I have good news for you and bad news. The bad news is that the Catholic Church is in crisis. The good news is that it has been there before. In fact, anyone familiar with church history might get the impression that crisis is one of the few truly enduring Catholic traditions. We’ve had corrupt popes, worldly bishops, heresies, schisms, revolutions, persecutions, and liturgical commissions. And yet we still exist.

To me, that last point seems to be proof of the Church’s divine origin. A purely human organization governed the way the Church has been governed at times would likely have gone bankrupt around the fourth century. Yet the situation is serious. Not because the Church is unpopular. Not because its market share is declining. Not because it fails to connect with the modern consumer.

The crisis is serious because there is uncertainty within the Church about precisely those matters on which it should offer certainty: What is true? What is sin? What is marriage? What is the priesthood? What is liturgy? What is obedience? What does mercy mean? What exactly did Christ entrust to His Church? And perhaps even more fundamentally: Do we truly still believe that the Church has received something from Christ that she herself is not allowed to change? That is the crux of the matter.

1. The first necessary reform: stop pretending that everything needs to be reformed

We live in a culture where change is almost automatically regarded as improvement. A phone from 2019 is outdated. A computer from 2012 is antique. And that is why we sometimes unconsciously think that a doctrine from the year 325 urgently needs a software update. But revelation is not an iPhone. Christianity is not a product for which a new model must be released every year. The Church’s task is not to constantly produce a new religion. Her task is to receive, preserve, deepen, and proclaim what she has received from Christ.

That does not mean that nothing can change. Pastoral methods can change. Canonical disciplines can change. Forms of governance can change. Liturgical disciplines can change. But truth cannot be true today and false tomorrow.

With every ecclesial renewal, a bishop should ask himself one simple question: Does this help my people become holier? Not: “Is this innovative?” Not: “Is this phrased inclusively?” Not: “Can we set up a working group for this?” But: Does this bring people closer to Christ, the sacraments, and eternal life? That could shorten quite a few meetings. And that, in itself, might already be a small ecclesiastical reform.

2. Synodality: A Useful Tool, Poor Leadership

There is nothing un-Catholic about synods. The Church has known them for centuries. What does become risky, however, is when synodality shifts from a method to an almost independent theological ideal.

After all, Christianity did not begin with: “Where two or three are gathered in a roundtable discussion, truth arises of its own accord.” The apostles were entrusted with a faith. Only then were they permitted to deliberate on it. That order is important.

Listening is excellent, but Catholics must sometimes dare to ask the impolite question: Listen to whom? To culture? To opinion polls? To interest groups? To ourselves? Or to Christ? For when the outcome of a church’s listening process becomes predictably identical to the wishes of modern secular culture, one may at least ask whether we have truly listened to the Holy Spirit or perhaps primarily to the spirit of the age.

For the Holy Spirit has one remarkable characteristic: He speaks, surprisingly often, in continuity with what He has said over the past twenty centuries. Just a tip for my brother bishops: Use synodality, but be a bishop. A bishop is not elected to be a permanent facilitator of group processes. He is the successor to the apostles. That means: teaching, sanctifying, governing, and sometimes also saying, “No. We cannot change this.” That word “no” has a bad reputation these days. But parents know: those who never say no do not love their children any more.

3. Restore the distinction between mercy and affirmation

No one needs a harsh Church. But neither does anyone need a Church that dares to speak of sin only in historical documents. Christ was infinitely merciful. But His mercy never consisted of pretending that conversion was unnecessary. To the sinner, Christ says, “Come.” But also, “Follow Me.” And following necessarily means that we do not remain exactly where we were.

That seems simple. But these days, it’s revolutionary. The pastoral temptation sometimes goes like this: We don’t want to hurt anyone, so we’d rather not talk about sin anymore. The problem is that forgiveness then becomes meaningless as well. Those who are never sick don’t need a doctor. Those who never sin don’t need a Savior. And suddenly we discover why Christ has less and less to do in such a theological system.

Just a tip for my fellow priests – preach again on: sin, grace, heaven, hell, confession, virtue, chastity, prayer, sacrifice, conversion. Not all at once every Sunday. The faithful still need to get to the soup on time. But let people know that Christianity is really about something.

4. Save the liturgy from both experimentation and ideology

The liturgy is one of the most sensitive issues within the Church. That is understandable. Lex orandi, lex credendi. As we pray, so we learn to believe. That is why the struggle over the liturgy is never merely about aesthetics. Ultimately, it is about God.

