During his general audience on 16 October, Pope Francis focused on the Nicene Creed, recited by Catholics during Mass. He reflected on the addition of the Latin term "Filioque", meaning "and from the Son".

He noted that this phrase in the creed sparked a major theological disagreement between the Eastern and Western Churches. It is known as the "Filioque controversy".

The dispute eventually culminated in the Great Schism of 1054.

However, the pope suggested "the climate of dialogue between the two Churches has lost the acrimony of the past and today allows us to hope for full mutual acceptance".

Reconciled differences

Francis emphasised the importance of moving beyond past disputes, calling for reconciliation and unity among Christians despite their differences. He added, "I like to say this: 'Reconciled differences'", emphasising the importance of working together despite theological variations.

The pope explained that while different Christian groups have distinct practices, "the important thing is that these differences are reconciled in the love of walking together".

Pope Francis' appeal for unity came as his peace envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, concluded a visit to Moscow. There, Zuppi met with Metropolitan Anthony of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Several Orthodox and Protestant leaders are in Rome this month as "fraternal delegates" in the ongoing Synod on Synodality assembly. Among them are representatives of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All of Africa, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Mennonite Conference.

Ending the audience, Pope Francis called for prayers for peace in conflict zones around the world.

"Let us not forget war-torn Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar" he said. "Brothers and sisters, let us remember that war is always, always, a defeat. Let us not forget this, and let us pray for peace and work for peace."

Sources

Catholic News Agency

CathNews New Zealand

They were there to pray together and share a fine meal over a glass of Cabernet Francis — all in an effort to overcome polarisation.

In the Catholic world, it's hard to imagine an unlikelier pair than Tim Busch and the Rev. Jim Martin.

A successful businessman and entrepreneur, Busch founded the Napa Institute in 2011 to combat secularisation in the Church and uphold conservative values.

Martin, the editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine "America" is best known for his Outreach programme, aimed at promoting inclusivity and welcome for LGBTQ+ members of the Catholic community.

Together, these two representatives of opposing factions in the Church have created a framework for dialogue, even friendship, among priests, activists and journalists who would otherwise be arguing over divisive theological issues on social media.

Busch contacted Martin and asked for his help to bring left leaning Catholics to the table and today the two speak regularly to work on common issues and think of ways to bring their dinner experiment to U.S. parishes.

The dinners started in late 2023, as Busch became increasingly concerned with rising political polarisation in the U.S. and the deepening fractures he saw mirrored in the Catholic Church.

Of course, in the minds of many liberal Catholics, Busch is partly responsible for those fractures, having hosted gatherings at the Napa Institute where some of the most vocal conservative Catholic voices in the U.S. railed against woke-ism and liberal ideologies.

By this year's annual summer gathering of the Napa Institute, held July 24-28 at the Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa, California, Busch had struck a new tone, urging Catholics during his keynote speech to leave the culture wars behind and to "stop hating and start loving."

Busch has hosted four dinners, with 40 guests so far, and plans to host three more this year.

"We are not there to debate or have a theological conversation, although it's not prohibited, it's just not the primary goal," Busch told Religion News Service in an interview on Monday (July 29).

"After all, we all share the same beliefs on 95 percent of the issues," he added.

Pray, eat, love

The meetings start with a short Mass in the chapel in Busch's apartment, followed by reciting the rosary before a Marian shrine that his daughter made.

After a brief reception, guests are invited to sit for dinner. It was Martin's idea to ask participants in turn to share their favorite Bible verse and describe how it has impacted their lives.

"That allows them to talk about their spiritual life, but also the family, the kids, the priests, the conversions. It's really touching," he said.

"There are so many people who break down crying during the event.

"I think it shows the impact of meeting people that they have never met before, but they know who they are, and every day they get up in the morning and fight them instead of fighting the devil. I think that's a big relief."

There are 12 guests for every dinner, with Busch and his wife attending every one. "It was very Eucharistic," the Rev. Ricky Manalo, a member of the Paulist Fathers, who attended one of the dinners in March, told RNS.

"Any type of gathering that centers around food is always a good start to conversation and common ground," he said.

A French chef prepares a Mediterranean-inspired dinner for the guests, and Busch, who is in the wine business, pulls out copious amounts of wine — averaging one bottle per guest — from his Trinitas Cellars. "It dials everybody down," he said.

Many of the wines are named after Marian shrines, but the one titled after Pope Francis is the real conversation starter, Busch said.

"Especially for left/center people, they think, "Oh, this guy doesn't hate the Pope — he makes wine with the Pope's name on it!" he said, adding that he sends cases of the wine to the Pope as well.

Carefully curated guest lists

Busch said he tries to invite six people from both camps, conservative and liberal.

Every guest receives a bio of the other participants before the dinner so "nobody gets surprised," he explained.

No one has canceled last minute, and overall people who attended said they were glad to have come, Busch said.

Conservative guests have included the editor of "First Things" magazine, Russell Ronald Reno, and Catholic commentator and author Sohrab Ahmari, and Father Javier del Castillo, the U.S. vicar of the Prelature of Opus Dei.

The list of progressive Catholic guests who have attended the dinners includes professors from Fordham University but also influential Catholics such as Kerry Robinson, who heads Catholic Charities U.S.A., and Sam Sawyer, the editor in chief of "America Magazine."

Inviting left-leaning Catholics to dinner would have been impossible for Busch without Martin's support, he said.

"I've suggested a number of names to Mr. Busch, and when my friends receive their invitations they almost always write to me and say, ‘Should I go?'

And I say yes," Martin said in an email to RNS. "Afterwards they write to tell me how grateful they were to have gone."

Martin's perspective

The bestselling author of "Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity," Martin has faced considerable vitriol from conservative faithful on social media and traditional news outlets.

At Pope Francis' request he was also invited to bring his perspective to the Synod on Synodality, born from a three year consultation of Catholics at every level to discuss major issues and challenges facing the Church, which will have its second and last summit in October at the Vatican.

The synod adopts Jesuit-inspired methods to promote thoughtful and respectful dialogue in the Church.

"The Synod has invited us to be a Church that listens to the voice of the Holy Spirit, and how can we listen to the Spirit if we don't first listen to one another?" Martin said.

After posting an article by Busch describing the dinners and their goal to lower tensions in the Church, Martin received many comments on X criticising him for "siding with the devil," and some stopped following him on social media.

"I think the more important feedback was from the participants, all of whom seem to have found it valuable," Martin said.

Soaring polarisation

The issue of polarisation in the church has reached soaring heights, especially in the United States.

Pope Francis directly addressed conservative opposition in the U.S. during an interview with CBS in April, where he described his detractors as being engaged in a "suicidal attitude" by being "closed up inside a dogmatic box."

Francis has also recently taken action against his strongest critics, revoking the pension and Vatican lodgings of the leading voice of U.S. conservatives, Cardinal Raymond Burke, and dismissing fiery papal critic Bishop Joseph Strickland from his diocese in Tyler, Texas.

In early July, the Vatican also excommunicated former U.S. papal envoy Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for the crime of schism, after the prelate claimed Francis was not the rightful pope.

A 2023 Pew Research Center poll found that Catholics are extremely polarised in the U.S., with 44 percent Democrat or leaning Democrat and 52 percent Republican or leaning Republican.

