Open Letter
to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV - English Version, Dutch, see below.
Holy
Father,
With
reverence for the office entrusted to you as successor of Saint Peter, and in
communion with the Church which Christ built upon the apostles, I address you
with this open letter. I do not do so lightly. What leads me to speak these
words publicly is a concern that ultimately transcends every other ecclesial
consideration: the salvation of souls. Salus animarum suprema lex — the
salvation of souls is the supreme law. My question is a simple and earnest one:
does the synodal process actually help bring souls closer to Christ and to
eternal salvation? That is the decisive question for me.
Holy
Father, I fully realize that the Petrine office bears a responsibility of which
someone standing outside that office can only have a vague inkling. Precisely
for this reason, I write these words not out of a lack of reverence for the
papal office, but out of love for that same office. After all, Peter received
from Christ not only the commission to unite the brothers, but also to
strengthen them in the faith: “And you, when you have once turned back,
strengthen your brothers.” Ultimately, the world gains little from a Church
that merely repeats what the world itself already thinks. It needs a Church
that points it to Christ, with love but without fear.
My concern
regarding the Synod on Synodality must be read in that light. And above all, I
wonder what all this means for the simple believer who expects not a permanent
process from his Church, but clarity about the way to God.
This letter
is therefore not an indictment against individuals. Nor do I wish to deny the
good intentions of the many who have sincerely dedicated themselves to the
synodal process. Good intentions deserve recognition. But good intentions do
not absolve us of the duty to examine the fruits. Christ himself has given us a
simple criterion for this: “By their fruits you shall know them.” Therefore, I
believe that after years of synodal consultations, meetings, reports, and
documents, the time has come to openly inquire about those fruits. Not out of
cynicism, but out of love for the Church. Not out of nostalgia for an idealized
past, but out of concern for her future. And not to wage a church-political
battle, but because behind all discussions lies a reality that is infinitely
more important: the eternal salvation of the souls Christ has entrusted to his
Church. Out of that concern, Holy Father, I present to you the following
reflection.
The Synod
on Synodality
Whoever
judges the Synod on Synodality solely on the basis of its own objectives can
easily write a positive story. There was listening. There was speaking.
Thousands of people were consulted. Bishops, priests, religious, and lay people
gathered. There was talk of community, participation, and mission. A new
ecclesiastical vocabulary even emerged: synodality, listening, discernment,
participation, conversation in the Spirit, setting processes in motion. But one
can also view the same history from a completely different perspective. Let me
just ask the uncomfortable question: What has all this actually yielded? Not:
how many meetings were organized? Not: how many reports were written? Not: how
many people participated? But: has faith become stronger? Has Christ been
proclaimed more clearly? Has Catholic identity deepened? Have more people come
to conversion? Is Sunday Mass better attended? Are there more priestly
vocations? Has catechesis become more powerful? Has greater reverence for the
Eucharist emerged? Has the moral teaching of the Church become clearer? Has
missionary courage increased?
When one
asks such questions, it is impossible to consider the Synod a success.
Meanwhile, there is something else to consider. The synodal undertaking is not
truly concluded. The official implementation phase continues and, via diocesan,
national, and continental meetings, must ultimately culminate in an
ecclesiastical assembly in Rome in October 2028. In May 2026, the Vatican once
again published an extensive roadmap for this. That makes the criticism all the
more relevant. What once began as a 2021–2024 synod threatens to become a
permanent form of governance.
A synod
about a synod
The first
remarkable aspect is already in the name: Synod on Synodality. Traditionally, a
synod was convened because the Church needed to speak about something. About
evangelization, marriage and family, priesthood, the Eucharist, Scripture, a
heresy, a pastoral crisis, or a concrete problem. In the synod on synodality,
the process itself is made the subject. One could compare it to a meeting that
convenes endlessly to discuss how to hold meetings from now on.
The Church
has known councils and synods since antiquity. The apostles gathered in
Jerusalem. Bishops deliberated with one another. Popes consulted bishops. The
great ecumenical councils are unthinkable without joint ecclesiastical
consultation. But that is something different from synodality as a permanent
ecclesiastical paradigm. The classical synod was a means. In contemporary
synodal discourse, synodality threatens to become an end in itself. And that is
precisely where the problem begins from a traditional Catholic perspective.
The Church
is not a conversation but a received reality.
For the
Church does not begin with our dialogue. It begins with Christ. That sounds
self-evident, but it has far-reaching consequences. Christ did not set up a
discussion group. He called apostles. He gave them authority. He sent them out
to proclaim, baptize, and teach: “Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations.” The direction is fundamental in this regard. Faith does not arise
because the Church first inventories what people believe and then distills a
common conviction from all those experiences. Faith is received. Paul
constantly uses words such as receive, hand down, and preserve for this. The
Church possesses Revelation not because she conceived it, but because she
received it. This means that Christianity cannot, in essence, be democratic.
