Posted on 10/23/2026 10:04:54 AM PDT by ebb tide
“Today, a specific investigation into the sudden decline of Catholicism in countries where it was deeply rooted is necessary to understand its causes and develop an appropriate pastoral response.” (Paragraph 119 from Venite ad Me)
On October 22, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a document entitled Venite ad Me, Considerations on the Transmission of the Faith in an Epochal Change. This new document is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it includes indirect praise of the Traditional Latin Mass and identifies actual problems within the Church. On the other hand, many of the proposed solutions consist of stronger doses of the poison that caused the problems in the first place.
Before turning to the actual document, it is worth setting the stage with a few observations from Yves Congar that point to the real problem. In his Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar (from 1987), Congar quoted Jean-Marie Donegani (a sociologist) about how decreasing attendance of Sunday Mass reflected a widespread departure from Catholic orthodoxy:
“The first thing that the decline in Sunday observance demonstrates is the massive and irreversible departure of Catholics from the Tridentine universe. The Counter-Reformation was essentially concerned to bring the faithful into line on the basis of doctrinal clarification and the development of a totalitarian catechesis which divided the world into the thinkable and the unthinkable, the prescribed and the forbidden. This was also, in opposition to the sola fide, the beginning of a basis for action of which the birth of Catholic Action is perhaps one of the last phenomena. This Catholicism disappeared on the death of Pius XII, with the aggiornamento of Vatican II and the ‘decompression’ which followed: ‘relaxation of discipline, disappearance of prohibitions, free examination of doctrine, liberation from controls . . .’” (p. 4)
Once Catholics no longer believed that Catholic teaching was binding, why would they choose to obey Catholic teaching on the necessity of attending Sunday Mass or anything else they found inconvenient? Moreover, essentially all of the problems that the new document considers stem directly from the indifference fostered by the “relaxation of discipline” and “free examination of doctrine” that prevailed after the Council.
The progressive manipulation of the Catholic Faith has led not only to widespread apostasy but also to an acceleration and amplification of societal problems.Tweet this quote
Roughly ten years before Congar quoted the words above from Donegani, he had said something very similar about how Vatican II had done away with the “inflexibility” of the pre-Vatican II Church:
“By the frankness and openness of its debates, the Council has put an end to what may be described as the inflexibility of the system. We take ‘system’ to mean a coherent set of codified teachings, casuistically specified rules of procedure, a detailed and very hierarchical organization, means of control and surveillance, rubrics regulating worship — all this is the legacy of scholasticism, the Counter-Reformation, and the Catholic Restoration of the nineteenth century, subjected to an effective Roman discipline. It will be recalled that Pius XII is supposed to have said: ‘I will be the last Pope to keep all this going.’” (Congar, Challenge to the Church: The Case of Archbishop Lefebvre, pp. 51-52)
One does not need to be a theologian and a professor of Church history to understand the clear cause and effect: there has been a massive abandonment of the Faith precisely because the post-Conciliar regime in Rome deliberately rejected much of the structure that Pius XII and his predecessors had tried to protect for the sake of sustaining souls in the Faith. As such, doing more to reject what little remains of the pre-Vatican II structure for most Catholics should be expected to exacerbate the problems that the new document identifies.
With this background, we can turn to the way in which the new document characterizes the crisis:
“Without delving into the complexity of the causes that have brought about these transformations, it is within this context—one of a genuine reshaping of the fundamental conditions of human existence—that the crisis in the intergenerational transmission of the faith, and the challenge it presents to the Church, must be understood. In the past, these conditions were interpreted primarily through the lens of Christianity, both in society as a whole and within individual communities. More generally, it must be acknowledged that what is in crisis is not only the transmission of the faith, but also a certain vision of the human person and of his or her foundational values—a vision that had found its fulfillment precisely in the Gospel. The crisis of modernity, which is the hallmark of this epochal change, has thus contributed to the emergence of a new culture that has come into competition with the traditional structures through which the faith has been transmitted. This has, in turn, brought about a crisis of the so-called model of Christendom, accompanied, in various parts of the world, by the widespread perception that the ministry of priests is often limited to the ‘maintenance’ of existing structures, even as the world around them has changed radically.” (Paragraph 53)
As we have heard so often about the crisis in the Church, the new document suggests that the challenges to transmission of the Faith resulted from societal changes. But, as we saw from Congar above, it is far more probable that the progressive manipulation of the Catholic Faith has led not only to widespread apostasy but also to an acceleration and amplification of societal problems.
Unsurprisingly, the new document does not promote a return to the pre-Vatican II regime. Instead, it points to a need to further shy away from rigid and abstract doctrine. We can see this in a few passages:
This latter paragraph, related to fostering an “experience of faith,” is key to much of the new document. While it is certainly reasonable and even necessary to teach souls about Our Lord and His love for us before delving into the Deposit of Faith, the post-Conciliar teaching has treated orthodoxy and doctrine as the enemy of the “experience of faith.”