Moreover, in April, Pew found that partisan affiliation strongly impacts Catholic views of Pope Francis — with 89 percent of U.S. Catholics who are Democrats or lean Democrat having a favorable view of the Pope, compared to only 63 percent of Catholics who are Republican or lean Republican.

It's the most politically polarised view of Pope Francis since Pew began surveying on him.

Reuniting the Church

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has attempted to address this issue through the "Civilize It" initiative, which includes asking faithful to promise to respect the dignity of every human being, including those who think differently.

"When you're writing the Tweet, imagine Jesus is there with you and when you think through that, question ‘should I do this?'" said Bishop McElroy of the Diocese of San Diego during a panel discussion as part of the initiative.

The Paulist Fathers, a Catholic religious society, organised a summit on polarisation in April where they invited hundreds of Catholic leaders, communicators and thinkers to discuss how to promote dialogue and reconciliation within the Church.

"Polarisation is a first-order crisis," said Manalo, who was among the organisers of the San Diego event.

"We can't talk about anything, about gun control, abortion, gender or ecology, in our country or in our church unless we learn to talk to one another."

Manalo believes religious leaders have been caught up in the cultural upheavals of the past 50 years, which have created a "perfect storm" where tribalism has dominated the public discourse.

When he attended the Napa gathering this summer, he walked up to Busch to suggest further steps and initiatives to ensure the dinners don't become a one-off event.

Busch said that even the "archconservative and traditional" members of the Napa board and guild fully support the dinners and that he plans to continue hosting them.

The calendar for 2024 is full, and dinners are already being planned for 2025. Busch is particularly interested in getting prelates together, including Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington.

"We just need to figure out how to become more effective and intentional about bringing the Church together so it's not just a one-night phenomenon," he said.

• First published by Religion News Service
• Claire Giangravé is an author at Religion News Service.

The conclusion - that some members of the Church have stepped so far beyond the bounds of orthodoxy and propriety that the rest can no longer consider themselves in communion with them - goes back to Antiquity.

Schisms of old could be vicious and violent affairs.

Just consider the cases of the Donatists, Pelagians, Cathars, Waldensians, or Protestant Reformers.

And this is before we get into the internecine struggles within Eastern Christianities and between them and the Latin West.

Pope Francis, Viganò and today's schism

What then to make of Pope Francis' very modern schism: a decision by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to declare Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò guilty of ‘public statements resulting in a denial of the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church' and to excommunicate him?

Viganò, to be sure, had tried Francis' patience over a number of years.

The charges against him are, on one level, quite compelling.

Viganò released a letter back in 2018 which accused the Pope and three consecutive Secretaries of State of knowingly protecting and rehabilitating American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

They protected him even after ‘credible and substantiated' claims that he had sexually abused a 16-year-old altar boy, Viganò wrote.

More recently, Viganò has been vigorously engaged in promoting conspiracy theories: about the Covid-19 pandemic, global elites, and the agenda of Vatican II.

Add in his support for Vladimir Putin's Ukraine War and his ongoing hostility to Pope Francis' attempts to strike a middle ground between Church traditionalists and liberals via the Synod on Synodality.

It was obvious a pretty toxic relationship between the Archbishop and his boss on Earth was emerging.

The Pope and his advisors have clearly decided that acting quickly and decisively was the best course of action.

Take some anguish and criticism now in order to extract the thorn in their sides as bloodlessly as possible.

Not that many have mourned Viganò's departure from ecclesiastical respectability.

His seemingly difficult and abrasive personality have won him few friends in what remains a Church hierarchy regulated by bonhomie and consensus politics.

Viganò is, moreover, not the first bishop to have suffered this indignity on the part of the Holy See in recent times.

John Paul II famously excommunicated Marcel Lefebvre in 1988 because he consecrated four bishops without Vatican approval.

In 2006 Benedict XVI excommunicated the Zambian Bishop Emmanuel Milingo because he had consecrated married men as bishops and himself had claimed to have taken a wife.

Such cases of bishops going rogue have been another constant in ecclesiastical life.

Arguably, it is only the greater scrutiny that they attract in a media age that magnifies the scandal associated with them to a matter of global interest.

Viganò case different

And yet… And yet, the Viganò case differs from the Lefebvre and Milingo ones in several key respects.

First, the fact that Viganò is accused only of wrong words, not wrong deeds.

His criticisms of the Pope have been sharp and nasty.

They certainly transgress the respectable patterns of interpersonal exchange which are typically necessary for subordinates to retain the confidence of their managers in a normal organisation.

"Viganò might have caused less trouble for the Vatican if he'd been left quietly to discredit himself through his increasingly outlandish pronouncements about Vatican II's evils and about his colleagues' hidden agendas.

"Excommunicating him plays to another characterisation of Francis promoted by critics such as George Pell: that he is intolerant of opposition and negative judgments of his conduct."

But the Church is not a normal organisation.

It claims to be, uniquely, the vehicle via which God interacts with Man and through which our souls can achieve eternal salvation.

Clearly, if Viganò had worked at Goldman Sachs or the State department of a normal bureaucracy his position would have been untenable. But should the Universal Church operate by those same rules?

Once again, it is the special, divine character of ecclesiastical activity that is undermined by such unseemly behaviour.

A second difference between Viganò's excommunication and those earlier ones, however, is this.

The eclecticism of Viganò's criticisms of the Holy See (and the Holy Father) also makes it rather risky to isolate him as a matter of politics.

To put it bluntly, his potential for martyrdom is much higher than that of Lefebvre or Milingo.

Sure, criticising the Pope openly and disrespectfully is bad (and even unfair), but Viganò first came to prominence - before his descent into conspiracy theorism - as an outspoken critic of Vatican corruption.

Because few Catholics believe the Vatican is not corrupt at some level, silencing the whistleblower is therefore an inherently questionable proposition, especially undertaken by self-proclaimed ‘clean hands'.

Viganò criticism of Vatican policy towards Theodore McCarrick, moreover, deserves to be taken very seriously - whatever the rebuttals that have emerged to date.

The McCarrick case has been so damaging because it has seemed to confirm an established narrative of feet-dragging under Benedict XVI and also Francis (in light of the Marko Rupnik affair).

Pontifical feet ought to step more gingerly when dealing with notorious failures of oversight and governance.

Ultimately, Viganò might have caused less trouble for the Vatican if he'd been left quietly to discredit himself through his increasingly outlandish pronouncements about Vatican II's evils and about his colleagues' hidden agendas.

Excommunicating him plays to another characterisation of Francis promoted by critics such as George Pell: that he is intolerant of opposition and negative judgments of his conduct.

So will Viganò's departure change the Church? Almost certainly not.

But it will likely confirm what everyone already thinks about Francis, the Synod on Synodality, Gay Blessings, and Traditionis custodes. This is not necessarily good for Francis or for Viganò.

Welcome to the new schismatic Church, same as the old Church.

Only time will tell if Francis' course of action has been the wiser one, but the politicking has got more intensive as both factions - traditionalists and liberals - look beyond him.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the next conclave.

• First published in Eureka Street Republished with author's permission.
• Dr Miles Pattenden is a researcher in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University and author of Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Threat of schism

"I pray that there will be no schism," the Pope told the Vatican press corps, "but I am not afraid."

