The Synod of Bishops has established ten study groups for the Synod on Synodality. "Study Group No. 9" focuses principally on how the Church can collectively address controversial doctrinal, pastoral and ethical questions. Study Group No. 9 published its final report on May 5th. In a press release issued the same day, Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, described the Study Group No. 9 report as a document touching "the very heart of ecclesial life." Meanwhile, the General Secretariat of the Synod is distancing itself from this same report. A spokesperson for the secretariat stressed that "the working groups worked autonomously" and that, consequently, "these reports cannot be attributed to the Synod Secretariat."

In the debates, many Catholics see in these reports not merely a shift in emphasis, but the suggestion of a modification of doctrine itself, particularly when there is talk of a "paradigm shift." Identity politics, the sexual revolution after the nineteen-sixties, and the vocabulary of "lived experience" today dominate even ecclesial discussions.

The Church is not opposed to change. What it has always opposed is the worship of novelties simply because they are new. There exists today a tendency to equate truth with historical movement. Modernity has unconsciously accepted the hypothesis that what comes after is necessarily better. But better in which direction? Chesterton remarked that before we can speak of progress, we must first know where we wish to go. A man walking in the wrong direction does not make progress by walking faster.

This is why we must be deeply suspicious of the expression "paradigm shift" when it implies that Christian morality must evolve simply because contemporary society has changed. This would indeed amount to abandoning the central claim of Christianity: namely, that truth judges history, and is not judged by history. And yet, this is what Study Group 9's report suggests.

The Church has survived empires, philosophies and fashions because it was anchored in something that lies beyond history. Every age considered itself enlightened. Every age eventually appeared ridiculous to the one that succeeded it. The role of the Church is not to reflect civilization, but to challenge it. If there is no continuity in doctrine, there is rupture. Why should a small elite of contemporary intellectuals have the right to override two thousand years of Christian reflection?

In modern ecclesial debates, pressure often comes from contemporary psychological frameworks of thought, from sociological trends or from cultural expectations around autonomy and identity. These certainly contain ideas, but they are not neutral. Catholic doctrine on sexuality has never been founded solely on social conventions. It issues from an integrated vision of creation, of the sacrament, of embodiment, of sacrifice and of teleology. Marriage is not merely a legal arrangement; it is a cosmic symbol. Sexual ethics does not consist of arbitrary rules imposed by ecclesiastics, but of consequences flowing from a vision of what the human person is. When one disconnects sexual ethics from this broader metaphysical vision, it is ultimately the coherence of Christianity itself that dissolves. The dogmas articulate one with another like the vaults of a cathedral. Remove a single load-bearing stone, and the edifice does not collapse immediately, but tensions begin to appear everywhere.

One of the great misunderstandings concerning orthodoxy is the belief that doctrinal firmness excludes all understanding of human weakness. But it is precisely because the Church possesses a solid doctrine on sin that it experiences immense compassion for human weakness. Modern ideology often divides humanity into oppressors and victims. Christianity divides humanity into sinners loved by God. Love demands truth precisely because men have an eternal destiny. The Church cannot heal souls by telling them that moral reality changes under the pressure of emotions or cultural currents. A physician who adjusts his diagnoses solely to reassure his patients ceases to heal.

Every culture tends to lose its balance. In pagan times, Christianity defended chastity. In Puritan times, Christianity defended celebration. In materialist times, Christianity defended mysticism. In times of chaos, Christianity defended order. Chesterton would probably reject the idea that the Church must become culturally "credible" by adapting to contemporary conceptions of sexuality. The Church has always seemed strange to the world. This strangeness is not a misfortune, but an essential reality.

The early Christians were considered absurd because they rejected divorce, infanticide, sexual debauchery and the commodification of the body. Their ethics did not conform to Roman norms. Christianity did not triumph by adapting, but by proposing a radically different vision of human dignity.

Today, Christianity risks repeating the same error as liberal Protestantism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many Protestant communities attempted to adapt to the intellectual appeal of modernity. But as soon as Christianity becomes merely the religious echo of prevailing opinion, it loses its identity. People sense this and turn away en masse. A Church that merely repeats cultural consensus ends up becoming superfluous.

Let us therefore examine with suspicion the expression "paradigm shift," as used by Study Group 9. Does it mean: a change in pastoral tone? an evolution in practical application? a deeper formulation of an immutable truth? or a substantive revision of moral doctrine? Modern intellectual life often hides revolutions behind euphemisms. If a dogma is to be modified, one must say honestly that it is modified. If it is not modified, one must explain clearly how continuity is preserved. The credibility of the Church depends on this.

Faced with a synodal report proposing a "paradigm shift" in the Church's approach to sexuality, suspicion is warranted. If this change entails greater pastoral patience, more humane accompaniment, greater humility, more attentive listening and better recognition of suffering and the complexity of modern life, then I would welcome it favorably. Christianity without charity becomes cruelty. But if this change means that revealed truth is subordinated to contemporary cultural presuppositions, then I firmly reject it. This would not be a renewal, but a capitulation. The Church survives not because it follows every spirit of the age, but because it bears a truth that transcends all times. As Chesterton said: the most radical thing the Church can do, in any century, is not to change with the world, but to remain faithful while the world around it changes.

+Rob Mutsaerts

May 19, 2026

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