VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the relator general of the Synod on Synodality, has claimed that the Second Vatican Council prevented the Catholic Church from becoming “a small sect, unknown to most people.”
Speaking to Spanish news outlet Vida Nueva, the cardinal argued that Vatican II was an event which “saved the Church.”
“If we did not have that point of reform that was the Second Vatican Council, the Church today would be a small sect, unknown to most people,” he said.
“I am convinced that the Second Vatican Council saved the Church,” added Hollerich, who is also the Archbishop of Luxembourg and president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE).
“Without that assembly,” he said, the Church “would have been reduced to a group that performs beautiful rites, but nobody knows anything about. Today we must adapt to the changes in mental frameworks.”
Hollerich appeared to suggest that by drawing on Vatican II, the Church would be able to “rediscover the authenticity of being true disciples of Jesus.”
He decried “resistance” to the alterations of Vatican II, saying that there is “a lot” of it.
“The strongest come from the traditionalists, who curiously are also a postmodern phenomenon,” said Hollerich. “They choose only one point of reference in history, without looking before and after.”
He accused “traditionalists” of forgetting “how the growth of tradition develops.”
It’s a bit like what happens with Netflix series: they tell you a part of the story, but invented, not real. That’s why it’s no coincidence that traditionalist movements attract young people from France and the United States.
But in response to his claims, Catholics took to social media to point out how the Church had declined since Vatican II.
Here some more statistics of the world wide largest religious institutes. Even not any Jesuit Bergolio effect. Moreover an extrapolation over the last three decades shows an end of the Jesuits witin about fifty years pic.twitter.com/wG21lXkklf
— ecclesiadei.nl (@Jack_P_Oostveen) October 19, 2022
Hollerich mentions the great number of youth in the US and France following traditionalists – but does not see the reasons: 1) faith is still alive, 2) hunger for substance, 4) disenchantment with the historical lies of post-Vatican II theology. https://t.co/zv7ihVlQ4s
— Ulrich L. Lehner (@ulrichlehner) October 19, 2022
Medical doctor and theologian Paul Casey pointed to recently published research showing the drastic decline of the Catholic faith following the Council.
“French historian Guillaume Cuchet shows that the collapse of practice among Catholics in France dates very precisely to the year 1965 [end of Vatican II]. He calls it ‘the year of the collapse.’” pic.twitter.com/ZplmbeSdzB
— MrCasey (@MrCasey62) October 19, 2022
A new analysis published by French historian Guillaume Cuchet, examined the “collapse of practice among Catholics in France.” While notably reluctant to conjecture, Cuchet argued that “there must have been an event behind a phenomenon of this magnitude, at least to provoke it. My hypothesis is that it was the Second Vatican Council.”
Hollerich’s promotion of Vatican II reflects his key role in the Synod on Synodality. The multi-year Synod process has repeatedly been likened to a further Vatican Council. Catholic Family News’ Matt Gaspers told LifeSite last year that it “is clearly intended to be an extension of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) — one might even dub it ‘Vatican III’.”
READ: ‘A different Church’: Pope calls for synod on synodality to usher in ‘change’
“Further confirmation of the Synod’s connection to the Council was provided by Pope Francis in his October 9 address to Synod participants (the day before the official opening),” said Gaspers.
He quoted Fr. Yves Congar (1904-1995), a progressive Dominican peritus (theological expert) at Vatican II, who “once said: ‘There is no need to create another Church, but to create a different Church’ (True and False Reform in the Church).”
Such an argument is supported by the results of the process so far. Listed on the Synod Resource website are also submissions from a number of heretical and dissident groups, including the pro-LGBT New Ways Ministry, Women’s Ordination Conference, and the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests.