[Catholic Caucus] Who is really in schism with the Catholic Church today?

LifeSite News ^ | November 30, 2023 | Matthew McCusker

[ebb tide]

[Catholic Caucus] Who is really in schism with the Catholic Church today?

This is the fifth part of our series on membership of the Church. It examines who the members of the Church are, and who they are not. Part I can be read here; Part II can be read here; Part III can be read here; and Part IV can be read here.

Introduction

The crisis engulfing the Church today divides Catholics from each other.

Men and women who want to remain faithful to the teaching of Christ, and obedient to the hierarchy which He established, often find themselves perplexed at obligations that can seem mutually contradictory.

Many find themselves paralyzed when it comes to taking certain actions, or reaching certain conclusions – which otherwise commend themselves to their reason – out of fear of schism.

Mutual accusations of schism are commonplace among those who have adopted different solutions to problems that on the surface may seem intractable.

And often those accusing other of schism seem unaware of the precise meaning and implications of the term they so freely bandy around.

But what is schism really? And how does it separate us from the Catholic Church?

These are the questions which are explored in the fifth part of our series on membership of the Church.

Membership of the Church IV: Lawful obedience to the hierarchy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

The members of the Church 

Members of the Church are those who (i) have received the sacrament of baptism; (ii) publicly profess the Catholic faith and (iii) are subject to the lawful authority of the Church.

Public schism severs from the Church

The Catholic Church, subject to the threefold authority of Christ, enjoys a threefold unity: unity of worship, unity of faith and unity of government.

The “necessity of unity of government” follows from “the existence of the Church as a visible organized society.”^[1]

As a heretic separates himself from the Church by refusing submission to the teaching authority of the Church, so does the schismatic by his refusal of submission to the governing authority of the Church.

Schismatics “are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.”^[2]

There are forms of disobedience to legitimate authority which do not comprise rejection of the authority itself and one has no obligation to obey a superior whose right to the office is doubtful. Indeed, one who claims to exercise an office he does not possess, may himself be schismatic.

The Great Western Schism (1378-1417) when there were two, and at times three, claimants to the Roman Pontificate, illustrates the difference between the sin of schism and the effects of doubt regarding the identity of a superior. Many theologians consider that the adherents of the false claimants were neither formally nor materially schismatic as they fully intended to be submissive to the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff.

However, “it is certain, that a public, formal schismatic is not a member of the Church” and “it is the more common and more probable opinion that a public, material schismatic is not a member of the Church.”^[3]

Just as individuals can separate themselves from the Church by heresy or schism, so the Church can separate individuals from her visible body by her own authority through sentence of perfect excommunication.

Membership of the Church IV: Lawful obedience to the hierarchy

FULL TEXT

Summary of previous papers

What has been concluded in previous papers of this series, is taken for granted here.

In Part I, we concluded that the Catholic Church is a visible body whose members must be generally visible.

In Part II, we saw that authority is the formal element of unity in the Catholic Church and that all members must be submissive to the authority of Her Divine Head, Jesus Christ, who continues to direct her as Priest, Prophet and King. We saw that those who are submissive to this threefold authority, and are thus members of the Catholic Church, are those who:

1. Have received the sacrament of baptism
2. Publicly profess the Catholic faith
3. Are subject to the lawful authority of the Church

The following are therefore not members of the Church:

1. The non-baptized
2. Public heretics
3. Public schismatics or those subject to perfect excommunication.

In Part III and IV, we examined in more detail the obligations to receive baptism and to profess publicly the Catholic faith. In this paper we look more closely at the consequences of public schism.

Public schismatics are not members of the Church

The Catholic Church, subject to the threefold authority of Christ, enjoys a threefold unity: unity of worship, unity of faith and unity of government.

As Rev. Sylvester Hunter S.J. explained, the “necessity of unity of government” follows from “the existence of the Church as a visible organized society.”^[4]

He continued:

It follows from the nature of a society that there must be some government to direct the members to the end and if there is more than one supreme governor recognizing subjection to no one, there is more than one society: there is nothing to give unity to these governors.^[5]

The “form of government established by Christ in the Church is monarchical, the Roman Pontiff being the Monarch.”^[6]

As a heretic separates himself from the Church by refusing submission to the teaching authority of the Church, so does the schismatic by his refusal of submission to the governing authority of the Church.

This is the teaching of Pope Pius XII in his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis Christi:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed… As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered – so the Lord commands – as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit.^[7]

The Supreme Pontiff continued:

[N]ot every sin, however grave it may be, is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy.^[8]

St. Thomas Aquinas defined schism in the following manner:

[S]chismatics are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.