A Catholic Mass is not primarily a gathering in which the community celebrates its unity. It is the sacrifice of Christ made sacramentally present. It is not a celebration of a meal in the form of a sacrifice, but a sacrifice in the form of a meal.

That changes everything. When this is truly believed, the following naturally ensues: reverence, kneeling, silence, beauty, care, sacred music, and a priest who does not think he is improving the liturgy by spontaneously telling a funny story. The Holy Spirit has many talents. As far as I know, improvisational theater at the altar is not one of the seven gifts.

Just a tip for my brother bishops. Do not automatically regard attachment to the traditional liturgy as a psychiatric problem. Not every young Catholic who loves Latin is a secret agent from 1957. When young people are drawn to Gregorian chant, silence, incense, kneeling, ad orientem, and classical spirituality, don’t immediately ask, “What went wrong here?” Perhaps ask, “What are they seeking here that they lack elsewhere?”

As for traditional Catholics – they, too, have something to teach us. The traditional liturgy can sanctify a person. But an ancient rite does not automatically make someone holy. One can attend the most reverent Mass and then, in the parking lot, curse the three bishops and the entire Vatican. That may be liturgically traditional, but it is spiritually less than commendable. Tradition without love becomes archaeology with a temper.  

5. Stop treating young believers as if they were religious porcelain

According to some pastoral models, young people supposedly need above all: low barriers to entry, few demands, short services, understandable texts, plenty of input, and above all, nothing that sounds like an obligation. There’s just one problem. That model doesn’t seem to work very well. Many young people discovering the faith are actually looking for something else: truth, order, asceticism, identity, confession, worship, the sacraments, intellectual depth, and a community that demands something of them.

We have underestimated young people. We offered them lemonade when they were looking for wine. We gave them slogans when they wanted to read Thomas Aquinas. We thought Gregorian chant would drive them away. Meanwhile, some of them are now voluntarily downloading it on Spotify.

A tip for my fellow priests: Dare to treat young people like adults. Teach them the Catechism. Teach them to pray. Teach them to fast. Teach them why the Church teaches what she teaches. Don’t offer a watered-down version of Christianity. No one has ever been martyred for a vague sense of belonging.

6. Vocations: Who Still Asks for Sacrifice?

We talk a lot about the priest shortage. Understandably so. But the discussion then shifts remarkably quickly to: mergers, administrative models, lay ministers, restructuring, and, of course, celibacy. All of these are valid topics for discussion. But perhaps we should first ask something simpler: Why would a young man want to become a priest?

When he hears: “You’ll be in charge of eight parishes, your schedule will be packed with meetings, you mustn’t offend anyone, and after twenty years you might get a strategic plan on sustainable real estate” – then it’s astonishing that anyone would even show up. But tell him: “Give your life to Christ.”

Celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass daily. Forgive sins. Baptize children. Be with the dying. Proclaim the Gospel. Become a spiritual father. Lead souls to eternity.” Suddenly, that sounds different.

Just a word of advice for my brother bishops: Do not look for candidates who are primarily good at management. Look for men who pray. A mediocre administrator can be helped by a good economist. A priest who does not pray cannot be saved by any management course.

7. The bishop must become a father again

A modern bishop can easily turn into a sort of director-general of religious services. He has: meetings, lawyers, communications advisors, real estate issues, press inquiries, personnel matters, protocols, committees. All of these are necessary. But when his priests barely know him and his faithful only see him on a Christmas card, something is wrong.

A bishop is first and foremost a father and a shepherd. He must therefore know his priests. Know the seminarians. Visit parishes. Oversee religious education. Safeguard the liturgy. Combat abuse. Proclaim the doctrine of the faith. And every now and then say something in public that makes everyone immediately think: Oh, yes. This man truly believes that the Catholic faith is true. That would be refreshing.

I’ll take the liberty of offering a concrete suggestion. Every bishop could set aside a significant number of days each year on which he does not attend meetings, but instead: visits the seminary, speaks with priests individually, meets with catechumens, visits schools, hears confessions, meets with young people, and visits parishes. That would give him insight into what his diocese truly needs.  

