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Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.

I'm Damien Thompson.

The Catholic Church is now halfway through a two-year consultation process, known confusingly as the Synod on Synodality, which will reach its culmination next year when the world's bishops meet in Rome to reflect on soundings that they've been taking from Catholics and people beyond the Catholic community

all over the world. These consultations, which have now ended, will pass through various

layers of bureaucracy before forming the basis of the synod agenda in Rome and recommendations

made to Pope Francis, whose pet project this is.

In theory, it's the most ambitious consultation of the laity that the Catholic Church has ever undertaken

and the most important exercise in the church's corporate renewal since the Second Vatican Council.

But only in theory.

Not only does no one really understand what synodality means, but the Vatican is understandably very keen to distract attention

from the fact that only a tiny proportion of the world's Catholics

have had anything to do with this consultation process.

And you may not be surprised to learn that tiny percentage wildly over-represents Catholics

with a left liberal agenda, whose ultra-progressive views have already seen the synodal

process spin completely out of control in countries like Germany, to the

point where even the Pope's most sycophantic supporters are beginning to panic. And so, too,

it goes without saying, are many Orthodox Catholics of the type whom Pope Francis constantly

accuses of rigidity and clericalism.

But are they overreacting?

...