This must be so because:

[T]he unity of the Church consists in two things; namely, in the mutual connection or communion of the members of the Church, and again in the subordination of all the members of the Church to the one head… Now this Head is Christ Himself, Whose vice-regent in the Church is the Sovereign Pontiff.^[9]

The “sin of schism” asserts St. Thomas “is one that is directly and essentially opposed to unity.”^[10]

There are forms of disobedience to legitimate authority which do not comprise rejection of the authority itself. Hunter writes:

The sin of schism specially so called is committed by one who, being baptized, by a public and formal act renounces subjection to the governors of the Church; also by one who formally and publicly takes part in any public religious worship which is set up in rivalry of that of the Church. It is not an act of schism to refuse obedience to a law or precept of the Supreme Pontiff, or other ecclesiastical Superior, provided this refusal does not amount to a disclaimer of all subjection to him…^[11]

One has no obligation to obey a purported superior:

[I]f there be any doubt of his authority, as when two or more persons have plausible claims to the position.^[12]

In their commentary on the 1917 Code of Canon Law Wernz and Vidal explain this point with reference to the papacy:

[J]urisdiction is essentially a relation between a superior who has the right to obedience and a subject who has the duty of obeying. Now when one of the parties to this relationship is wanting, the other necessarily ceases to exist also, as is plain from the nature of the relationship. However, if a pope is truly and permanently doubtful, the duty of obedience cannot exist towards him on the part of any subject.

The same conclusion is confirmed on the basis of the visibility of the Church. For the visibility of the Church consists in the fact that she possesses such signs and identifying marks that, when moral diligence is used, she can be recognized and discerned, especially on the part of her legitimate officers.

But in the supposition we are considering, the pope cannot be found even after diligent examination. The conclusion is therefore correct that such a doubtful pope is not the proper head of the visible Church instituted by Christ.^[13]

However, one who claims to exercise an office he does not possess, may himself be a schismatic, as Hunter explains:

[F]ormal schism may be committed by one who claims to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction which has not been conferred upon him by proper authority.^[14]

The Great Western Schism, when there were two, and at times three, claimants to the Roman Pontificate, illustrates the difference between the sin of schism and the consequences of doubt regarding the identity of a superior. Rev. Joachim Salaverri explained as follows:

For, during those controversies, when all were trying to discover who in fact really was the legitimate successor of St. Peter so that all might give him the obedience due to him, there was no formal schism or one coming from an attitude of secession; in fact there was not even a material schism in the proper sense.^[15]

Further discussion of this “schism” will shed some light on the situation in which the Church finds herself today, when members of the Church – that is the baptized, who publicly profess the Catholic faith and are submissive to legitimate authority (where it can be identified) – are often divided from each other, even with mutual recriminations and accusations of schism.

The so-called schism lasted from 1378 until 1417, and throughout that time the Church was “divided” between obedience to two competing papal claimants, based in Rome and Avignon respectively. From 1409 there was also a third claimant.

This crisis raises important questions about the unity of the Church’s government, which – as we have already seen in Part I – can never be lost.

Theologians have, broadly speaking, proposed three solutions to this problem:

1. The adherents of the false claimants were formal schismatics and were thus separated from the unity of the Church.
2. The adherents of the false claimants were materially schismatic but not formally schismatic, and – according to these theologians – material schism did not suffice to separate them from the unity of the Church.
3. The adherents of the false claimants were neither formally nor materially schismatic as they fully intended to be submissive to the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. They were however factually mistaken as to which of the claimants was truly pope. Thus, they were not separated from the unity of the Church.   

Of these theories the third is perhaps the most convincing.

As Salaverri writes (emphasis in original):

The so-called Western Schism cannot be said to be a formal and proper schism, because, according to the ancient notion of schism which St. Thomas has transmitted to us in his Summa, more than a hundred years before the beginning of the so-called Western Schism; he says that in the proper sense ‘schismatics are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.’ Now at that time no one refused to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and in fact everyone was trying to find out who really was the legitimate Sovereign Pontiff, so that they could be obedient to him. Therefore there was not a voluntary separation from unity, but merely a disagreement concerning a question of fact, namely, whether this man or that man was the true Sovereign Pontiff. This controversy surely obscured the visibility of unity, but it by no means destroyed it, because it openly revealed the desire for unity common to all. It was like the situation in a Kingdom, during a struggle and civil war among factions disputing about the legitimate successor, when no one says that the Kingdom itself is divided or that the visibility of unity has disappeared; rather, the situation is that the various factions of one and the same Kingdom are fighting over the legitimacy of the person who should legally be ruling over them.^[16]

So, in the Church today disagreement among Catholics regarding the vacancy of the Holy See, while surely obscuring the visible unity of the Church, does not destroy it.