Since then, the threat of a formal split of dissident Catholics from the Church or the creation of a separate sect has grown to be a major theme of Francis' pontificate.

Conservative and progressive Catholics alike have publicly challenged the authority of the Pope and the Vatican, openly or implicitly hinting at an irreparable fracture in the Church.

Recently the Pope has moved against his critics on the right, excommunicating former U.S. papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for the crime of schism.

He forced Cardinal Raymond Burke, the informal dean of the dissident right, from his Vatican post and removed Bishop Joseph Strickland from his seat in Tyler, Texas, for his anti-Francis agitation, mostly on social media.

For these and other conservatives, the Pope has done too much to reconcile the Church with modern social trends: opening its doors to women who want leadership roles and the LGBTQ+ faithful, restricting the saying of the Old Latin Mass and accommodating Beijing's influence on the Church in China.

Liberal Catholics, meanwhile, claim Francis has done too little to promote inclusivity and accountability in the Church, calling on him to allow women to become deacons and blessings for same-sex couples and to do more to solve the issue of clergy sexual abuse.

These issues have motivated the German church's Synodal Path, a years-long movement to answer popular drift away from the Church with progressive, and largely unsanctioned, reforms.

Schisms are part of Church history

Schism is nothing new in the Church, starting with the Great Schism of 1054, which created the divide between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism before the Protestant Reformation fragmented the Western Church in the 16th century.

The most recent faction to fall into schism was the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, founded in 1970 by the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the changes of the Second Vatican Council and consecrated his own bishops, for which he was excommunicated

Viganò is thought to come the closest to provoking a similar split.

In 2019, as Francis addressed the disastrous aftermath of the clerical abuse crisis in Ireland, Viganò published a fiery document accusing the Pope of covering up the abuse of minors by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and calling for him to resign.

Since then, he has called Francis "a heretic" and a "tyrant" and condemned the reforms of the Second Vatican Council while drawing closer to conspiratorial and radical wings of the Church.

Setting himself up at the hermitage of St. Antonio alla Palanzana, about an hour from Rome, Viganò drew a crowd of discontented Catholics: evicted nuns, wealthy Italian aristocrats and reactionary priests.

He created an organisation, Exsurge Domine, with the goal of offering help and financial support to clergy who claim to have been persecuted for their traditionalist views.

What now?

Experts say Francis has skillfully dealt with critics on both sides by waiting for the right moment to act and by issuing documents clarifying his most controversial pronouncements.

Massimo Borghesi, a philosopher and author of the 2022 book "Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis," Viganò can no longer be considered a representative voice of the conservative opposition to the Pope.

"I don't think that Viganò's excommunication implies a schism," Borghesi told Religion News Service on Monday (July 15).

"It might still concern an absolute minority of traditionalists who believe that the Church in Rome has betrayed the tradition of the Church following the Second Vatican Council," he said, but he has reached the apex of his following in the United States, where he had seen the most support.

"I don't think this interests the majority of the American Church," said Borghese.

According to an April 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center, a three-quarter majority of Catholics in the U.S. view the Pope favorably.

Even though the country's political polarisation is a factor in their opinion — almost nine in 10 Catholic Democrats support Francis, compared to 63 percent of Republican faithful — conservative Catholics recognise that the Pope's election was legitimate, even if they dislike his policies, Borghesi said.

"The conditions for the schism are not there. They are simply awaiting the next Pope," he said.

If Francis had gone after the archbishop in 2019 or 2020, Borghesi believes, he might have created a deeper split.

Instead, he allowed time for tensions to pass and for many of his reforms to be assimilated into Church life.

In the meantime, Viganó's increasingly radical positions have served to alienate his staunchest American supporters, who have stayed mostly quiet since the Vatican's sentence in early July.

"These processes have cooled spirits and allowed more clarity within the Church," he said.

German Synodal Path

Similarly, Vatican chroniclers say, Francis has come through the direst threat from the left, as the German church's Synodal Path has retreated from its most radical positions.

In 2022, German theologian Katharina Westerhorstmann announced she was resigning from the synodal commission that was studying relationships and sexuality because the Synodal Path's rejection of official Catholic doctrine had drifted dangerously toward schism.

"For me there were some discussions that crossed the line, especially the notion where they seemed to have already decided where this was going and that those opinions that didn't fit into that direction, shouldn't really count," Westerhorstmann said.

She and a group of theologians believed that while reforms were necessary to ensure safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults in the Church, certain doctrinal aspects should remain unchanged.

Westerhorstmann told RNS that while a schism was a definite possibility between 2020 and 2021, that is no longer the case today, despite a flare-up last year, when priests in Germany began blessing same-sex couples in violation of Rome's ban on the practice.

"Right now, it seems that the negotiations with the Vatican are going well; there is more openness maybe on both sides," she said.

"In fact, I would say that there is no risk of a schism in the German church anymore at all."

Both extremes now await the next conclave and the future Pope, where the future of the Catholic Church will once again be decided.

Do we care?

Some observers say the greatest threat to the Church today is not passionate dissent but disinterest.

Aurelio Porfiri, author of "The Right Hand of the Lord Is Exalted: A History of Catholic Traditionalism from Vatican II to Traditionis Custodes," warned that while a full-blown schism is unlikely, a different kind of split is already underway.

"Some Catholic circles, not just conservatives, are drawing away from the Church" said Porfiri.

"I would describe this as a schism of indifference, where some Catholics are leaving the Church, not because they object to one particular aspect or issue, but because they are no longer engaged."

• First published in RNS
• Claire Giangravé is an author at Religion News Service.

But news that the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith had summoned Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to answer to charges of schism reveals something of this Catholic moment and Catholic culture.

From 2011-2016, the Italian archbishop served as apostolic nuncio to the United States, and in August 2018, he accused Pope Francis of abuse cover-up in an attempt to overthrow his papacy.

Since then, he has released a series of increasingly extreme statements about the pope, the Vatican, and the authority of the Second Vatican Council from undisclosed locations and via the internet.

He has also pushed conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia, and Ukraine and aligned himself with Donald Trump.

The Code of Canon Law, canon 751, defines schism as "the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."

For a communion like the Catholic Church, which values unity and obedience to the pope very highly, the idea of breaking visibly that unity, at least as a threat, is appealing in its own way, much like all taboos.

The threat of a Viganò schism, propagated by some of Francis' opponents, is notable as it highlights how papalist the Catholic Church has become, and with it also the notion of schism in relation to obedience to the pope, and recognition of the reigning pope's legitimacy.

Schisms are part of the Church's past

In the past ten centuries in Catholicism, the notion of schism has largely become identified with the notion of "papal schism," that is, the refusal to obey the pope and the rise of a parallel church with its own anti-pope, pseudo-councils, Curia, cardinals, and obedience.

Our notion of schism is still largely a medieval notion, even though other divisions took place in the church in the early modern and modern periods.

However, other forms of schism took place, for example, in monastic communities, with abbots and anti-abbots, such as the monasteries of the order of Cluny in the 12th century.

Schisms are part of the church's past as well as its future; like wars, economic recessions, pandemics, and earthquakes, they are recurring events.

As German historian Reinhart Koselleck has shown, recurring events have a structuring effect on human experience.

Our sense of the past is composed of historical iconography, and schisms are an integral part of our sense of the Catholic form of the Church in history.