Pius XII and his predecessors clearly rejected the ideas that Catholics and Protestants were both searching for truth and could learn religious truths from each other — no, God has given His truth to the Catholic Church, and non-Catholic sects must return to the Catholic Church.Tweet this quote
The easiest way to confirm this is to consider what the new document says about ecumenism:
“A final point of attention concerns ecumenical commitment, which is an intrinsic dimension of the Church’s evangelizing mission and, therefore, also of the transmission of the faith. In fact, as the Second Vatican Council’s Decree Unitatis Redintegratio observes, the division among Christians ‘openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.’ Far from representing an alternative to proclamation, ecumenical dialogue constitutes a specific form of it, in which the shared search for truth, mutual listening, and the witness of charity make the proclamation of the kerygma more credible in the face of an increasingly secularized and pluralistic world. As Saint John Paul II reminded us, ‘efforts toward unity are themselves a sign of the work of reconciliation which God is bringing about in our midst,’ concretely manifesting that the Father is, forever and for all, love. This invites the community of believers to make Pope Francis’s confident appeal their own: ‘If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another! It is not just about being better informed about others, but rather about reaping what the Spirit has sown in them, which is also meant to be a gift for us,’ so that we may ‘progress decidedly towards common expressions of proclamation, service, and witness.’” (Paragraph 122)
Pius XII and his predecessors clearly rejected the ideas that Catholics and Protestants were both searching for truth and could learn religious truths from each other — no, God has given His truth to the Catholic Church, and non-Catholic sects must return to the Catholic Church if they wish to have the fullness of truth. Putting Catholic and non-Catholic religions on the same level is perhaps the single greatest contributor to the crisis that the new document seeks to solve. Thus, its proposed solution is simply a formula for exacerbating the crisis. If souls want a non-demanding and silly religion that caters to their appetites, they can choose from among the thousands already existing or create their own. But many sincere men and women of good will want what the Catholic Church has always offered, and the new document tries to make that even harder to find.
As a final word before recalling what the Church has always taught, it is worth noting the surprising way in which the new document appears to endorse the Traditional Latin Mass:
“In addition, the liturgy can be experienced in different ways. Indeed, popular piety also has its own way of expressing a liturgical sensibility, which takes different forms according to the various cultures. To understand this, we can cite a beautiful account by Romano Guardini, in which he recounts his visit to Sicily: ‘Today I saw something magnificent: Monreale. […] When we arrived—it was Holy Thursday—the solemn Mass had proceeded beyond the consecration. […] What should I say about the splendor of this place? […] The crowd sat and watched. […] Almost no one was reading. All were living in the gaze; all were intent on contemplation. Then it became clear to me what the foundation of true liturgical piety is: the ability to perceive the ‘sacred’ within the image and its dynamism. Monreale, Holy Saturday. […] Every now and then a ray of sunlight pierced through the vault, and then a golden smile spread through the space above. […] Yet the most beautiful thing was the people. […] The sacred ceremony lasted more than four hours, but there was a lively participation throughout. There are different ways of prayerful participation. One takes place through listening, speaking, and gesture, and the other through seeing. . . . ” (Paragraph 93)
A 2006 article from the New Liturgical Movement confirms that Guardini’s description was from 1929, long before the Novus Ordo. The following paragraph of the new document appears to go even further in endorsing the use of the Traditional Latin Mass, at least in principle:
“Particular care should also be taken to enable the faithful in every diocese, as well as those who are approaching or returning to the community of believers, to encounter the various liturgical sensibilities present within the tradition of the Catholic Church. . . . The Christian community grows and is built up through ritual practices, and in this regard, the Church’s rich spiritual heritage represents a precious and inexhaustible resource.” (Paragraph 94)
If Rome truly believes this, then it is difficult to understand how it can justify opposition to the Traditional Latin Mass.
Returning to the core of the new document, it is worth recalling the words of Blessed Pius IX from his 1854 Bull proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Ineffabilis Deus:
“For the Church of Christ, watchful guardian that she is, and defender of the dogmas deposited with her, never changes anything, never diminishes anything, never adds anything to them; but with all diligence she treats the ancient documents faithfully and wisely; if they really are of ancient origin and if the faith of the Fathers has transmitted them, she strives to investigate and explain them in such a way that the ancient dogmas of heavenly doctrine will be made evident and clear, but will retain their full, integral, and proper nature, and will grow only within their own genus — that is, within the same dogma, in the same sense and the same meaning.”
This is what many souls want, and this is a powerful antidote to the crisis in the Church. When this was set aside through the process described by Congar, souls fell away from the Faith. The new document misses this reality altogether and, as a result, further vindicates the Traditional Catholic adherence to what the Church has always taught. At this stage in the crisis, God manifests His truth both through the fidelity of the Traditional Catholics as well as by the opposition to His truth from those revolutionaries attempting to destroy the Church. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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Even Tucho, the ulitmate modernist, admits modernity is the cause of the crisis in the Church.
Ping
Co 11:18 First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church, and to some extent I believe it.
1Co 11:19 But, of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God’s approval will be recognized!
God has a reason for division. In fact, the more often, the better....................................
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