Not because democracy as a form of government is bad, but because truth does
not arise by a majority vote. If tomorrow 90 percent of Catholics were no
longer to believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Christ would
not be any less truly present. If 80 percent reject a certain moral doctrine,
that doctrine does not automatically become untrue. Truth is not produced by
consensus. That constitutes the first major area of tension surrounding the synodal
project.
Listening:
to whom?
A key word
throughout the entire process was listening (as if we had never done that). In
itself, there is nothing to object to. A bishop must listen. A priest must
listen. Christians must listen to one another. A shepherd who never listens to
his flock is not a good shepherd. But the question immediately follows: To whom
must the Church listen above all? The traditional answer is: to Christ, to
Scripture, to Apostolic Tradition, to the saints, to the testimony of twenty
centuries of Christianity, to the Magisterium. And, of course, also to the
believers.
In certain
synodal texts, however, the order seems to be easily reversed. One begins with
the experiences, desires, frustrations, and expectations of contemporary people
and then asks how the Church should respond to them. That seems pastorally
appealing, but it contains a danger. For what happens when the desires of
modern man clash with the Gospel? Then it is not the Gospel that must change;
then man must change. In Christianity, that is called conversion. And precisely
that word is heard remarkably little in many modern church discussions.
The great
absentee: conversion
Here lies
the deepest weakness of the entire project. The Church does not exist primarily
to affirm people in what they already are. It exists to bring them to Christ.
The first words of Jesus’ public preaching are not: “Tell Me first how you feel
about the current church structures.” But: “Repent and believe in the Good
News.” That is considerably less bureaucratic. And considerably more radical.
The Church
of the Martyrs did not change the Roman world by organizing listening meetings
on the question of how Romans could experience the Christian community more
inclusively. She 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 undoubtedly listened to
people. But listening was never the endpoint. The endpoint was conversion to
Christ.
The
elephant in the synodal assembly hall
Moreover,
there is a curious discrepancy between the problems discussed at length in the
synodal process and the actual crisis in which the Western Church, in
particular, finds itself. The fundamental problems of the Church in the
Netherlands, Belgium, especially Germany, but also of large parts of Western
Europe, are not difficult to recognize. Churches are emptying. Parishes are
being merged. Monasteries are disappearing. Religious orders are aging.
Knowledge of the Catholic faith is declining. Confession has virtually
disappeared for many Catholics. The number of priestly vocations remains low in
many places. Many baptized people hardly believe in essential truths of faith
anymore. Among large groups of Catholics, the sacramental life has severely weakened.
Against that ach Fundamentally, one would expect a global church operation to
primarily address one question: How can we win the world back for Christ?
But much
attention is focused on structures, participation, decision-making processes,
responsibility for women, inclusivity, power relations, and the way church
bodies function. These can be legitimate topics. However, a burning house has
different priorities than matters of a domestic nature.
A Church
Parkinson’s Law
Institutions
that lose sight of their original purpose often start talking more and more
intensely about their own organization. Companies then talk endlessly about
processes. Universities about governance. Governments about participation
models. And church organizations about structures. The less evangelization, the
more committees about evangelization. The fewer vocations, the more documents
about vocations. The fewer people come to church, the longer the meetings about
being the church become. That sounds cynical, but there is a serious thought
behind it: bureaucracy can create the illusion of activity while reality shows
the opposite. One is navigating without a compass. The expectations that cannot
be met
The synodal
process has raised expectations. This occurred primarily because, during the
various consultation phases, themes were admitted that touch upon matters on
which the Church already possesses clear doctrine. The female diaconate. The
priesthood. Sexual morality. Homosexual relationships. The relationship between
the laity and the clergy. Ecclesiastical authority. Decentralization. The
position of women. When such subjects are “discussed” for years, the impression
naturally arises that they can eventually be changed as well. After all,
otherwise, one would not speak about them endlessly.
This
creates a pastoral paradox. People are asked to express their expectations.
Subsequently, some expectations prove impossible to fulfill without
jeopardizing continuity with Catholic doctrine. What happens then? Widespread
disappointment. The Church has then itself raised expectations that it
ultimately cannot honor. That is not a pastoral gain. It is a recipe for
frustration.