8. Priests: Be a Priest, Not a Presenter

A priest does not need to be the most popular man in the parish. Thankfully. Otherwise, the Catholic Church would face serious staffing problems. Nor does he need to be “relevant” all the time. His relevance does not stem from his personality. It comes from Christ. When a priest anoints the sick, he is relevant. When he grants absolution, he is relevant. When he celebrates the Eucharist, he is relevant. When he assists a dying person, he is more relevant than all the talk shows airing that evening.

Concrete priorities for priests are easy to identify. Pray the breviary faithfully every day. Set aside time each day for silent prayer. Celebrate Mass with dignity. Offer generous opportunities for confession. Be available to the sick. Provide genuine catechesis. Preach with substance. Avoid liturgical creativity. Read theology regularly. Live simply. And be fatherly. That last point is important. The priest is not merely an administrator of the sacraments. He is a spiritual father.

9. Laypeople: Stop Waiting for Rome to Solve Everything

Catholics sometimes have a curious habit. We complain that the hierarchy has too much power. And then we expect the hierarchy to solve everything. Those two things are incompatible. When culture needs to be re-evangelized, it is done largely by laypeople. In families, schools, universities, businesses, the media, the arts, politics, science, and neighborhood communities. At least, that would be the ideal scenario. The first Christians did not have a bishops’ conference with a professional communications agency. Yet they evangelized the Roman Empire. That puts our excuses into perspective to some extent.

The most important catechetical program remains the family. Hence, a few tips for parents: Pray with your children. Take them to Mass. Go to confession yourself. Talk about faith at home. Help them get to know the saints. Teach them that Sunday is truly Sunday. And don’t be surprised if a child doesn’t become Catholic after seeing for eighteen years that being Catholic made hardly any difference to his parents.

To Catholic intellectuals, I’d like to offer this advice: Write. Teach. Debate. Found. Organize. Be present in culture. Catholic orthodoxy must not become a hobby for intellectuals who speak only among themselves. Thomas Aquinas did not write for a closed WhatsApp group.

10. Fight the culture war without becoming a culture warrior yourself

There are real conflicts between Catholic morality and modern culture. We must not deny that. But traditional Catholics sometimes face a danger of their own: that the fight against error slowly becomes more important than the love of truth. That distinction is subtle but crucial. Ultimately, one can spend so much time fighting modernism that Christ almost becomes an afterthought. One can read daily about everything that’s going wrong in Rome and barely open the Gospel. One can learn about the latest scandal in a dicastery on Facebook within ten minutes and not know which saint is on the calendar today.

That is not a victory for tradition. That is a spiritual distraction. A practical rule: Read more Augustine than Church-related Twitter. Read more Benedict XVI than angry blogs. Pray for your bishop longer than you spend complaining about him. The latter is particularly difficult. That is why it is probably good for the soul.

11. Abuse: No Romance About the Church’s Reputation

There’s little room for humour here. Abuse and the culture of cover-ups surrounding it have caused enormous harm. The traditional Catholic must never think that defending the Church means prioritizing institutional reputation over truth and justice. Catholic orthodoxy, in fact, demands: justice, love of truth, protection of the vulnerable, and accountability on the part of those in authority. A bishop who protects an abuser to “prevent scandal” actually causes scandal. The Church is not defended by hiding sin. The Church is defended by fighting sin.

In other words, protect the victims first. Conduct serious investigations. Cooperate lawfully with civil authorities. Be transparent where it is appropriate to do so. And realize: the Church’s reputation ultimately belongs to Christ. He can handle the truth better than a lie.

12. Stop the perpetual inferiority complex toward the modern world

For several decades now, part of the Church establishment has at times seemed terrified that the modern world finds us old-fashioned. But we can relax about that. The modern world does indeed find us old-fashioned. After all, Christianity teaches that chastity is a virtue, that marriage has objective meaning, that children are gifts, that truth exists, that suffering can have meaning, that possessions create obligations, that forgiveness is more important than revenge, that humility is good, that human beings are not their own creators, and that God is ultimately more important than autonomy. And yes, more important than the economy, too.

That will never become fully fashionable. And it doesn’t have to. Christianity has not survived for two thousand years because it rewrote its message every twenty years. It has survived because the message proved greater than any fad.  

What specifically needs to be done? Let me conclude with a simple plan. Not with yet another new committee, but for ourselves.

