Irreversible—the Dictatorship of What Has Happened. When History Becomes a “Magisterium”: Notes on a Statement by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich. Functional “Facts-Based Politics” Instead of the Holy Spirit.
Rome (kath.netet/as) “Irreversible”: With these words, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich described the process of synodality initiated by Pope Francis in an address in October 2015: the fait accompli of a political land grab within the Church. In an interview with the Kurier on September 20, 2026, the Luxembourg cardinal and former Jesuit explained that the process signifies a long-term shift in mentality within the Church. The goal, he said, is to move from a Church “from above” to a Church in which Christians take on responsibility and are heard.
This statement deserves more than just a passing mention. For “irreversible” is not merely a description of a historical fact. It makes a claim about the significance a historical process may claim within the Church. And this is precisely where the real problem begins. Of course, no one can undo what has happened. An eleven-year process has been completed. Documents were published, assemblies were held, terms were coined, and certain forms of church action were established. In this purely historical sense, every event is irreversible. Nor can the Council of Trent be undone, any more than the Second Vatican Council or the pontificate of Paul VI. History cannot be erased.
However, this leads to something entirely different from the assumption of theological irreversibility. There is a chasm between the statement “It has happened” and the statement “It may no longer be corrected.” Even greater is the distance between “It has historically prevailed” and “It therefore belongs to the unalterable nature of the Church.” Anyone who blurs these distinctions transforms history into a norm. Then the fact becomes a claim, the event an obligation, and duration a truth—entirely in the Hegelian manner. It is precisely this shift that lies in the word “irreversible.”
The crucial question, therefore, is not whether the synodal process could be reset exactly to its starting point. No historical process can do that. The crucial question is rather: What theological authority does what has emerged from this process possess? Who or what makes a development in the Church irreversible? Christ? The apostolic tradition? A binding magisterial decision? The sacramental constitution of the Church? Or simply the fact that a particular generation set a process in motion, pursued it long enough, and is now proud of it in the name of that process?
This distinction is of fundamental importance. The Catholic Church is not the result of its own history. It has a history, but it did not emerge from it. Its history is Tradition. The Church is not an institution that brings itself into being through progressive self-interpretation, but rather the reality established by Christ. Its origin lies neither in a historical decision by the faithful nor in a collective shift in consciousness. Therefore, the Church cannot determine, based on its historical development, what it is by its very nature. If a church process could no longer be revised solely on the basis of its duration or institutional establishment, history would be endowed with a normative power that does not theologically belong to it. History would then no longer be the space in which the Church makes its way through time, but rather the producer of what the Church is supposed to be. That would be a fundamental reversal.
The Catholic doctrine of development, in particular, makes it clear that development and identity are mutually dependent. Development does not mean that a subject becomes something else over time. Rather, it presupposes that the same subject unfolds. This is the true meaning of the “hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject, the Church,” formulated by Benedict XVI in 2005, which he contrasted with the “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture.” The phrase “the one subject, the Church” is crucial. Only if the Church remains the same can one meaningfully speak of her development. Where, on the other hand, a historical novelty becomes the standard by which the Church must henceforth understand her own nature, the question arises: Is the Church still developing here—or is a new self-understanding being substituted for the previous one? This touches on the core of ecclesiology.
Pius X had already warned, in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (September 8, 1907), against a conception of development in which religious consciousness and historical needs become the actual driving force behind religious truth. For him, the danger lay not in the Church’s historical unfolding, but in the fact that what is unfolding ultimately decides for itself what is to be regarded as truth. Then it is no longer history that is measured against the truth, but the truth that is measured against history. On what should this “irreversibility” be based? On a revelation? A dogma? A definitive magisterial decision? A change in the sacramental constitution of the Church? Or merely on the fact that a reversal has since become politically, institutionally, or psychologically difficult? These would be entirely different matters.
The Luxembourg cardinal speaks of a transition to a Church in which Christians take on responsibility and are heard. Synodality, he says, must not merely be a method but must be adopted as a “form of the Church.” With this, the decisive threshold has been crossed: synodality no longer appears merely as a way in which the Church deliberates, listens, or prepares decisions. It becomes a statement about what the Church is as such.