The
Protestantization of the Catholic concept of the Church
Moreover,
from a traditionalist perspective, a historical irony is visible here. A number
of elements of modern synodal culture actually show similarities to
developments that have been observable in Protestant churches for decades. More
emphasis on participation. More administrative input. More consultative
structures. More weight for local communities. More emphasis on individual
experience. More discussion about changing societal views. Less of a given
regarding hierarchical authority. In itself, this need not all be wrong. But
the historical question is inevitable: Has this model led to a spectacular
Christian revival in the Protestant world? In large parts of Western Europe,
the answer is clearly: no. Why, then, would the Catholic Church adopt precisely
the administrative and pastoral patterns of denominations that often underwent
the same secularization even earlier and more severely? A patient rarely
recovers by taking the medicine from the patient in the bed next to him who is
in an even worse condition.
The
forgotten alternative: striving for holiness
The great
Catholic reforms almost never began with structures. They began with saints.
After periods of corruption came reformers. Benedict, Bernard, Francis,
Dominic, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Ávila, Charles
Borromeo, Francis de Sales, John Bosco, Thérèse of Lisieux, Maximilian Kolbe,
John Paul II. Their program was surprisingly simple: become holy.
For a saint
possesses a missionary power that no policy document can match. A parish with a
holy pastor has a greater future than a diocese with twenty working groups on
synodality and highly paid managers. A convent with ten fervent religious
evangelizes more than a hundred pages of ecclesiastical jargon. A priest who
visibly believes that he stands before God at the altar can bring more people
to faith than a conference on participatory liturgy.
Herein lies
perhaps the alternative that the Synod has insufficiently emphasized: not less
listening, but more holiness. Not less participation, but more conversion. Not
less dialogue, but more proclamation. The Liturgy as a Litmus Test
From a
traditional perspective, it is moreover striking that the crisis of the liturgy
received relatively little central attention. For if one truly wants to know
the state of a Church, one must look at its worship. Lex orandi, lex credendi.
How one prays, that is where faith is expressed.
When
Catholics barely understand anymore that the Mass is the sacramental present
sacrifice of Christ dig argues that when the sense of the sacred weakens, when
silence disappears, when confessionals stand empty and Eucharistic adoration
becomes marginal, then the Church does not have a governance problem. Then it
has a faith problem. A new participation structure cannot solve that. Nor can a
new assembly. A rediscovery of God, perhaps it can.
The Paradox
of Participation
The synodal
project emphasizes participation. But here a curious paradox emerges. The
people who participate intensively in ecclesiastical consultation processes are
not necessarily representative of the entire Church. The quiet Catholic who
attends Mass every morning, prays the rosary, and gives catechism to his
grandchildren usually does not write a synodal report. The young Catholic who
travels three hours to attend a traditional liturgy usually does not sit on the
diocesan working group. The mother of six children trying to raise her family
as a Catholic may have little time for listening sessions. A contemplative
sister does not fill out a survey. But their faith may be more deeply rooted
than that of professional ecclesiastical assembly participants. Whoever listens
only to those who come to the microphone can easily forget that the People of
God are greater than the circle around the meeting table.
Synodality
or collegiality?
Perhaps
some of the confusion would disappear if one spoke more precisely again. The
Catholic tradition has a clear concept: collegiality. The bishops, together
with and under Peter, form the College of Bishops. In addition, there are
councils of priests, pastoral councils, synods, chapters, religious
communities, and countless other forms of deliberation. Why was a new,
all-encompassing category needed for this: synodality?
Precisely
because the concept is so broad—it is impossible to devise a
definition—everyone can understand something different by it. For one, it means
listening. For another, decentralization. For a third, democratization. For a
fourth, pastoral renewal. For a fifth, reform of the ministry. For a sixth, a
different sexual morality. A concept that can mean everything ultimately means
nothing. That is why the question of proportionality is justified. How much
energy still needs to be put into this? How many meetings? How many synodal
teams? How many reports? How many evaluations of evaluations? And above all:
what would happen if the same amount of time, money, intellectual energy, and
episcopal attention were invested in catechesis, seminaries, Catholic education,
liturgy, confession, Eucharistic adoration, marriage pastoral care, and direct
evangelization? That is a rhetorical question, it seems to me.
The deepest
problem: ecclesiology
Ultimately,
therefore, the discussion is not really about gathering. It is about the
question: What is the Church? Is it primarily a community that collectively
seeks what it is to become? Or is it primarily a divine reality that has
received what it is to be? The Catholic answer can only be the latter. The
Church must continually convert, but it is built on the apostles. It preserves
a faith that it did not invent itself. Therefore, every synodality must
ultimately be limited by something that is not open to synodal discussion: the
truth that Christ has revealed.
