In this explosive Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the German Catholic Church’s controversial Synodal Way — a major national synod that responded to sex scandals by pushing radical progressive reforms with overwhelming 90%+ bishop support. From blessings for same-sex unions and transgender record changes to women’s ordination, reevaluating celibacy, and even creating a parallel “permanent synod council” governance structure, the German bishops openly defied the Vatican.

The Collins compare this to the recent SSPX excommunications, dive into Catholic history (including crusader popes, corruption, and institutional capture), discuss BDSM/queer Catholic events, and explore whether the Church can be saved or if a new path is needed. A must-watch for anyone following religion, culture wars, fertility, and institutional decay.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so when I say coup, this is... This really happened.

[00:00:05] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:00:07] Malcolm Collins: If you’re like, “How far will they go?”

[00:00:09] Look at these 90% votes we’re seeing here. And the reason we’re talking about this right after the SSPX thing is I want to show the way the Vatican reacts when progressives do something demonstrably worse, but in the ex- same, same directionality as what SSPX is doing. When I say we, I see the Catholics who do not want this as our genuine allies in this journey, right?

[00:00:36] Would you like to know more?

[00:00:37] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simona. I’m excited to be here with you today. I had a shocking event. So we did an episode on the Catholic Church expelling some of its most devoted bishops- Yeah

[00:00:50] well, when they were ordained bishops, for being SSPX. And, you know, we were like, “This is fairly mainstream conservatism within the Catholic Church. They don’t really hold that many radical beliefs.” And somebody was like, “Oh, you don’t know anything about Catholic history.

[00:01:06] You need to read more about recent Catholic history to really have a perspective on this.” And I think that that was the dumbest thing you could have told me to do, if you wanted me to have- Oh, no ... like-

[00:01:15] Simone Collins: Yeah. What were you

[00:01:17] Malcolm Collins: thinking? Literally every time I look at Catholic history, it’s like,

[00:01:20]

[00:01:24] Malcolm Collins: when you put a cucumber next to a cat, and it, like, turns and looks at it and flies in the air like, “Oh, my God.”

[00:01:30]

[00:01:33] Malcolm Collins: But today- Oh, no ... we’re going to talk about the craziest event that I’ve ever heard of, where they basically tried to create a break-off gay Catholic church that r- had sort of a different governing system than the main Catholic Church, different beliefs and different rules than the main Catholic Church.

[00:01:54] Hold

[00:01:54] Simone Collins: on. This sounds really fun.

[00:01:56] Malcolm Collins: And it all started in the craziest way possible, too.

[00:02:01] Simone Collins: So

[00:02:02] Malcolm Collins: they had all these sex scandals, okay? Yeah. And so in response to the sex scandals, and this was the second-biggest convention in response to the sex scandals. This was not, like, some small whatever thing. This was for the entire national priesthood in, in Germany.

[00:02:18] Mm-hmm. So they, they put on this giant Germany-wide, like, for what Catholics believe in Germany event about what to do about all of the you know, child situation, right?

[00:02:30] Simone Collins: Wasn’t this a South Park episode?

[00:02:33] Malcolm Collins: B- South Park basically had a thing on this. Now, the biggest thing they did in response to this was the thing they did at the Vatican, but this was the second biggest.

[00:02:39] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:02:39] Malcolm Collins: And so what they decided to do, and what this conference turned into, and I kid you not, we’re gonna go into the details. If you’re Catholic and you already know, you’re like, “Oh, no, “ they immediately started... And I, and I like Catholics. I’m, I’m pro-Catholic.

[00:02:56] I like gays, okay? But I think that w- if you were looking at these events-

[00:03:02] So they got them all together to solve this issue.

[00:03:05] And the things that they started drafting were things like we should change trans people’s genders when they get in their like confirmation files. Uh-huh. We should start blessing same-sex unions. We should start normalizing priests having sex even recreational sex. And- Wait,

[00:03:27] Simone Collins: but within marriage or not within marriage?

