The explainer dealt in church matters — Vatican Council II in the ‘sixties. But the comment might have come from a 2022 political operative.

In his [Vatican II Notebook], on November 10, 1962, Father [Marie-Dominique] Chenu[OP] notes this sentence by Father Giuseppe Dossetti, one of the main strategists on the progressive front: “The winning battle is run in dealing with the procedure.I have always won in this way.”

The author, Roberto de Mattei, comments:

In assemblies the decisional process  does not belong to the majority, but to the minority which controls the procedure. Democracy doesn’t exist in political society and even less so in religion.  

As for church matters,

Democracy in the Church, observed the philosopher, Marcel De Corte, is ecclesiastic Caesarism, the worst of all the regimes.

Specifically, says de Mattei, at the 2014 Synod on the Family…