Heresy Becomes Schism

In two previous posts (The Development of Doctrine and To Think Theologically) I explored the distinction between sacred theology and other disciplines such as religious studies and sociology and explained that no doctrinal development can ever yield a teaching of the Church that contradicts anything known by divine Revelation and contained in the Deposit of Faith. When these two dimensions of Christian faith and life are brought together, then it becomes easier to spot the crucial mistakes in the efforts of Cardinal Hollerich of Luxembourg and the German Synodal Way to alter the Catholic Faith on the sacraments and human sexuality, especially in regard to both marriage and the priesthood.

Revisionists like Hollerich and the architects of the Synodal Way rely almost exclusively on the soft sciences (particularly psychology and sociology) to advance their argument that the Catholic Church must change her doctrine on the disputed questions of the day because those teachings are out of step with our culture and make it very difficult to draw people to the Lord Jesus. This, they suggest, is the real reason for the great falling away of Catholics from the practice of the faith, and their solution is to accommodate the culture (especially the sexual revolution) in order to get a hearing on our proclamation of the Gospel. But those who begin from that argument almost inevitably move from step one (our teaching is hard to understand and accept) to step two (our teaching is false), and that is what has happened with Hollerich and the Germans. They now openly claim that what the Catholic Church teaches about human sexuality and the sacramental economy of salvation is falsehood.

This is disappointing but not surprising. That same process has been the ruination of most Protestant churches in the past generation, and among Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and many others, ecclesial incoherence has morphed into disunity which has led to schism after schism. Once theological thinking has been replaced at the center of a Christian community with psychology and sociology, it is inevitable that the spirit of the age will outvote the Holy Spirit in seminaries and church assemblies and synods, and then we always and everywhere observe the brutal unfolding of Neuhaus’s Law: Where orthodoxy becomes optional, it will eventually be proscribed.

Unless Rome intervenes to stop the German Synodal Way and its fellow travelers like Cardinal Hollerich, the internal logic of their project will unfold to its inevitable conclusion: incoherence will lead to disunity in matters of faith in revealed truth and that must end in schism. This is not an armchair disagreement among professors; this is a fight for the truth of the Gospel which is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16)

In the apse of Saint Peter’s Basilica stands Bernini’s gigantic bronze chair which is the symbol of the authority of Saint Peter and his successors to teach the Gospel without addition or subtraction and to strengthen their brethren in the faith, meaning chiefly other bishops. The Chair of Peter stands underneath the glorious window of the Holy Spirit through which golden light spills into the basilica, and the chair is held up by four men who were all bishops, theologians, and doctors of the Church - meaning that their fidelity and lucidity in the teaching of the Gospel makes them essential Christian witnesses for all time. Those four are Saint Ambrose, Saint Athanasius, Saint John Chrysostom, and Saint Augustine (pictured above). May these four saints inspire the current Bishop of Rome to fulfill his sacred duty to ensure the faithful transmission of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 1:3)