The auxiliary bishop of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands), Rob Mutsaerts, has addressed an open letter to Leo XIV in which he asks the Pope to once again place Christ, conversion, the Eucharist, evangelization, and the salvation of souls clearly at the center of the Church’s life. The Dutch prelate begins with a question that runs through the entire text: after years of meetings, consultations, and documents from the Synod on Synodality, what have its real fruits been for the faith and mission of the Church?
The letter, published by Mutsaerts, comes as the implementation phase of the synodal process continues, which will culminate in an Ecclesial Assembly in Rome in October 2028. The bishop, who had already publicly expressed his reservations about the Synod in recent years, now warns of the risk that what began as a time-limited process may end up becoming a permanent form of ecclesial governance.
«What has all this really contributed?»
Mutsaerts does not deny the good intentions of those who have participated in the process, nor does he question the need to listen within the Church. His objection concerns the criterion by which the outcome of these years should be measured. For him, the number of meetings held, documents drafted, or people consulted says little if it is not accompanied by concrete fruits in Christian life.
Hence the series of questions he poses to Leo XIV: «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?»
His conclusion is clear: «When these questions are asked, it is impossible to consider the Synod a success».
The Dutch auxiliary places the issue on a plane he considers prior to any debate about ecclesial structures. «Salus animarum suprema lex», he recalls at the beginning of his letter: the salvation of souls is the supreme law. That is why he asks whether the synodal process has effectively contributed to bringing people «closer to Christ and to eternal salvation».
Read also: Dutch bishop on the Synod: «The Holy Spirit has nothing to do with this»
«The Church does not begin with our dialogue. It begins with Christ»
One of the central themes of the letter is the relationship between listening and revealed truth. Mutsaerts acknowledges that a bishop and a priest must listen to the faithful, but warns that the Church cannot begin by asking what people of each age believe or desire in order to then construct its doctrine from those answers.
«The Church does not begin with our dialogue. It begins with Christ», he writes.
To explain this, he recalls that the Christian faith is received and transmitted, not elaborated through consensus. «Truth is not produced by consensus», he maintains, and gives as an example the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist: even if a majority of Catholics ceased to believe in it, that would not alter its truth.
Listening, therefore, must occupy its place within a hierarchy that begins with Christ, Sacred Scripture, apostolic Tradition, and the Magisterium. The problem arises, according to Mutsaerts, when contemporary experiences and expectations become the starting point for deciding how the Church should respond.
«What happens when the desires of modern man clash with the Gospel?», he asks. His answer is that it is not the Gospel that must be modified, but man who must be called to conversion.
And it is precisely conversion that he considers one of the great absentees from contemporary ecclesial language.
A Western Church that loses faithful while debating structures
Mutsaerts confronts the synodal process with the situation he observes in much of Western Europe. He specifically cites the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, where churches are emptying, parishes are merging, religious communities are disappearing, priestly vocations are declining, and numerous baptized people have lost knowledge of fundamental elements of the faith.
Faced with this reality, he believes the priority should be formulated in a much simpler way: «How can we win the world back for Christ?»
However, he observes that a large part of ecclesial discussions focus on structures, mechanisms of participation, decision-making processes, inclusion, the role of women, or power relations. He does not claim that these issues are unimportant, but questions the order of priorities: «A house on fire has other priorities than domestic matters».
His criticism extends to the growing bureaucratization of ecclesial life. In his view, an appearance of intense activity can be created precisely when the essential indicators of Christian life show deterioration: «The less evangelization, the more committees on evangelization. The fewer vocations, the more documents on vocations».
The expectations created by the synodal process
The Dutch bishop also pays attention to the expectations generated by repeatedly introducing into consultations issues on which the Church already possesses defined teaching.
He mentions, among other matters, the priesthood, the female diaconate, sexual morality, homosexual relationships, ecclesial authority, and the role of women. Keeping these issues within a process of discussion for years, he argues, can convey the impression that all of them are open to doctrinal modification.