Theological note of this doctrine

Monsignor Van Noort summarizes the teaching of Catholic theologians on this question:

Public schismatics are not members of the Church. They are not members because by their own action they sever themselves from the unity of Catholic communion. The term Catholic communion, as used here, signifies both cohesion with the entire body catholic (unity of worship, etc.), and union with the visible head of the Church (unity of government).^[17]

As in the case of heresy:

[I]t makes no difference whether a person who breaks the bonds of Catholic communion does so in good faith, or in bad; in either case he ceases to be a member of the Church. The innocence or guilt of the parties involved is purely an internal matter, purely a matter of conscience; it has no direct bearing on the question of one of the external and social bonds requisite for membership.^[18]

He concludes:

(1) It is certain, that a public, formal schismatic is not a member of the Church; (2) it is the more common and more probable opinion that a public, material schismatic is not a member of the Church.^[19]

What is said in Part IV of the distinctions between public and occult heretics, and formal and material heretics, applies also to the question of schismatics.^[20]

Excommunication

Pope Pius XII taught:

Actually, only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.^[21]

Just as individuals can separate themselves from the Church by heresy or schism, so the Church can separate individuals from her visible body by her own authority. She does this through excommunication:

An excommunication is a censure or penalty whereby a delinquent or obstinate person is excluded from the communion of the faithful, until after abandoning his contumacy he is absolved.^[22]

Van Noort explains:

Excommunicated people, unlike schismatics, are separated from the unity of Catholic communion not directly by their own action, but by the judgment of ecclesiastical authority. For the rulers of the Church, like the rulers of any other genuine society, have the right to cut off obstinately rebellious members and to separate them from the social body until they come to their senses again.^[23]

He continues:

This exclusion from the body-unity, brought about by the sentence of ecclesiastical authority, can be total or only partial. A member may be prevented from exercising a few or even many of the rights which belong to him as a member in that society, without being erased from membership. That is why there have been in the past, and still are, various degrees of excommunication. Excommunicated people are to be divided into two main classes: tolerated excommunicates and to-be-shunned excommunicates.

Concerning membership of the Church, the more probable opinion is that to-be-shunned excommunicates are excluded from membership in the Church; tolerated excommunicates – provided no condemnatory or declaratory sentence has been passed on them – seem to remain members of the Church. One point to be noted is that it must be clearly shown in the decree of the Apostolic See that the Church intends to cut off such persons from Church membership.

That the Church has the right and the power to deprive men of membership in the Church is clear from the fact of its constitution as a perfect society.^[24]

Conclusions

We may conclude by repeating the following words of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which teach, clearly and distinctly, the doctrines which have been set forth in this series of papers:

Hence there are but three classes of persons excluded from the Church’s pale: infidels, heretics and schismatics, and excommunicated persons.

Infidels are outside the Church because they never belonged to, and never knew the Church, and were never made partakers of any of her Sacraments.

Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have separated from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted. It is not, however, to be denied that they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, inasmuch as they may be called before her tribunals, punished and anathematized.

Finally, excommunicated persons are not members of the Church, because they have been cut off by her sentence from the number of her children and belong not to her communion until they repent.^[25]

[ebb tide]

Pope Francis’ Reported Words: “I Might Go Down in History for Having Split the Catholic Church”

“Is the Pope Catholic?”

A Conference Seeking the Truth about the “Two Popes”

Saturday December 9, 2023

Featuring:

His Excellency Archbishop Carlo Vigano

Fr. James Altman

Fr. Paul Kramer

Dr. Ed Mazza

Ann Barnhardt

Elizabeth Yore

To REGISTER [ends Dec 7th!] email: edmundmazza@gmail.com

On February 11, 2013, two tremendous bolts of lightening struck the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, directly above the Tomb of the Apostle–the same day Pope Benedict announced his stunning Declaratio! Stranger still, in the Vatican, for the next decade, two men wore the signature white cassock, two men bestowed their own personal Apostolic Blessings on the faithful and two men were formally addressed as “His Holiness.” One resided in seclusion and self-imposed silence, in prayer and meditation at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens. The other still resides in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican hotel, which was built to house visiting cardinals. (Curiously, the Papal Apartments located in the Apostolic Palace since the 17th Century remain uninhabited.) The unexpected renunciation of Benedict and his perplexing presence in the Vatican as “Pope Emeritus” still confounds Catholics as much as–in some sense, even more than–the globalism and heterodoxy of the putative pope, Francis.