No one disputes that the Church must listen. No one disputes the importance of synods, councils, and consultations. The Church has known synodal forms since its earliest days. Antioch, Jerusalem, the councils of the Early Church, and the Synods of Bishops are not modern inventions. What is new is not that Christians consult with one another, but the attempt to make “synodality” a comprehensive ecclesiological key concept—a code for how the Church should understand and organize itself. However, anyone who claims that such a development is irreversible must explain why this should be the case: Is it irreversible because it is true—or is it considered true because it is no longer to be questioned?
The Catholic Church has no right to restructure at will the nature it has received from Christ. Nor does the Magisterium stand above Revelation, but rather in its service. Neither can a pope, by virtue of his office, reinvent the constitution of the Church according to historical expediency, nor can a worldwide consultation process generate a new ecclesiological truth. The Church is not a constituent assembly. She understands herself as the Bride of Christ, as una, sancta, catholica et apostolica.
Her foundation is not the result of human deliberation. Her origin is Christ, her birthplace the Upper Room, her mother the Mother of God, her breath the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the true Catholic question is not: What are we allowed to change? It runs deeper: What can we change at all without destroying the identity of what we call the Church?
Pope Leo XIII recalled in Annum sacrum (May 25, 1899): “His dominion extends not only to Catholic peoples, nor even only to those who, by virtue of baptism, belong to the Church by right—even if erroneous views may keep them at a distance or discord may separate them from the community of love—but it also encompasses those who do not possess the Christian faith; thus, in the fullest sense, all of humanity is subject to the dominion of Jesus Christ” (Encyclical Annum sacrum, May 25, 1899).
These words should be perceived, heard, and acknowledged all the more urgently by those who consider themselves part of this “community of love,” rather than succumbing to an inward-focused self-reflection. In his encyclical Mystici Corporis (June 29, 1943), Pius XII described the Church as the mystical Body of Christ. Its visible and spiritual reality, its hierarchical order, and its sacramental nature are inseparably linked. The faithful are incorporated into an already existing Body; the Church does not come into being through its members reaching a consensus on what kind of Church they would like it to be in the future.
This by no means implies that everything in the Church is immutable. Forms can change, disciplines can be reformed, and pastoral methods can be adapted. But the capacity for change does not mean self-determination. A plant can grow without becoming a different species. A person matures without losing their identity. The Church can develop without reinventing its constitutive identity. This is the meaning of genuine reform. In the Church, there must not only be progress, but also a constant willingness to correct course. There may be missteps, excesses, and ambiguities. The fact that something has happened does not make it immune to scrutiny. The fact that something has existed for ten years does not make it true. And the fact that a cardinal declares it to be “irreversible” does not confer theological irreversibility upon it.
Here, a Catholic theology of tradition must raise its objection. Tradition by no means means that nothing new may ever happen. It does mean, however, that the new must be accountable to what has been handed down. The real dichotomy is not “tradition versus development,” but rather: development from tradition or development from a rupture. The former preserves the subject’s identity. The latter makes the historical process itself the creative principle.
This is precisely why the claim of normative irreversibility is so theologically contentious: If history itself becomes the main argument, who then judges history? Who decides whether a development was a fulfillment or a distortion? This scrutiny cannot be concluded simply by declaring a process to be irrefutable. That is not how Catholic tradition functions. The Church is not a prisoner of its recent past. It possesses the freedom of truth. It can discern, examine, correct, and—if necessary—also reject whatever proves to be incompatible with its very nature.
The decisive test, therefore, is this: Irreversible—on the basis of what truth? Not on the basis of chronology. Not on the basis of institutional power. Not on the basis of a shift in mentality, but solely where such irreversibility follows from the truth of what the Church is in Christ. Anything else would be a deification of history. A church that derived its identity from the irreversibility of its most recent developments would no longer live from the origin it has received, but from the power of what has already happened. Then Christ would no longer be the measure of the church, but time.
And this is precisely where the objection must begin: Not everything that one no longer wishes to undo thereby becomes true. Some things simply remain an irreversible error.
