Concerns that Pope Francis could cause a schism in the Church have been percolating in Catholic circles for some time now: US Catholic, Crux, Inside the Vatican, The Spectator. More recently, though, a narrower and more technical question has begun to surface, namely, whether a pope himself could be in schism. Following are some initial thoughts on that question.Canon 751 of the 1983 Code defines schism as “the refusal [detractatio] of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” The first thing to notice here is that schism is defined as...