The “Liquolid” Nature of Vatican II Roman Catholicism

In February of this year the well-known American Catholic George Weigel wrote a short, thought-provoking article for First Things titled “Liquid Catholicism and the German Synodal Path.” And while my good friend and colleague Leonardo De Chirico has already contributed an excellent reflection on Weigel’s article, two additional reflections are perhaps merited.

According to Weigel, “liquid Catholicism” is a Catholicism that describes a Church that is detached from its foundations in Scripture and tradition and that is not able tell you with certainty what it believes or what makes for righteous living. It is a “Church of open borders, unable and unwilling to define those ideas and actions by which full communion with the Mystical Body of Christ is broken.” This is liquid Catholicism. It is malleable and plastic, often vague and unwilling to take clear positions. It is the Catholicism of Pope Francis. It is a far cry from the more solid, stable, and traditional Catholicism that Weigel desires and advocates for. The Roman Catholic Church needs a solid foundation, not the liquidity and uncertainty of Pope Francis’s agenda for the Church. Weigel makes this clear in his article when he writes, “I know of no instance in which the Catholic Lite (another way of referring to liquid Catholicism) project has led to a vibrant Catholicism, doing the work that Pope St. John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council set before the Church: the conversion and sanctification of the world.”  

This statement leads us to our first reflection. With his comment Weigel highlights a perplexing element present in modern-day Roman Catholicism. That is, while Weigel expresses his frustration of Rome’s liquidity and desires that the work of “the conversion and sanctification of the world” set before the Church at Vatican II be realized instead, he seems to not understand that Vatican II is directly to blame for today’s liquid Catholicism! Pope Francis is simply a living embodiment of Vatican II. Weigel speaks of the conversion and sanctification of the world, while Vatican II refers to Muslims as our brothers (See Lumen gentium, 16). When in his latest encyclical Fratelli tutti (All Brothers) Pope Francis appreciates other world religions and refers to all of humanity as brothers and sisters, he is simply building off of Vatican II. He is not inventing anything. When the German Synodal Path (which Weigel refers to in his article as the epitome of liquid Catholicism) speaks of recognizing homosexual unions, this is fruit of Vatican II’s insistence on seeing the good in humanity, while downplaying the devastating effects of sin.

It is peculiar, therefore, that Weigel would look to Vatican II as hope for a more solid Catholicism, when it is clearly Vatican II that is the basis for the liquid Catholicism of Pope Francis. Or perhaps it isn’t peculiar at all, but instead demonstrates with ironic clarity the constant clashing of the “Roman” (solid) and “Catholic” (liquid) aspects of modern-day Roman Catholicism, with both aspects (“Roman” and “Catholic”) looking to Vatican II for support of their Roman Catholic agenda. Evangelicals should take note of this and realize that a “Roman” element of Catholicism is always juxtaposed with a “Catholic” element, and vice versa. To be courted by one element or the other fails to understand the bigger picture. Modern-day Roman Catholicism is decidedly “liquolid.”

The second reflection concerns the concluding words of Weigel’s article. He writes, “The result (of liquid Catholicism, best expressed by the German Synodal Path) will not be evangelical renewal but a further abandonment of the gospel.” This is clear and intentional evangelical language (consider the evangelical context in which Weigel writes). The evangelical, however, needs to understand what Weigel intends by this weighty statement. By “evangelical renewal” he most certainly does not mean an evangelical renewal that comes through submission to the authoritative Word of God alone. It is not an evangelical renewal similar to that of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Far from it. When Weigel speaks of an evangelical renewal he is speaking of a “solid” Catholicism, built on the tradition of the Catholic Church and rooted in the sacraments. This is made clear in Weigel’s book Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st Century. The language is attractive and familiar to the evangelical, but the intention is far from evangelical. Evangelical renewal is synonymous with Evangelical Catholicism. It is simply “Roman” Catholicism. It is a call to return to the solid, traditional Roman Catholicism that rejects “liquid” Catholicism, but is still very much Roman Catholic.  

Weigel claims that liquid Catholicism will lead to a “further abandonment of the gospel.” The evangelical must ask him/herself, “What gospel?” The “liquodic” nature (meaning regardless of its solid or liquid, Roman or Catholic state) of Roman Catholicism is already an abandonment of the gospel. Further abandonment suggests that in its solid or “Roman” state it is at least somewhat faithful to the gospel, but the evangelical must not be led astray by this way of thinking. This is because no “evangelical renewal” (in the way that Weigel envisions it) in the Catholic Church will demolish the theological pillars on which the Roman Catholic theological system is built. The nature/grace interdependence will still be present, as will the Christ/Church interconnection. This means that the gospel was, is, and will continue to be obscured and abandoned in the Roman Catholic Church, regardless of its Roman or Catholic (liquid or solid) state. No “evangelical renewal” will change that. This can be accomplished only by complete submission to the authoritative Word of God alone. This is the only hope for a true evangelical renewal/reformation in the Catholic Church. May we pray ardently to this end.