Fr Adam Purdy of the Society of St Pius X recently taught a series of adult catechism classes on The Legacy of Pope Francis, a document produced by the Society’s General House. Today I provide the third reflection and a heartfelt plea for us to return to the Old Faith. This piece connects to my ongoing work for The Hayride and RVIVR–similar to my recent work on Pius X’s Pascendi.

And if you’ve never read the Alta Vendita‘, now is the time; it may make everything below feel tragically obvious.

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We are spinning in a rut of history, where reality has lost its shape, where the world has flipped–not just politically in terms of Left and Right or woke and not-woke, but metaphysically.

Up is down, good is evil, truth is whatever preference wins out in the mob. These are not merely cultural quirks or a question of data and numbers satisfied by political cycles pretending to provide us a choice. They are signs of a deeper inversion–a spiritual mutation in the very imagination by which we grasp reality.

Modernism is the mastermind behind this inversion.

The SSPX, in its recent study, notes that Francis’ signature project–synodality–is not a mere pastoral tweak or adjustment of a term long defined and taught by the Church. It is an effective–indeed destructive–reorganization of authority within the Church: the power to teach, the power to govern, the power to sanctify.

In other words, synodality is the child of Modernism–a most pernicious structural inversion.

This is not speculation. This is not doom-for-clicks. This is Francis’ own stated intention. He and his successor both have said so–repeatedly–in public.

From the SSPX document:

Synodality is one of the most prominent concepts of Francis’ pontificate. It has been progressively promoted until it became the core of a broad process undertaken on a global scale. For the Pope, it is not merely an institutional adjustment, but a profound ecclesiological shift: a new way of thinking about the Church and living within her….

To introduce his reform, Francis points to an adversary that must be confronted: clericalism. He presents it as a disease that corrodes the Church and hinders the participation of the faithful. With this, he undoubtedly refers to certain real abuses: caste pride, the temptation of the clergy
to wield an overly human dominion, and the lack of authentic pastoral charity.

But the scope of his critique goes further. By denouncing clericalism in general terms, Francis questions the very exercise of sacred authority as instituted by Christ. Hence, the term ‘clericalism’ becomes a rhetorical weapon that justifies a redefinition of authority within the Church: in fighting against this evil, the transfer of power to the laity and the reorganisation of the hierarchy are legitimised.

Ironically, a Pope often accused of ruling authoritatively presents himself as denouncing clerical tyranny to establish a more open government.

Where Christ built a hierarchy, synodality democratizes.

Where Revelation binds from above, synodality listens and adjusts to “we the people” from below.

Where doctrine flows from God to shepherd to flock, synodality imagines doctrine bubbling up from the flock itself.

Synodality inverts before it destroys.

SERIES

FRANCIS FILES #1: How a Formation Became a Pontificate

FRANCIS FILES #2: Lost Mission. Weaponized ‘Mercy’

Synodality does not begin by denying doctrine. It begins by replacing the conditions under which doctrine can be known. Wrapped in Christ-like language, it transforms authority first–and doctrine inevitably follows. Words are stolen and drained of meaning, re-filled with sentimental, ecumenical softness. The Church Militant–which once carved Western civilization out of barbarism–is told to sit down. The knight no longer guards. The Old Faith is dismissed as rigid, oppressive, intolerant.

Most Catholics haven’t even heard of the term, much less Church Triumphant and Church Suffering.

Again, from the document:

♦ The power of teaching

Traditionally, the magisterium belongs to the bishops in communion with the Pope. To reform this, Francis draws on a formula already deviated by the Second Vatican Council, according to which the people of God are ‘infallible in faith’.

Originally, this expression meant that the faithful, by adhering to the teaching received, participate in the Church’s infallibility. Under the Council’s influence, this idea is broadened: the people are now regarded as bearers of a living faith, even if they cannot express it clearly in words. Authority no longer resides solely at the top; it is also found at the base. In this view, the hierarchy is no longer the sole arbiter of doctrine: it must strive to listen to and interpret what the Spirit also communicates through the voice of the people.

