Archbishop Viganò argues in The Capital Schism that the crisis in the Church is fundamentally a crisis of Catholic formation. Generations of deficient formation in seminaries and Catholic universities, he contends, have produced priests, bishops, popes, and lay Catholics who no longer adequately understand the Catholic religion they are supposed to profess and transmit. Modernism has progressively displaced traditional Catholic formation, making sound catechesis in faith and morals essential to restoring the Church.
Frank Wright expands the argument beyond the hierarchy, contending that Catholics who have forgotten their own religion can more easily accept a substitute religion based on contemporary political ideologies. LGBT ideology, environmentalism, feminism, and mass migration, he argues, have assumed a quasi-religious status. When the faith is forgotten, politics fills the void.
