We would not be surprised to learn that New Order’s “Blue Monday” has been heard at Domus Sanctae Marthae today. This Monday has been at least blue, and maybe a shade or two darker, ever since Sandro Magister broke the news that some number of cardinals had, on October 5, sent the Holy Father a letter complaining about the, well, the irregularities in the Synod procedure thus far. This letter, it now seems, was the spark that led to the Holy Father’s unprecedented personal intervention in the Synod.

Damian Thompson, at the Spectator, has a solid piece, which you should read in full over there, noting that,

This is the gravest crisis [the Holy Father] has faced, worse than anything that happened to Benedict XVI, and he knows it.

It is the bit that we have emphasized that really shocked us. “Worse than anything that happened to Benedict XVI”? Really? Is lo scandalo della lettera worse than Vatileaks? Worse than Bishop Richard Williamson immediately making the Holy Father regret remitting the SSPX excommunications? Worse than the manufactured outrage over the Regensburg Lecture? But at the same time, we have a hard time saying that this situation, in this context, is not at least as serious as any of those situations. What may be worse is the sense that things are fast getting out of control.