The "S" word

Three articles that take seriously the notion that this may be a moment of schism.

I've recently run across three articles, all in relatively respectable media outlets, that try to make the case that it's not out of the question that we may be at a schismatic moment.

1.  Michael Sean Winters, writing at NCR: "Has 'EWTN schism begun?":

 Bishops Joseph Strickland, Robert Morlino and Thomas Olmsted, and Archbishops Charles Chaput and Salvatore Cordileone all managed to mouth praise for the nuncio [Carlo Maria Vigano] and his integrity and honesty, without a word of consideration for Pope Francis. ...

Cordileone and the rest are, in a sense, already in schism. They live in what we can call the "EWTN bubble," in which a kind of conservative American ethical and political attitude is presented as orthodox Catholicism. Just as people who only watch Fox News live in a news silo, an alternate reality, in which, for example, Hillary Clinton was the candidate in cahoots with the Russians, people who watch EWTN are consistently presented with a version of Catholicism that is distorted. Over time, someone who watches EWTN and Fox will have their sense of the credible shift: What most of us would question as extreme, and therefore demanding some skepticism, becomes routine and regular. The guest commentators seek to outdo each other in getting everyone worked up. A tweet becomes proof. People who voice skepticism are dismissed as RINOs ("Republicans In Name Only") or "Catholic lite." Pretty soon, Donald Trump is the smartest president ever. Pope Francis dabbles in heresy. Such sentiments become believable.

2.  Massimo Faggioli, writing in La Croix (h/t Jim McCrea): "Flirting with schism":

It is too soon to say whether Viganò’s “testimony,” which unintentionally underscored serious problems with the way Benedict’s Curia dealt with charges of abuse, will end up forcing them to reconsider their uncritical allegiance to the pope emeritus. 

What is clear is that some have certainly tried in these past five-and-a-half years to use Benedict against Francis and to signal a different obedience, in an act of defiance against the bishop of Rome that would not have been tolerated in an earlier age. 

In any case, Winters is right that there are schismatic tendencies within the U.S. Catholic Church that you don’t see elsewhere—not even in China, where the problem is the existence of two episcopal hierarchies, not two different kinds of Catholicism. 

Today communion is in danger here in the United States. Five centuries ago, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, one of the most important theologians for Catholic ecclesiology, defined three bonds (vinculi) of communion with the Church: common profession of faith, communion in the sacraments, and bond to ecclesiastical authority, especially of the pope. (This definition was incorporated in paragraph 14 of Vatican II’s Lumen gentium.) 

Sacramental communion has been weakened by the liturgical split that followed Benedict XVI’s decision to reintroduce the pre-Vatican II Mass as an “extraordinary form” of the Roman rite. 

But what is really in danger is the bond between the church as a people and ecclesiastical authority—not just particular church officials, but the very idea of ecclesiastical authority.

3. Jonathan Last, writing in the Weekly Standard, provides a conservative take on the rifts in the church: "The Catholic Church Is Breaking Apart.  Here's Why.":

The pontificate of Francis can, perhaps, best be understood as a political project. His election at the conclave in 2013 was—unbeknownst to the world at the time—the result of a campaign planned out in advance by four radical cardinals who saw then-cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the perfect vehicle for the revolution they wanted to launch within the church. (The story of how Cardinals Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Walter Kasper, Godfried Danneels, and Karl Lehmann formed “Team Bergoglio” is detailed in Austen Ivereigh’s worshipful biography of Francis, and even though the cardinals subsequently denied the account, their protestations are supremely unconvincing.) As the Catholic News Agency reported at the time, this politicking wasn’t simply a matter of bad taste: The apostolic constitution, Universi Dominici gregis, expressly prohibits cardinals from forming pacts, agreements, promises, or commitments of any kind. Oh well.