Now that the new “Synodal” Church is being foisted upon us, it’s time to seek the truth about the “two Popes.” It’s time for the silent majority to speak out. As conference speaker, His Excellency Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has prophetically intoned:

Among the titles of the Roman Pontiff recurs, along with
Christi Vicarius, that of Servus servorum Dei [“Servant of the
servants of God”]. While the former has been disdainfully
rejected by Bergoglio, his choice to retain the latter sounds
like a provocation, as evidenced by his words and deeds.
The day will come when the Presuli of the Church will be
asked to clarify what intrigues and what conspiracies could
have led to the Throne him who acts as “Servant of Satan’s
servants,” and why they have fearfully witnessed his
intemperances or made themselves accomplices of this
proud heretical tyrant. Let those who know and who keep
silent out of false prudence tremble: by their silence they do
not protect the honor of the Holy Church, nor do they
preserve the simple ones from scandal. On the contrary,
they plunge the Bride of the Lamb into ignominy and
humiliation, and turn the faithful away from the Ark of
salvation at the very moment of the Flood.

Various speakers at “Is the Pope Catholic?” Conference will consider the possibility of 1) the invalidity of Pope Benedict’s resignation, or 2) the invalidity of Bergoglio’s acceptance of the Papacy, or 3) Bergoglio’s loss of office due to public material (if not formal) heresy.

Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church, Canon 748 §1. “All persons are bound to seek the truth in those things which regard God and his Church…are bound by the obligation…of embracing and observing the truth which they have come to know.”

Fr. Franz Wernz and Fr. Pedro Vidal’s Ius Canonicum, an eight-volume work published in 1943, which is perhaps the most highly respected commentary on the 1917 Code of Canon Law, states:

“Finally they cannot be numbered among the schismatics, who refuse to obey the Roman Pontiff because they consider his person to be suspect or doubtfully elected on account of rumors in circulation.”

Categories

[ebb tide]

Ping

[Da Coyote]

Duh, the Pope is in schism with the church.

[ought-six]

“Duh, the Pope is in schism with the church.”

Yup, the marxist Francis is in schism with the church.

[NorthMountain]

1) Have received the sacrament of baptism YEP

2) Publicly profess the Catholic faith YEP

3) Are subject to the lawful authority of the Church And who, exactly, holds that lawful authority? Can a person who fails to do (2) above hold lawful authority? Can lawful authority command that I violate (2) above?

[JesusIsLord]

Schismatics “are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff...

Hummmmmm...... does the animosity and rejection of many Catholics toward Pope Francis make them schismatics?

[ebb tide]

You apparently did not read the full article.

And speaking of animosity check out this:

The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults

[Trump_Triumphant]

Frankie the Fake is the schismatic.

[Trump_Triumphant]

The Roman Pontiff must himself submit to himself to the doctrine of his predecessors. He can’t change everything to suit his personal whims.

[JesusIsLord]

You apparently did not read the full article.

I assume you're referring to the section of the article that reads: "Canon 748 §1. “All persons are bound to seek the truth in those things which regard God and his Church…are bound by the obligation…of embracing and observing the truth which they have come to know.” Fr. Franz Wernz and Fr. Pedro Vidal’s Ius Canonicum, an eight-volume work published in 1943, which , is perhaps the most highly respected commentary on the 1917 Code of Canon Law, states: “Finally they cannot be numbered among the schismatics, who refuse to obey the Roman Pontiff because they consider his person to be suspect or doubtfully elected on account of rumors in circulation.”

In contrast to Canon 748 §1 & Ius Canonicum, Aquinas doesn't offer any exception for those who refuse to submit to the Pope.

My read of Canon 748 §1 & Ius Canonicum is that the Catholic's conscience (embracing and observing the truth which one has come to know), allows him to reject the teaching and authority of a Pope.

BTW - Thanks for "The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults". Who would have thought that a Pope could have "so many" interesting, amusing and provocative "lines". A book of them for Pete's sake. LOL!!

[Montana_Sam]

The Pope is a small-minded man cutting the cloth of the Church from earth-sized down to a very small (one man) tent. Whatever after-life abode he is building will be the size of a miniature phone booth. Hope he’s happy when he books in.

[moonhawk]

Well, I am working out my own salvation with fear and trembling, as Saint Paul told us to do.

Especially in these times when I find my knowledge of the faith to be wanting. It is very hard to discern what God expects of me in terms of my attitude towards the Pope, for whom I pray daily. But in my conversations with God, I I ask him for clarity and tell him that until I have such, my prayers are for the man, and my loyalty is to the office.

Articles such as this are a great help. Thank you for posting.