Bishop of Amsterdam: We cannot succumb to the spirit of the times. We cannot change the eternal teaching of the Church

We cannot let ourselves be guided by the spirit of the times. We must follow the Holy Spirit. Young people are returning to the roots of our faith, they do not want to reinvent it. This is what the bishop of the Haarlem-Amsterdam diocese, Jan Hendriks, says.

The hierarch gave an interview to the German Catholic daily Die Tagespost . He was asked, among other things, about the German Synodal Path. He drew attention to the so-called Dutch Pastoral Council, which met in the Netherlands in the late 1960s, in the wake of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. As a result of those events, the transmission of faith in the Netherlands collapsed; the Dutch "council" was extremely progressive. The hierarch emphasized that at that time the same views were being proclaimed in the Netherlands that are being proclaimed today in the Synodal Path.

"I can only point to the consequences these ideas have had for us: they have caused much division and confusion among believers, in their relations with Rome and the universal Church. They have led to a strong secularization. People have turned away from the faith, " he said. In the 1960s, Dutch Catholics believed they had to become "more secular" and abandon some elements of the Catholic faith in order to keep up with the times. " That was not the right answer. On the contrary, it has led to an acceleration of the process of secularization in the Church, " he said.

"We cannot invent a new faith. We cannot simply change what the church has taught and believed - for example, that marriage is the proper setting for sexuality, " the bishop added.

The hierarch also pointed out that in the Netherlands, several hundred young people who do not come from Catholic families convert every year. They are also Muslims. Young people do not want progressivism. " Young people go to the roots of our faith. It is the older ones who come with the subject of pastoral councils from those times, " he said.

- We cannot allow ourselves to be guided by the spirit of the times. On the contrary, we must turn away from it; focus on the Holy Spirit - he added.