Today, the notion of schism is inseparable from the virtualisation of religious identities in online communities that "gather" on social media.

The Viganò online saga, which a Catholic from just 20 years ago or a hermit living off the grid or offline today would have a hard time understanding, helps us realize that there is a pre-and a post-internet history of schisms in the Catholic Church.

And now, we are in a particular moment in the history of the post-Vatican II Church.

The Viganò phenomenon

First, the Viganò phenomenon is an aberration that repositions the most important post-Vatican II rift within Catholicism.

Paradoxically, an old schism is helping us measure this kind of real-virtual potential schism.

The Lefebvrites have publicly distanced themselves from Viganò because he is giving their critique of Vatican II a bad name.

They declared their intention to separate themselves from Viganò's "declaration of sedevacantism" - the position that holds that the current pope is not pope.

This public position of the Lefebvrites is one of the side effects of the Vatican's decision to prosecute Viganò, and it is interesting because it singles out his cartoonish extremism.

At the same time, the Viganò phenomenon contributes to normalizing the position of the SSPX, which has become more mainstream compared to their early years and the 1988 excommunication latae sententiae for ordaining new traditionalist bishops without the approval of the Holy See.

Archbishop Viganò's fanatical statements on Vatican II - "the ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer of which the (Francis') ‘synod church' is the necessary metastasis" — make Marcel Lefebvre and the SSPX look like right-of-center Catholics, and not like the extreme traditionalists they actually are.

This says something about the ground shifting under the feet of Vatican II Catholics.

The summoning of Viganò is also a clear message to the approximately 20 American bishops who supported the former apostolic nuncio to the United States and failed to defend the pope during the shocking days of the summer of 2018 when Viganò called for Francis to resign.

Interestingly, that 2018 peak in the tensions between Francis and U.S. Catholic conservatives led some of them to more prudent positions, given the para- or actually pre-schismatic company in which they found themselves.

Amid the "synodal process"

Second, the Catholic Church finds itself in the middle of the "synodal process."

Viganò's tirades and conspiracy theories have to do with Pope Francis as much as with synodality as a key moment in the reception of Vatican II.

We had schisms after Vatican I (the Old Catholic Church) and after Vatican II (the Lefebvrites).

It is possible that there will also be one (or more) after the Synod on synodality.

At Vatican II, some of the compromises between different theological options in the wording of the final documents were the result of fears and threats of a schism. This is happening again now during the Synod, though not out of fear of the Viganò schism but of something bigger.

The prime problem for the Synod is not the sedevacantist extremism of the former papal nuncio but the silent schism of disengagement and disillusionment.

There are also fears of strong reactions of rejection of synodal or post-synodal groundbreaking decisions (for example, on women's diaconate) by some local or continental churches.

The recent refusal of many Catholic Church leaders in Africa to implement Fiducia supplicans on blessings for same-sex couples has been accepted by the same Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that has now summoned Archbishop Viganò to answer to charges of schism.

Our minor-celebrities culture

Third, it makes perfect sense for the Vatican to deal with Archbishop Viganò formally and officially.

We naively tend to dismiss what happens in the virtual world as something that is unreal and inconsequential.

The accusations of schism against Francis have been published in online statements — one of the longest on June 28, 2024.

However, since his resignation in April 2016, Viganò has created a virtual realm of followers online, with an in-person following that is difficult or impossible to measure, making him no less serious or real.

There is also a lesson here for the enemies targeted by Viganò.

In online Catholicism, social media activities and interactions work more for disruption than for constructing unity.

This has to do with the turbo-capitalistic economy of the self. Taking a selfie with the pope enhances the social media profile but does not help the unity of the Church.

For every Catholic with a social media profile picture showing their photo with the pope, there is a higher number of Catholics who see themselves on the opposite side.

This is our minor-celebrities culture, from which the most active Catholic influencers, even those on Pope Francis' side, are by no means immune. We could learn something important from the Viganò case.

• First published in La Croix
• Massimo Faggioli is a regular contributor to La Croix International with his column 'Signs of the times'.

He was the papal nuncio in Washington from 2011-2016.

In 2018 Viganò reportedly hid after alleging Pope Francis and other senior clerics knew of US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual misconduct for years and did nothing about it.

He called for the Pope to resign, saying Francis was a "false prophet" and a "servant of Satan."

Summoned to the Vatican

The Vatican rejected the 83-yer old Viganò's accusations of a Vatican cover-up of sexual misconduct. It summoned him to answer charges of schism and of denying the pope's legitimacy.

On Friday, the Vatican doctrinal office said Viganò's public comments showed he refused "to recognise and submit" to the Pope.

Viganò had also rejected the Second Vatican Council's liberal reforms. They were not legitimate, he claimed.

"At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Vigano was found guilty of the reserved delict (violation of the law) of schism" the Vatican said in a statement.

He has been excommunicated from the Church the Vatican announced.

Unrepentant Viganò

In a message on X, Viganò remained unrepentant, publishing the full text of the decision against him, which warned that he could be expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood if he persisted in his stance.

He urged Catholic faithful to voice their support for him, quoting Jesus in the New Testament: "If they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start shouting".

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, head of the Doctrine of the Faith office, and its secretary Father John Joseph Kennedy, signed the Vatican ruling.

Although - as is usual in such cases - the Pope did not sign the announcement, it is said to be "highly unlikely that the punishment was meted out without his approval.

Attacking the pope

Viganò, who mostly communicates via the X social network, announced last month that he had refused to take part in the Vatican disciplinary proceedings.

"I do not recognise the authority of the tribunal that claims to judge me, nor of its Prefect, nor of the one who appointed him," he said, referring to Fernandez and Francis.

Viganò referred to Francis only by his surname "Bergoglio" and accused him of representing an "inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable and gay-friendly" Church.

The Church has strayed from its true message, he wrote.

Francis has angered many conservatives with his attitude to divorcees and the LGBT community. Mercy and forgiveness should come before the strict enforcement of Catholic doctrine, he says.

Conservatives and traditionalists are also disturbed by Francis' championing of migrant rights, fighting climate change and condemning capitalism's excesses.

Source

• NBC

Italian Archbishop Carlo María Viganò is also undergoing a Vatican extrajudicial process for schism.

Just what are schism and excommunication in the Catholic Church? An explanation follows.

Schism

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, schism is:

"the rupture of ecclesiastical union and unity, i.e. either the act by which one of the faithful severs as far as in him lies the ties which bind him to the social organization of the Church and make him a member of the mystical body of Christ, or the state of dissociation or separation which is the result of that act."

Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law states that schism is "the refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."

Canon 1364 stipulates that the penalty for this crime is excommunication "latae sententiae," i.e., automatically upon the commission of the offense.

Excommunication

Briefly, excommunication can be defined as the most serious penalty a baptized person can incur.

It consists of being placed outside the communion of the faithful of the Catholic Church and denied access to the sacraments.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states that excommunication is "a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society."

"Being a penalty, it supposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Church can inflict, it naturally supposes a very grave offense.

The encyclopedia also explains "It is also a medicinal rather than a vindictive penalty, being intended not so much to punish the culprit as to correct him and bring him back to the path of righteousness,".

Why is a person excommunicated? Read more

• Walter Sánchez Silva is a senior writer for ACI Prensa

This could lead to his excommunication and removal from the clerical state.