♦ The power of government

The governance of the Church is also being redefined. Francis promotes the notion of ‘co-responsibility’, according to which authority is to be shared between the hierarchy and the faithful. This co-responsibility is sometimes described as ‘differentiated’, to indicate a certain distinction between ordained ministers and the laity. Yet in practice, it leads to a genuine redistribution of functions.

A concrete sign of this development is the appointment of women and laypeople to leadership positions in the dicasteries of the Roman Curia. This is precisely what happened in the Dicastery for Consecrated Life, where a woman was placed at the helm—something that would have been unthinkable in the traditional organisation.

♦ The power of order and sanctification

Finally, the sacrament of Holy Orders is subject to reconsideration. Francis emphasises the fundamental equality of all the baptised, to the extent that the ministerial priesthood is relativised in relation to the common priesthood of the faithful.

Synodality thus proposes the sharing of certain sacred functions between clergy and laity: some acts or decisions previously reserved to the clergy may now be undertaken by mandated laypeople. This process tends to blur the distinction between them, favouring a horizontal structure in which all participate in the sanctification of souls.

Again, the part that should make every Catholic heart tremble: these changes do not merely adjust the Church’s governing structure–they invert it.

Modernism has stopped trying to storm the walls of the Church. Instead, it swaps out the foundations. The supernatural organism Christ built becomes managerial. Apostolic succession becomes a committee. Revelation becomes a dialogue. The Church begins to look eerily like the spirit of the very age we beg God to save us from.

Synodality is the velvet knife.

We find ourselves in a time eerily similar to the time of Jeremiah. The “revival” after Charlie Kirk didn’t last. The next one won’t either. The only revival that will save us is the revival the saints already lived–a return to the Old Faith.

Here, if I may speak plainly, the fire must give way to sorrow.

I write not as a pundit but as a brother, a son, a teacher–a sin-filled man watching a lost generation he helped lose battered by lies and starving for truth. I think of Placidus watching the ship carry away his beloved, children wrapped around his knees, his whole world slipping beyond the horizon. That same ache crushes the ribs when I watch the Church — my own loved ones — drift not toward death, but toward something worse: confusion dressed as compassion, inversion dressed as renewal, and ultimately…

To where Christ himself said we would end up if we didn’t do it his way.

Such is the spell of synodality.

Such is the test of being lion and lamb at once.

There is no sorrow like watching what you love handed over to dishonor–including yourself.

And it is precisely this dishonor–subtle, therapeutic, pastoral–that synodality risks imposing on the Bride of Christ. She is not handed to executioners or rapists, but to a bureaucracy of inversion where every boundary Christ willed is blurred into the warm bath of “walking together.”

Walking together is absolutely what Christ commanded we do–but he commanded it a certain way.

And that is where the trick lies.

They’ve stolen the words, remember.

This is why the SSPX’s warning matters.

This is why Pius X still speaks.

This is why the saints wrote with such trembling urgency.

Because inversion does not look like violence.

It looks like kindness.

It sounds like mercy.

It whispers that “He Gets Us” and “We’re Walking Together,” even as the path veers off the narrow road.

“When the Son of Man returns,” Christ asks, “shall He find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8)

And yet–yet–there is hope.

There must be. It is the only thing keeping me working.

Every inversion eventually collapses under its own upside-down weight, I know.

Every counterfeit mercy reveals its cruelty, I know.

Every false democracy of doctrine eventually exposes its tyranny, I know.

The Church has survived darker nights than this because Christ is its dawn, not a mere administrator, I know.

But do my loved ones know? Do you, reader?

Will anyone fall to their knees and ask God honestly, “Is any of this true?”

Time is short, for ourselves, for America, or for our children–to teach them the way, the Old Faith.

So our task is clear, and it is urgent–because we’re not here nearly as long as we think–

Recognize the inversion.

Refuse the redefinition.

Cling to the Tradition rising like the quiet joy of Christmas Eve–not the religion reinvented in 1960s committees.

And pray, with fear and trembling, that the ship turns before the dusk slips fully into night.