Dutch Bishop Robert Mutsaerts has criticized the Catholic hierarchy for focusing on “climate change” and social justice issues instead of the salvation of souls. He said that young people are attracted by traditional liturgy and not by Pope Francis’ “synodality.”
In a blog published in December, Bishop Mutsaerts said that this negative trend has dominated the Catholic Church since the 1960s and the Second Vatican Council.
“How did it get to the point where we see what we see today in church circles? Rainbow flags, LGBT activists dancing around the altar, second-rate bands playing pop music, sermons that are an expression of political correctness rather than anything else?” he pointedly asked.
“How is it that beauty and truth have given way to ugliness and opinions? Ugly buildings, whitewashed walls, iconoclasm, and poorly acted performances that pass for liturgy. Kneelers and communion rails have been removed. The mystery, the sacred, the supernatural had to give way to horizontal flatness.”
The bishop said that he sees a hunger for tradition and transcendence in young Catholics.
“But this has not yet caught on in Rome,” he mused. “There, they are preoccupied with the new buzzword synodality.”
“The leadership of the church resembles Demas, who left Paul out of love for the secular world,” he stated. “And Judas, who thought the money spent on Jesus would have been better spent on the poor. This resonates well with the liberals. They are like those who cry out for Barabbas, the activist who strove for a secular utopia. They say: ‘We take matters into our own hands.’ Jesus, on the other hand, did the will of the Father and chose the cross. That seemed like a failure, but it was the cross that brought redemption.”
Bishop Mutsaerts said people have left the Church in the past 60 years “because the church has let them down.”
“’Yes,’ says the church, ‘we are committed to the environment, to climate change, to diversity, to the poor and issues like that.’ More emphasis is placed on this than on a dignified liturgy, on sacrality, on the call to conversion, and on prioritizing the salvation of souls. People forget that this is precisely what gives people the nourishment they need to truly perform works of mercy.”
“Since the 1960s, the Church has portrayed the faith as ridiculous, no longer naming its core,” the bishop said. “Look at the liturgical abuse that is the order of the day. I am regularly terrorized at Confirmation Masses by choirs singing only Top 2000 songs. I once experienced the choir, accompanied by a deafening band, singing exclusively songs by Bruce Springsteen. ‘Because the Night’ was the offertory hymn. At the end of the Mass, it was clear to me: we will never see these confirmands in church again.”
“At another Confirmation Mass (Nijmegen), the priest refused to give Communion to a confirmand because he wanted to receive Communion on the tongue. That’s actually very clerical: this priest makes his own rules and imposes them on the faithful,” he continued.
“This has been the problem of the Church since the Second Vatican Council: the Church does not teach what the Gospel teaches. We are afraid to proclaim Catholic views. Which priest still talks about ‘salvation’ and the ‘forgiveness of sins?’ We prefer to distance ourselves from it. We apologize for a colleague who stands guard and prays outside an abortion facility.”
“The Pope banned the traditional Latin Mass in Chartres and Notre Dame and added an LGBT pilgrimage to the program of the Holy Year in the same week,” the Dutch bishop stressed.
“We strive so much for ‘freedom and happiness,’ but in practice, this seems to lead to debauchery and dissatisfaction. What is needed are norms and values that we share. Where do we get this from? Norms and values that apply to everyone and at all times. Yes, there is such a thing as the truth that applies to everyone. And yes, we can know it. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle already knew this. This natural law has a supernatural origin that the secular world knows nothing about.”
He said the “dialogue with the world” opened at the Second Vatican Council has led many in the Church hierarchy to “relativize or even deny the timeless truths of the Church.”
These truths “would merely be figments of the imagination of Thomists and other outdated theologians.”
“This led to a completely horizontal translation of the Gospel. Metaphysics was jettisoned, and the focus was exclusively on community. The result is a flat liturgy in which there is no longer any room for sin and forgiveness. The blame was shifted onto others,” Bishop Mutsaerts said.
In today’s Church, at least in Western Europe, the mainstream view says “it should be about social justice, about soup kitchens, about action,” he continued.
“Yes, mainly action. We stand up against discrimination and racism and take part in the social debate on climate change. We are naturally inclusive and diverse and fly the rainbow flag. Of course, we don’t talk about abortion, euthanasia, and mutilation of [so-called] transgender people. The distinction between the sacred and the profane has completely disappeared.”
“Young people, in particular, have sensed this very well and have voted with their feet,” the bishop said. “If the liturgy is an incoherent mess, if you are not asked to reorganize your life, if forgiveness and sin are forbidden words, then what are you doing there?”
“Good liturgy, clarity, and warmth make all the difference. Young people are looking for answers to questions.”
“No wonder young people hungry for meaning, forgiveness, and truth are not at all interested in Laudato Si’, Fiducia Supplicans, and synodality,” the bishop added.
“Parishes and dioceses that think they are focusing on this do not attract young people. Where do you find them: in parishes where things are simply traditional, where the Holy Mass is still Holy Mass, where the sacred is in the forefront, where the liturgy is clearly separated from the secular. You discover things there that you didn’t know before. It is a movement towards beauty, truth, holiness, towards devotion, towards places where the sacrament of Confession is offered and the Rosary is prayed. That’s where I see families, that’s where I see young people, that’s where I see the future of the Church.”