On 20th May, senior officers of the Vatican's Dicastery opened an extrajudicial penal trial against Viganó.

The decree states that this process was deemed appropriate without prior investigation, as the evidence was already collected and publicly available.

Archbishop Viganó, a former nuncio to the United States, is accused of making public statements that deny elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church.

The statements include rejecting the legitimacy of Pope Francis, breaking communion with him and rejecting the Second Vatican Council. Such actions are defined as schism under Canon 1364 of the Code of Canon Law. This mandates automatic excommunication for such offences.

The trial is set to follow Canon 1364, which also allows for additional penalties if the gravity of the offence warrants them, including dismissal from the clerical state.

If Viganó is convicted, the penalties will require papal confirmation.

Pope's leadership a "cancer"

Archbishop Viganó was summoned to the Vatican to respond to the charges and presented himself on 20th June. He submitted a written defence, later published on a supporter's blog, describing the charges as an "honour".

In the letter, he referred to Pope Francis by his given name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Viganó also referred to his leadership as a "cancer" within the Church.

"It is no coincidence that the accusation against me concerns the questioning of the legitimacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the rejection of Vatican II: the Council represents the ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer of which the Bergoglian ‘synodal church' is necessary metastasis" the archbishop wrote.

Vigano considers himself as a successor of the apostles and in full communion with the Church, however he rejects the "neo-modernist heresies of the Second Vatican Council".

A canon lawyer who reviewed Viganó's defence noted that his statements affirm the charges of schism, calling it a clear declaration of separation from the Church. This reinforces the prosecution's case.

The extrajudicial procedure is expected to conclude swiftly. If Viganó is found guilty, his excommunication will be publicly declared and remain in force until he repents. The penalties, including potential dismissal from the clerical state, would then await the Pope's confirmation.

According to Vatican News, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on Thursday in reaction to the news: "Archbishop Viganò has taken some attitudes and some actions for which he must answer."

Parolin added: "I am very sorry because I always appreciated him as a great worker, very faithful to the Holy See, someone who was, in a certain sense, also an example.

"When he was apostolic nuncio he did good work."

Sources

America Magazine

The Pillar

AP News

Catholic News Agency

CathNews New Zealand

In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Fernández (pictured) acknowledged that while the core doctrine remains unchanged and the Gospel is immutable, the Church continually seeks to expand its comprehension of these profound truths.

Fernández, a 61-year-old Argentine theologian, cautioned against bishops who claim a "special gift of the Holy Spirit to judge the doctrine of the Holy Father," noting that such a path could lead to "heresy" and "schism."

"Remember that heretics always think they know the true doctrine of the Church," Fernández said.

In a letter accompanying Fernández's appointment, the Pope emphasised the importance of "guarding the faith" and expressed the hope that the dicastery would focus on this essential mission.

Fernández echoed the Pope's sentiment in his interview. "I believe that this dicastery can be a space that can welcome these debates and frame them in the secure doctrine of the Church, thus avoiding for the faithful some of the more aggressive, confusing and even scandalous media debates," he said.

Tension between Vatican and theologians

Martin Lintner, OSM, a Servite priest and theologian teaching at the Philosophical-Theological College of Brixen/Bressanone, Italy, is hopeful the appointment of Fernández brings a shift in the Vatican's approach to theologians and their roles within the Church.

Lintner has been denied approval by the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to become the college's next dean. This decision comes after six months of waiting and a visit by Bishop Ivo Muser, who initiated the approval process.

The denial has brought to light the ongoing tension between the Vatican and theologians regarding theological positions and teaching roles.

Writing on the Lintner case, theologian Massimo Faggioli noted: "The relationship between [theologians] and the institutional Church has seen some changes since Francis's election. For one thing, there's been an obvious truce following the John Paul II and Benedict XVI eras. Yet it seems that theology has been more responsive to the pope's impulses than the Curia has."

Part of the difficulty in analysing Father Lintner's case is that, like other theologians who have been denied Vatican approval, no reason has been given for the decision.

Lintner described the appointment of Fernández as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith as "a sign of hope," because Fernández himself was once denied a nihil obstat, literally, "nothing obstructs."

"His bishop at the time, now Pope Francis, stood up for him and in this way obtained approval from the Vatican Curia. So he knows from his experience what it's all about."

Sources

Catholic News Agency

America Magazine

National Catholic Register

The Eastern-rite Church in the southern Indian Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese is refusing to say the synod-approved Mass. The refusal is in open defiance of a pontifical delegate's directives.

The liturgy row

The archdiocese's priests and the laity want celebrants to face the congregation throughout the Mass. This has been their tradition since 1970.

They refuse to accept a liturgy which the Church's Synod of Bishops approved. In this, the priests must face the altar during the Eucharistic prayer.

After hearing Vasil's directive, only six of the 328 parishes in the archdiocese celebrated Mass in the synod-approved uniform mode.

In seven parishes, people stopped the priests from complying with the delegate's order.

An overwhelming majority of priests and parishes stuck to their traditional Mass, in which celebrants faced the congregation.

The delegate

Archbishop Cyril Vasil - the delegate appointed to settle the decades-old liturgy row amicably - has now returned to Rome.

Dissidents say he didn't follow his original mandate and his disciplinary actions have reportedly worsened the situation.

He threatened priests with excommunication if they failed to comply with his ultimatum - where he ordered all the archdiocese's priests to offer the Synod-approved Mass from August 20.

He also sought to close parish churches if they faced protests against his order.

On August 22, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath - the archdiocese's apostolic administrator - removed four junior priests in the archdiocesan seminary for not offering the Synod-approved Mass.

What now?

"I think now we are on a path of never going back. The feeling is to become an independent Catholic Church ... independent of an oppressive system," a senior priest says.

"Now it is clear that the people and the priests in the archdiocese do not want the uniform mode of Mass which the Syro-Malabar Synod wants to force upon us" says Riju Kanjookaran.

He's a spokesperson for the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency, a forum of priests, religious and laity spearheading the protest.

Vasil arbitrarily issued the ultimatum to the priests without even discussing the basic issues that stop them from adopting the uniform mode of Mass, Kanjookaran says.

The dissident group has called for the priests who celebrated the uniform mode for Mass in place of the traditional Mass to vacate their churches immediately.

They say Thazhath is the "main villain" who aggravated the crisis in the archdiocese since his appointment as apostolic administrator on July 30, 2022. They had sought his removal in the past and even boycotted him.

Meanwhile, back in Rome

Vasil "will apprise the pope and the prefect of the oriental congregations of his assessments about the difficulties in implementing the Syro-Malabar Synod-approved uniform mode of Mass in the archdiocese," an official statement from the Syro-Malabar Church says.

He will continue "as pontifical delegate" and will come again as part of his mission.

"Appropriate mechanisms have been put in place in the archdiocese to carry out further action," the statement added.

Source

• UCA News
• UCA News

Some bishops are using social media to inflame "a uniquely toxic situation", author and theologian Dr Dawn Eden Goldstein (pictured) says.

Speaking to the Tablet about "The Church and polarisation: where does this leave Catholics in the United States?" Goldstein had this to say:

"Polarisation in the United States is seen largely where people try to make the Church coterminous with a particular political party - ‘if you are a real Catholic, you are going to be a member of a specific party'. That is especially bad where you have got a two-party system."

