Where Goes the Catholic Church?

When a Church Forgets What It Holds

I've lost confidence that the modern Catholic Church still believes what it once taught—that truth is something received, guarded, and handed down, not something revised to match the mood of the age. I’m tired of pretending that an institution can keep remaking itself and still claim to stand on eternal ground.

There is a point where silence becomes agreement. I’ve reached the point where I can no longer agree. Not with the language, not with the direction, and not with the repeated suggestion that the Church must learn from the people rather than teach them. If that is the new model, we are not describing a Church anymore. We are describing a consultancy dressed like a Church, with liturgy and incense used to make constant change feel sacred.

The Line That Broke the Silence

The moment that crystallized this for me was not a crisis or scandal, but one sentence spoken by Pope Leo¹ himself: “Truth is not possessed, but sought together.” It was crafted to sound humble, even noble. But to my ears, it was a surrender.

If the Church does not possess truth—if it is only one seeker among many—then what does it exist to proclaim? For two thousand years, it claimed not to invent truth but to guard it. Not ownership as domination, but stewardship: truth received from Christ, preserved by the apostles, handed down at great cost. Martyrs did not die because they were searching for truth. They died because they refused to deny it.

So when I hear that truth is no longer possessed but merely sought, I do not hear humility. I hear uncertainty dressed as virtue. I hear a Church unsure of its own foundation.

Some insist the words were misunderstood—that no individual possesses the whole truth. Perhaps. But that is not what was said. And after a while, ambiguity stops being accidental and looks more like a method.

A Church or a Social Construct

A Church is built on the conviction that truth exists before we arrive, and remains after we leave. It may be explored, articulated, contemplated—but not reinvented at every gathering. The Church does not ask what people believe so it can adjust doctrine accordingly. It proclaims what it has received and calls people to conform their lives to it, not the other way around.

A social group, on the other hand, survives by adaptation. Its purpose is to preserve belonging. When beliefs become inconvenient, they are revised. When moral teachings become unpopular, they are softened. The highest goal is continued membership, not continued faithfulness.

Some Protestant communities went this way—quietly at first, then openly. Doctrines softened, moral teachings blurred, worship became a mirror of the culture rather than a challenge to it. The language of faith remained, but its substance faded.

And Rome, in its own way, now moves beyond even that. This is not adaptation to parishioner demand. The people did not ask for doctrine to be reshaped. This is leadership-driven transformation: truth rephrased, boundaries moved, certainties treated as options. All in the name of accompaniment, listening, or synodality. The Church is not consulting the flock. It is directing them down a different path.I see something in Rome that goes further than listening or accommodation. This is not a case of bishops anxiously polling the pews. The people are not leading this change — the leadership is. Doctrine is being stretched, rephrased, and in some cases quietly contradicted, not because the faithful demanded it, but because those in charge seem convinced the Church must chart a new course.

They speak of “seeking truth together,” but it feels less like seeking and more like replacing. Truth is treated not as a treasure received but as a project still under construction — and conveniently managed by committees and commissions.

This isn’t consultation. This is redirection.

When leaders alter the course of the faith while still claiming continuity, the Church does not become a mirror of the people — it becomes something worse: an institution that keeps the appearance of tradition while emptying it from within. It’s redirection—carried out gradually, wrapped in tradition’s clothing, so no one notices when the ground has shifted.

The Forgotten Law of Endurance

Religions do not endure by staying current. They endure by staying rooted.

Empires collapse, cultures overturn, philosophies come and go—but what remains are institutions anchored to something deeper than time. The Church once understood this. It claimed no authority from popularity or relevance, only from the belief that God had spoken and revelation was complete.

Look at the traditions most often mocked as rigid or obsolete: the Russian Orthodox Church, unbroken through czars, revolutions, and exile—yet still itself. Islam, divided politically yet unwavering in doctrine for fourteen centuries. You don’t have to agree with them to see the pattern: those who hold to what they were given survive. Those who constantly refashion themselves eventually become unrecognizable.

This is not about nostalgia. It is about knowing that a faith which refuses permanence cannot offer salvation—only companionship on the way to nowhere.

Before the Last Word Is Spoken

The Church is not only facing pressure from the inside where it is being reshaped—by ambiguity, by redefinition, by a quiet willingness to trade clarity for acceptance. At the same time, there are powers outside the Church quite content to see it muted, divided, or absorbed into the spirit of the age.

Many Catholics sense something is wrong but cannot name it. They see teachings that once stood firm now treated as temporary. They see leaders speak in careful phrases that can be heard two different ways. They are not rebellious. They are bewildered.

So what should be done? Rage solves nothing. Nor does silence.

Perhaps the first act of fidelity is simple: ask honest questions. Not in anger. Not to start a revolt. But face-to-face, with priests, bishops, and teachers of the faith:

• Do we still believe what the Church has always believed?

• Is truth something revealed and received, or something discovered and revised?

• Where are we being led—and why?

These are not acts of defiance. They are acts of stewardship.

Because a Church that cannot endure questions cannot claim to guard the truth.

1Pope Leo XIV homily for 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday, Oct. 26.