This creates, according to Mutsaerts, a pastoral problem: the faithful are first asked to express their expectations, and later it is found that some of them cannot be satisfied without affecting the continuity of Catholic doctrine.
«The Church has thus generated expectations that it ultimately cannot satisfy», he writes. The result, far from favoring communion, may be greater frustration.
«The great Catholic reforms began with saints»
In contrast to a reform focused primarily on structures, Mutsaerts proposes recovering what he considers the true engine of the Church’s great renewals: holiness.
To this end, he recalls the names of St. Benedict, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Teresa of Jesus, St. Charles Borromeo, St. John Bosco, and St. John Paul II. The great Catholic reforms, he maintains, «almost never began with structures. They began with saints».
Hence one of the central formulations of the letter: «Not less listening, but more holiness. Not less participation, but more conversion. Not less dialogue, but more proclamation».
He applies the same perspective to the liturgy. For Mutsaerts, the weakening of the understanding of the sacrifice of the Mass, the loss of the sense of the sacred, the abandonment of confession, or the decrease in eucharistic adoration cannot be solved through new participatory structures.
«Then the Church does not have a problem of governance structures. It has a problem of faith», he states.
He also questions to what extent the regular participants in consultations and ecclesial bodies truly represent the entire people of God. In contrast to those who intervene in meetings and draft reports, he mentions the faithful who attend daily Mass, the mother who educates her children in the faith, the contemplative religious, or the young person willing to travel long distances to participate in the traditional liturgy.
«Whoever listens only to those who take the microphone can easily forget that the people of God are much broader than the circle gathered around the consultation table», he warns.
From Emmaus to Jerusalem
The account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus serves Mutsaerts to explain how he understands authentic ecclesial listening. Christ walks with the disciples, listens to their concerns, and allows them to express their bewilderment. But he does not limit himself to accompanying them in their opinions.
«Christ does not confirm their interpretation. He corrects them. He explains the Scriptures to them. He teaches them to understand the events», he points out.
Afterward, the disciples recognize Christ in the breaking of the bread and immediately return to Jerusalem to announce what has happened. It is in this combination of listening, correction, Eucharist, and mission that Mutsaerts finds a model of authentic synodality.
His diagnosis of the current process is deliberately graphic: «The synodal process has become stuck in Emmaus».
For the bishop, the Church runs the risk of devoting so much effort to asking how it should «walk together» that it ends up relegating the fundamental question about the destination of that path.
«Holy Father, give us clarity»
The letter finally culminates in a direct request to Leo XIV. Mutsaerts does not ask him for a new program of reforms or another ecclesial structure, but for doctrinal and missionary clarity.
«When the world speaks full of uncertainty, let Peter speak with clarity. When the Church grows weary of internal discussions, show us the way back to Christ. When we get lost in processes and structures, remind us of our mission», he writes.
The prelate insists that his criticism is not intended to open an ecclesial dispute, but to warn about the time devoted to internal matters while a growing part of Western society is unaware of Christianity.
«The churches of the West are emptying while, at the same time, new generations seem to be seeking truth and transcendence», he points out. Faced with this situation, he considers necessary «not a wavering Church, but a missionary Church that knows the treasure it possesses and is not afraid to show it to the world».
That is why he concludes by expressing his desire that the pontificate of Leo XIV be marked by «Christ, conversion, holiness, the Eucharist, evangelization, and the salvation of souls».
And he leaves the Pope with one final question by which to measure any process of ecclesial reform: «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?»
Complete letter from Bishop Rob Mutsaerts to Leo XIV
Holy Father:
With reverence toward the ministry entrusted to you as the successor of St. Peter and in communion with the Church that Christ founded upon the Apostles, I address you through this open letter. I do not do so lightly. What moves me to speak these words publicly is a concern that, ultimately, is above all other ecclesial questions: the salvation of souls. Salus animarum suprema lex: the salvation of souls is the supreme law. My question is simple and serious: Does the synodal process truly contribute to bringing souls closer to Christ and to eternal salvation? For me, that is the decisive question.