Of those Catholics "biding time until the next pope", Goldstein said "We have to call out schism wherever it comes from."

Divisive bishops

"When a bishop is using social media to be divisive, then we really have a problem," Goldstein said.

"Rome is still not really aware of the toxic effects that a bishop can have rallying people on social media and doing the same sort of things that Donald Trump tried to do to polarise people."

Catholics involved in conservative think tanks can be locked into "a persistent hermeneutic of suspicion" against Pope Francis, she said.

They think he is a liberal Pope, she claims. This means they think they are free to disregard anything he says which is not infallible.

"It is not Catholic to simply assume that as long as the Pope is not speaking infallibly, I can ignore it. That's the schism that we are all dealing with right now and we need to pray for unity."

Asked if she thinks the synodal journey can heal this polarisation, she said she has noted "a significant amount of apathy" among the US bishops towards the Synod on Synodality.

"I think the Synod can help by making bishops aware of the extent to which the faithful are affected by polarisation," she said.

"Maybe if bishops get a better understanding of these problems that are harming the faithful, particularly in the social media ecosphere, they could be more sensitive about things that inflame divisions."

Media role

Author and commentator Gloria Purvis said Catholic media is obliged to communicate the truth and point people towards Catholic values.

She spoke about her role as a presenter of an EWTN radio show which is now closed down.

She believes her efforts to raise the issue of racism as a life issue was unpopular with "self-described devout Catholics who are typical of EWTN's audience".

These people have "an anaemic view of human dignity" and the Church's teaching on racial justice.

"I did get a lot of racist hate mail when I was at EWTN on Morning Glory when I tried to bring up the issue of racism," she said.

"I was really well known for talking about defence of life in the womb and authentic women's rights from a Catholic perspective.

"For some reason people assumed that meant only a particular thing ... when I stepped outside of their preconceived notions and was just as vigorous a defender of a person's human dignity in the area of race, I think it was seen as a betrayal by some people."

Purvis said the EWTN affiliate Guadalupe Radio claimed her show was contentious and dropped it. At the end of the year the show was not renewed.

• The Tablet

The priests and laity are demanding a liturgy variant status to their traditional Eastern rite Syro-Malaba Mass.

Regardless of the outcome, they'll do what they think is right, even if it means splitting with the body of the Church, they say.

The latest round of protests - which have been ongoing for several years - have seen the priests and laity blockading the Vatican-appointed administrator Archbishop Andrews Thazhath's house.

He has put himself in the firing line with his diocese by ordering a parish priest to follow the approved format when celebrating the Eucharist.

Around 100 members from different parishes in the archdiocese have called on the parish priest and the rector asking them to ignore Thazhath (pictured).

Both the priest and rector reportedly accepted the laity's request and pledged their full support in their struggle.

The laity later announced the Vatican administrator will not be allowed to enter any Church institution until he withdraws the order.

"When more than 99 percent of priests and faithful are in favour of the traditional Mass, why is it not accepted?" said a priest who did not want to be named.

The priest also hinted that in case the administrator tried to have his way or initiate action against the parish priest and the rector, it may lead to the archdiocese "going its own way".

The nearly five-decade-old row over the way the Mass is celebrated revived last year after the synod of bishops of the Syro-Malabar Church issued a diktat that all its 35 dioceses should celebrate the Mass in a uniform way.

There was initial resistance in other dioceses, but they began following the synod-approved Mass last November.

The resistance continued and took a turn for the worse in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese.

It is India's second-largest Catholic diocese.

The archdiocese is home to around 10 percent of the Syro-Malabar Church's five million Catholics.

"We will not call off our battle until our demand is met," the convener of the Archdiocesan Protection Committee says.

The Committee claims that around 500,000 faithful and 460 priests in the archdiocese support him.

These priests and laity accuse Thazhath of playing "dirty politics" and "misleading the Vatican".

Many Catholics are concerned as Thazhath, besides being the archbishop of neighbouring Trichur, is also the newly elected president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.

He wants the Vatican to step in immediately and settle the dispute, hinting a schism could follow if the dispute continued.

"If the protest movement is allowed to continue for long, there is a possibility the archdiocese might declare itself as an independent Church," said a Christian leader who did not want to be named.

Source

• UCA News

Members of the Synodal Way, a group made up of equal numbers of German bishops and lay Catholics, meet regularly. In February, they called on the Catholic Church to allow priests to marry, women to become deacons, and same-sex couples to receive the Church's blessing.

The Holy See made clear that it views the Synodal Way's calls for addressing homosexuality, celibacy and women in the Church as divisive and warned those calls could cause a schism.

In a statement published on 21 July, the Holy See warned that any attempts at imposing new doctrines through the German Synodal Way "would represent a wound to the ecclesial union and a threat to the unity of the church.

"It will not be permitted to initiate new structures or official doctrines in the dioceses before an agreement has been reached at the level of the universal Church," said an unsigned "Statement of the Holy See."

The statement warned German reformers they had no authority to instruct bishops on moral or doctrinal matters.

It is the second time the Holy See has weighed in publicly to rein in German progressives who initiated a reform process with lay Catholics responding to clergy sexual abuse scandals.

Francis wrote a letter to the German church in 2019, offering support for the process, but warned church leaders against falling into the temptation of change for the sake of adaptation to particular groups or ideas.

The "Synodal Path" has sparked fierce resistance inside Germany and beyond, primarily from conservatives opposed to opening any debate on issues such as priestly celibacy, women's role in the church, and homosexuality.

Preliminary assemblies have already approved calls to allow blessings for same-sex couples, married priests and the ordination of women as deacons. One has also called for church labour law to be revised so gay employees don't risk being fired.

Dozens of bishops from around the world warned earlier this year that the proposed German Catholic Church reforms, if approved at the final stage, could lead to schism.

The next assembly of the "Synodal Way" is scheduled for 8-10 September.

Sources

Religion News Service

La Croix International

Deutsche Welle

The Sydney diocese, which opposes same-sex marriage blessings, has indicated to the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia (ACANZP) that organised religion in New Zealand is over.

The schism between the NZ Anglican faithful concerns what Anglican clergy may and may not do in relation to same-sex marriages. Some say the clergy can bless same-sex marriages - while others say Anglican clergy can officiate at such marriages.

Geoff Troughton, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Victoria University, says these fine distinctions matter within the Church.

"It's a balancing act. A same-sex marriage might be conducted legally by the state, and the Church won't conduct that rite. But it might then say you've contracted that legal marriage, and we're prepared to recognise and bless it."

Blessings give marriages religious legitimacy; religious legitimacy confers support and power.

"When [the Church] said they could bless same-sex marriages, it meant these marriages were fit and proper relationships," says emeritus professor Peter Lineham.

"It therefore became possible to ordain gay clergy."

Same-sex blessings will significantly change the Church's treatment of takatapui (LGBTQ+) communities.

The evolution for Anglicanism, and Christianity more generally is important. From being New Zealand's biggest religion, the number of self-identified Anglicans has almost halved since 2006 to just 315,000.

A former lay preacher in the Church says of his departure: "I haven't returned to religion since [I came out]. I've found a position in my own mind about… spirituality, Christianity and faith and works."

