Why Cardinal Goh’s “Adapting to Change” reveals not renewal, but rupture—and how the same error is collapsing the West from within
The July 2025 reflection by Cardinal William Goh of Singapore, titled Adapting to Change, arrives at a time when the Church is facing profound upheaval. His meditation—presented as a scriptural and pastoral exhortation—functions in reality as a theological statement: namely, that change is intrinsic to fidelity, and that without adaptation, tradition becomes sterile and irrelevant.
This premise, though expressed with spiritual sincerity, raises significant concerns for the faithful. It proposes a model of theological development that blurs the boundaries between immutable truth and mutable practice—one that has contributed to the ongoing crisis of identity, doctrine, and liturgy in the post conciliar Church.Subscribed
Change as a Theological Imperative?
Cardinal Goh’s core thesis is that “not changing is being unfaithful to our past,” and that even theological expression must evolve in order to preserve relevance.¹ He maintains that while doctrine cannot change, theology “is always evolving,” and that a failure to re-express truth in new forms risks rendering the Christian message “redundant, if not irrelevant.”²
He applies this logic to traditional practices such as fasting and penance, but most significantly to the Mass itself. The Eucharist, he argues, has undergone constant change since apostolic times, and must continue to change so as to remain “faithful to its original meaning yet relevant to our times.”³
Yet this view omits the vital distinction between authentic development and doctrinal mutation. It conflates adaptation in delivery with alteration in content. The Church does not maintain her relevance by reshaping her message to fit each era’s preferences. Rather, she remains the enduring sign of contradiction in every generation—her witness sharpened, not softened, by fidelity to what is eternal.
St. Vincent of Lérins and the Rule of Tradition
The true measure of change in the Church is not pastoral expediency or sociological effectiveness, but fidelity to the rule of faith. As St. Vincent of Lérins taught, genuine development must occur eodem sensu eademque sententia—“according to the same sense and the same judgment.”⁴ Any theological development that reinterprets the meaning of doctrine, rather than clarifying or deepening it, must be rejected.
Cardinal Goh’s suggestion that tradition demands constant re-expression fails to account for this distinction. If change is made the criterion of fidelity, then the deposit of faith becomes plastic—shaped by the moods of the age rather than grounded in divine revelation.
Liturgy and the Myth of Continuous Evolution
The notion that the Roman Rite has always changed and therefore must continue to do so requires qualification. Organic development—yes. Radical rupture—no. The received liturgy of the Church, from the earliest Eucharistic prayers to the codified Roman Canon, developed slowly and reverently across centuries. The upheavals of the late 20th century, by contrast, introduced discontinuities in structure, language, orientation, and theology. These were not “new wineskins,” but a new vessel altogether.
If we are to preserve the Mass as a true participation in the heavenly liturgy, as taught by the Fathers and reaffirmed by the Council of Trent, then it must be protected from innovation that compromises its sacrificial nature, its vertical orientation, and its mystical continuity with the worship of the saints.
Penance and the Collapse of Catholic Memory
Cardinal Goh rightly laments the decline in penitential discipline following the modern substitution of individual choice for communal practice. Friday abstinence, once a unifying sign of Catholic identity and solidarity with Christ’s Passion, has become optional and largely forgotten.⁵
This erosion of visible markers of faith is not the result of failing to adapt, but of adapting unwisely—abandoning discipline in the name of flexibility. The ancient practices of fasting, abstinence, and liturgical observance do not need to be rebranded for relevance; they need to be restored with reverence.
The Danger of Ambiguity
The greatest danger in Cardinal Goh’s reflection is not its call for spiritual attentiveness, but its lack of theological precision. Phrases such as “theology is always evolving” and “we must be in sync with the times” risk reducing revealed truth to a negotiable category. The Church does not exist to keep pace with the world, but to call the world to repentance and conversion.
Christ is not “new wine” in the sense of novelty, but in the sense of divine fulfilment. The parable of the wineskins is not an endorsement of constant reinvention, but a warning: when new forms are poured into unsuitable structures, both the wine and the vessel are lost (Mt 9:17).
The Secular Parallel: Cultural Collapse by Innovation
This theological tendency toward perpetual adaptation finds an uncanny mirror in secular culture. The post-Christian West is governed by a similar fallacy: that all progress is necessarily good, that inherited wisdom must be deconstructed, and that anything old is by definition oppressive.
From architecture to education, morality to medicine, Western societies have adopted the same creed: change equals virtue. Thus, classical learning has been supplanted by identity politics, marriage by contractual fluidity, and the natural law by arbitrary feelings. This is not progress—it is cultural amnesia, a forgetting not only of who we are but of what it means to be human.
The logic of Cardinal Goh’s “dynamic fidelity,” applied outside the Church, leads to grotesque results: sex reassignment in children, the redefinition of family, euthanasia for the lonely, and sacrilegious celebrations masquerading as mercy. When truth becomes negotiable, power fills the void. When identity is fluid, tyranny is inevitable.
Conclusion: Fidelity Means Preservation, Not Innovation
True progress in the Church is measured not by novelty, but by deeper immersion in the mystery already revealed. The Catholic tradition is not an empty shell awaiting reinterpretation, but a living heritage handed down with authority and guarded by the Holy Spirit.
As the Church faces increasing pressure to adapt her doctrines, redefine her sacraments, and restructure her identity, it is essential to recall the timeless counsel of the Fathers: What has been believed everywhere, always, and by all must remain the criterion of truth.⁶
To preserve the faith is not to resist growth, but to ensure that every development is faithful in content and form to the one deposit entrusted to the saints. Let the Church adapt only insofar as she never ceases to be the Church—and let society repent of its own blind embrace of change before it forgets what truth is altogether.
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¹ Cardinal William Goh, “Adapting to Change,” 5 July 2025, Facebook Reflection.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ St. Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, ch. 23.
⁵ Goh, “Adapting to Change.”
⁶ St. Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, ch. 2.