Holy Father, I am fully aware of the responsibility of the Petrine ministry, of which those outside that ministry can have only a vague idea. Precisely for this reason, I do not write these words out of lack of reverence for the papacy, but out of love for it. After all, Peter received from Christ not only the charge to unite the brethren, but also to confirm them in the faith: «And you, once converted, strengthen your brothers». Ultimately, the world gains little from a Church that simply repeats what the world itself already thinks. It needs a Church that, with love but without fear, points it to Christ.
My reservations regarding the Synod on Synodality must be understood in this light. And, above all, I wonder what all this means for the simple faithful, who do not expect from their Church a permanent process, but clarity about the path to God.
This letter, therefore, is not an accusation against specific individuals. Nor do I wish to deny the good intentions of so many who have sincerely dedicated themselves to the synodal process. Good intentions deserve recognition. But good intentions do not exempt us from the duty to examine the fruits. Christ himself gave us a simple criterion for this: «By their fruits you will know them».
That is why I believe that, after years of synodal consultations, meetings, reports, and documents, the time has come to ask openly 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 its future. And not to wage a battle of ecclesial politics, but because behind all the discussions there exists a reality infinitely more important: the eternal salvation of the souls that Christ has entrusted to his Church.
From this concern, Holy Father, I present to you the following reflection.
The Synod on Synodality
Whoever judges the Synod on Synodality solely by its objectives can easily write a positive narrative. People listened. People spoke. Thousands were consulted. Bishops, priests, religious, and laity gathered. There was talk of communion, participation, and mission. Even a new ecclesial vocabulary emerged: synodality, listening, discernment, participation, conversation in the Spirit, setting processes in motion.
But the same story can be viewed from a completely different perspective. 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.
At the same time, there is something else that must be taken into account: the synodal process has not really ended yet. The official implementation phase continues and, through diocesan, national, and continental meetings, must finally culminate in an Ecclesial Assembly in Rome in October 2028. In May 2026, the Vatican again published a broad roadmap for this.
This makes the criticism even more legitimate. What was originally conceived as a Synod for 2021-2024 runs the risk of becoming a permanent form of Church governance.
A Synod about a Synod
The first striking aspect is already found in the name: Synod on Synodality.
Traditionally, a synod was convened because the Church needed to speak about a specific topic: for example, evangelization, marriage and the family, the priesthood, the Eucharist, Sacred Scripture, a heresy, a pastoral crisis, or a particular problem.
In the Synod on Synodality, the process itself becomes the object. It could be compared to a meeting that goes on indefinitely to debate how meetings should be held in the future.
The Church has known councils and synods since antiquity. The Apostles gathered in Jerusalem. Bishops deliberated among themselves. Popes consulted bishops. The great ecumenical councils are inconceivable without shared ecclesial deliberation and decisions.
But this is different from synodality as a permanent ecclesial paradigm. The classical synod was a means to an end. In current synodal discourse, synodality runs the risk of becoming an end in itself. And it is precisely here that the problem begins from a classical Catholic perspective.
The Church is not a conversation, but a received reality
Because the Church does not begin with our dialogue. It begins with Christ.
This may seem obvious, but it has far-reaching consequences. Christ did not found a discussion group. He called the Apostles. He conferred authority upon them. He sent them to proclaim, baptize, and teach: «Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations».
The direction is fundamental. Faith does not arise because the Church first takes an inventory of what people believe and then distills from all those experiences a common conviction. Faith is received.
Paul constantly uses terms such as receive, transmit, and preserve. The Church does not possess the Revelation because it invented it, but because it has received it.
This means that Christianity, by its very nature, cannot be democratic. Not because democracy as a form of government is bad, but because truth does not arise from a majority decision.
If tomorrow 90% of Catholics ceased to believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Christ would not be any less truly present. If 80% rejected a particular moral teaching, that teaching would not automatically become false.
Truth is not produced by consensus. This constitutes the first great field of tension surrounding the synodal project.
Listening: To whom?
