The Data DECIMATES Defenses of the Popesplainers

A Harvard economist and a Catholic layman both prove what NeoCatholic Popesplainers disingenuously told us was a “logical fallacy.”

Every time a traditional Catholic points out the correlation between Vatican II and the catastrophic collapse of the Church, some smirking Novus Ordo apologist jumps in with a smug little Latin phrase: post hoc ergo propter hoc.

After this, therefore because of this.

“Just because Vatican II happened and then the Church collapsed,” they say, “doesn’t mean Vatican II caused the collapse. Correlation is not causation!”

Well, no. Correlation isn’t always causation. But sometimes? It is. That’s literally how evidence works. You observe cause and effect, test for confounding variables, rule out alternatives, and reach a conclusion. And that’s exactly what two very different studies, one from Harvard economists in 2025, and one from a Catholic layman in 2003, have done.

Together, they confirm what anyone with eyes to see already knows: Vatican II didn’t “renew” the Church. It decimated it. And the collapse wasn’t accidental. It followed directly from the very reforms the Council enacted.

Let’s walk through the proof.

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