EWTN News (June 18, 2026) reports on a survey conducted by the Archdiocese of Chicago, titled “Why Are So Many People Becoming Catholic?”, which claims that “spiritual hunger” and “Church’s tradition” are the primary drivers for adult conversions to the Catholic Church in the United States. The survey, involving 2,127 respondents across 20 dioceses, highlights motivations such as a desire for “personal growth in goodness, inner peace, and an understanding of truth,” with 85% citing a desire to grow closer to God and 68% expressing attraction to the Church’s “sacred liturgy, prayer, ritual, and the sacraments.” However, this report, emanating from the heart of the post-conciliar apparatus, presents a deeply misleading narrative, masking the spiritual bankruptcy of the very institution it seeks to promote and fundamentally misrepresenting the nature of true conversion.
The Deceptive Allure of “Spiritual Hunger” in a Desolate Landscape
The survey’s emphasis on “spiritual hunger” and “personal growth” as primary motivators for entering the conciliar sect is a masterful exercise in psychological manipulation, reflecting the very errors condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium. To speak of “growing closer to God” or seeking “inner peace” without an explicit and unequivocal call to repentance, the necessity of sanctifying grace, the reality of sin, and the exclusive salvific mission of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is to reduce the supernatural order to mere naturalistic self-improvement. This is precisely the error of Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X, which seeks to explain all religious phenomena, even conversion, by “an internal impulse of the soul” or “a vital need for the divine,” rather than by the gratuitous action of God’s grace and the objective truths of revelation. As the Syllabus of Errors (1864) unequivocally states, “There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe” (Proposition 1) and “Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil” (Proposition 3). The survey’s language, focusing on subjective feelings and individual desires, aligns perfectly with this condemned naturalistic and rationalist framework, effectively stripping conversion of its true theological content.
The “Tradition” Mirage: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
The claim that converts are drawn to the “wisdom of a 2,000-year-old Church” or its “sacred liturgy, prayer, ritual, and the sacraments” is a profound deception, bordering on blasphemy, when applied to the post-conciliar structures. What “tradition” is being offered? What “sacred liturgy” is being celebrated? The Novus Ordo Missae, promulgated by the apostate Paul VI in 1969, is a radical departure from the Immemorial Roman Rite, a Protestantized assembly that obscures the propitiatory nature of the Most Holy Sacrifice and the Real Presence. To speak of “sacraments” within the conciar sect is equally problematic, given the widespread doubt cast upon their validity, the dilution of their matter and form, and the scandalous manner in which they are often administered. The “tradition” lauded by EWTN and the Chicago Archdiocese is not the immutable deposit of faith, but a modernist construct, a “hermeneutic of continuity” designed to mask a fundamental rupture.
Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), unequivocally states that “the Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.” Yet, the conciliar sect, in its ecumenical and interreligious fervor, has consistently compromised this independence, aligning itself with worldly agendas and diluting its unique salvific mission. The “tradition” offered is not the unadulterated truth that demands conversion from error, but a palatable, modernized version designed to attract, not to save. As the Defense of Sedevacantism document highlights, “A Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head,” and the subsequent occupants of the Vatican, by their public propagation of heresies and their systematic dismantling of Catholic doctrine and discipline, have rendered the structures they control devoid of true authority and, consequently, incapable of transmitting authentic tradition.
The Absence of Truth and the Triumph of Sentimentality
The survey’s findings, particularly the low ranking of the Church’s stance on social issues and its charitable services, further expose the modernist inversion of priorities. While the world is engulfed in moral relativism and the erosion of natural law, the concilar sect, instead of being a beacon of objective truth, often mirrors these errors, prioritizing a false sense of “community” and “belonging” over the demanding call to conversion and the proclamation of hard truths. The fear among respondents of “not belonging in a parish” or feeling “intimidated by the rituals of Mass” is a direct consequence of the conciliar revolution itself, which replaced the awe-inspiring majesty of the Traditional Latin Mass with a banal, participatory “assembly” that often alienates those seeking genuine transcendence.
The report’s silence on the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation, the reality of hell, the urgency of repentance, and the exclusive role of the Church as the Ark of Salvation is deafening. This omission is not accidental; it is a hallmark of the modernist approach, which seeks to make religion “relevant” by stripping it of its supernatural demands. As the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 17) condemns, “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.” The conciliar sect, by its very nature, fosters this false hope, leading souls astray with a diluted message that offers comfort but not salvation.
The Illusion of Conversion and the Reality of Apostasy
The very notion of “conversion” to the conciliar sect is, in most cases, a tragic illusion. True conversion implies a turning from error to truth, from sin to grace, from the world to Christ and His Church. However, what is being offered by the structures occupying the Vatican is not the unadulterated Catholic faith, but a modernist counterfeit. Those who enter these structures, often drawn by a genuine but misguided “spiritual hunger,” are not converting to the Catholic faith as it has been professed for two millennia, but to a new, evolving, and ultimately heretical construct.
The survey’s focus on “personal growth” and “inner peace” without the absolute necessity of adhering to all the Church’s dogmas, including those on the immorality of contraception, the reality of hell, and the necessity of Catholic unity, is a recipe for spiritual disaster. It creates a “Catholicism” that is palatable to the world, but ultimately devoid of the power to save. As the False Fatima Apparitions document warns, “The message focuses on external threats (communism), omitting the main danger: modernist apostasy within the Church since the beginning of the 20th century.” This internal apostasy, which the survey inadvertently highlights through its modernist language and omissions, is the true enemy, and the “conversions” it fosters are merely a recruitment drive for the “abomination of desolation” (Matthew 24:15) that has taken root in the Vatican.
In conclusion, this EWTN report, far from being a cause for celebration, serves as a stark indictment of the spiritual malaise at the heart of the conciliar sect. It showcases a “Church” that has traded the hard demands of the Gospel for the soft allure of humanistic psychology, and the immutable truth of God for the shifting sands of modern opinion. True conversion is not about “finding inner peace” within a compromised structure, but about embracing the full, unadulterated, and often difficult truth of the Catholic faith, which endures not in the halls of the Vatican’s usurpers, but in the hearts of the faithful who cling to Tradition and await the restoration of Christ’s Kingdom.
Source:
Spiritual hunger, Church’s tradition cited as top drivers of U.S. adult conversions, survey finds (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 18.06.2026