Facing similar declines, other Christian denominations are watching the struggles in Anglicanism.

Disputes over same-sex blessings have roiled Anglicanism for years. Senior Anglicans, who gather every decade at London's Lambeth Palace, prohibited "the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions," in 1998.

Liberal Anglicans rebelled. After the American Episcopal Church ordained a bishop in a same-sex relationship in 2003, same-sex blessings became increasingly common in North America.

Schism was not inevitable. Same-sex marriage was hotly debated in Aotearoa in 2016, with the dioceses of Nelson and Christchurch threatening schism in response to the proposals. Compromises and consultation soothed the fractiousness at that time.

It was against this background that ACANZP met in 2018 for General Synod. At this a large majority passed a rule-change to allow bishops to permit the blessing of same-sex marriages.

Few congregations were unanimous in their response to the rule change.

Churches which broke away often left substantial minorities of parishioners; churches which remained, particularly at the schism's epicentre in Christchurch, faced exoduses.

In both cases, Anglican vicar Jay Behan says "people are walking away from buildings where they were married, where they baptised their children, or where they held funerals for loved ones."

According to Archbishop Phillip Richardson of ACANZP, "[Those who left] were all people that I really love. And at a personal level, it hurt like hell."

Source

• Stuff
• Image: Stuff

So says Father Sylvain Brison, ecclesiologist, assistant professor at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic Institute of Paris.

Brison unpacks the pope's comments about schism in the Church with Anne-Bénédicte Hoffner.

Are we schismatic when we criticize the pope or when one writes to the pope about having doubts, as four cardinals did after the Synod on the Family?

In his press conference given on the plane back from Madagascar, the pope clearly reminds us that schism is an attack on the unity of God's people, not only on their hierarchy.

One can criticize the pope and his actions: there is no single thought in the Church. Whoever says that the pope is "communist" is not strictly speaking about a schism. This includes those cardinals who have expressed their doubts to the pope, as long as they remain with him in an open dialogue.

Communion does not mean "uniformity." As Christians, we have different ways of seeking to live the Gospel, with different charisms and gifts. Rather, communion would be a way of living our differences harmoniously.

What is a schism in Catholic theology?

The schism is a rupture of communion with the Church. This definition is both the simplest and most traditional.

The fathers of the Church, who were confronted with this problem very early on, were particularly sensitive to the ruptures of communion in the content of faith.

In their time, every schism was a heresy and every heresy was a schism. This is because the unity of the Church is based on the unity of faith and not the unity of practice. Catholics all believe the same thing but they do not all practice the same way everywhere.

So when does communion break down?

In the history of the Church, the great schisms have been ruptures of communion on questions of faith: on the Trinity, on the human and divine nature of Christ.

A schism can concern the nature of the Church, as soon as the conflict touches the deposit of faith.

Followers of [Archbishop Marcel] Lefebvre, for example, have created a schism by refusing to recognize the Second Vatican Council's doctrinal authority and the pope's authority over the appointment of bishops.

This was demonstrated in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated bishops without a papal mandate.

When are criticisms dangerous for the Church?

The problem arises when they undermine the unity of God's people and therefore of faith.

In other words, continuously and repeatedly questioning the pope's authority and accusing him of heresy can lead to a schism. Basically, and as the pope says, the problem is not so much criticism as the attitude behind it: is it about building unity or dividing?

Today, there are undoubtedly doctrinal, disciplinary and ideological differences between the pope and certain Catholic currents — American, German and others.

These differences are normal and we do not consider that there is a schism as soon as a group enters into resistance against the pope — otherwise there would have been many in the history of the Church! What is no longer normal is when these differences conflict to the point of threatening the unity in a front-on rejection.

Can there be 'silent' schisms, as the pope implied?

Some people marginalize themselves from the communion of the Church because they no longer recognize themselves in a certain form of expression of faith.

It is not an organized action against unity but, at the same time, it is an attack on communion in the Church.

The duty of the pope and also of every Christian is to preserve the unity of the faith, whatever the cost, because we believe that there is no salvation outside the communion of the Church.

A schism is therefore always a failure, on both sides.

• Anne-Bénédicte Hoffner unpacks the pope's comments about schism with French Theologian Fr Sylvain Brison. She writes in La Croix International.
• Image: Amazon.fr

Pope Francis shares this view.

In the United States, the pope may be known as a sharp critic of President Trump, but he has also been vocal about the trends that have led to populist backlashes in the Americas and in Europe.

In 2014, for instance, Francis said: "Europe is tired. We have to help rejuvenate it, to find its roots. It's true: It has disowned its roots."

Even for some non-Christians, Christianity offers a grounding for European culture that has become dangerously depleted.

The famously secular German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has admitted that the West, especially liberal democracy, depends upon Christians as a creative minority for key values of conscience and human rights.

Mr. Habermas argues: "To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

But a bastardized form of Christianity cannot provide this nourishment and may, in fact, hasten Europe's decline.

This is the risk posed by Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to the Trump administration, who has embarked on his own project to rejuvenate Europe.

The politics he offers has only a veneer of Christianity, intended to justify his political aims. And his notion of Europe is perhaps just as shallow, ignoring the profound spiritual and intellectual challenges that predate the continent's latest demographic changes.

Inclusion and civility are often dismissed as pieties of procedural liberalism. But ut unum sint ("that they may be one") is the message of Christianity.

A politics that divides is not good politics. And it is not good for Chrisitanity.

Bannon's ‘Gladiator School' Takes Shape

Mr. Bannon has caused a stir with his plans to found near Rome what he calls the Academy for the Judeo-Christian West.

The imagination has run wild as many speculate about a "gladiator school" for neopopulist ideologues, even after the Italian government blocked plans to site the school at an ancient Carthusian monastery.

The political strategist is not starting from scratch.

He is building upon the work of the English political activist Benjamin Harnwell, who founded and runs the Dignitatis Humanae Institute.

Mr. Harnwell has advocated for Christian politics for several years in the European Parliament, including drafting a "Universal Declaration of Human Dignity."

The D.H.I. presents the imago Dei as the center of Christian politics and has promoted it by organizing members of the European Parliament and now by founding a school. (It is unclear how the academy would relate to "The Movement," Mr. Bannon's umbrella organization in Brussels for Euro-skeptic parties in the European Parliament.) Continue reading

Bill McCormick is a Jesuit priest, political scientist and regent at Saint Louis University.

There have been many schisms in the Church's 2,000-year history, he noted.

Although he said he is "not afraid of schisms," Francis added that he prays there won't be any as the "spiritual health of many people is at stake."

He said is concerned about the "rigid" ideology that has already infiltrated the American church, which his critics use to mask their own moral failings.

Led by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who stepped up attacks on the pope after Francis demoted him from a senior Vatican post, the conservative movement is growing.

Some conservative political movements in the United States have joined forces with religious conservatives to attack the pope.

Implying his critics are hypocrites, Francis confronted doctrinal issues raised in the U.S. and beyond by those who oppose his outreach to gay and divorced people and his concern for the poor and the environment.

"When you see Christians, bishops, priests, who are rigid, behind that there are problems and an unhealthy way of looking at the Gospel," Francis said.

"So I think we have to be gentle with people who are tempted by these attacks because they are going through problems. We have to accompany them with tenderness," he said.

