I did not set out to write a part two on this topic. It was almost that the title for the supposed part one is sensational but that is not so. Some people believed that there is no war in the church. War in its name can be broad and aggressive. There may not be a physical war in the mould of the crusades, or the type of the crisis in the Council of Constance, but there is war in the church.
In my last article under the same title, I wrote, “The church is currently at war; liturgically, psychologically and magisterium.” Part one may not have dealt with the wars fully which necessitated this part two in order to specifically look at the wars within the Catholic Church. As much as there exist these wars as already mentioned, ideological war is ongoing that set some of the faithful and Papacy on opposite ends.
I came across a post on X where there was an argument on what is happening in the church, which is currently affecting the unity of the church. The Liberals and Progressives blamed the Traditionalists and Conservatives as the blames continued.
After the death of Pope Benedict XVI, it became clear the schism within the Vatican. As reported by AFP, “His closest aide, {Archbishop} Georg Gaenswein, revealed Benedict’s concerns at some of the changes made by his successor Pope Francis, notably his decision to restrict the use of the Latin mass.” “Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the former head of the Vatican’s congregation for the doctrine of the faith denounced Francis’ “doctrinal confusion” and criticised the influence of a “magic circle” around him in his book.”
Pope Francis responded, in AFP, “And those who exploit such a good person, such a man of God… well I would say they are unethical people, they are people belonging to a party, not to the Church,”
Italian Vatican expert Marco Politi said Mueller’s book “is a new stage in the unstoppable escalation by the pope’s adversaries. There is a civil war in the heart of the church which will continue until the last day of the papacy,” he told AFP.
Pope Francis and Benedict XVI pray together CREDIT: Photo: AFP
The Papacy and some of the faithful are ideologically divided. Some people have felt that Pope Francis has not exhibited true protection of Catholic tradition coming from his ideas to reform the church.
In 2021, Pope Francis launched a Synod on Synodality that would be concluded in 2024. At the end of the assembly last October, he said, as reported by Catholic News Agency, “We may have plenty of good ideas on how to reform the Church, but let us remember: to adore God and to love our brothers and sisters with his love, that is the great and perennial reform.”
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Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu warned, in ACI Africa, against “excessive expectations” from the Synod rather he said it is about providing “new ways to address problems, whatever they are” with “a spirit of synodality.”
Some of the outcomes within the period of the Synod on Synodality are the chance of baptising the children of and the blessing of the lgbtq people which has set the Pope at daggers drawn with some of the global Catholic faithful.
Liturgical and Magisterium war
One of the issues that raged in the Vatican is what I called liturgical war. There was a liturgical movement which began in the early nineteenth century that culminated in the changes in the order of mass. In 1969 as promulgated by Pope Paul VI, a new order of the Mass came into effect which distinguished it from Traditional Latin Mass promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570. The new order took cognisance of “full, active and conscious participation” of the faithful.
A movement was termed “reform of the reform” under which some faithfuls want to return to the traditional rites and some resistance to the Vatican II – which Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the relator general of the Synod on Synodality in Catholic News Agency, said, “saved the Church.” The Society of Saint Pius X thinks through the traditional liturgy, they will “preserve the Catholic Faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues.”
The liturgical war has been ongoing which led Pope Benedict XVI to issue Summorum Pontificum. He said, “The Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the lex orandi (rule of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. The Roman Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V and revised by Blessed John XXIII is nonetheless to be considered an extraordinary expression of the same lex orandi of the Church and duly honoured for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s lex orandi will in no way lead to a division in the Church’s lex credendi (rule of faith); for they are two usages of the one Roman rite.”
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity talking about the promulgation as reported in Catholic Herald said, “The Pope’s long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, but to move toward a “common rite” that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms.”
The late Pope was therefore seen to be traditional and conservative to the liturgy. Those who follow his thought are sharply divided to Pope Francis who seemed more of a progressive even as he is not in support of the traditional Latin mass which he promulgated restrictions in his Traditionis Custodes.
“After all the necessary consultations, I decided this because I saw that the good pastoral measures put in place by John Paul II and Benedict XVI were being used in an ideological way, to go backward. It was necessary to stop this ‘indietrismo,’ which was not in the pastoral vision of my predecessors,” the pope told a group of 32 Jesuits in Hungary as reported by Catholic News Agency.
Many differences have pitted the Pope against some Bishops. In a paper presented by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano titled: Is the Pope Catholic? he said, “But we must recognize that today it is possible to share, along with many priests and laity, a feeling of serious unease and grave scandal due to the cumbersome presence of the Argentine Jesuit. Today we are able to ask ourselves whether Bergoglio is Catholic, and it is already a good starting point, because his heterogeneity to the papacy is now evident and perceived both by the simple faithful as well as by a large part of the clergy, and even by certain fringes of the media.”
The Pope has since shown that he will not tolerate critics in the squabbles with Cardinal Raymond Burke who was among the five Cardinals that wrote the dubia. Bishop Joseph Strickland on X, said, “…I believe Pope Francis is the Pope but it is time for me to say that I reject his program of undermining the Deposit of Faith.”
Ideology as the bedrock of war in the church
As Pope Francis rails against being ideological and its effect on the seeming drive to backwardness of the church, what is causing divide or war is ideological schism and the fight for the soul of the Church between those who want the Church to be modernised in accordance with the time and those who want the Church to retain its traditions. From time to time statements are made of the Pope, accusing him of heresy or other issues.
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Even though there have been ideological and theological divides between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic, the Fiducia Supplicans opened the eyes of the Catholic world to the ideological war within the church.
Where is the church headed is a question on the lips of many faithfuls who have become disoriented and have begun to question their faith.
Cardinal Sarah Joseph said in Catholic Herald that, “In a rare intervention, the crisis of the Church has entered a new phase: the crisis of the Magisterium.”, “Bishops and priests “seem to contradict each other” and impose their personal opinions “as if [they] were a certainty”.The result, “is confusion, ambiguity, and apostasy. Great disorientation, deep bewilderment and devastating uncertainties have been inoculated in the souls of many Christian believers”.
All these wars are evident from the cracking walls instituted by the drive to modernise, secularise and liberalise the Church.
Which ideology will win the wars? To conserve the traditions of the Church or to liberalise and modernise it? The soul of the Catholic Church and Christianity is on line.
St Peter’s Basilica Vatican City. Photo credit: Catholic Shrine Basilica