The Jesuit Antonio Fco. Bohórquez has written a phrase as brief as it is uncomfortable: «Liberal faith does not arouse Christian vocations, to any state of life». It is not an outburst. It is a constatation. And precisely for that reason, it stings.
Because if anything Christ taught us is that doctrines are not judged by their intentions, nor by their terminological correctness, nor by how well they fit into the well-meaning editorials. «You will know them by their fruits» (Mt 7:16). Not by their congresses. Not by their documents. Not by their external applause. By their fruits.
And the fruits are there to see.
The communities where faith has been diluted into a liberal Christianity—amiable, dialogical, undemanding, and carefully stripped of edges—do not generate priestly vocations, nor religious ones, nor solid Christian marriages. They do generate, however, aging structures, empty parishes, closed seminaries, and a discourse that is increasingly abstract about a Church that “accompanies,” but no longer begets.
Liberal faith talks a lot about processes, but does not call for definitive decisions. It talks about searches, but avoids answers. It talks about experiences, but suspects truth. And a faith that does not dare to say “follow me” with all its consequences cannot be surprised when no one leaves anything to follow Christ.
In contrast to this, the contrast is uncomfortable but real: where faith is lived with doctrinal density, with serious liturgy, with demanding morality, and with a clear awareness of sacrifice, vocations appear. Not by marketing, but because someone perceives that there is something there worth giving one’s life for.
It is no coincidence. Religious liberalism promises a faith without a cross. And Christ never called anyone to that.
That is why Bohórquez’s statement is not ideological, but empirical. It is not a slogan; it is a diagnosis. If a spirituality does not produce priests, nor religious, nor robust Christian families, the problem is not the lack of “appeal,” but the lack of truth lived to the end.
The Church does not grow when it becomes indistinguishable from the world, but when it offers what the world cannot give. And that, like it or not, has always had a price.
The fruits are there. And the Gospel has already told us how to interpret them.