Apparently, the organizers of the Synod on Synodality have requested poems about the Synod. Weary at the prospect of yet more yakking about synodal governance and conforming the Church’s teaching on sexual morality and the nature of man to the latest demands of the Sexual Revolution, which have done wonders for the Church of England, I set the following lyrics to what Tom Lehrer called a “possibly recognizable tune.”
I hope you recognize the tune, know the original lyrics, and know enough concerning the topics I am writing about to enjoy the whole thing. I know I certainly felt better about the Synod after putting this together!
(Apologies to William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan).
I am the very model of a modern synodotalist.
I’ve information modernist, syncretist, erroneous.
I know the heirs of Rahner, and quote Catholic crimes historical, from Albigensian to Waldensian, in order categorical.
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters sybaritical. I understand LGBT at its earthy and most practical. About gender theory I am teeming with a lot of news, with many cheerful facts about non-binaries in Tuvalu!
[CHORUS] With many cheerful facts about non-binaries in Tuvalu, etc.
I hope to walk the path of Kung, and Schilibeeckx and Curran, too; and all the later Catholic academics who gained fame and money cursing JP II.
In short in matters modernist, syncretist, erroneous, I am the very model of a modern synodotalist.
[CHORUS] In short in matters modernist, syncretist, erroneous, he is the very model of a modern synodotalist.
I’ve read Foucault, Marx, Kun, and Derrida.
Quote Sontag, Lenin, and Lavrenti Beria.
Know the Indians were peaceful till white men reached these shores.
And understand Ratzinger and Wojtyla were awful bores.
The Bible’s merely a product of its times, the Church mostly a perpetrator of awful crimes, the past is dead, there’s no going back, so put away Caravaggio and bring poor Rupnik back!
[CHORUS] So put away Caravaggio and bring poor Rupnik back!, etc.
All was very dark until 1962, when the Church began anew, with guitars, folk songs, polyester, iconoclasm, and Bauhaus, too.
In short in matters modernist, syncretist, erroneous, I am the very model of a modern synodotalist.
[CHORUS]: In short in matters modernist, syncretist, erroneous, he is the very model of a modern synodotalist.
In fact, when I know why churches that modernize wither and die.
Why liberation theologians made Catholic peasants Protestants true.
Why Catholics stopped believing Christ comes down from Heaven when the priest beckons Him to.
Why seminaries are getting emptier and convents, too.
When I know why modernist oration attacts less than adoration and oblation do.
When I know more of Thomas and of Latin than freshmen at a Baptist Bible school.
In short, when I’ve solutions other than those on offer circa 1972.
You’ll thank me, be happy Catholics, and your children, too.
[CHORUS] We’ll thank you, be happy Catholics, and our children, too.
But my theological knowledge, though I’m plucky and adventury, is limited to what secularists found tolerable from the middle of the last century.
Still, in matters modernist, syncretist, erroneous, I am the very model of a modern synodotalist!
[ CHORUS] Still in matters modernist, syncretist, erroneous, he is the very model of a modern synodotalist!