A key word throughout the process has been «listening»—as if we had never done it before. In itself, there is nothing to object to. A bishop must listen. A priest must listen. Christians must listen to one another. A pastor who never listens to his flock is not a good pastor.
But immediately the question arises: To whom must the Church listen above all?
The traditional answer is: To Christ, to Sacred Scripture, to apostolic Tradition, to the saints, to the witness of twenty centuries of Christianity, and to the Magisterium. And, of course, also to the faithful.
However, in some synodal texts this order seems slightly inverted. One begins with the experiences, desires, frustrations, and expectations of people today and then asks how the Church should respond.
This may seem pastorally attractive, but it entails a danger. Because what happens when the desires of modern man clash with the Gospel?
Then it is not the Gospel that must change; it is man who must change. In Christianity this is called conversion. And precisely that word is heard surprisingly little in many modern ecclesial debates.
The great absentee: conversion
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.
The first words of Jesus’ public preaching are not: «First tell me what you think of the current ecclesial structures». They are: «Convert and believe in the Gospel».
That is much less bureaucratic. And much more radical.
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.
The elephant in the synodal room
There is also a striking discrepancy between the problems widely debated in the synodal process and the real crisis in which, particularly, the Western Church finds itself.
The fundamental problems of the Church in the Netherlands, Belgium, especially Germany, but also in large parts of Western Europe, are easy to recognize.
Churches are emptying. Parishes are merging. Monasteries are disappearing. Religious communities are aging. Knowledge of the Catholic faith is decreasing. Confession has practically disappeared for many Catholics. The number of priestly vocations remains low in many places. Many baptized people barely believe anymore in the essential truths of the faith. In large sectors of the Catholic community, sacramental life has weakened considerably.
Faced with this development, one would expect a global ecclesial initiative to address above all one question: How can we win the world back for Christ?
However, attention is directed mainly to structures, participation, decision-making processes, the responsibility of women, inclusion, power relations, and the functioning of ecclesial bodies.
These are certainly legitimate issues. But a house on fire has other priorities than domestic matters.
A Parkinson’s law for the Church
Institutions that lose sight of their original purpose usually begin to speak more and more intensely about their own organization.
Companies then talk endlessly about processes. Universities, about governance. Governments, about participation models. And ecclesial organizations, about structures.
The less evangelization, the more committees on evangelization. The fewer vocations, the more documents on vocations. The fewer people come to Church, the longer the meetings about the nature of the Church.
It may sound cynical, but behind it lies a serious idea: bureaucracy can create the appearance of activity while reality shows the opposite. One navigates without a compass.
The expectations that cannot be fulfilled
The synodal process has generated expectations. This occurred mainly because during the various phases of consultation, issues were addressed that affect areas about which the Church already possesses clear teaching: the female diaconate, the priesthood, sexual morality, homosexual relationships, the relationship between laity and clergy, ecclesial authority, decentralization, and the position of women.
When these topics are «discussed» for years, the impression naturally arises that they might finally change. Otherwise, why talk endlessly about them?
This leads to a pastoral paradox. People are asked to express their expectations. Later, some of those expectations prove impossible to fulfill without endangering continuity with Catholic doctrine.
What happens then? Widespread disappointment.
The Church itself has thus generated expectations that it ultimately cannot satisfy. That does not constitute a pastoral benefit, but a recipe for frustration.
The protestantization of the Catholic conception of the Church
From a traditionalist perspective, there is also a historical irony. Some elements of modern synodal culture show similarities with processes observed for decades in Protestant Churches: greater emphasis on participation, greater administrative influence, more consultative structures, greater weight of local communities, greater attention to individual experiences, more debates about changes in social opinions, and less evidence of hierarchical authority.
In itself, this need not be wrong. But a historical question imposes itself: Has this model produced a spectacular Christian revival in the Protestant world?
In large parts of Western Europe, the answer is unequivocally negative.
Why then should the Catholic Church adopt precisely the administrative and pastoral patterns of confessions that have often undergone the same secularization even earlier and more severely?
