On October 22, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released Venite ad Me, a document that purports to address the transmission of faith in an increasingly secularized world.
Among other things, the text employs the usual conciliar verbosity that presents an atrocious theological minefield that, ultimately, is beyond the scope of this article. We will simply examine the most obvious concerning claims, statements, and implications.
First, the document was initiated by Francis and completed at Leo’s behest. It is heavily influenced by input from bishops’ conferences across the world and contains a substantial section dedicated to personal testimonies.
In the document’s introduction, the Dicastery makes a point of distinguishing it as “a set of Considerations, not a Doctrinal Note.” This distinction, however, does not nullify its importance. Pastoral “considerations” are, after all, the prudential application of doctrine. Besides that, it also clearly states that Leo approved the document.
An especially conspicuous feature of the document is its attempt to blame everything from secularization to technology for the loss of faith among Catholics, while failing to look in the mirror and question the destruction unleashed in the aftermath of Vatican II.
Early on, we encounter the first ambiguity when “no salvation outside the Church” becomes the much more palatable “ecclesial communion is today the privileged place where Christ continues to allow himself to be encountered through men and women who are progressively transformed by his very life” (VM 22).
A few paragraphs later, an old error is reintroduced when the Dicastery tells the reader that, instead of going forth and preaching the Gospel, “It is important to state clearly that the most authentic force of the evangelizing mission of the community of the Lord’s disciples remains the power of attraction, as Benedict XVI recalled” (VM 30).
The aversion the Synodal Church has to evangelization as Christ instructed takes an almost comical turn later in the document (VM 67). Despite wanting to be the Church of Benedict XVI, which “does not engage in proselytism” but relies on “attraction,” the Synodal Church laments here that one of the biggest threats in Africa is “the ‘competition’ created by proselytizing activity from other religions.” This is like a soccer team that takes to the field and refuses to move, only to complain when the opposing team scores goals because its players are actually running with the ball.
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The Dispatch
Instead of considering the unchanging truths of Catholic doctrine as a possible solution, Cardinal Fernández and his thugs claim that “it is now more urgent than ever to examine wisely and with discernment the current ways of organizing catechesis, so that the transmission of the faith is not confined to language that can be labeled as ‘scholastic,’ ‘dogmatic,’ or ‘moralistic’” (VM 80). This is basically the abandoning of the entire pre-Vatican II methodology.
The document doubles down on this “consideration” in paragraph 84, stating that “in the epochal change we are experiencing, it does not seem fitting — when communicating the faith to new generations, adult catechumens, and so-called ‘returnees’ — to get lost in the many areas of Catholic doctrine, however important they may be, and thus lose sight of what is most ‘solid, profound, secure, [and] meaningful’ within it: namely, the love of God.”
This focus on God’s love, at the expense of His other divine attributes, such as justice, is a troubling feature throughout the document. It declares that “God is love, forever and for everyone” (VM 10) and that “The ‘yes’ that God, in Jesus, says to humankind […] can never be transformed into a ‘no’” (VM 20). Elsewhere, it again asserts that, “no matter how far a person may stray from him, Jesus will never turn away from that person” (VM 22). One can only wonder if the authors who wrote this had their favorite 1970s love songs on in the background.
While these statements can be interpreted in an orthodox sense, they lack the necessary distinctions and the urgency of Christ’s warning that “unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, Douay-Rheims).
None of the traditional urgency to repent and turn from evil appears in the document. Instead, it waxes eloquently about love, mercy, encounter, and accompaniment. It also mentions forgiveness and conversion in vague terms, and without the necessary qualifications or any comparable emphasis on the demands of repentance, penance, and contrition. Reporter Michael Haynes drew attention to its dubious aspects in an X post.
St. Paul surely would have labelled Venite ad Me “another gospel,” as it reduces Christ’s mission is to vague concepts of the “Father’s love and mercy” (VM 12) while doctrine takes a back seat. “The faith is not transmitted primarily as a body of doctrinal content or religious information,” it alleges, “but as a form of ecclesial life into which the believer is gradually introduced” (VM 29).
The document’s section on the liturgy alone could warrant an entirely separate critique. It declares that “the liturgy, in fact, is first and foremost an experience of faith, even before it is a teaching” (VM 90), while also emphasizing “the eminently communal dimension of the liturgy” (VM 91). This is an almost perfect inversion of the Catholic understanding of the Holy Mass as the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary, offered to Almighty God.
In the dying moments of this 48-page document, the Dicastery finally comes clean about its true intentions when it explains that “ecumenical commitment […] is an intrinsic dimension of the Church’s evangelizing mission,” while describing ecumenical dialogue as “a specific form” of proclamation (VM 122). Whatever happened to the primary duty of teaching non-Catholics instead of dialoguing with them?
As with any conciliar document, Venite ad Me contains some orthodox statements about Christ, Catholicism, and the Church, but not enough to mask the heretical poison it contains. Ultimately, this is not a document that seeks to master the art of fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission, but to turbo boost the cancer of ecumenism and the cult of emotional relativism.