During his time on Peter’s throne, Francis has worked to dismantle many orthodox positions in an attempt to radically reorient the church toward—by total coincidence—the long-held preferences of those four radical cardinals. For instance: He has criticized Catholics for being “obsessed” with abortion, gay marriage, and contraception. He has derided Catholic women for having too many children and behaving “like rabbits.” He sent a papal blessing to the lesbian author of the Italian version of Heather Has Two Mommies—a tract for children extolling the virtues of same-sex parenting.
All of this is in addition to his bizarre insistence that “never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake” and that the benefits of free-market growth have “never been confirmed by the facts.” (In case people didn’t get the message, Francis posed for pictures with a crucifix made of a hammer and a sickle.) Yet as bad as free market capitalism is, the pope insists “the most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old.” Which is a . . . curious view of our fallen world.

The most outré of the pope’s initiatives, however, have been his efforts to dismantle the restrictions on admittance of divorced and remarried Catholics to communion. For this, Francis convened a synod, attempted to ram through a change to Catholic teaching, and, when that failed, proclaimed via an apostolic exhortation that priests were free to use their discretion on the matter.

There are many things I could say in reply to each of these authors, but let me just note that what all of them are highlighting from their respective positions is that there are serious divisions running across the Catholic Church, even though the rift lines aren't always visible from our seats in the pews of our local parishes.

NewGathering readers are aware that there has been division in the church for many years.  The divisions were visible in the Synod on the Family.  Going back farther into church history, they were visible in the wake of Humanae Vitae, and during the Second Vatican Council.  Probably these divisions are a permanent feature of the church, just as it is for any large and complex social organization. 

It may be worth noting that these examples of visible division - Vatican II, Humanae Vitae, the Synod on the Family - all occurred during the pontificates of relatively liberal popes.  It seems that when liberal popes attempt to advance agendas of reform, the ensuing conflict causes the fault lines to stand out in sharp relief. 

But the abuse crisis isn't one that falls along the usual ideological fault lines.  Both liberal and conservative clerics have abused, and both liberal and conservative church officials have covered up abuse.   Abuse knows no ideology.  Benedict, who is perceived as a conservative, has taken a hit to his reputation as a result of the McCarrick revelations and the Vigano letter.  So have various allies and close advisers to Francis, who are generally perceived as liberals. 

What we are witnessing now are combatants who are attempting to leverage this occasion in which the church's abusive past has come to public notice to further their ideological battle. Thus, anti-gay forces in the church (certainly including Vigano) are exploiting the McCarrick revelations to push their particular agenda about gay priests and church officials.  And anti-Francis forces are using the occasion to attack Francis.  All three of the articles I've referenced in this post strike me as attempts to do this: exploit the current crisis to pursue their ideological goals.

In my view, what has really opened Pandora's box is the Vigano letter.  The former nuncio's extraordinarily undiplomatic act of insubordination/disloyalty/resistance/grievance has unleashed chaos, the ripple effects of which are still spreading outward.  It now seems clear that Vigano's letter is an interweaving of truth, falsehood and personal malice - especially malice toward Francis.  For practical purposes, a proxy civil war has commenced in the wake of the letter's release, with Francis defenders in the media like Winters and Faggioli trying to establish the narrative that Vigano's letter already has been discredited - a narrative that is, at best, only partially correct - while Francis critics like Last, Edward Pentin and Rod Dreher are using the Vigano letter as a cudgel to pound on their ideological adversaries like McCarrick and Wuerl among the bishops and church officials.  Among the parties whose reputations already have been injured (contrary to Vigano's intention?) by what the letter has unleashed are Pope Emeritus Benedict and St. John Paul II.  Meanwhile, Francis and other Holy See officials who presumably could speak up and eviscerate Vigano's claims are staying resolutely silent, essentially stonewalling journalists who are trying to determine whether anything Vigano wrote is true about Francis and the other church officials named in the letter.

Yet most Catholics neither know nor care much about the ideological splits in the church.  They don't belong to the church for political reasons, and church politics doesn't interest them.  It is not the church itself that is divided, it is the church leadership and their friends in the media that are fighting incessantly.  I believe that what Catholics in the pews want is not one side or the other in this internecine conflict to prevail; what they really want is for abusers and their enablers to be identified, charged, punished and fired.  It's an utterly understandable point of view, and one that shouldn't be very hard to enact - if church leaders are willing to be unified and focus on those tasks.  Divisions among church leaders may be as much an obstacle as clericalism and incompetence in addressing the abuse issues.