indeterminate spirit of the Gospel: openness to others, especially the least, better if they are poor; dialogue; non-discrimination, inclusiveness; respect for the environment; solidarity; etc.

Let us dwell precisely on the noun "environment", which has sent "creation" to the attic. A sign, once again, that the horizontal arm of the cross, horizontal like the earth, must win out over the vertical, which points to Heaven. Therefore, an immanentist and not a transcendent vision must prevail, because the environment does not need God to exist, while creation does. It should be added that the environment, within a religious setting, soon becomes a cult, albeit disguised, of Gaia, goddess of the Earth. The hierarchy of the natural order willed by God is revolutionised and the human being becomes only a human animal, but an animal nonetheless, who, in order to conquer Heaven, subordinates himself to honouring the Earth, i.e. plants, animals and even glaciers.

The word "justice" has also fallen into oblivion, having been discarded from the Catholic vocabulary in favour of the term "mercy". Or rather, the term "justice" only finds its dignity when it is declined as "social justice", i.e. only when it is used in reference to the poor, the marginalised, the sick, the migrants, etc. But when we take flight to Heaven, justice will remain on the ground, and in the Beyond we will only come face to face with a divine mercy which, in the intentions of some theologians, is so generous that it does not look at anyone or anything, not even at sins. So, after blind trust in God, we must now also preach blind mercy, blind to merits and demerits. With regard to the latter, the power of forgiveness will reign, which, after so much insistent theological plastic surgery, will be unrecognisable to the point of being called "forgiveness".

The word "hierarchy" is also discredited because the new development is called synod (which is not so new). Walking together aimlessly, tenaciously pursuing the same walking together as the sole end, that is this synod, the unprecedented governing body of the Church which, ideally devoid of hierarchy, produces a march of the faithful inevitably without a determined order. The German case is paradigmatic in this respect. In reality, it is all a deliberate fiction: historically, those who have always spoken of collegiality, democracy, sharing, have done so because it is instrumentally useful to their own authoritarianism. Behind the shield of synodality hide the usual four who do not want to relinquish power. The masses allow themselves to be easily controlled, especially if only those who think like those in the control room take part in the synodal dynamics: consensus is artfully constructed and thus strengthens the power of the few. If then the people of God do not orient themselves in the way the controllers want them to, it is enough to ignore them. This process of surreptitiously using synodality to consolidate power is antithetical to the hierarchical principle as understood in the Catholic sense. Both because hierarchy does not contemplate the annihilation of intermediate powers in favour of the power of one, and because Catholic hierarchy means service, and because the hierarchy of ecclesiastics is always subordinate to the heavenly hierarchy and thus to truth.

One last pair of slogans, among the infinite that could be mentioned: faith and doubt. Faith has been discarded because in the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read the following "blasphemy": "Faith is certain, more certain than all human knowledge, because it is founded on the very Word of God, which cannot lie" (n. 157. Note the italics, which are not ours). Today, on the other hand, faith is taught in doubt: not answers but questions, not exclamation points but question marks, not light but darkness. God has not revealed himself, we can only see him through the keyhole of our very personal conscience, and he moves even in a room immersed in darkness. Truth seems rigid, not malleable, so uncomfortable because it is not ergonomic for the delicate souls of our contemporaries. Here, then, is dialogue as an end in itself, the celebration of crises of faith, liquid or rather gaseous doctrine, the priority of processes over results, of the path over the goal, of research over results. The only liturgy allowed is the one that celebrates the ambiguous - and are we surprised by the ecclesial blessing of homosexuality? - to the detriment of the unequivocal, which incites the problem and not the solution, the relative and not the absolute, like moral absolutes. This is the only certainty to cultivate: that one no longer has certainties.

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