The world
is not waiting for a synodal Church
And here
lies perhaps the greatest tragedy. The modern world is in an extraordinary
spiritual crisis. People seek meaning. Young people seek identity. Loneliness
is increasing. Families are falling apart. Technology is penetrating ever
deeper into human existence. Pornography distorts sexuality. Materialism does
not satisfy. Climate change is becoming a surrogate religion for many. People
are afraid of death but hardly know anymore what they are living for. And in
the midst of that world, the Church possesses something extraordinary. It
possesses the Gospel. The sacraments. The Eucharist. Confession. Two thousand
years of wisdom. Scripture. The Church Fathers. Thomas Aquinas. Augustine. The
mystics. The saints. An unparalleled tradition of art, music, philosophy,
morality, and spirituality. And above all: Jesus Christ.
The world
is not waiting for yet another organization that listens to it. There are
enough of those. The world is waiting for someone who tells it what it was
created for.
From Emmaus
to Jerusalem
Perhaps the
Gospel of the Emmaus Disciples ultimately offers the best model for authentic
Catholic synodality. Christ walks with the disciples. He listens indeed. He
asks what is on their minds. He lets them speak. Their disappointment is given
space. Up to this point, every synodal manual could enthusiastically agree. But
then the decisive moment occurs. Christ does not confirm their interpretation.
He corrects it. He opens the Scriptures to them. He teaches them how to
understand the events. And finally, they recognize Him at the break. and of the
bread. That is Catholic synodality in its purest form. And afterwards, the
disciples do not remain gathered endlessly in Emmaus to evaluate their walking
experience. They get up. They return to Jerusalem. They go out to preach. The
synodal process got stuck in Emmaus, and the question is whether they can still
get out of there. We are so busy discussing how the Church should journey
together that we sometimes forget where it is headed.
Ultimately,
the Catholic Church has no need for a permanent synod about itself. It needs
saints. Bishops who teach. Priests who pray. Religious who live radically for
God. Parents who pass on the faith. Young people who discover that truth is
more than an opinion. Liturgy in which God is truly central. Confessionals
where sinners find forgiveness. Seminaries where men are formed who are willing
to give their lives to Christ. Catholics who do not constantly ask how the
Church should adapt to the world, but who have the courage to invite the world
to be transformed by Christ. For ultimately, Christ did not send His Church
into the world with the words: Go forth and organize synodal processes
everywhere. He said: “Go out into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to
all creation.” With that, the Church began. And whenever she was truly renewed,
she began there anew.
Holy
Father,
Allow me to
conclude this letter with the same thought with which I began it: the salvation
of souls. I hope and pray that under your pontificate it may once again become
visible with great clarity that the Church is not called to endlessly discuss
itself, but to proclaim Christ; not to reflect the spirit of the age, but to
lead the world toward eternal life.
Precisely
from the successor of Peter, the faithful may expect that, amidst the confusion
of our time, he strengthens the brothers in faith. That he reminds us that the
truth proclaimed by the Church is not a possession over which we can dispose at
will, but a precious treasure that we have received and must pass on intact.
May he give courage to priests who faithfully fulfill their calling, to
religious who have dedicated their lives to God, to parents who try to raise
their children as Catholics against the current, and to young people who,
precisely in a time of relativism, long for truth, holiness, beauty, and the
radical adventure of a life with Christ.
My prayer
to you is therefore simple: give us clarity. When the world speaks with
uncertainty, let Peter speak clearly. When the Church grows weary of internal
discussions, point us back to Christ. When we lose ourselves in processes and
structures, remind us of our mission. When we become afraid to proclaim the
Gospel in its fullness because it might offend modern man, remind us of the
words of Peter himself: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Your words are words of
eternal life.”
Holy
Father, I write all this in sincere reverence for your office and with love for
the Church. My criticism of the synodal process does not stem from a desire to
sow discord, but from the fear that we are losing precious time while so many
people no longer know Christ. The harvest is great. The laborers are few. The
churches of the West are emptying out, while at the same time new generations
seem to be seeking truth and transcendence anew. Precisely now we do not need a
hesitant Church, but a missionary Church that knows what its treasure is and is
not afraid to show that treasure to the world.
Therefore,
I pray that your pontificate may be characterized by a renewed concentration on
what ultimately forms the heart of every true ecclesial reform: Christ,
conversion, holiness, the Eucharist, evangelization, and the salvation of
souls. For once all synods have concluded, all documents have been written, all
committees have been dissolved, and our own names have been forgotten, only the
question that truly matters remains: have we brought the people entrusted to
our care closer to Jesus Christ?
May Saint
Peter intercede for you. May Our Lady, Mater Ecclesiae, keep you under her
protection. And may the Lord grant you the wisdom, courage, and paternal
determination to lead His Church in truth and love.
With
feelings of sincere reverence, united in prayer,
in Christo,
+Rob
Mutsaerts
Aux. Bishop
Diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch
