Pell’s last warning against church’s ‘toxic’ woke direction

George Pell’s final writings, published just after his death, were a scathing assessment of the Catholic Church’s “potpourri outpouring of New Age goodwill.”

Cardinal George Pell’s final writings warned the church’s mission was a toxic nightmare couched in Neo-Marxist jargon. Picture: Getty Images

In what were some of his last words, Cardinal George Pell warned Pope Francis and the bishops that its current revisions about synodality – the mission of the church – were a toxic nightmare couched in Neo-Marxist jargon and that the process being undertaken was liable to manipulation.

Cardinal Pell authored a hard-hitting article in the right wing magazine Spectator about the “Synod on Synodality”, which would have raised many high-level debates within the Vatican, except for his sudden death on Tuesday.

The magazine was pre-printed and released just hours after his death on Wednesday.

Cardinal Pell wrote that the Catholic Synod of Bishops was busy constructing what they think of as “God’s dream” of synodality, titled “enlarge the space of your tent”, which he said accommodates not the newly baptised – those who have answered the call to repent and believe – but anyone who might be interested enough to listen.

He wrote that the recent update of the good news, “synodality” as a way of being for the Church is not to be defined, but just to be lived.

Pell’s warning to Pope Francis and the bishops was set to raise many high-level debates within the Vatican.

He said neo-Marxist jargon about exclusion, alienation, identity, marginalisation, the voiceless, LGBTQ was included, while Christian notions of forgiveness, sin, sacrifice, healing and redemption were displaced.

“Why the silence on the afterlife of reward or punishment, on the four last things; death and judgment, heaven and hell?” he queried, describing the update as a potpourri outpouring of New Age goodwill.

“It is not a summary of Catholic faith or New Testament teaching. It is incomplete, hostile in significant ways to the apostolic tradition and nowhere acknowledges the New Testament as the Word of God, normative for all teaching on faith and morals,” he wrote.

“The Old Testament is ignored, patriarchy rejected and the Mosaic Law, including the Ten Commandments, is not acknowledged.”

Cardinal Pell’s words will be taken up by the more conservative elements of the church to press for further revisions to the working document.

Cardinal Pell had also raised the point that no matter what the synod’s participants: lay, religious, priest or bishop had come up with, they were only allowed to pass on views to the Holy Father for him to decide.

Cardinal Pell said this was “not due process and is liable to manipulation”, saying that it should be “judged by the whole people of God and especially by the bishops with and under the Pope”.

In his final plea he said “This working document needs radical changes. The bishops must realise that there is work to be done, in God’s name, sooner rather than later.”