To the bishops:

1. Proclaim the doctrine of the faith clearly. Not only when there is no controversy. Precisely when it is unpopular. 2. Form good priests. Intellectually orthodox. Spiritually deep. Humanly mature. Liturgically formed. 3. Give priority to orthodox seminaries. A diocese without vocations should not only ask why young people are not coming. It must also ask what young people encounter when they do come. 4. Restore liturgical peace. Do not treat faithful believers who long for traditional liturgy as problem cases. 5. Promote confession and adoration. The renewal of the Church does not begin with management. 6. Protect Catholic education. A school that calls itself Catholic but no longer dares to teach the Catholic view of humanity is essentially just a historical logo. 7. Be visible as a shepherd. Go out to your people.  

To Priests:

1. Pray. That sounds almost insultingly simple. But many crises begin precisely there. 2. Celebrate the Eucharist daily. Celebrate it with reverence. At Mass, the faithful do not come to encounter the priest’s personality. They come to encounter Christ. 3. Preach the full truth. With love. With intelligence. With humor where it makes sense, but without shame. 4. Hear confessions. Provide ample opportunities for confession. No, ringing the doorbell at the rectory doesn’t count. 5. Seek out young people. Not to be “cool” with them. That’s a lost cause. A sixty-year-old priest trying to talk like a sixteen-year-old is one of the strongest arguments for a monastic vow of silence. Be a father. That is enough. 6. Foster priestly fraternity. An isolated priest becomes vulnerable. 7. Love your people. Even when they are difficult. Especially then.

To the laity:

1. Become holy yourself. That’s harder than getting angry at Rome, but ultimately much more effective. 2. Build Catholic families. 3. Give your children genuine catechesis. 4. Support good priests. Not by putting them on a pedestal, but by helping them remain priests. 5. Found Catholic initiatives, schools, publishing houses, student groups, prayer groups, cultural institutions, and good media outlets. 6. Know your faith. A Catholic who doesn’t know the Catechism but discusses church politics daily is a bit like a soccer analyst who doesn’t know whether a ball is filled with air or sand. 7. Be joyful.

This may be more important than we realize. Bitterness converts no one.

Let me also say something that may be less pleasant for a traditional audience. Tradition itself can become an ideology. One can become so convinced that one is defending the truth that one forgets that truth is a Person. We can be: right and loveless, orthodox and arrogant, liturgically correct and spiritually cold, theologically sharp and humanly unbearable. That would be a rather peculiar victory.

The traditional movement will truly bear fruit when it is recognized by: holiness, large families, vocations, intellectual life, beauty, charity, joy, and missionary zeal – not exclusively by criticism. A tree is ultimately recognized by its fruit, not by the sharpness of its tweets.

Where does true reform begin?

Perhaps not in Rome. Perhaps not at a synod. Perhaps not at a bishops’ conference. Perhaps it begins tomorrow morning. When a priest prays for half an hour longer before breakfast. When a father prays the Rosary with his children. When a young person goes to confession again after ten years. When a bishop decides to calmly explain an unpopular truth. When a seminarian chooses holiness over a career. When a parish resumes Eucharistic adoration. When a Catholic teacher refuses to reduce his faith to vague humanism. When a married couple truly lives their marriage as a vocation. This is how the Church has always renewed itself—not primarily through programs, but through saints.

And so: no need to panic. We may take the crisis seriously. We need not make it more dramatic than it is. For the future of the Church ultimately does not depend on the competence of its bureaucracy. Thank God. That is perhaps the most comforting teaching of this blog.

Christ did not say, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my strategic multi-year plan.” He said, “I will build my Church.” That does not take away our responsibility. It puts it in its proper place. We do not need to reinvent the Church. Nor do we need to save it as if Christ, after His Ascension, had forgotten how His own Church works. We must do something simpler: Preserve the faith. Speak the truth. Receive the sacraments. Raise our children. Serve the poor. Form priests. Foster vocations. Celebrate the liturgy with dignity. Love our enemies. And love Christ more than our own ecclesiastical faction. That last point may be the hardest of all. For ultimately, there are no traditional saints and progressive saints. There are only saints.

And perhaps that is precisely the reform the Church needs right now. Not yet another new Catholic program. But once again, Catholics who take the Gospel so seriously that other people begin to ask themselves: “What have they found that we are missing?” When that question is asked once more, the new evangelization truly begins.

And perhaps the Church will then discover something she has always known in her finest moments: that the world is not converted because we are becoming more and more like it. But because it sees something of Christ in us.

+Rob Mutsaerts

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