A patient is rarely cured by taking the medicine of the patient in the next bed, whose condition is even worse.
The forgotten alternative: aspiring to holiness
The great Catholic reforms almost never began with structures. They began with saints.
Ages of corruption were followed by 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, and John Paul II.
Their program was surprisingly simple: to become saints.
Because a saint possesses a missionary force with which no strategic document can compete. A parish with a holy pastor has a better future than a diocese with twenty working groups on synodality and very well-paid executives.
A monastery with ten fervent religious evangelizes more than a hundred pages of ecclesial jargon. A priest who visibly shows at the altar that he believes he is in the presence of God can lead more people to the faith than a conference on participatory liturgy.
Here lies perhaps the alternative that the Synod has emphasized too little: not less listening, but more holiness. Not less participation, but more conversion. Not less dialogue, but more proclamation.
The liturgy as decisive proof
From a classical perspective, it is also striking that the crisis of the liturgy has received comparatively little central attention. Because whoever truly wishes to understand the state of a Church must look at its worship.
Lex orandi, lex credendi: the way one prays expresses the faith.
When Catholics barely understand anymore that the Mass is the sacramental and present sacrifice of Christ; when the sense of the sacred diminishes, silence disappears, confessionals remain empty, and eucharistic adoration is relegated to the margins, then the Church does not have a problem of governance structures.
It has a problem of faith.
A new structure of participation cannot solve it. Nor can a new assembly. Perhaps a rediscovery of God can.
The paradox of participation
The synodal project emphasizes participation. But here a strange paradox appears.
The people who participate intensely in ecclesial consultative processes are not necessarily representative of the entire Church.
The silent Catholic who attends Mass every morning, prays the rosary, and teaches the catechism to his grandchildren normally does not draft a synodal report. The young Catholic who drives three hours to attend a traditional liturgy is normally not part of the diocesan working group.
A mother of six children trying to raise her family Catholic may hardly have time for «listening sessions». A contemplative religious does not fill out questionnaires.
Yet their faith may be more deeply rooted than that of the professional participants in ecclesial assemblies.
Whoever listens only to those who take the microphone can easily forget that the people of God are much broader than the circle gathered around the consultation table.
Synodality or collegiality?
Perhaps some of the confusion would disappear if we returned to speaking with greater precision.
Catholic tradition knows a clear concept: collegiality. The bishops, together with Peter and under Peter, form the episcopal college. There are also presbyteral councils, pastoral councils, synods, chapters, religious communities, and countless forms of consultation.
Why was a new all-encompassing category needed for all this: synodality?
Precisely because the term is so broad—it is even difficult to define—each person can understand something different.
For one it means listening. For another, decentralization. For a third, democratization. For a fourth, pastoral renewal. For a fifth, reform of ecclesial ministry. For a sixth, a different sexual morality.
A concept that can mean everything ends up meaning nothing.
That is why the question of proportionality is legitimate. How much more energy must be devoted to 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, spiritual energy, and episcopal attention were invested in catechesis, seminaries, Catholic education, liturgy, confession, eucharistic adoration, marriage pastoral care, and direct evangelization?
It seems to me a rhetorical question.
The deeper problem: ecclesiology
At bottom, the discussion is not really about meeting. It is about the question: What is the Church?
Is it primarily a community that seeks together what it must become? Or is it primarily a divine reality that has already received what it must be?
The Catholic answer can only be the second.
The Church must constantly convert, but it is built upon the Apostles. It guards a faith that it has not invented.
Therefore, all synodality must ultimately be limited by something that cannot be the object of synodal discussion: the truth revealed by Christ.
The world is not waiting for a synodal Church
And here lies perhaps the greatest tragedy.
The modern world is going through an extraordinary spiritual crisis. People are seeking meaning. Young people are seeking identity. Loneliness is increasing. Families are breaking apart. Technology penetrates ever more deeply into human existence. Pornography distorts sexuality. Materialism does not make people happy. Climate change becomes for many a substitute religion. People fear death, but hardly know anymore what they are living for.
And in the midst of this world, the Church possesses something extraordinary.
