UPDATED, UPDATED, UPDATED!The Church in Crisis — and How We Must Not Save Her: Twelve Issues (Bishop Robert Mutsaerts)
The Church in Crisis — and How We Must Not Save Her
Twelve Issues, Uncomfortable Truths, and a Catholic Way Forward
"The Church does not exist for itself": Leo XIV calls on Rome for a pastoral approach that truly leads to Christ
Pope Leo gave a very good talk to the priests of His Holiness’ Diocese, Rome. But because His Holiness is the Bishop of Rome, thus the Universal Pastor, His Holiness is speaking to all priests and bishops of the world.
You can read His Holiness’ full presentation HERE. But this is what I want to focus upon in terms of evaluating what has happened to the Church in the last 60 years:
To verify, under the light of the Holy Spirit, means to stop, to reread what has happened, to recognize what has borne fruit, to understand what has not worked, and to seek together the reasons. It means, in a word, to make truth. I invite you to carry out this verification by involving the whole community and, as far as possible, also listening to people who do not frequent it and see things, so to speak, «from outside.»
1. Has the liturgical rearrangement accomplished any real renewal? Yes, there is more active participation but not necessarily actual participation, meaning internal conversion, contemplation and experiencing the Transcendent. It isn’t the vernacular that has done this, but dumbing down the Mass, the loss of sacred silence while ritual and prayer is happening, standing to receiving Holy Communion with the hand and on the run and allowing anyone and everyone to distribute Holy Communion and usually not wearing their Sunday Best, their most modest Sunday best.
2. What has happened to religious life? For women’s orders who changed everything and usually using a synodal way to do it—they are on life support today about to disappear altogether. Is there a way to turn that around? Yes, but few are willing but the Nashville Dominicans is a good example!
3. Only those dioceses in the world that are traditional and orthodox are seeing vocations to the priesthood. Charleston, SC has more seminarians and ordinations with much fewer Catholics than Chicago but far more seminarians and ordinations than Chicago and Charlotte, NC does too, although the new bishop there may bring Chicago to Charlotte!
4. We all know that Vatican II was imposed upon the Church in the most pre-Vatican II way in the late 1960’s and most of the 1970’s. Authoritarianism reigned supreme to take a hammer to all that was pre-Vatican II, humiliating the faith and piety of pre-Vatican II Catholics who did not want to change or resented being made to change. We saw that returning during Pope Francis’ Magisterium especially with the Holy Father’s animus towards those young and old who prefer pre-Vatican II ethos and liturgies. Alienating these Catholics in a new way is not missionary or evangelization and continues to lead to the loss of Catholics joining schismatic sects.
5. In 1965 in the USA, nearly 90% of Catholics attended Sunday Mass and made their Easter Duty. Today, maybe 5% to 12% of Catholics attended Sunday Mass and make their Easter duty and fewer are getting married in the Church. We can’t just blame secular sociological changes and mores, but the Church's own destruction of its pre-Vatican II form, which in no way can be called renewal or even purification of its more rigid aspects, but wholesale destruction of it to create something else.
Any other evaluations?
5 comments:
Re: "We can’t just blame secular sociological changes and mores, but the Church's own destruction of its pre-Vatican II form, which in no way can be called renewal or even purification of its more rigid aspects, but wholesale destruction of it to create something else."
Well, here are the top five reasons given by former Catholics in a May 5-11, 2025, survey when asked why they left the Church;
1. I stopped believing in the religion's teachings
2. Scandals involving clergy or religious leaders
3. I was unhappy about the religion's teachings about social and political issues
4. My spiritual needs were not being met
5. It just wasn't important to my life
"Changes to the liturgy" was not among the top 12 reasons given.
So, as much as you want to place the lion's share of the blame on the versus populum celebration, the language used in the liturgy, the absence of Gregorian, etc., that simply not what the actual data indicates.
Thank you for brilliantly confirming my post! All these negative things are from the present day post Vatican II Church. I suspect too, that those TLM communities would put banal liturgies with no Gregorian Chant or transcendence at the top for their preference for the TLM and clear expectations and not liturgical absurdities. Kudos to you, you are maturing!
those 5 reasons probably come from folks with no memory of the pre Vatican Church. I had two uncles who quit because they did not like the changes to the Mass which started fast and furious in 1965
Cause can exist without being recognized. While correlation does not equal causation, it is evidence. After two thousand years of the Catholic faith there was a massive falling off of the faith after Vatican II and the introduction of the new Mass. Only a fool or a dishonest person would ignore this. Nor should it come as a surprise. The underlining change in all of the reforms was a moving away of an understanding of the Mass as the work of God, a re-presentation of the one Sacrifice of our Lord, to being more about the work of the congregation, a celebration of the gathered faithful. That this caused a loss of faith should be no surprise and was indeed was predicted by some.
One might discount this if it were not for the present gulf in belief and practice between those who go to the new Mass and those who go to the old. The TLM is attracting and feeding those who are seeking to worship God rather than celebrate the gathered Church. By their fruits you shall know them.
Father Anthony,
K of the Dwindling Parish is just too stubborn and lazy to change course at this stage. But enough about him. What is stunning is that the Vatican is doubling down on failure and ignoring that the TLM is a marvelous tool to reinvigorate the Faith. There was NO need to change the Mass. This was the conceit of vain, bored, intellectually dishonest clerics.
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