[00:03:29] Malcolm Collins: Just sex. They, they- Just- ... weren’t interested in, in priests getting married. They were interested in removing the celibacy stuff. We should start- But

[00:03:37] Simone Collins: isn’t it sinful per the Catholicism to have sex outside marriage?

[00:03:41] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. That was another thing that they wanted to address-

[00:03:44] Simone Collins: Uh-huh ...

[00:03:44] Malcolm Collins: to remind people very clearly that it is not a sin to have sex outside of marriage.

[00:03:49] Simone Collins: Remind?

[00:03:50] Malcolm Collins: They, well, they believed that this was the correct teaching. And they w- wanted to start a separate... And I should note here, if you’re like, “Oh, this was like some [00:04:00] fringe loonies or whatever,” there, there were two cardinals involved. One cardinal basically ran this. There were hundreds of bishops involved.

[00:04:08] And despite all of this, S- SSPX says we want Latin mass and think that you’re being a little too ecum- ecumenical. They get excommunicated. Okay? Oh my God. This event, they ran this multiple years.

[00:04:21] And I want to point out that the Vatican told them at one point, like, “Hey, you guys are saying the quiet part out loud a little too much.” Because at this event, many of these crazy things I’m talking about had over a 90% vote from the bishops.

[00:04:36] Simone Collins: Oh,

[00:04:36] Malcolm Collins: wow. But, but the Vatican said, “You cannot keep doing this.

[00:04:40] This is a threat,” to the same thing they said that SSPX was a threat to- Oh, no ... the church’s unity. This is a threat to the church’s unity. And they just ignored the Vatican and kept doing it, no excommunications

[00:04:52] Simone Collins: Okay

[00:04:53] Malcolm Collins: So-

[00:04:54] Simone Collins: Was it, what, did, did you see anything about their justification where they like, “Look, whatever it takes.”

[00:04:59] We’re gonna go over- “We’re hemorrhaging numbers.” Quotes.

[00:05:01] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. We’re gonna go over quotes of their justification.

[00:05:04] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:05:04] Malcolm Collins: We’re gonna go over like why they thought they were doing this, where they thought they were getting the backing for this stuff, like why they thought this was an okay thing to do at all.

[00:05:13] Mm-hmm. How close they came to creating a counter Catholic government to specifically oppose the norm set up by the Vatican. And we’ll also look at with current voting numbers in terms of, because I think Catholics sometimes forget how far left the bishop class of the church actually is.

[00:05:31] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:05:32] Malcolm Collins: What would happen if they actually tried to do a Vatican III? Because a lot of people think it would push back. We’ll go into the numbers and see if it actually would. And I wanna go into all of this by pointing out- We as people are fairly pro-gay for conservatives, right? Like, I’m like, I don’t think that it should be outlawed.

[00:05:47] Do what you wanna do, whatever. That, g- that said while I think that, that’s from my reading of the Bible. That’s not a traditional Catholic interpretation, right? Yeah. Like, and to say that this should be normalized within a traditional Catholic context is quite different than me being like, look, I like gays.

[00:06:07] I like Catholics. Do I think that this should be pushed to be normalized in the church? Especially the trans stuff, when we now know how harmful this is. See any of our other episodes on that. That’s where I’m like, wow, this is crazy. And if you wanna get an idea of how crazy all of this is in Germany, I will read to you a article that came out, I think just, like, two days ago.

[00:06:30] Major Catholic event in Germany features BDSM and lesbian groups.

[00:06:36] Simone Collins: Wait, like, an act- m- not that, like, the Catholic Church also appeared at an event where there was...

[00:06:43] Malcolm Collins: no. A number of Catholic bishops, including Bishop Franz Wong Wo- Woensberg co-host an event. So a major Catholic event in Germany will feature BDSM and lesbian Catholic groups.

[00:06:53] The German Katholiktag, or Catholics’ Day, will take place from, literally called Catholics’ Day, M- May 14th to May 16th in Woensberg, and will prominently feature several heterodox groups. Now, again, I’m okay with BDSM, right? Like, I’m totally okay with...