It possesses the Gospel. The sacraments. The Eucharist. Confession. Two thousand years of wisdom. Sacred Scripture. The Church Fathers. Thomas Aquinas. Augustine. The mystics. The saints. An incomparable tradition of art, music, philosophy, morality, and spirituality.
And, above all, Jesus Christ.
The world is not waiting for another organization that listens to it. There are already enough of those.
The world is waiting for someone to tell it what it was created for.
From Emmaus to Jerusalem
Perhaps the Gospel of the disciples on the road to Emmaus ultimately offers the best model for an authentic Catholic synodality.
Christ walks with the disciples. He truly listens to them. He asks what concerns them. He allows them to speak. There is space for their disappointment.
Up to this point, any synodality manual could enthusiastically agree.
But then comes the decisive moment.
Christ does not confirm their interpretation. He corrects them. He explains the Scriptures to them. He teaches them to understand the events. And finally they recognize him in the breaking of the bread.
This is Catholic synodality in its purest form.
And afterward the disciples do not remain indefinitely gathered in Emmaus evaluating their experience of the journey. They rise. They return to Jerusalem. They go out to proclaim.
The synodal process has become stuck in Emmaus, and the question is whether it still knows how to get out of there. We are so busy discussing how the Church must walk together that sometimes we forget where it is walking.
Ultimately, the Catholic Church does not need a permanent synod about itself.
It needs saints. Bishops who teach. Priests who pray. Religious who live radically for God. Parents who transmit the faith. Young people who discover that truth is something more than mere opinion. A liturgy in which God is truly at the center. 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 must adapt to the world, but who have the courage to invite the world to be transformed by Christ.
Because, ultimately, Christ did not send his Church into the world with the words: «Go and organize synodal processes everywhere».
He said: «Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature».
Thus the Church began. And every time it has truly been renewed, it has begun again there.
Holy Father
Allow me to conclude this letter with the same thought with which I began: the salvation of souls.
I hope and pray that under your pontificate it may once again become clearly evident that the Church is not called to discuss itself indefinitely, but to proclaim Christ; not to reflect the spirit of the times, but to lead the world toward eternal life.
Precisely from the successor of Peter the faithful may expect that, in the midst of the confusion of our time, he will confirm his brothers in the faith. That he will remind us that the truth proclaimed by the Church is not a possession that we can dispose of at will, but a precious treasure that we have received and must transmit in its entirety.
That he may encourage those who faithfully fulfill their vocation: priests, religious who have consecrated their lives to God, parents who try to raise their children Catholic against the current, and young people who, precisely in an age of relativism, long for truth, holiness, beauty, and the radical adventure of a life with Christ.
My request to you is, therefore, simple: give us clarity.
When the world speaks full of uncertainty, let Peter speak with clarity. When the Church grows weary of internal discussions, show us the way back to Christ. When we get lost in processes and structures, remind us of our mission.
When we shrink back from the possibility of proclaiming the Gospel in all its fullness because it might be offensive to modern man, remind us of Peter’s own words: «Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life».
Holy Father, I write this with sincere reverence for your ministry and out of love for the Church. My criticism of the synodal process does not spring from the desire to sow discord, but from the concern that we are losing precious time while so many people no longer know Christ.
The harvest is plentiful. The laborers are few.
The churches of the West are emptying while, at the same time, new generations seem to be seeking truth and transcendence. Precisely now we do not need a wavering Church, but a missionary Church that knows the treasure it possesses and is not afraid to show it to the world.
That is why I pray that your pontificate may be marked by a renewed concentration on what ultimately constitutes the heart of every authentic ecclesial reform: Christ, conversion, holiness, the Eucharist, evangelization, and the salvation of souls.
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?
May St. Peter intercede for you. May Our Lady, Mater Ecclesiae, keep you under her protection. And may the Lord grant you wisdom, courage, and paternal firmness to lead his Church in truth and in love.
With sincere reverence and united in prayer,
in Christo,
+ Rob Mutsaerts
Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch