QUAERITUR: Have we brought Jesus Christ closer to the people entrusted to us?

The role of the Church and of churchmen is to bring clarity, not ambiguity, calm not a “mess”, understanding not confusion. If what we are experiencing is, in the balance, ambiguity, a “mess” and confusion, then something has gone seriously wrong in the Church and with churchmen.

The auxiliary bishop of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, Most Rev. Rob Mutsaerts, addressed an open letter to Leo XIV. He asks Leo to once again place Christ, conversion, the Eucharist, evangelization, and the salvation of souls clearly at the center of the Church’s life. He begins with a question that runs through the entire text: after years of meetings, consultations, and documents from the Synod on Synodality (aka “walking together about walkingtogetherity”), what have its real fruits been for the faith and mission of the Church?

Infovaticana – increasingly useful – has it.

I send you over to Infovaticana but with these excerpts to prime you.

Regarding interminable “walking together”:

Allow me to pose the uncomfortable question: What has all this really contributed?

Not: How many meetings were organized? Not: How many reports were drafted? Not: How many people participated?

But: Has faith been strengthened? Has Christ been proclaimed more clearly? Has Catholic identity been deepened? Have more people converted? Is Sunday Mass attendance higher? Are there more priestly vocations? Has catechesis become more effective? Has reverence toward the Eucharist increased? Has the moral teaching of the Church become clearer? Has missionary zeal increased?

When these questions are asked, it is impossible to consider the Synod a success.

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Here lies the deepest weakness of the entire project. The Church does not exist primarily to confirm people in what they already are. It exists to lead them to Christ.

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The Church of the martyrs did not transform the Roman world by organizing conversation groups about how Romans could perceive the Christian community as more inclusive. It proclaimed Christ.

Peter proclaimed Christ. Paul proclaimed Christ. Francis proclaimed Christ. Dominic proclaimed Christ. Francis Xavier proclaimed Christ. John Mary Vianney proclaimed Christ. Mother Teresa proclaimed Christ. John Paul II proclaimed Christ.

They certainly listened to people. But listening was never the final goal. The final goal was conversion to Christ.

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Because when all the synods have ended, all the documents have been written, all the bodies have been dissolved, and our own names forgotten, only the question that truly matters will remain:

Have we brought Jesus Christ closer to the people entrusted to us?

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