Father Z has decided to be quite blunt about this facile and quite unrealistic talk about 'schism' these days, in more direct, terse and therefore more effective words than I have done so far...
And he is right: It's the left and their accommodating headline writers in the media who are making such a fuss of it.
For obvious reasons: Schismatics are generally looked on depreciatively in the Church, because heretofore, the schismatics - like the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the churches born of the Protestant Reformation - did in fact break off from the one, holy, Roman Catholic Church to set up shop on their own.
But for the progressivists in the Church today to peddle the idea that orthodox Catholics may break off in any way from the one true Church is just ludicrous. If all these decades the progressivists themselves have not broken off from the Catholic Church, it has only been out of convenience: The Church has not thrown them out, regardless of the outrageous positions they espouse and promote in violation of many of the Church's teachings, and they are not about to risk going out on a limb to found a 'new church' of their own. Oh, the logistics and the infrastructure, the cost and the whole trouble, of having to do that! - as against the comfort and convenience of using the established institution, the Catholic Church, as a platform for their progressivist agenda (may the best man win!, they think, as if faith were a competition). With the added bonus that as dissidents, they can always count they will have the media on their side. Once they leave the Church and set up on their own, they'll be no better than the thousand and more non-Catholic Christian denominations, and where's the fun in that? No more media stardom or even special attention, to begin with.
Yet, for fifty years now, they have been hoping to prevail against Catholic orthodoxy. Now they are riding high because they think they finally have a chance with a Pope who, at the very least, appears to share some of their pet heterodox ideas...
Stop talking about schism -
Catholics don't 'schism'!
by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
April 9, 2015
The upcoming Synod of Bishops in October is probably going to be a knock-down, drag-out over a few issues. The Germans are set on achieving a progressive agenda and have hinted at doing their own thing if the Synod doesn’t go their way. Others are set on defending the Church’s doctrine.
Some people are talking about “schism” because of the Synod.
No matter what happens at the Synod, there will be no schism by either side.
Schisms are passé. Catholics don’t schism.
Indifference and apathetic drifting are the real threats.
Conservatives have nowhere else to go (e.g., the SSPX simply not an option). Conservatives accept Vatican II AND the Catechism of the Catholic Church AND Code of Canon Law.
[It's not that conservative Catholics - read orthodox Catholics - 'have nowhere else to go', but that we cannot and should not and will not be pushed into leaving the 'one true Church': We are sticking with her, despite any aberrations that may be imposed by her hierarchy in the name of 'pastoral mercy' or whatever. Because one trusts that any such aberrations will be temporary and will be corrected eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, under a new dispensation (or Pontificate, for that matter).
How exactly we shall live through the aberrations I cannot dare predict, especially if the aberrations have papal patronage and sanction - there is just no precedent in modern times. Human nature being what it is, when the Pope leads, the great majority of bishops and clergy, perhaps of the faithful, too, will follow, so if the aberrations indeed come from the Pope himself, I think the orthodox faithful will end up being 'creative minorities' within an amorphous follow-the-leader/follow-the-Zeitgeist mass, as Cardinal Ratzinger once envisioned that the intermediate prospects for Catholicism would be.]
Liberals love to hear conservatives talk about “schism”, because liberals are actually the ones trying to bring it about. As they try to impose NewChurch, liberals are already in de facto schism. But they’ll never make it official. They are basically Congregationalists. They are still in the cafeteria. They take what the want and leave the rest. Schism would take too much effort and money.
Schism talk is for journalists only, for headline effect. But it’s to the liberals’ advantage.
So, I want to assure the world that there will not be a schism.
There is no real threat of schism from the right. There will be no formal schism on the left, for different reasons.
So – get over it. Stop the distraction.
Schism talk benefits mainly liberal kooks.
Sorry… that was redundant.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2015 05:34]