Even though he is rejecting the conservatives' stance, he said he welcomes "loyal" criticism that leads to introspection and dialogue.

Such "constructive" criticism shows a love for the church. In contrast, his ideologically driven critics don't really want a response but merely to "throw stones and then hide their hand."

"Let there be dialogue, correction if there is some error. But the path of the schismatic is not Christian," he added.

Francis' allies, including German Cardinal Walter Kaper and the head of Francis' Jesuit order, have said the conservative criticism amounts to a "plot" to force the first Jesuit pope to resign so a conservative would take his place.

Asked about the criticism and risk of schism, Francis said his social teachings were identical to those of St. John Paul II, the standard-bearer for many conservative Catholics.

In a tweet posted yesterday, Rome correspondent Christopher Lamb says next month Burke will speak at a summit which includes a $500 per head priests' conference and seminarians-only event.

The tweet continues: "Francis says 'A schisms is always an elitist separation'".

Source

• Reuters
• Washington Times
• Image: Catholic World Report

Last week, a friend called my attention to a website called "Faithful Shepherds" that was launched a year ago by LifeSiteNews.

They state that their purpose is to provide a "one-stop database" about where Catholic bishops stand on certain issues and to "encourage bishops to be faithful to Christ."

The website considers a range of issue, including homosexuality and liturgy: "Does your bishop encourage Communion on the tongue while kneeling?" is one of the questions posed.

I was glad to see that they properly labeled one category "abortion politics," although they failed to see that certainty about politics is different from certainty about morality.

The weirdest item on the list is Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's testimony about which they ask "Has the bishop supported an investigation into Viganò's claims?

Does the bishop say his allegations are driven by ideology or are an attack on Pope Franics [sic]? Has the bishop said Viganò is a man of integrity?"

It is odd, is it not, that fidelity to Viganò has become such a calling card among these schismatics.

His screeds are so obviously a combination of score settling, innuendo and simple smearing — if you knew nothing about Viganò and nothing about the people he names and only read the texts as they are, you would be suspicious of the author.

When you find out where your bishop stands on these issues, you can click on a button to send him a postcard, thanking him for supporting the positions LifeSiteNews endorses or asking him to abandon his wayward ways.

First, you are invited to make a donation of $5 or more, and then alerted that your credit card will be charged $2 for the postcard.

You can also "do-it-yourself," as they provide an email address and phone number for each prelate as well.

"For too long, lay Catholics have been without an authoritative accountability tool for U.S. bishops, especially those who deviate from the Church's magisterium," they write.

Seeing as Francis is now the embodiment of the church's magisterium, the fact that they applaud bishops who have criticized Amoris Laetitia and denounce those who have supported it is a bit rich.

Last week, Cardinal Blase Cupich was their featured prelate.

I won't bore you with the bizarre way they frame different items on their list of complaints.

Many are tendentious in the extreme.

Others are true, but in this funhouse of extremism, what is sane is presented as heretical and what is a commonplace is considered an outrage.

I do not believe that any bishop, not even the bishop of Rome, is beyond criticism.

But what makes this Faithful Shepherds website so nefarious, and indeed what makes LifeSiteNews and other conservative outlets so nefarious these days, is that fidelity is defined as being in opposition to the pope.

They do not cite a single instance in which agreement with the pope is a mark of fidelity.

Silly me. All these years, I thought being in communion with the successor of Peter was a significant mark of Roman Catholicism. Continue reading

• Image: LifeSite

"They are devout in the sense that they publicly display their preference for a traditionalist Church and its devotions, such as the rosary.

"They are schismatics because they openly promote the undermining of the bishop of Rome among the Catholic faithful," Massimo Faggioli wrote in a La Croix magazine essay.

The Church's canon law defines schism as "the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."

Faggioli said the "schismatic instincts" of those bishops were manifest last August when they "sided with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to Washington who called on Francis to resign."

Last August Viganò published a "testimony," which accused Francis of ignoring warnings about former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and his sexual deviancy. He claimed Francis not only ignored the warnings about McCarrick, but also promoted him within the Vatican.

Strickland immediately issued a statement calling Viganò's allegations "credible," and Cordileone said he could confirm that some of Viganò's statements were true.

Chaput did not endorse Viganò's allegations. A spokesman said Chaput could not comment "on Archbishop Viganò's recent testimonial as it is beyond his personal experience."

Shortly after Francis was elected in 2013, Chaput said the election had made him "extraordinarily happy, because quite honestly, he is the man I was hoping would be Pope eight years ago."

In 2015 Chaput hosted Francis for the World Meeting of Families.

Reflecting on the meeting in 2018, Chaput said "[Pope Francis] has repeatedly challenged us to bear witness to Christ through concrete action—by serving the poor, by helping immigrants, by preserving families, and by protecting the sanctity of life.

"It's the kind of challenge we can and should answer with a hearty yes each day,".

In his essay criticising "devout schismatics," Faggioli said "Catholicism was exposed to ideological manipulation by those who do not really care for the Gospel, but who are more interested in a particular conservative political culture."

Chaput has frequently emphasised his unwillingness to align with a political party and criticises partisanship within the Church.

In 2016 he criticised Catholics, especially politicians, who accept "the transfer of our real loyalties and convictions from the old Church of our baptism to the new ‘Church' of our ambitions and appetites,' to achieve political or personal goals."

Sourxe

• Catholic Herald
• National Catholic ReporterImage:
• Image:

America's third-largest religious denomination is likely break apart over its members' inability to reconcile differing opinions on whether to affirm LGBTQ Christians.

Delegates to the church's General Conference ended a three-day meeting on Tuesday by strengthening the enforcement of existing church doctrine.

This prohibits same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay clergy.

The vote for what members call the "Traditional Plan" is likely to cause the schism.

The plan was approved on Tuesday by a vote of 438 to 384, with 53 percent of delegates voting in favour of enforcing existing church doctrine.

A last-moment attempt to pass an alternate proposal, known as the One Church Plan, failed.

That plan, recommended by the denomination's Council of Bishops, would have allowed individual churches and regional annual conferences to decide whether to ordain and marry LGBTQ members.

The denomination's Legislative Committee, made up of all 864 General Conference delegates, rejected the One Church Plan on Monday. Delegates also rejected a proposal on Tuesday to replace the Traditional Plan with the One Church Plan.

Earlier in the day, the United Methodists' top court ruled that parts of the Traditional Plan were unconstitutional, requiring delegates to amend them.

Much of the discussion, as amendments were proposed and debated, argued the petitions that made up the plan singled out LGBTQ people.

Only one of those petitions was amended.

As the Traditional Plan passed with 53 percent of the vote, observers supporting the full inclusion of LGBTQ members in the church began to sing the hymn "Blessed Assurance." A number of delegates, some wearing rainbow-colored stoles, circled at the center of the conference floor.

Following the vote, a motion to appeal the vote on the Traditional Plan to the denomination's top court, the Judicial Council, passed. Petitions offering an exit plan to churches that want to leave the denomination also passed.

The Judicial Council will review the Traditional Plan at its next scheduled meeting in April.

Rev. Gary Graves, secretary of the General Conference, says any piece of legislation declared unconstitutional at that meeting will not be included in the Book of Discipline,

All other changes will take effect from 1 January 2020.

Source

• Huffington Post
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Church Leaders