There was corruption within the Church prior to the Protestant Reformation. A great deal of it had to be addressed by the Council of Trent (which means it took years to address it). The Protestant reformers, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, responded to the problems in a manner that wasn’t healthy; yet, not responding to it was also morally problematic and enabling.
To me this is relevant today, as Pope Francis recently looked at the polarization that is taking place within the Church. What arises is impassioned discontent and at times generic wrath (I believe Luther called the Pope the Anti-Christ). Today they call him the “anti-prophet”. Most of these narratives are today rooted in a combination with wrath (opposing meekness) and conjecture. The parallel is unsettling to any history buff.
On the other side of things, there is a tendency to put our heads into the ground about all this dysfunction, either sweeping it under the rug, or using what Dr. Kreeft calls “happy-talk” to diverge people’s attention away from the gaping wound in the Church (Jeremiah 6). It’s amazing how cruel people will become to secure their “happy-talk” but it’s usually in machinations behind closed doors, such as gossip, calumny, and scheming, and a disproportionate amount of emphasis on less than grave frailties (Jeremiah 6).
So we have two dispositions that are unhelpful yet present today. What can we do instead?
Abstractly, we can have a genuine life of virtue, discerning if we have received the fruits of the Spirit. If not, we likely are in one of these two tribes. We have to be honest with ourselves about this. If our automatic reaction is to blame others, this simply means that instead of automatically examining ourselves, we escape that responsibility and look outward. As Thomas Kempis says, the passionate man is more aware of the vices of others than his own… and that therefore he should distrust himself more than others.
Concretely, we must remember that the Spirit of God is not abandoning us, but is at work in unimaginably good ways in the very midst of this. If we are close to the Spirit we will see this, and derive a supernatural hope that will not lead to an abandonment of God’s Church, nor merely a union that involves white-knuckles. Though that itself is a grace, not a demoralizing declaration to shame those who have revolted as the Protestant reformers did.
Finally, might I suggest looking to the wisdom of the Saints that helped the Church navigate that time of stark division, polarization and resignation from aligning itself to the authority of Christ’s Divine Church (in spirit and truth). It was a rough road for many. St. John of the Cross was accused of being a reformer by his own Carmelite brothers because they under-reacted to the need for real reform in the Church. They kidnapped and tortured him, revealing embarrassingly that he was right about them.
St. Teresa of Ávila reminded us to return to prayer and confront the inner demons that have lodged within our own interior castles, to not be caught up with locutions, but to dwell in a union of wills with God. To fix our gaze on Him. The list goes on, but the point remains the same: when dealing with ungodly division (dividing the body of Christ), the path to navigate it requires anything but the easy way out (wrath or indifference). It requires the fruits of the Spirit.
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Photo: Nacho Arteaga, Unsplash / PD-US
4 thoughts on “How to Deal with Division in the Church”
This is good advice Fr Pietraszko. My wife and I have been troubled with an ongoing standoff with a female relative who plans to excommunicate herself from the Catholic faith to become a “priest” (of course she spins this so that she is the victim). She asked all her siblings if we would attend her “ordination” (via web) and most told her “no”. Unfortunately not everyone said no – which I thought might change her mind.
Of course she is doing this “because men Priest molest children” or other typical straw-man arguments that assume women have never molested children. But mostly, she is following a hateful mentor. This mentor publishes her “homilies” online which can never leave out a hateful shot at the ‘institutional church’…to the point of defending Arianism as a victim of the Church’s bullying (I know, I should not read anymore of this rubbish!).
My wife and I laugh a little because we suspect that God has a plan for her to fragment their group far more than any damage she could do to the Catholic Church. We give it about 5 years tops, but we continue to look for ways to derail this nonsense. I wish more women would write on this topic because I doubt she would listen to “misogynist patrimony (grrrr)”…
The division is understandable. The present pope has promoted a policy of opposition to the American capitalistic system and promoted a policy of favoritism to a socialistic economic system. He ignores the greatly increase in wealth and social conditions in the capitalistic system and the corresponding failure in the socialistic system. Even a casual glance at history supports this.
Is Christ divided? Was economics crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of finance?
30 pieces of silver had a role to play in His crucifixion. Mammon has been mentioned. Greed is a deadly sin.