SCHISM IS A PROCESS NOT A MOMENT

Schism is a process not a moment!

I think we need to keep that basic truth in mind as we survey the scene of growing divisions among the hierarchy of the Church in their responses to the wave of reform both in Catholic teaching and pastoral practice introduced under the Pontificate of Pope Francis.

I believe that there will not be one event or a single issue which will provoke a fractioning of the Church into diverse and often competing communities. 

Rather, the schism will occur after a slow but steady deterioration of unity among Bishops, Pastors and the faithful in matters pertaining to Catholic Faith and Morals.

I come to this conclusion after much reading and study of what the Protestant Reformation looked like at the time it was occurring.  

For example, when did those communities which broke away from Rome start to establish their own churches and liturgies?  What did the preaching of the time address and to what authority did that preaching refer for its authenticity?  What sectors of the Catholic population were more likely to separate from Rome?

I have concentrated especially on a particular period and sect:  the 16th Century Calvinists.  And looking at their experience, I suggest that it is uncannily similar to what we are seeing unfold within the Church today.

It appears that there was quite a bit of diversity among the "protesting" (nascent Protestant) communities of the 16th Century.  

Several conventions among the Calvinists started to diverge early on.  Scottish Calvinists parted very quickly from the liturgical practices of the Genevan Calvinists.  Each sect began to establish their own separate and distinct rules governing dress, both when in church as well as in daily life.  
Sometimes, Calvinists simply took over churches previously administered by the Catholic Church. Sometimes, they built new church buildings.

Worship practices diverged from former Catholic liturgy in language, gesture and action on the part of the minister and the people.  Public prayers were often spontaneous rather than ordered according to universal liturgical norms.

Services often consisted of someone being asked to read a particular passage from the Bible and then minister (elected by the individual congregation) would preach anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes.  The service would conclude with a hymn and a closing benediction.

But, while Calvinist sects may have differed greatly in articles of faith and liturgy among themselves, what held them together and identifiable was their resistance and hostility to anything that even remotely resembled any of the teachings and practices of the Roman Church.

For almost two centuries, these differences would ebb and flow among the various sects of Protestantism, at least until the ministry of John and Charles Wesley, when Protestantism took on its present day structure and appearance.

In many parts of Europe such as the German states or England, Protestantism was primarily supported by ruling elites who then imposed it on the general population. 

For example in the German states, Lutheranism was spread by its adoption by powerful princes. In England, the Reformation started with Henry VIII's conflict with the Church and was continued by his son Edward VI, or rather his powerful advisers.

These elites were early adopters of the Reformation largely in an attempt to limit the power of the Catholic Church over their secular affairs. 

This pattern was not universal however.

In the Low Countries, the Reformation spread from the bottom up. The ruling elites were closely allied to the Catholic Church. However, the Low Countries had a well educated, wealthy, and urban population who adopted Protestantism readily. Therefore Protestantism in the Low Countries was supported primarily by the middle class and opposed by the ruling elites.

The point I am making is this:  there was not one moment when differences within the Church reached a state of critical mass resulting in a catastrophic explosion of dissent and division.

The process was slow and methodical with bits and pieces of Catholic teaching and the hierarchical authority behind it being chipped away slowly but progressively by opposing views and relentless challenges to that authority.

Clergy and Religious began to preach and teach matters of faith and morals based upon their own interpretation of the Scriptures rather than reference to the magisterial authority of Rome and the Vatican.  

In time, the people themselves adopted the idea that they themselves could interpret the Scriptures authoritatively and apply them to their own moral situations and circumstances.  

Eventually and inevitably, these differences became so ingrained within these dissenting communities that formal fracture between the Church of Rome and these “protester” Christian communities had come to be firmly and irreparably established.

As I look out on the state of the Church today, I wonder:  are we not witnessing these divergences among Bishops, Pastors and laity today?  

Daily, it seems, there are published stories about this Bishop or that Bishop criticizing one another. One Conference of Bishops adopts a pastoral practice with regard to a matter of faith or morals which is completely contradictory to the practice of another Conference.  

A number of Cardinals publicly challenges the Supreme Apostolic authority of Pope Francis regarding the heterodoxy regarding the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist and Marriage he has introduced into the Church by way of Amoris Laetitia.

Some Bishops (Atlantic Canadians) allow the Sacraments to be administered to those who choose physician-assisted suicide.  Other Bishops (Alberta and Northwest Territory Canadians) prohibit such pastoral practices.  

A Bishop in Springfield, Illinois bans the Sacraments and Funerals for same-sex couples, while another Bishop (a Cardinal in Newark) welcomes all expressions of the LGBT lifestyle into his diocese and parishes.

Are not these expressions of dissent and divergence eerily similar to those which resulted in the establishment of Protestant denominations?

Schism is a process not a moment!

Are we not living out our lives during a similar process which, in decades, will witness the birth of yet another irremedial fracturing of the Catholic Faith?

I wonder.  

What thinkest you?