John XXIII’s intention in summoning Vatican II was to rekindle the Church’s Christocentric faith in order to convert the modern world. That would only happen, he believed (correctly), through a new method of engaging the modern world. And that meant finding a language of evangelization and catechesis that the modern world could “hear.” He knew that would take some time, and the truth is that we’re still grappling with that problematic — even as the modern world has become ever more incoherent and aggressively secular.

At the same time, in his opening address to the Council the Pope insisted that Catholic faith be proclaimed in full — in, as I said, a way the modern world could engage. So the Council was far more about “Christifying” the world than about changing the Church. …

The Church of Woke isn’t going to bring anyone to God, because woke ideology today (especially gender ideology and the LGBTQ+ agitation) deny the truths of biblical anthropology: who we are, how and why we are made as we are, and how being made as we are in fact reflects the inner life of the Trinity, a community of fruitful, self-giving love and receptivity.